Simon Bradstreet - Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony

After a brief stay in Boston, Bradstreet made his first residence in Newtowne (later renamed Cambridge), near the Dudleys in what is now Harvard Square. In 1637, during the Antinomian Controversy, he was one of the magistrates that sat at the trial of Anne Hutchinson, and voted for her banishment from the colony. In 1639 he was granted land in Salem, near that of John Endecott. He lived there for a time, moving in 1634 to Ipswich before becoming one of the founding settlers of Andover in 1648. In 1666 his Andover home was destroyed by fire, supposedly because of "the carelessness of the maid". He had varied business interests, speculating in land, and investing with other colonists in a ship involved in the coasting trade. In 1660 he purchased shares in the Atherton Company, a land development company with interests in the "Narragansett Country" (present-day southern Rhode Island). He became one of its leading figures, serving on the management committee, and publishing handbills advertising its lands. When he died he owned more than 1,500 acres (610 ha) of land in five communities spread across the colony. He was known to own two slaves, a woman named Hannah and her daughter Billah.

To my Dear and Loving Husband (excerpt)

If ever two were one, then surely we;
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

— Anne Bradstreet

Bradstreet was heavily involved in colonial politics. When the council met for the first time in Boston, Bradstreet was selected to serve as colonial secretary, a post he would hold until 1644. He was politically moderate, arguing against legislation and judicial decisions punishing people for speaking out against the governing magistrates. Bradstreet was also outspoken in opposition to the witch hysteria that infested his home town of Salem, culminating in numerous trials in 1692.

He served for many years as a commissioner representing Massachusetts to the New England Confederation, an organization that coordinated matters of common interest (principally defense) among most of the New England colonies. He was regularly chosen as an assistant, serving on the council that dominated the public affairs of the colony, but did not reach higher office until 1678, when he was first elected deputy governor under John Leverett. He was against military actions against some of the colony's foreign neighbors, opposing official intervention in a French Acadian dispute in the 1640s, and also spoke against attacking the New Netherlands during the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654).

Bradstreet was sent on a number of diplomatic missions, dealing with settlers, other English colonies, and the Dutch in New Amsterdam. In 1650 he was sent to Hartford, Connecticut, where the Treaty of Hartford was negotiated to determine the boundary between the English colonies and New Amsterdam. In the following years he negotiated an agreement with settlers in York and Kittery to bring them under Massachusetts jurisdiction.

Following the 1660 restoration of Charles II to the throne of England, colonial authorities again became concerned about preserving their charter rights. Bradstreet in 1661 headed a legislative committee to "consider and debate such matters touching their patent rights, and privileges, and duty to his Majesty, as should to them seem proper." The letter the committee drafted reiterated the colony's charter rights, and also included declarations of allegiance and loyalty to the crown. Bradstreet and John Norton were chosen as agents to deliver the letter to London. Charles renewed the charter, but sent the agents back to Massachusetts with a letter attaching conditions to his assent. The colony was expected, among other things, to expand religious tolerance to include the Church of England and religious minorities like the Quakers. The agents were harshly criticized by hardline factions of the legislature, but Bradstreet defended the need to accommodate the king's wishes as the safest course to take. How to respond to the king's demands divided the colony; Bradstreet was part of the moderate "accommodationist" faction arguing that the colony should obey the king's wishes. This faction lost the debate to the hardline "commonwealth" faction, who were in favor of aggressively maintaining the colony's charter rights, led through the 1660s by governors John Endecott and Richard Bellingham. With Charles distracted by war with the Dutch and domestic politics in the late 1660s, the issue lay dormant until the mid-1670s. Relations between colony and crown deteriorated when the king then renewed demands for legislative and religious reforms, which hardline magistrates again resisted.