Colonial New England: Puritan Foundations, Plymouth & Massachusetts Bay

Puritan Origins and Theology

  • Radical Protestant minority inside the Church of England
    • Nicknamed “Puritans” because they wished to purify the English church of lingering Catholic ritual, hierarchy and sacramentalism
  • Theological roots in John Calvin (16th-c. Franco-Swiss reformer)
    • Salvation comes by faith alone, not by works
    • Predestination: before birth God irrevocably decrees each soul’s eternal fate
    • Human behavior cannot change the decree but can display a regenerate heart
    • Practical paradox: must still live morally, build knowledge of Scripture and serve the community "just in case" one is among the Elect
  • Preferred religious habits
    • Constant reading of the Bible (necessitates literacy)
    • Small lay Bible-study circles
    • Frequent preaching by respected clergy

Early English Experiments in New England (1607-1616)

  • 1607: West-country English gentry establish a camp on the coast of Maine ➔ after one brutal winter abandon project and sail home
  • 1614 (6 yrs later): ex-Jamestown leader John Smith explores coast, coins the term “New England”
    • Believes region’s geology & climate resemble Old England’s, so promotes renewed settlement

The Pilgrims & Plymouth Colony (1620-)

  • Faction: Separatist Puritans (had already fled to the more tolerant Netherlands, disliked its cosmopolitan looseness)
  • Voyage chronology
    • July 1620: board Speedwell (leaky) in Holland ➔ sail to England to join others
    • Sept 1620: transfer to the sturdier Mayflower; depart Plymouth, England
    • Crossing: storm-racked, 55 deaths aboard
    • 9 Nov 1620: sight Cape Cod, anchor in Provincetown Harbor
  • Mayflower Compact (11 Nov 1620)
    • Drafted before disembarkation; signed by all adult males (Puritans + non-Puritan “Strangers”)
    • Creates a civil body politic committed to majority rule and communal welfare—not private profit
  • First year hardships
    • Winter 1620-21: 45/102 settlers die
    • Spring 1621: Wampanoag emissaries Squanto & Samoset teach corn cultivation, broker peace with sachem Massasoit
    • Autumn 1621: successful harvest ➔ Thanksgiving (venison, corn, seafood)
  • Growth
    • By 16301630 population ≈ 1,5001{,}500 (steady, not explosive)
    • Remains small but revered in U.S. folklore; politically overshadowed later by Massachusetts Bay

Massachusetts Bay Colony & the Great Migration (1630-)

  • 1629: Royal charter secured by stock-holding Puritans led by John Winthrop
    • Still inside Church of England; aim = model community, not separation
  • Great Migration 1630−16401630{-}1640: ≈ 21,00021{,}000 English Puritans relocate (many whole families)
  • Winthrop’s shipboard sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)
    • People must be “knit together as one man” in mercy & justice
    • Colony to serve as “a city upon a hill”—a beacon of righteousness to the world (persistent American self-image)
  • Political architecture
    • Corporate but republican: governor + General Court (legislature) elected by male church members
    • “Meeting house” at town center: venue for worship and participatory decision-making; seeds of New England local democracy
    • One historian: “most radical government in the European world” (17th17^{\text{th}}-c.)
  • Leadership fully relocates (unlike absentee Virginia elites); colony’s power stays local

Satellite & Sister Colonies

  • Connecticut River Valley
    • 1636: emigrants from Massachusetts
    • 1639: Fundamental Orders—first written constitution in America
    • 1662: receives separate royal charter
  • New Haven (founded 1638) ➔ merged into Connecticut 1660s
  • Rhode Island & Providence Plantations (1636)
    • Founded by Roger Williams after banishment from Massachusetts
    • Core principle: religious liberty; first Baptist church in America (1638)
  • New Hampshire
    • Land grant 1623; becomes royal province 1679
  • Maine
    • Early failed royalist venture ➔ sold to Massachusetts Bay; remains part of Massachusetts until 18201820
  • 1643: Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, New Haven form the New England Confederation for mutual defense (natives, Dutch)

Demography & Labor: New England vs. Chesapeake & Caribbean

  • Migration figures 1607−17001607{-}1700
    • New England: ≈21,000\approx 21{,}000 English arrivers
    • Chesapeake: ≈120,000\approx 120{,}000 arrivals
  • Yet by 1700
    • White population New England = 91,00091{,}000
    • Chesapeake = 85,00085{,}000
  • Reasons
    • Balanced sex ratio; whole families; healthier climate; diversified farms ➔ high natural increase
    • Chesapeake & Caribbean plagued by disease, skewed gender ratio, harsh labor regimes
  • Indentured servants
    • < 20%20\% of 1630s migrants to New England vs. thousands to Virginia
  • Slavery
    • Present but marginal: <2\% of New England pop. (1700)
    • Virginia 13%13\%; English West Indies 78%78\%

Puritan Work Ethic, Capitalism & Communitarian Boundaries

  • Max Weber later identifies Puritan/Calvinist “Protestant ethic” (hard work, thrift) as seed of modern capitalism
  • Tension: profit welcomed only within communal moral limits
  • 1630 trial of Robert Keayne (Boston shopkeeper)
    • Convicted of price-gouging, fined £200200; confessed “covetous and corrupt heart”
    • Minister John Cotton outlines business ethics:
    • False principles: gouging, shifting loss onto community, exploiting ignorance
    • True principles: fair pricing, personal risk-taking, accepting God-sent losses

Religious Infrastructure, Education & Print

  • By law each town must support a church (tax-funded)
    • Mandatory Sunday services: 22 hrs morning + 22 hrs afternoon
    • Mid-week lecture attendance compulsory
    • Average inhabitant hears ≈7,000\approx 7{,}000 sermons in lifetime
  • Clergy density (1650): 1 minister / 415415 residents (vs. 1 / 3,2393{,}239 in Virginia)
  • Literacy & schooling
    • Grammar schools in nearly every town so children can read Scripture
    • 1638-40: first printing press in English America (Cambridge, MA)
    • 1636: Harvard College founded to train ministers

Internal Spiritual Strains

  • Declining visible-saint admissions ➔ fewer children eligible for baptism
  • Half-Way Covenant (1662)
    • Allows baptism of grandchildren of original saints (partial membership)
    • Clergy introduce moderation; laity sometimes push back (rise of Baptists)
  • Censorship boards forbid non-Puritan publications; Quakers, Catholics, Anglicans banned (except in Rhode Island)

Gender, Dissent & Witchcraft

  • Anne Hutchinson
    • Charismatic Boston lay preacher (1630s); denounces colony’s ministers
    • Tried for heresy 1637; expelled to Rhode Island, later killed in New Netherland
    • Her outspokenness as a woman seen as double threat to patriarchy + orthodoxy
  • Legal/ social policing of morality: Sabbath-breaking, blasphemy, sexual “deviance” punishable by lash, stocks, or death
  • Witchcraft
    • Popular belief in a “world of wonders”—portents, magic, Satanic pacts
    • 1692 Salem witch trials
    • Dozens accused; 1818 women hanged, 1 man pressed to death
    • ≈80%\approx 80\% of accused = women (often outspoken or economically independent)
    • After Salem, authorities distance themselves; executions cease

Relations with Native Peoples & Warfare

  • Pequot War (1636-37): Connecticut colonists & allies virtually destroy Pequot tribe; survivors enslaved
  • King Philip’s War (1675-78)
    • Wampanoag leader Metacomet (“King Philip”) forms tribal confederacy vs. English
    • Ends in Metacomet’s death, Native defeat; propaganda racializes Indians as “other”

Trade, Mercantilism & Royal Crack-Down

  • New England merchants profit via rum/molasses smuggling with French & Dutch (violate English Navigation Acts)
  • Crown response
    • 1684: Charles II voids Massachusetts charter ➔ royal province
    • 1686-89: Dominion of New England (MA, RI, CT, NH, NY, NJ) under Gov. Sir Edmund Andros
    • Heavy-handed rule alienates colonists
    • 1688-89: Glorious Revolution in England (James II deposed by Protestants William & Mary)
    • Boston uprising jails Andros; dominion dissolved
    • 1691: new royal charter for Massachusetts—keeps elected town meetings but installs crown-appointed governor; crown oversight now permanent

Big-Picture Takeaways

  • Motivations shape colonies:
    • Chesapeake = profit, plantation labor, demographic instability
    • New England = faith, community, participatory governance, literacy
  • Communitarian vision yields benefits (education, health, local democracy) and coercive intolerance (heresy trials, persecution, witch hunts)
  • Persistent themes born here reverberate through U.S. history:
    • “City upon a hill” exceptionalism
    • Town-meeting democracy
    • Protestant work ethic vs. moral limits on capitalism
    • Struggles over religious liberty, gender norms, and race relations
  • By 16601660: New England population ≈ 33,00033{,}000 (2⁄3 in Massachusetts), living under a mixture of local self-rule and increasing imperial supervision—setting stage for later colonial-imperial tensions.