If they went ashore, they would be on land to which they had no title in a territory where no English government existed.  On November 11, 1620, 41 adult men met in the ship’s cabin to sign a document later known as the Mayflower Compact.  In it they declared their intention to create a government and obey its laws.  They agreed to “solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together in a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation,” and to “frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”

The events that led to the arrival of the Mayflower off the coast of New England began several years earlier in England.  A group of Puritans, called Separatists, broke away from the Anglican Church to form their own congregations.  King James I viewed this action as a challenge to his authority, and he imprisoned Separatist leaders.  To escape this persecution, one group fled to Holland in 1608.  These Separatists, who came to be known as the Pilgrims, found it difficult to live in Holland.  They also worried that their children were losing their English heritage.  In early 1617, the congregation decided to sail to America.

The Mayflower Arrives in America

Before setting sail for America, the Pilgrims first returned to England, where they joined another group of Separatists aboard the Mayflower.

In September 1620, 102 passengers set off on the journey across the Atlantic.  The trip took 65 days.  Most of the food ran out, many passengers became ill, and one died.  Making matters worse, a severe storm blew the small ship off course.  Finally, in early November, the Pilgrims sighted Cape Cod and tried to follow the coastline south.  After encountering rough weather, they turned back.

Although they were not where they expected, the Pilgrims were not completely lost.  In 1614 the Virginia Company had hired Captain John Smith to explore the region.  The Pilgrims had a copy of Smith’s “Map of New England,” and they decided to move across Massachusetts Bay to the area Smith had labeled “Plymouth” on his map.

Plymouth Colony

According to William Bradford, one of the colony’s leaders, the Pilgrims went to work as soon as they arrived at Plymouth.  After constructing a “common house,” the settlers built modest homes of frame construction and thatched roofs.  Soon, however, a plague swept through the colony, sparing only 50 settlers.

Even the surviving Pilgrims might have perished were it not for the help of Squanto, a Native American man who taught them about their new environment.  Bradford wrote that Squanto “directed them how to set their corn, where to take fish and [how] to procure other commodities.” Squanto also helped the Pilgrims negotiate a peace treaty with the Wampanoag people who lived nearby.  The following autumn, the Pilgrims joined the Wampanoag in a three-day festival to celebrate the harvest and give thanks to God for their good fortune.  This celebration later became the basis for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Summarizing
How did Squanto help the Pilgrims?
 

The Puritans Found Massachusetts

Although many Puritans in England shared the frustrations that had driven the Pilgrims to leave the country, most worked for reform within the Anglican Church.  After King Charles took the throne in 1625, opposition to the Puritans began to increase, and many Puritans became willing to leave England.

A City on a Hill

At about this time, a depression struck England’s wool industry, which caused high unemployment, particularly in England’s southeastern counties where many Puritans lived.  As he watched his fellow Puritans suffering religious and economic hardship, John Winthrop, a wealthy attorney, wrote despairingly to his wife:  “I am verily persuaded God will bring some heavy affliction upon this land, and that speedily.”

Winthrop and several other wealthy Puritans were stockholders in the Massachusetts Bay Company.  The company had already received a royal charter in March 1629 to create a colony in New England.  Convinced that there was no future for Puritans in England, Winthrop decided to change what had been merely a business investment into a refuge for Puritans in America.  Other Puritans embraced the idea, and in March 1630, eleven ships carrying about 900 settlers set sail.  As they headed to America, John Winthrop delivered a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.” The new colony, Winthrop told his fellow Puritans, would be an example to the world:

“The Lord will make our name a praise and glory, so that men shall say of succeeding plantations:  ‘The Lord make it like that of New England.’ For we must consider that we shall be like a City upon a Hill; the eyes of all people are on us.”

By the end of the year, 17 ships had brought another 1,000 settlers, and Massachusetts rapidly expanded.  Several towns were founded, including Boston, which became the colony’s capital.  As conditions in England grew worse, many people began to leave the country in what was later called the Great Migration.

By 1643 an estimated 20,000 settlers had arrived in New England.  Church and State The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company defined the colony’s government.  People who owned stock in the company were called “freemen.” All of the freemen together were called the General Court.

The General Court made the laws and elected the governor.  John Winthrop had been chosen to be the first governor.  To ensure that the colony became the kind of society he wanted, Winthrop ignored the charter and told the settlers that only the governor and his assistants could make laws for the colony.  No one knew that these rules were not in the charter because Winthrop kept the charter locked in a chest.

Winthrop managed to restrict the freemen’s power for four years, but eventually the settlers grew frustrated with how little voice they had in governing the colony.  In 1634 town representatives demanded to see the charter, and Winthrop had no basis to refuse the request.  As they read the charter, the representatives realized that the General Court was supposed to make the laws.  When the General Court assembled in May 1634, they reorganized the government.

The General Court became a representative assembly.  They decided that elections would be held each year, and the freemen of each town would elect up to three deputies to send to the General Court.

John Winthrop believed that each congregation should control its own church, but he also believed that the government should help the church.  Laws were passed requiring everyone to attend church.  The government collected taxes to support the church and also regulated behavior.  Gambling, blasphemy, adultery, and drunkenness were all illegal and punished severely, often by flogging.

The leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony tried to prevent religious ideas that differed from Puritan beliefs.  If settlers publicly challenged Puritan ideas, they could be charged with heresy and banished from the colony.  Heretics—people whose religious beliefs differ from those accepted by the majority—were considered a threat to the community.

Analyzing
How did John Winthrop’s religious beliefs affect the way the Massachusetts Bay Colony was governed?
 

Rhode Island and Religious Dissent

Puritan efforts to suppress other religious beliefs inevitably led to conflict with those who disagreed with them.  Eventually, just as Anglican intolerance of the Puritans led to the founding of Massachusetts, Puritan intolerance led to the founding of other colonies in New England.

Roger Williams Founds Providence

In 1631 a young minister named Roger Williams arrived in Boston.  When the Boston congregation offered him a teaching position, Williams refused, saying he “[would] not officiate to an unseparated people.” Williams was a strict Separatist.  He believed Puritans corrupted themselves by remaining as part of the Anglican Church.

Williams became a teacher in Salem, where Separatist ideas were more accepted, but his continuing condemnation of the Puritan churches angered many people.  As pressure against him mounted, Williams decided to move to Plymouth Colony.  While in Plymouth, he declared that the land belonged to the Native Americans and that the king did not have the right to give it away.

Williams’ ideas greatly alarmed John Winthrop.  If the king heard that Puritans in Massachusetts were denying the king’s authority, he might revoke the charter and impose a royal government.  Winthrop feared that if that happened, the Puritans would lose control of their churches. 

When Williams returned to Massachusetts in 1633, he continued to challenge Puritan authority.  In October 1635, the General Court ordered him to leave the colony.  Williams then headed south to found his own colony.  He purchased land from the Narragansett people and founded the town of Providence.  In Providence, the government had no authority in religious matters.  Different religious beliefs were tolerated rather than suppressed.

Anne Hutchinson Is Banished

In the midst of the uproar over Roger Williams, a woman named Anne Hutchinson arrived in Boston.  Hutchinson was intelligent, charismatic, and widely admired.  A devout Puritan, Hutchinson began to hold prayer meetings in her home.  Her groups discussed sermons and compared ministers.  As Hutchinson’s following grew, she began to claim to know which ministers had salvation from God and which did not.  This created a problem for Puritan leaders.  Hutchinson was attacking the authority of ministers.  If people believed her, they would stop listening to the ministers she had condemned.  In late 1637, the General Court called Hutchinson before them to answer to charges of heresy.

When questioned by the court, Hutchinson did not confess or repent.  She said that God “hath let me see which was the clear [correct] ministry and which the wrong. ...” When asked how God let her know, she replied that God spoke to her “by an immediate revelation.” By claiming God spoke to her directly, Hutchinson contradicted the Puritan belief that God only spoke through the Bible.  The General Court immediately banished her for heresy.  Hutchinson and several of her followers headed south.  They settled on an island and founded the town of Pocasset, later known as Portsmouth.

The Colony of Rhode Island

Over the next few years, Massachusetts banished other dissenting Puritans.  They too headed south and founded two more towns—Newport in 1639 and Warwick in 1643.  In 1644 these two towns joined together with Portsmouth and Providence to become the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  Religious freedom, with a total separation of church and state, was a key part of the colony’s charter.

Explaining
Why were Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson banished from Massachusetts?
 

The River Towns of Connecticut

In 1636 the Reverend Thomas Hooker asked the General Court of Massachusetts for permission to move his entire congregation to the Connecticut River valley.  His congregation wanted to migrate because they did not have enough land near their town to raise cattle.  Hooker also had his own reasons for leaving.  Unlike Roger Williams, Hooker was an orthodox Puritan, but like Williams, he was frustrated by the Massachusetts political system.  He thought that everyone should be allowed to vote, not just church members.  Hooker argued that “the foundation of authority is laid in the consent of the governed,” and that “the choice of the magistrate belongs to the people.”

The General Court allowed Hooker and his congregation to migrate.  A few months later, some 100 settlers headed to the Connecticut River and founded the town of Hartford.  Hooker’s congregation was not alone in the Connecticut River valley.  Trading posts had been established in the region in 1633, and two other congregations had founded the towns of Windsor and Wethersfield in 1634.

In 1637 the towns joined together to create their own General Court.  Two years later they adopted a constitution known as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut —the first written constitution of the American colonies.  Their government was similar to that of Massachusetts, but it had one major exception:  it allowed all adult men, not just church members, to elect the governor and the General Court.

East of the Connecticut River lived the Pequot people, who considered the valley part of their territory.  The Pequot chief Sassacus, who ruled both the Pequot and the Mohegan peoples, tolerated the English settlers at first because he needed allies against the Narragansett in Rhode Island.  In 1636, however, two Massachusetts traders were killed in Pequot territory.  When Massachusetts sent troops to retaliate, the Pequot War erupted.  The Pequot began raiding towns along the Connecticut River.  In April 1637, they surprised the town of Wethersfield and killed nine people.  Furious, the Connecticut settlers assembled an army under the command of Captain John Mason.  Seizing the opportunity to free themselves, the Mohegan rebelled against the Pequot and sent warriors to fight alongside Mason’s troops.  The Narragansets, bitter rivals of the Pequot, also joined in the attack.

Mason’s troops and their Native American allies set fire to the main Pequot fort near Mystic Harbor.  When the Pequot tried to surrender, the troops opened fire, killing about 400 people, including women and children.  The Connecticut General Court then put a bounty on the surviving Pequot.  Many were captured and sold into slavery, while others were given to the Narragansets and Mohegan as war prizes.  The Pequot were treated so poorly by the other Native Americans that in 1655, the Connecticut government resettled the survivors in two villages near the Mystic River. 

Contrasting
How did the Connecticut and Massachusetts constitutions differ?
 

New Hampshire and Maine

Not all of the settlers who left Massachusetts headed for Rhode Island or Connecticut.  Although Anne Hutchinson had moved south, 36 of her followers headed north and founded the town of Exeter.  During the 1640s, several other towns were also established north of Massachusetts.  Many of the settlers in these towns were fishers and fur traders.

Much of the territory north of Massachusetts had been granted to two men, Sir Fernando Gorges and Captain John Mason who split the grant in half.  Mason took the southern part and named it New Hampshire, while Gorges’ territory in the north came to be called Maine.  The government of Massachusetts claimed both New Hampshire and Maine and challenged the claims of Mason and Gorges in court.  In 1677 an English court ruled against Massachusetts.  Two years later, New Hampshire became a royal colony.  Massachusetts, however, bought Maine from Gorges’ heirs, and Maine remained part of Massachusetts until 1820.

Identifying
What two colonies were established north of Massachusetts?
 

. Anne Bradstreet c.  1612–1672 Anne Dudley was born about 1612 in Northampton, England.  At the age of 16 she married Simon Bradstreet, and two years later she accompanied her husband to America.  The Bradstreets, traveling with John Winthrop’s party, were among the first settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In America Anne Bradstreet faced the difficult task of building a home in the wilderness.  Despite the hard work of raising eight children, she found time to write poetry.  In 1650 the first edition of her poetry was published in England as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America.  Bradstreet had not anticipated this recognition.  Her brother-in-law had secretly taken a copy of her manuscript to a London publisher. Anne Bradstreet was a devoted supporter of her husband, who became a leading political figure in Massachusetts, serving two terms as governor.  During the period of the Dominion of New England, he spoke out against the harsh rule of Edmund Andros.  In a poem, To My Dear Loving Husband, published after her death, Anne described their relationship: 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. .

TURNING POINT
King Philip’s War

For almost 40 years after the Pequot War, the New England settlers and Native Americans had good relations.  The fur trade, in particular, facilitated peace.  It enabled Native Americans to acquire tools, guns, metal, and other European products in exchange for furs.  By the 1670s, however, the fur trade was in decline.  At the same time, colonial governments began to demand that Native Americans follow English laws and customs.  Such demands angered Native Americans, who felt that the English were trying to destroy their way of life.

Tensions peaked in 1675 when Plymouth Colony arrested, tried, and executed three Wampanoag for a murder.  Angry and frustrated, Wampanoag warriors attacked the town of Swansea.  This marked the beginning of what came to be called King Philip’s War, after the Wampanoag leader Metacomet, whom the settlers called King Philip.  Metacomet was killed in 1676, but fighting continued in Maine and New Hampshire.  The war, which the settlers won in 1678, was a turning point.  Afterward, few Native Americans remained in New England, and those who survived were scattered.  New England now belonged to the English settlers.

Analyzing
In what way was King Philip’s War a turning point for Native Americans and settlers in New England?