Massachusetts

Early

Settlements.—It is uncertain when Massachusetts was first visited by Europeans. In spite of conjecture there is no proof of anyone having been there before Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, who visited Massachusetts bay and named Cape Cod. Two years later Champlain explored the coast and in 1614 John Smith also did so, naming many of the points along it. After that, visits became more frequent but it was not until many years after other settlements had been made in America that a permanent colony was planted there. This was at Plymouth, in 1620. Certain religious enthusiasts had fled from England to Holland some years before and from there decided to migrate to the New World. After considering Guiana and other places, they determined to try the territory owned by the Virginia company, and financial assistance was received from colonizing-speculators in London. The London promoters pro vided the money and when the Mayflower sailed, of its 102 pas sengers only 35 came from the Leyden religious group, and 67 from London. The leaders before landing drew up the famous "Mayflower Compact" to serve as the basis of government. There was no intention of making a new departure in the direction of a democratic constitution, and the short document was merely a modification of the customary form of church covenant to meet the temporary crisis in an unfamiliar situation. As, owing to mere stress of weather or some other unknown cause, the colo nists landed in Massachusetts instead of Virginia, they had no other government than this formed by themselves, and the pure democracy thus inaugurated and later modified, was accidental. It became, however, the precursor of innumerable other written covenants in New England forming the basis of town and church government there. The troubles of the first winter were severe and half the colony died. including Governor Carver, whose place was taken by William Bradford. Fortunately for the colo nists the Indian tribes had been decimated by illness a few years earlier and the settlement had little trouble on that score. The contract with the London promoters had called for ownership of property in common, but this was soon modified by stress of cir cumstances in favour of individual property. The colony, al though it managed to survive its initial difficulties, was never financially successful and eventually all connection with the Eng lish company was terminated. After the adjustment of accounts with its financial sponsors, the colony succeeded in getting grants defining its territorial boundaries, and gradually the village of Plymouth threw off other little settlements, such as Scituate (16361 and Duxbury (1637 ), but was finally absorbed into the larger and more powerful colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.

Soon after the Plymouth settlement was made others were es tablished along the coast, mostly by individuals, a number of whom from 1625 onward settled around Boston Harbor. A small fishing company tried to establish a foothold and business on Cape Ann which was the forerunner of a much more important colon izing movement than any yet made in North America. In Eng land it was a time of much change and unrest, quite as much political and economical as re-. ligious. The Puritans were drawn to a great extent from country gentlemen and middle-class busi ness men, all of whom were feel ing the stress of the times severely. There was a great mi gration of the discontented to the New World, a migration by no means confined to New England. Between 1620 and 1642, for example, 18,600 persons went to Barbadoes as compared with only 14,000 to Massachusetts, and 18,00o to other West India Islands as compared with less than 4,000 to the rest of New England. The Massachusetts settlement was thus merely an epi sode in a much broader movement. Certain Puritans in England

became interested in an attempt to revive the defunct fishing company at Cape Ann, and in 1628 a patent was received from the Council for New England and a number of settlers were sent out under John Endicott as governor. Meanwhile the number in England interested in a Massachusetts venture had increased, and in 1629 a rather strong group, including John Winthrop, obtained a charter as "The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." The grant was similar to that of the Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors, with rights of ownership and government. The intention of the Crown was evidently to create merely a com mercial company with what, in modern parlance, we would call stockholders, officers and directors, but by a shrewd and legally questionable move, the patentees decided to transfer the entire management and the charter itself to Massachusetts, thus paving the way for not only making the management local, but also for the unwarranted assumption, pregnant with most important conse quences, that the charter for a commercial company was in reality a political constitution for a new government with only indefinable dependence upon the imperial one at home.

The religious motive was but one among others inducing even the leaders to emigrate to America. It was undoubtedly im portant, but even it looked merely to the establishment of a com munity in which the emigrants would be free to worship as they themselves wished, not to establish in any way a refuge for those who might wish to worship differently. Indeed, throughout the whole colonial period, the leaders of the colony fought religious liberty with every weapon in their power. The economic motives were also strong (as Winthrop clearly indicated in writing in his own case), the sudden increase in the cost of living in Eng land with consequent unsettlement of established habits and social position, being a leading factor. In the summer of 1630 a fleet of ships carried over nearly ',cm emigrants, including Winthrop as governor and Thomas Dudley as deputy governor, to Massa chusetts bay, where they settled the towns of Boston, Charles town, Dorchester, Medford, Watertown, Roxbury and Lynn. Such leaders as Winthrop, Dudley, Endicott and the Rev. John Cotton were strongly opposed to democracy, were zealous to pre vent any independence in religious views, and had no trust in the people at large. Opposition showed itself now and then in the case of individuals, the General court or even a town (as Water town). The first of the more noted cases was that of Roger Williams who was banished from the colony and settled in Rhode Island (1636). Almost simultaneously occurred the Antinomian Controversy in which Ann Hutchinson and Harry Vane the younger were the protagonists, and which ended in the banish ment of Mrs. Hutchinson and the return of Vane to England. There was much criticism in England, even among the friends of the colony, of the policy of repression adopted by the leaders, lay and clerical, but they pursued their course until halted by royal authority a generation later. The harshness of rule, narrow mindedness and self-satisfaction which became characteristic of the Massachusetts colony cannot be ascribed wholly to Puritan ism. As has been said, it was a period of great Puritan emigra tion and all the colonies both on the American mainland and in the West Indies were strongly Puritan in tone at first. In the South and on the islands, differing climatic and other conditions induced modifications in cultural life and thought, but even in New England both Rhode Island and Connecticut were far more liberal than Massachusetts.