The Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in the 17th century, included
parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE [ edit ]
Analyze the founding and growth of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
KEY POINTS [ edit ]
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the area was the territory of several Algonquian tribes,
including the Massachusett, Nauset, Wampanoag, Pennacooks, Nipmuc, Pocumtuc, Mohawk, and
Mahican.
The Massachusetts Bay Company founded the colony, with the first successful settlement in 1628.
The colonial Puritanleadership exhibited intolerance to other religious views, including
Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies.
The initial economy depended on the shipbuilding, fishing, fur, and lumber trades.
In 1692, the Massachusetts Bay territories merged with the Plymouth Colony and proprietary
holdings on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
TERMS [ edit ]
King Philip's War
King Philip's War, sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or
Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present­day
New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–78.
Great Migration
The Puritan migration to New England was marked in its effects in the two decades from 1620 to
1640, after which it declined sharply for a while. The term Great Migration usually refers to the
migration in this period of English settlers, primarily Puritans to Massachusetts and the warm
islands of the West Indies, especially the sugar rich island of Barbados, 1630­40. They came in
family groups, rather than as isolated individuals and were motivated chiefly by a quest for
freedom to practice their Puritan religion.
Pequot War
The Pequot War was an armed conflict spanning the years 1634–1638 between the Pequot tribe
against an alliance of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies who were aided by
their Native American allies (the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes).
Give us feedback on this content: FULL TEXT [ edit ]
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America
in the 17th century, situated around the present­day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory
administered by the colony included parts of what later became the US states of
Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans on the eastern shores ofNew England, the area around
Massachusetts Bay was the territory of several Algonquian tribes, including the
Massachusett, Nauset, and Wampanoag. The total Indian population in 1620 has been
estimated to be seven thousand. This number was significantly larger as late as 1616; in later
years, chroniclers interviewed Indians who described a major pestilence that killed one­ to
two­thirds of the population.
Although the colonists initially had peaceful relationships with the local native populations,
frictions arose over cultural differences, which were further exacerbated by Dutch
colonial expansion. King Philip's War (1675­1676) ravaged all of the New England colonies.
The Indians of southern New England rose up against the colonists and were decisively
defeated, although at great cost in life to the colonies. After the war, most of the natives in
southern New England had been pacified, killed, or driven away.
Early in the 17th century, several European explorers charted the area. Plans for the first
permanent British settlements on the east coast of North America began in late 1606, when
King James I of England formed two joint stock companies. The owners of the Massachusetts
Bay Company founded the colony. In 1624, the Plymouth Council for New England
established a small fishing village at Cape Ann. The Cape Ann settlement was not profitable,
and the financial backers terminated their support by the end of 1625. The second attempt,
begun in 1628, was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the
1630s. For the next ten years, there was a steady exodus of Puritans from England to
Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies, a phenomenon now called the Great Migration .
Settlements in Eastern Massachusetts
Settlements in Eastern Massachusetts
The structure of the colonial government evolved over the lifetime of the charter. The
government began with a corporate organization that included a governor and deputy
governor, a General Court of its shareholders, known as "freemen", and a council of
assistants. The council of assistants sat as the upper house of the legislature and served as
the judicial court of last appeal. Although its governors were elected, the electorate was
limited to freemen, who had been examined for their religious views and formally admitted
to their church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership exhibited intolerance to other
religious views, including Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies.
The colony's economy began to diversify in the 1640s, as the fur trading, lumber, and fishing
industries found markets in Europe and the West Indies and the colony's shipbuilding
industry developed. The fishery was important enough that those involved in it were
exempted from taxation and military service. Larger communities
supported craftsmenskilled in providing many of the necessities of life. Some income­
producing activities, like the carding, spinning, and weaving of wool and other fibers, took
place in the home. Combined with the growth of a generation of people who were born in the
colony, the rise of a merchant class began to slowly change the political and cultural
landscape of the colony, though its governance continued to be dominated by relatively
conservative Puritans.
Following the introduction of the Navigation Acts in 1651, this and other patterns of trade
became illegal, turning colonial merchants who sought to continue these trading patterns
into smugglers. Colonial authorities, many of whom either were merchants or were
politically dependent on them, opposed attempts by the crown to require them to enforce the
collection of duties pursuant to those acts.
Slavery existed, but was not widespread within the colony. Some Indians captured in
the Pequot War were enslaved, with those posing the greatest threat being transported to the
West Indies and exchanged for goods and slaves. The slave trade, however, became a
significant element of the Massachusetts economy in the 18th century as its merchants
became increasingly involved in it, transporting slaves from Africa and supplies from New
England to the West Indies.
Ongoing political difficulties with England after the English Restoration led to the revocation
of the colonial charter in 1684 and the brief establishment, by King James II, of the
Dominion of New England in 1686 to bring all of the New England colonies under firmer
crown control. The dominion collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed
James, and the colony reverted to rule under the revoked charter until 1692, when the
Massachusetts Bay territories combined with those of the Plymouth Colony and proprietary
holdings on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
Map of Barnstable County, Massachusetts from 1890
1890 Map of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, showing the location and dates of incorporation of
towns