Massachusetts Bay Colony

Map of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony , the historic forerunner of today's US state of Massachusetts , was an English colony in New England . It was founded in 1629 by a charter of the English king and subsequently settled and led mainly by English Puritans who had fled persecution in the mother country. The charter was revoked in 1684 and the colony was renamed Massachusetts Bay Province ; but it was able to maintain extensive autonomy until it was merged with the Plymouth Colony and some other territories and converted into a crown colony (1691).

Founded by the Massachusetts Bay Company

The colony was established by the Massachusetts Bay Company , originally called the New England Company . A royal charter was issued to her by King Charles I in 1629 .

As early as 1623, at the endeavors of the Puritan John White , the Dorchester Company founded a fishing colony on Cape Ann near the present-day city of Gloucester , but this was unsuccessful. Most of the colonists returned to England , but some of them moved inland under the leadership of Roger Conant and founded the Salem settlement in 1626 . They were followed by John Endicott with a group of Puritan settlers; he was elected governor after their arrival on September 6, 1628.

The Dorchester Company was followed by the New England Company , which in 1628 received a patent from the Plymouth Council for New England that stretched from the Merrimack River to the Charles River and a three-mile strip on the banks of both rivers. By converting this land patent into the royal charter of March 4, 1629, which guaranteed extensive autonomy and self-government without, however, specifying a specific location as the main office, the New England Company was renamed the Massachusetts Bay Company . It wasn't until 1684 that the charter was revoked that the Massachusetts Bay Company lost its importance.

A puritan colony

The first 400 settlers started as early as April 1629. Most of the Company's members were Congregationalists and the events of the spring and summer of 1629 had convinced them that they could only put their constitutional vision into practice outside of England . Charles I had dissolved Parliament and William Laud , Archbishop of Canterbury , renewed the pressure on the Puritans to submit to the Anglican Church . This should become the main cause for the larger wave of emigration in the next few years.

The Massachusetts Bay Company shareholders who wanted to emigrate reached an agreement with those members who wanted to stay in England and bought their shares. When John Winthrop set out for New England on seven ships with the next 700 settlers in March 1630, he took the charter with him. After reaching Salem , he replaced Endicott as governor.

The neighboring Boston became the headquarters of the Massachusetts Bay Company and at the same time the governor's seat of the Massachusetts Bay Colony , whereby the political and economic leadership of the colony were united in this settlement.

In the sermon A City on the Hill , Winthrop expressed his vision that the new colony should become a community with a special relationship to God. The awareness that their community was a sacred one should rule the lives of the colonists. This makes it necessary to legally prescribe morality, marriage, church attendance and the doctrine of the Word of God as well as to ruthlessly persecute and punish sins and sinners.

The colony celebrated its first Thanksgiving Day on July 8, 1630.

Massachusetts Bay Colony continued to grow, even with difficulty. In the first winter (1630–1631) over 200 people died. When the next ships arrived, many decided to return to England. However, this was the only tragic winter the young colony had to endure. While the severity of the Anglican Archbishop Laud against the Puritans in England continued, the rate of immigration also increased. At the end of 1631 the colony already had over 2000 inhabitants. English priests who had fallen out of favor also set off with their followers. For example, John Cotton , Roger Williams , Thomas Hooker , Richard Mather, and others became ministers of Puritan churches in Massachusetts.

The seeds of democracy

The colony's royal charter guaranteed the Massachusetts General Assembly the right to elect officials and make laws. The first meeting was held in October 1630, but consisted of only eight freemen. They voted to hand over all legislative, executive and judicial rights to a “council of the governor” made up of the same eight men. This council set city limits, levied taxes, and appointed officials. In order to prevent unrest because of the limited participation in power, a further 118 settlers were appointed as free members of the general assembly, but power remained with the council. The first grumbling about the system began when a tax was levied on the entire colony in 1632, although Winthrop managed to allay fears.

In 1634 the government controversy reappeared and a group led by Thomas Dudley requested to see the charter . They saw from the regulations that the General Assembly should make all laws and consist of all free men. They asked for the charter to be implemented in full and eventually reached a compromise with Winthrop. They agreed that the General Court should consist of two delegates from each city, the Governor's Council and the Governor himself. The decisions of this meeting should be generally binding. What Winthrop did not expect was that this would also apply to the election of the governor and that Dudley would be elected on that. The first revolution was complete and a trading company had become a representative democracy . In 1641, the first law was passed, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, which specified behavior and punishments.

When the charter was revoked in 1684 , the Massachusetts Bay Company lost its importance. After a brief transition period as Massachusetts Bay Province , Massachusetts Bay Colony became part of the British Crown Colonies in 1691.

jurisdiction

One of the first people to be executed in the colony was Dorothy Talbye, who was hanged for the murder of her daughter despite being clearly insane. At that time, no distinction was made between criminal behavior and acts committed because of mental illness.

In the course of the witch hunt in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the midwife Margaret Jones was hanged as a witch in 1648 . She was charged with the deterioration of the condition of some of her patients during her care.

The leadership of the colony persecuted the Quakers . In 1660, the English Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged in Boston for disobeying the law that banned Quakers from the colony. In addition to her, three other Quakers were hanged in the colony. They became known as the Martyrs of Boston . However, King Charles II of England specifically forbade Massachusetts further executions of Quakers in 1661.