Massachusetts Provincial Congress - Termination of The Provincial Assembly

Termination of The Provincial Assembly

On May 20, 1774, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Massachusetts Government Act in an attempt to better assert its authority in the often troublesome colony. In addition to annulling the provincial charter of Massachusetts, the act prescribed that effective August 1, the members of the Massachusetts Governor's Council would no longer be elected by the provincial assembly, and would instead be appointed by the King and hold office at his pleasure, although such officers were to be "composed of the inhabitants or proprietors of lands within" Massachusetts.

In October 1774, Governor Thomas Gage dissolved the provincial assembly, then meeting in Salem, under the terms of the Government Act. The members of the assembly met anyway, adjourning to Concord and organizing themselves as a Provincial Congress on October 7, 1774. With John Hancock as its president, this extralegal body became the de facto government of Massachusetts outside of Boston. It assumed all powers to rule the province, collect taxes, buy supplies, and raise a militia. Hancock sent Paul Revere to the First Continental Congress with the news that Massachusetts had established the first autonomous government of the Thirteen Colonies (The North Carolina Provincial Congress met earlier than the Massachusetts Congress, although it could be argued that North Carolina's body did not establish an actual government until 1775).

Until the advent of the American Revolutionary War the congress frequently moved its meeting site, because a number of its leaders (John Hancock and Samuel Adams among them) were liable to be arrested by British authorities.