Thomas Dudley - Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony

In 1628 Dudley and other Puritans decided to form the Massachusetts Bay Company, with a view toward establishing a Puritan colony in North America. Dudley's name does not appear on the land grant issued to the company that year, but he was almost certainly involved in the formative stages of the company, whose investors and supporters included many individuals in the Earl of Lincoln's circle. The company sent a small group of colonists led by John Endecott to begin building a settlement, called Salem, on the shores of Massachusetts Bay; a second group was sent in 1629. The company acquired a royal charter in April 1629, and later that year made the critical decision to transport the charter and the company's corporate governance to the colony. The Cambridge Agreement, which enabled the emigrating shareholders to buy out those that remained behind, may have been written by Dudley. In October 1629 John Winthrop was elected governor, and John Humphrey was chosen as his deputy. However, as the fleet was preparing to sail in March 1630, Humphrey decided he would not leave England immediately, and Dudley was chosen as deputy governor in his place.

Dudley and his family sailed for the New World on the Arbella, the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet, on 8 April 1630 and arrived in Salem Harbour on 22 June. Finding conditions at Salem inadequate for establishing a larger colony, Winthrop and Dudley led forays into the Charles River watershed, but were apparently unable to immediately agree on a site for the capital. With limited time to establish themselves, and concerns over rumors of potential hostile French action, the leaders decided to distribute the colonists in several places in order to avoid presenting a single target for hostilities. The Dudleys probably spent the winter of 1630–31 in Boston, which was where the leadership chose to stay after its first choice, Charlestown, was found to have inadequate water. A letter Dudley wrote to the Countess of Lincoln in March 1631 narrated the first year's experience of the colonists that arrived in Winthrop's fleet in an intimate tone befitting a son or suitor as much as a servant. It appeared in print for the first time in a 1696 compilation of early colonial documents by Joshua Scottow.