The
Massachusetts Bay Colony (sometimes called the
Massachusetts Bay Company, for the institution that founded it) was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in
New England, centered around the present-day cities of
Salem and
Boston. The area is now in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, one of the 50
United States of America.
Previous Nearby Settlements
Plans for the first permanent European settlements on the east coast of North America began in 1606, when King
James I of England formed two
joint stock companies. The
London Company covered a more southern territory and proceeded to establish the
Jamestown Settlement. The
Plymouth Company under the guidance of Sir
Ferdinando Gorges covered the more northern area, including present-day New England, and established the
Sagadahoc Colony in 1607 in present-day Maine. The experience proved exceptionally difficult for the 120 settlers, however, and the colonists abandoned the colony after only one year.
In November 1620, a group of separatist
Pilgrims famously established
Plymouth Colony. Although this settlement faced great hardships and earned few profits, it enjoyed a positive reputation in England and may have sown the seeds for further immigration.
Edward Winslow and
William Bradford published an account of their adventures in 1622, called
Mourt's Relation. This book glossed over some of the difficulties and challenges carving a settlement out of the wilderness, but it may have been partly responsible for erasing the memory of the Sagadahoc Colony and encouraging further settlement.
In 1623, the
Plymouth Council for New England (successor to the Plymouth Company) established a small fishing village at
Cape Ann under the supervision of the Dorchester Company. This company was originally organized at the urging of the Puritan Rev.
John White (1575–1648) of
Dorchester, in the English county of
Dorset. White has been called “the father of the Massachusetts Colony”, despite remaining in England his entire life, because of his influence in establishing this settlement. But the settlement was not profitable, and the financial backers of the Dorchester Company terminated their support by the end of 1625.
In 1626, a few settlers from the Cape Ann fishing village, including
Roger Conant, did not abandon the area, but removed to establish a new town at the nearby Indian village of
Naumkeag. Rev. John White helped this small band by going back to the Council for New England and obtaining a new land grant and fresh financial support. Dated 19 March 1627, this new patent was known as the
Massachusetts Bay Company. This Company sent about one hundred new settlers and provisions in 1628 to join Conant, led by
John Endecott, who became the governor of the fledgling settlement. The next year, 1629, Naumkeag was renamed Salem and fortified by another three hundred settlers, led by Rev.
Francis Higginson, first minister of the settlement. Nevertheless, the colonists struggled against disease and starvation, and many died.
From their first arrival aboard the
Mayflower in 1620 through 1629, only about 300 Puritans had survived in New England,
scattered in several small and isolated settlements. In 1630, their population was significantly increased when the ship
Mary and John arrived in New England carrying 140 passengers from the English West Country counties of Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. These included
William Phelps along with
Roger Ludlowe,
John Mason,
Rev. John Warham and John Maverick,
Nicholas Upsall, Henry Wolcott and other men who would become prominent in the founding of a new nation. It was the first of eleven ships later called the
Winthrop Fleet to land in Massachusetts.
English Origins of the Colony
thumb|left|200px|Hingham Memorial Bell Tower, dedicated in 1912 to the Puritan settlers of Hingham, MassachusettsThe early colony was made up of
Puritans from England. People knew that creating a new colony out of the wilderness would be difficult. But political and religious events in England were driving many Puritans to flee England. They were angry because King Charles
promised his wife, Maria that she could practice the Roman Catholic religion, and raise their children practicing Catholicism. The Puritans hated this, because they had tried to purify the Church of England of all its Catholic remnants. Both
King James I and his son
Charles I attempted to suppress the Puritan movement.
Meanwhile, Archbishop
William Laude, a
favourite advisor of Charles, tried to eliminate the religious practices of Puritans in England. The imprisonment of many Puritans led them to believe religious reform would not be possible while Charles was King, and to seek a new life in the American colonies. The Reverend
John White of
Dorchester, England had worked hard to obtain a
patent in 1628 for lands between the parallel that ran three miles south of the
Charles River to three miles north of the
Merrimack River, and all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific – though they had no idea of the size of the land mass.
Concerned about the legality of conflicting land claims given to several companies including the New England Company to the still little-known territories of the New World, and because of the increasing number of Puritans that wanted to join the company, White sought a
Royal Charter for the colony. Charles granted the new charter in March 1629, superseding the land grant and establishing a legal basis for the new English Colony of Jamestown. It was not apparent that Charles knew the Company was meant to support the Puritan emigration, and he was likely left to assume it was purely for business purposes, as was the custom. The charter omitted a significant clause – the location for the annual stockholders' meeting and election of their leaders. This allowed formation of the
Cambridge Agreement later that year, which set the locus of government in New England. The Massachusetts Bay Colony became the only English chartered colony whose board of governors did not reside in England. This independence helped the settlers to maintain their Puritan religious practices with very little oversight by the King,
Archbishop Laud, and the
Anglican Church. The charter remained in force for 55 years, when, as a result of colonial insubordination with trade, tariff and navigation laws,
Charles II revoked it in 1684.
A Puritan colony
The first 400 settlers under this new charter departed in April 1629. Most, but not all of the members of the Company were
Puritans, and events during the spring and summer of 1629 convinced them that many others would be attracted to such a colony.
The colony celebrated its first
Thanksgiving Day on November 25, 1629. After this the colony continued to grow, aided by the
Great Migration. Many ministers reacting to the newly repressive religious policies of England made the trip with their flocks.
John Cotton,
Roger Williams,
Thomas Hooker, and others became leaders of Puritan congregations in Massachusetts.
The colony's charter was granted to the
Massachusetts General Court the authority to elect officers and to make laws for the colony. Its first meeting in America was held October 1630, but was attended by only eight
freemen. Soon after they created the
First Church of Boston. The freemen voted to grant all legislative, executive, and judicial power to a "Council" of the Governor's assistants (those same eight men). They then set up town boundaries, created taxes, and elected officers. To quell unrest caused by this limited franchise, the eight then added 118 settlers to the court as freemen, but power remained with the council. The first murmurs against the system arose when a tax was imposed on the entire colony in 1632, but Winthrop was able to quiet fears.
In 1634, the issue of governance arose again, as deputies demanded to see the charter that had been kept hidden from them. They learned of the provisions that the general court should make all laws, and that all freemen should be members. The group demanded that the charter be enforced to the letter, but eventually reached a compromise with Governor Winthrop. They agreed to a General Court made up of two delegates elected by each town, the Governor's council of advisors, and the Governor himself. This Court was to have authority over "The raising up public stock" (taxes) and "what they should agree upon should bind all." What Winthrop did not expect was that what they would "bind" themselves to included the election of the governor, and Dudley Hogar was elected.
The first revolution was complete: a trading company had become a representative democracy. By 1641, the colony had added its first code of laws, the
Massachusetts Body of Liberties, written by
Nathaniel Ward, based partly on John Cotton's draft (
Abstract of the Laws of New-England, As They Are Now Established), which specified required behavior and punishments by appeal to the Judeo-Christian social sanctions recorded in the Bible. It is worthy of note that these men did not see any tension between the kind of
theocracy they advocated and the type of
democracy that was taking shape; to the contrary, they even held that the one required the other. For example: "All magistrates are to be chosen. Deut. 1:13, 17, 15. First, by the free [people]. Secondly, out of the free [people]." Indeed, the first person to be executed in the colony was Margaret Jones, a female physician accused of being a "
witch". A
delusional
Dorothy Talbye was
hanged in 1638 for
murdering her daughter, as at the time Massachusetts's
common law made no distinction between
insanity (or
mental illness) and
criminal behavior. John Winthrop wanted the puritan colony to be a "
city upon a hill," or an example of their faith for other colonies to follow.
Timeline of settlement
- Salem - 1626 (Dorchester Company)
- Beverly - 1626 (originally a part of Salem, incorporated separately in 1668)
- Marblehead - 1629 (Settled as a plantation of Salem, incorporated separately in 1639)
- Boston - 1630 (from Shawmut and Trimountaine)
- Watertown - 1630 (on land now part of Cambridge)
- Roxbury - 1630 (now part of Boston)
- Arlington (Menotomy, then part of Newtowne) - 1635
- Springfield - 1636 (Settled as Agawam Plantation, renamed Springfield in 1640)
- Bridgewater - 1650 (Founded as Nunkatateset, part of Duxbury, was officially incorporated in 1656 as Bridgewater)
Later history
The
Province of New Hampshire was part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1641 to 1679, and again from 1688 to 1691.
In 1643, Massachusetts Bay joined
Plymouth Colony,
Connecticut Colony, and
New Haven Colony in the
New England Confederation, which became largely dormant into the 1650s. It was revived briefly in the 1670s during
King Philip's War.
From 1686, Massachusetts Bay was administratively unified by
James II of England with the other New England colonies in the
Dominion of New England. In 1688, the
Province of New York,
East Jersey, and
West Jersey were added. In 1689, the Dominion was dissolved with the overthrow of the king via the
Glorious Revolution.
In 1691–92, Massachusetts Bay was unified with
Plymouth Colony,
Martha's Vineyard,
Nantucket, and what is now
Maine,
New Brunswick, and
Nova Scotia to form the
Province of Massachusetts Bay.
See also
