Samuel Maverick (c.1602—c. 1670) was one of the first colonists to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Arriving ahead of the Winthrop Fleet, Maverick became one of the earliest settlers, one of the largest landowners and one of the first slave-owners in Massachusetts. He signed his name as "Mavericke". He is the ancestor of rancher Samuel Maverick, from whom the term maverick for "independently minded" and an unbranded animal derives.