Massachusetts Bay Colony - Legal Formation of The Company

Legal Formation of The Company

Archbishop William Laud, a favorite advisor of King Charles I and a dedicated Anglican, sought to suppress the religious practices of Puritans and other nonconforming beliefs in England. The persecution of many Puritans in the 1620s led them to believe religious reform would not be possible while Charles was king, and many decided to seek a new life in the New World.

John White continued to seek funding for a colony. On 19 March 1627/8, the Council for New England issued a land grant to a new group of investors that included a few holdovers from the Dorchester Company. The land grant was for territory between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers, including a three mile (4.8 km) buffer to the north of the Merrimack and to the south of the Charles, that extended from "the Atlantick and westerne sea and ocean on the east parte, to the South sea on the west parte." The company that the grant was sold to was styled "The New England Company for a Plantation in Massachusetts Bay". The company elected Matthew Cradock as its first governor, and immediately began organizing provisions and recruiting settlers. The company sent about 100 new settlers and provisions in 1628 to join Conant, led by Governor's Assistant John Endecott, one of the grantees. The next year, Naumkeag was renamed Salem and fortified by another 300 settlers, led by Rev. Francis Higginson, one the first ministers of the settlement. The first winters were difficult, with colonists struggling against disease and starvation, resulting in a significant number of deaths.

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, the company leaders sought a Royal Charter for the colony. Charles granted the new charter on 4 March 1628/9, superseding the land grant and establishing a legal basis for the new English colony at Massachusetts. 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. After Charles dissolved Parliament in 1629, the company's directors met to consider the possibility of moving the company's seat of governance to the colony. This was followed the Cambridge Agreement later that year, in which a group of investors agreed to emigrate and work to buy out others who would not. The Massachusetts Bay Colony became the first 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.