Puritans and Founding Massachusetts Bay Colony

The 1620s were a time of political and religious turmoil in England. The protracted struggle for supremacy between monarch and Parliament reached new heights in 1629, when Charles I disbanded the rival body and ruled alone for 11 years. Official pressure was also applied on religious dissenters, notably the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Some were imprisoned for their nonconformist views and others lost lucrative official positions.

 

In 1628, a group of distinguished Puritan businessmen formed a venture named the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, which was initially conceived as a profit-making endeavor in the New World. A land grant was received from the Council of New England, the successor to the ineffective Virginia Company of Plymouth, providing rights to the area between the Charles and Merrimack rivers and westward to the Pacific Ocean. Preliminary voyages were made in 1628 and 1629, and resulted in the establishment of a small colony on Cape Ann and later at Salem.

 

The careful Puritan businessmen sought additional protection for their scheme by requesting and receiving a charter from the king, who had apparently been misinformed about their religious views. The charter took a generous view of the geography involved:

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