Massachusetts Bay Colony - Colonial History

Colonial History

In 1630, the colony's population began to grow significantly when the ship Mary and John arrived in New England carrying 140 passengers from the English West Country counties of Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. These included William Phelps along with Roger Ludlowe, John Mason, Rev. John Warham and John Maverick, Nicholas Upsall, Henry Wolcott and others who would become prominent in the founding of a new nation. It was the first of eleven ships later called the Winthrop Fleet to land in Massachusetts. Its flagship, the Arbella, arrived on June 12, carrying Governor John Winthrop and other leading settlers, along with the colonial charter. Winthrop is reputed to have given the famous "City upon a Hill" sermon either before or during the voyage.

For the next ten years there was a steady exodus of Puritans from England to Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies, a phenomenon now called the Great Migration. Many ministers reacting to the newly repressive religious policies of England made the trip with their flocks. John Cotton, Roger Williams, Thomas Hooker, and others became leaders of Puritan congregations in Massachusetts. Religious divisions and the need for additional land prompted a number of migrations that resulted in the establishment of the Connecticut Colony (by Hooker) and the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (by Williams).

The advent of the English Civil War in the early 1640s brought a halt to major migration, and a significant number of men returned to England to fight in the war. Massachusetts authorities were sympathetic to the Parliamentary cause, and had generally positive relationships with the governments of the English Commonwealth and The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The colony's economy began to diversify in the 1640s, as the fur trading, lumber, and fishing industries found markets in Europe and the West Indies, and the colony's shipbuilding industry developed. Combined with the growth of a generation of people who were born in the colony, the rise of a merchant class began to slowly change the political and cultural landscape of the colony, even though its governance continued to be dominated by relatively conservative Puritans.

Colonial support for the Commonwealth presented problems upon the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660. Charles sought to extend royal influence over the colonies, which Massachusetts, more than the other colonies, resisted. For example, the colonial government repeatedly refused requests by Charles and his agents to allow the Church of England to become established, and it resisted adherence to the Navigation Acts, laws that constrained colonial trade.

All of the New England colonies were ravaged by King Philip's War (1675–1676), when the Indians of southern New England rose up against the colonists and were decisively defeated, although at great cost in life to the colonies. The Massachusetts frontier was particularly hard hit, with several communities in the Connecticut and Swift Rivers valleys being abandoned. By the end of the war, most of the Indian population of southern New England had been pacified, killed, or driven away.