Extension of settlements brought on troubles with the Indians and in 1637 there occurred the war with the Pequots, in which that race was practically annihilated. In the same year a synod of the clergy was held at Boston which listed 82 blasphemous, erroneous or unsafe opinions held in the colony. In 1643 a loose confederation of the four colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plymouth and New Haven, was effected under the title of the United Colonies of New England. It performed some useful work but its policies were largely dominated by Massachusetts and it gradually lost influence.
In 1644 laws were passed against the Baptists and several of them were cruelly dealt with. The Quakers also were persecuted, more particularly from 1656 to 1662, four being put to death and many others whipped, imprisoned, branded or banished. Finally, owing partly to a revulsion of public feeling and largely to action by the English Crown, a stop was put to the worst forms of perse cution. During the Civil War and Cromwellian period in England, the colonies had for the most part been left to go their own way and Massachusetts had arrogated to herself an almost complete independence of the home government. It was obvious according to the ideas of the time that if the colony were to remain part of the empire a closer dependence would be essential, and after the Restoration it was decided to send out a Royal Commission to investigate conditions. In 1665 the Commission visited New England, and the following year the king sent a circular letter to all the colonies, expressing dissatisfaction with Massachusetts only. There was, indeed, a considerable and respectable party in the colony itself which was opposed to the extreme pretensions of the local government. That government, however, trusting to distance and the preoccupation of England with the European war, pursued its course.
In 1675 there occurred a second and much more serious Indian war, known as King Philip's War, due to the grasping land policy of the colonies and the desperation of the savages at seeing them selves more and more hemmed in by the whites. It was an in evitable conflict and although the whites were victorious they suffered severely. It was said that one man in every 16 of mili tary age was killed and it was long before the frontier recovered. Meanwhile the case of Massachusetts was again taken up by the English government. The colony adopted the method of evasion and delay in meeting charges and complying with orders. This policy resulted in the annulment of the charter in 1684, in leaving the colony defenceless against the king, and with few or no friends in England to defend the course it had taken. In some
respects, such as the end of the exclusion of non-church members from the franchise, the cause of liberty gained by the change. In 1686 a royal government was inaugurated by the arrival of Joseph Dudley, a native Massachusetts man, as president of a provisional government until a new one could be devised. He was soon sup planted by Sir Edmund Andros, whose government extended over all New England and New York. Although he was by no means the "tyrant" whom the earlier patriotic historians painted, he was lacking in tact and in the qualities of wise statesmanship, and his situation was an extremely difficult one. When word came that. the Stuart dynasty had been overthrown in England in favour of William of Orange, a mild revolution occurred in Boston, and Andros and most of his government were imprisoned. Finally a new charter was procured for Massachusetts, 1691, to whose ter ritory it added the province of Maine and the former colony of Plymouth. Although the new charter provided for a royal gover nor and in other ways greatly diminished the power of the old theocratic party it was a more reasonable governmental instru ment than the anomalous commercial charter which the colony had for so long tried to twist into a political constitution. The first royal governor was a New England man, Sir William Phips, who had led an unsuccessful attack on Quebec in 169o. Massa chusetts had carried out an easy raid upon Acadia which had inspired hopes of a larger conquest of French territory, with the sole result of almost bankrupting the colony by a debt of £200, coo. The last decade of the i 7th century was also marked by the witchcraft delusion, mainly in Salem village, during 1691-92. In all about 32 persons were executed, one by the horrible mediaeval penalty of being pressed to death under heavy weights. After the end of that delusion, the life of Massachusetts takes on a more modern tinge. Connecticut had shown the way to civil and Rhode Island to religious liberty. If the far more powerful colony of Massachusetts cannot lay claim to have been a leader in either of these directions, its founders had established the strongest colony in North America, had made creditable begin nings in public education, had developed the system of town government, and laid the foundation for the Congregational Church. Although the results of the intellectual repression of its first century were long to be felt, with the opening of the new century the colony swung more and more into the growing liberal ism of thought of the 18th century.