List of Colonial Governors of Massachusetts

List Of Colonial Governors Of Massachusetts

The territory of the modern Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the United States of America, was settled in the 17th century by several different English colonies. The territories claimed or administered by these colonies encompassed a much larger area than that of the present commonwealth, and at times included portions of central and southern New England outside the bounds of the modern state, as well as present-day Maine and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Some colonial land claims extended all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

The first permanent settlement was the Plymouth Colony (1620), and the second major settlement was the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Salem in 1629. Settlements that either failed or were merged into other colonies included the failed Popham Colony (1607), on the coast of present-day Maine, and the Wessagusset Colony (1622–23), in present-day Weymouth, Massachusetts, whose remnants were folded into the Plymouth Colony. The Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies coexisted until 1686, each electing governors in annual elections. Governance of both colonies was dominated by a relatively small group of magistrates, some of whom governed for many years. When the Dominion of New England was established in 1686, it covered the territories of those colonies, as well as those of New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. In 1688, it was further extended to include New York, and East and West Jersey. The Dominion was unpopular in the colonies, and was effectively disbanded when its royally appointed governor, Sir Edmund Andros, was arrested in the wake of the 1688 Glorious Revolution and sent back to England.

After Andros' arrest, each of the colonies temporarily reverted to previous governance until King William III reorganized the territory of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies into the Province of Massachusetts Bay and appointed Sir William Phips as its royal governor in 1692. The Province of Massachusetts Bay was governed by appointed civilian governors until 1774, when Thomas Hutchinson was replaced by Lieutenant General Thomas Gage amid rising tensions between the Thirteen Colonies and the British Parliament. Gage, the province's last royal governor, was effectively powerless beyond Boston, and was recalled after the June 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill. By then the province was already being run de facto by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress; following the adoption of a state constitution in 1779, the newly formed Commonwealth of Massachusetts elected John Hancock as its first governor.