Massachusetts Bay Company

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A Puritan settlement in Massachusetts, founded in 1630 by approximately 1, 000 English refugees. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony developed a theocracy based on their Protestant beliefs.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Established under the aegis of the New England Company, Massachusetts Bay Colony was first established by a group of Puritan merchants in 1630. The merchants had obtained their initial charter from the Council for New England in 1628. Wary of the validity of that document, the company reorganized, secured a modified royal charter, and renamed itself the Governor and Company of massachusetts Bay. The charter, which ceded lands from three miles south of the Charles River to three miles north of the Merrimack, allowed the company to establish its own government for the colony, subject only to the king.

In the face of mounting tensions in England—constricting economic opportunities, an increasingly corrupt Anglican Church, the dissolution of Parliament by Charles I, and the jailing of prominent Puritan leaders—settlement in American grew ever more attractive. And though members maintained an interest in the trading company's economic potential, they recognized too the religious and political benefits of establishing an American colony. The colony would be a religious refuge, a "holy experiment," where devout Puritans and their families would settle far from England's corruption. In a daring move that contributed to their governmental, religious, and economic autonomy, the Company decided to move its entire operation to Massachusetts, out of range of the Crown's watchful eye. In October 1629 the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Company chose lawyer, gentleman, and devout Puritan John Winthrop to be the colony's first governor. Winthrop began the arduous task of raising money, locating and provisioning ships, and attracting a range of passengers interested in participating in the "holy experiment."

Though most immigrants were motivated in part by the promise of economic stability in a colony rich in natural resources, including land, many were guided by a commitment to the tenets of Puritanism, a religion that stressed the individual's personal covenant with God and community. In New England they would plant the seeds for a godly colony where the congregants themselves would shape their religious institutions. Not all of those immigrants attracted to the mission, however, were devout Puritans. Winthrop and the other Company leaders took pains to ensure that the colony would include settlers with the skills necessary to ensure its success—craftsmen, doctors, servants, and laborers—regardless of the depth of their religious commitment.

The Company pointedly assured those they left behind that they were not Separatists; from aboard their ship the Arbella, they published a written public statement proclaiming their allegiance to the Crown and Church of England. Unlike their brethren who had abandoned the Church to establish a Separatist colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, the members of the Bay Company intended instead to plant the seeds for a pure church that would in turn spark the continued reformation of the church in England. On 8 April 1630 the Arbella and three other ships set sail with some four hundred men, women, and children.

Though the ships initially made land at the small settlement at Salem, where eighty people had died during the previous harsh winter, Winthrop and the other Company officers encouraged their band to settle new land south of Salem, on the bay. Concerns about the Salem settlement went beyond its limited resources: several of Salem's settlers had developed a reputation for sympathy with the Separatists in Plymouth. Seeking to escape that branding, the new colonists established plantations in towns around the bay, including Charlestown, Newtown, Roxbury, and Dorchester. Winthrop eventually settled in Boston.

The first winter in the colony tested the mettle of the settlers. Starvation and disease took the lives of two hundred people, and another two hundred returned to England in the spring. The task of not only protecting colonists but also ensuring the economic stability of the colony fell to Winthrop and his officers. Aided by a steady stream of immigrants who continued to flee England and arrived with fresh supplies, including window glass, cooking tools, guns and powder, and cloth and clothing, by 1631 the colony had attained a level of economic equilibrium.

In the fall of 1630 the Company called the first General Court in Massachusetts Bay. Though franchise (being able to vote) was not considered the right of Englishmen, and the colony's charter did not demand that the magistrates address this issue, the Court opened freeman ship (the rights of citizenship) to all male residents. At the same time, the Court limited the power of freemen to the right to choose the colony's assistants; all legal and judicial powers were retained by the assistants themselves, who on their own elected the governor and deputy governor.

In acknowledgment of the colony's religious mission, in 1631 the Court restricted franchise to only those freemen who were church members. In spite of that limitation, by so doing the Court extended franchise to more men than would have had that right in England. The Court recognized that a covenanted people would be more inclined to accept their leadership If they had participated in the process of establishing the government. Though the new government was explicitly not a theocracy—ministers were prohibited from holding public office—the decision to limit franchise to church members also made the colony's theocratic underpinnings abundantly clear. A religious commonwealth, Massachusetts Bay established Puritanism as the state-supported religion, and made it clear that no other faiths would be tolerated in the colony.

At its session in May, the Court enfranchised 118 men. By the following year, the Court decided to turn the election of the governor over to freemen rather than the assistants. Winthrop and the majority of the original assistants were reelected in each of the first few years of the colony.

The original settlers of massachusetts Bay implemented laws designed to create communities that capitalized on broadly based franchise; they sought to avoid a society ruled by a few wealthy landowners, typical of that which they had left behind in England. Though property ownership was and remained the primary ingredient in the Puritan recipe for godly communities, for the most part the colony took pains to ensure equitable distribution of that essential resource. The Bay Colony government deeded title for townships to groups of male settlers. These proprietors distributed the land among themselves. And though proprietors made land grants reflecting the current wealth and status of town leaders—men of the highest rank received the largest plots—all proprietors received enough land to support their families.

Moreover, all men participated in the central governmental organ, the town meeting. Each year the town meeting chose selectmen, passed ordinances, and levied and collected local taxes. Each town elected its own representatives to the General Court, which soon assumed a greater authority in colonial politics than the governor and magistrates.

Colonists recognized the centrality of their holy covenant with God and each other. As regenerate Christians, it was their duty to monitor the purity of their political leaders, their spouses and children, their neighbors, and even the very clerics who instructed them in the path to a godly life and community. Though the governor, deputies, and assistants did not always agree on the extent to which the government should control behavior—resulting in an almost constant legal battle over laws governing everything from dress to alcohol consumption—all colonists were wary of behavior perceived to be outside of accepted definitions of pious conduct and demeanor.

Over the course of the first generation of settlement in Massachusetts Bay, tensions surrounding the colony's religious establishment erupted into outright disputes. On several occasions those disputes resulted in attempts to purge the community of people who put into practice controversial religious beliefs. Roger Williams, minister of the church in Salem, condemned the legal establishment of the Puritan church in Massachusetts Bay, advocating instead the separation of church and state the Pilgrims had instituted in the Plymouth Colony. The government, he claimed, had no authority over the spiritual lives of the settlers. In addition, he objected to the Puritans' practice of seizing rather than purchasing Indian lands. In the face of mounting tension, the magistrates banished Williams from the colony in 1635. He settled with his followers in Rhode Island, where they established the town of Providence.

Anne Hutchinson was another target in the magistrates' attempts to control dissidence in the colony. Hutchinson, a midwife of some renown in England, mother of seven children, and wife of a prominent merchant, held prayer meetings for as many as sixty women in her home following church services. There she led discussions about the minister's sermons, and questioned the emphasis they seemed to her to place on good behavior—a covenant of works rather than one of faith. An antinomian, Hutchinson believed that faith and the resulting grace came through direct revelation from God, clearly threatening to the authority of the colony's ministers. Moreover, as a woman, Hutchinson's actions challenged traditional belief that only men should be responsible for religious teaching.

In 1637 Massachusetts Bay's magistrates tried Anne Hutchinson for heresy. Though she defended herself before the judges with courage and no small amount of skill, they found her guilty and banished her from the colony. Hutchinson followed Roger Williams to Rhode Island.

Other religious dissidents left Massachusetts Bay of their own volition. In search of both greater religious freedom and the opportunity to acquire more land, one hundred Puritans led by Thomas Hooker left the colony in 1636 to settle in the Connecticut River Valley, establishing the town of Hartford. Others established Wethersfield, Windsor, and New Haven.

In addition to religious dissent, political and economic controversy shaped the colony's development. With three thousand miles separating Massachusetts Bay from mother England, the colony considered itself an independent commonwealth. That assumption came into direct conflict with the Crown's mercantilist expectations. In 1660, on his ascent to the throne, Charles II established a committee to gain control of British colonial resources. The Lords of Trade and Plantation oversaw colonial commerce. It monitored adherence to Parliament's new Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663, reining in colonial merchants trading with foreign countries in sugar, tobacco, and indigo, and instituting additional laws regulating European exports to America.

New England merchants bristled at the Crown's efforts to reassert control. The Bay Colony's government chose to ignore the Navigation Acts, and persisted in importing and exporting goods as it saw fit, claiming that the royal charter exempted it from the new trade regulations. The Crown responded by sending troops to the colony to enforce compliance. In 1684, on the recommendation of the Lords of Trade, the English court revoked the colony's charter. Two years later, it created the Dominion of New England, effectively eliminating a number of existing colonial governments, Massachusetts Bay's among them. James II appointed Edmund Andros Governor of the Dominion. Andros banned town meetings, dismissed the assembly, and questioned the validity of all land titles filed under the original charter. The Puritan colonists of massachusetts Bay petitioned the Crown for Andros's dismissal, but their protests fell on deaf ears.

In the wake of the ouster of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, however, Massachusetts Bay successfully revolted against Andros, who returned to England. The Bay Colony asked for the restoration of its original charter. Though the recently enthroned William and Mary agreed to the dissolution of the Dominion, they did not fully restore the colony's independent authority. Instead, they created a new colony of massachusetts, under a royal charter established in 1691. Plymouth and Maine were absorbed into Massachusetts Bay. Though the charter restored the Massachusetts assembly, it undermined the colony's theocratic underpinnings; all male property owners, not just Puritan church members, were guaranteed the right to elect representatives. The charter also gave the Crown the right to appoint the governor. The government established by the 1691 charter existed for the next seventy years. In spite of the Crown's influence under the new charter, the Bay Colony's government grew increasingly independent.

Bibliography

Allen, David Grayson. In English Ways: The Movement of Societies and the Transferal of English Local Law and Custom to Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.

Bremer, Francis J. The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976.

Morgan, Edmund. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. Boston: Little, Brown, 1958.

Colony of Massachusetts Bay Colony of England 1628–43 1654–86 1689–92 →   →   → A map of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Capital Charlestown, Boston History  - Established 1629  - New England Confederation 1643  - Dominion of New England 1686  - Province of Massachusetts Bay 1692  - Disestablished 1692

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.

Contents 1 Previous Nearby Settlements 2 English Origins of the Colony 3 A Puritan colony 4 Timeline of settlement 5 Later history 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

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.^[1] 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.^[2] 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.^[3] 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.^[4] 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.^[5] The next year, 1629, Naumkeag was renamed Salem ^[6] and fortified by another three hundred settlers, led by Rev. Francis Higginson,^[7] 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,^[8] 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

For more details on this topic, see Puritans.

Hingham Memorial Bell Tower, dedicated in 1912 to the Puritan settlers of Hingham, Massachusetts

The 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,^[9] 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.^[10]

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,^[11] written by Nathaniel Ward, based partly on John Cotton's draft (Abstract of the Laws of New-England, As They Are Now Established),^[12] 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]."^[13] Indeed, the first person to be executed in the colony was Margaret Jones, a female physician accused of being a "witch".^[14] 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.^[15] John Winthrop wanted the puritan colony to be a "city upon a hill," or an example of their faith for other colonies to follow.^[16]

Timeline of settlement

• Weymouth (Wessagusset) - 1622 as part of Plymouth Colony; part of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630
• Gloucester - 1623 (Dorchester Company)
• Chelsea - 1624
• Quincy - 1625
• Salem - 1626 (Dorchester Company)
• Beverly - 1626 (originally a part of Salem, incorporated separately in 1668)
• Charlestown - 1628 (first capital, now part of Boston)
• Lynn - 1629
• Saugus - 1629
• Manchester-by-the-Sea (Jeffery's Creek) - 1629
• Marblehead - 1629 (Settled as a plantation of Salem, incorporated separately in 1639)
• Boston - 1630 (from Shawmut and Trimountaine)
• Medford - 1630
• Mystic ^[17] - 1630
• Everett - 1630 (settlement)
• Watertown - 1630 (on land now part of Cambridge)
• Cambridge (Newtowne) - 1630 (near Harvard Square)
• Roxbury - 1630 (now part of Boston)
• Dorchester - 1630 (now part of Boston)
• Weymouth - 1630
• Chelmsford - 1633
• Ipswich - 1633
• Hingham - 1633
• Milton - 1634
• Attleboro - 1634
• Braintree - 1634
• Concord - 1635
• Newbury - 1635
• Dedham - 1635
• Winthrop - 1635
• Arlington (Menotomy, then part of Newtowne) - 1635
• Springfield - 1636 (Settled as Agawam Plantation, renamed Springfield in 1640)
• Taunton - 1637
• Sandwich - 1637
• Duxbury - 1637
• Rowley - 1638
• Salisbury - 1638
• Barnstable - 1639
• Yarmouth - 1639
• Sudbury - 1639
• Haverhilll - 1640
• Braintree - 1640
• Malden - 1640 (Founded as part of Charlestown, incorporated separately in 1649)
• Woburn - 1640
• Methuen - 1642
• Andover - 1646 (Now North Andover)
• Bridgewater - 1650 (Founded as Nunkatateset, part of Duxbury, was officially incorporated in 1656 as Bridgewater)
• Eastham - 1651
• Medfield - 1651
• Billerica - 1653 (Founded as Shawshin)
• Lowell - 1653 (Founded as East Chelmsford, was formally incorporated in 1826)
• Middleton - 1659
• Marlborough - 1660
• Mendon - 1667
• Middleborough - 1669
• Worcester - 1673

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

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

• List of colonial governors of Massachusetts

References

1. ^ Thayer, Henry Otis (1892). The Sagadahoc Colony. Portland: Printed for the Gorges Society. http://books.google.com/books?id=9wgTAAAAYAAJ. Retrieved 2008-12-23. 
2. ^ Bradford, William (1865). Mourt’s Relation, or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth. Boston: J. K. Wiggin. http://books.google.com/books?id=xb3coQS13NYC. Retrieved 2008-12-23. 
3. ^ Young, Alexander (1846). Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1623–1636. Boston: C. C. Little and J. Brown. p. 26. http://books.google.com/books?id=9HEFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26. Retrieved 2008-12-23. 
4. ^ Young (1846), pp. 26-29.
5. ^ Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. American Antiquarian Society. 1871. p. 123. http://books.google.com/books?id=7W5QpVLGcpUC. Retrieved 2008-12-23. 
6. ^ Hubbard, William (1848). A General History of New England. Boston: C.C. Little and J. Brown. http://books.google.com/books?id=U3KZW2hOE_4C. Retrieved 2008-12-23. 
7. ^ Higginson, Thomas (1891). Life of Francis Higginson, First Minister in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co. http://books.google.com/books?id=1mcvKTPkghQC&printsec=titlepage. Retrieved 2008-12-23. 
8. ^ "Native Blood: The Myth of Thanksgiving". November 24, 1996. http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/883/thank.htm. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
9. ^ MacDonald, William (1908). Documentary Source Book of American History: 1606–1898. New York: The Macmillan Company. p. 22. http://books.google.com/books?id=E-QbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA22. Retrieved 2008-12-29. 
10. ^ Francis, Richard. Judge Sewall's Apology. 41
11. ^ Hanover Historical Texts Project
12. ^ Mass.gov
13. ^ Cotton, ibid., I.1, para. 1-2
14. ^ Haggard, Howard W. Devils, Drugs, and Doctors: The Story of the Science of Healing from Medicine-Man to Doctor. 1929; New York: Pocket Books, 1959, p. 73. ISBN 0-7661-3582-9
15. ^ Addison, Albert Christopher (1912). The Romantic Story of the Puritan Fathers: And Their Founding of New Boston. L.C. Page & Co. http://books.google.com/books?id=648_AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=dorothy+talbye&source=web&ots=3yh_eFoua8&sig=gTpgLoNymx_uf9umOuCnSXtz19o#PPR5,M1. Retrieved 2007-11-14. 
16. ^ Quaqua Society: Massachusetts Bay Colony.
17. ^ 1630: Information and Much More from Answers.com

External links

• [1] The history and first seal of the MA Bay Colony depicting a dejected American Indian saying "Come over and help us", with his arrows turned downwards.
• Quaqua Society--Massachusetts Bay Colony History of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

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