Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement in New England founded in 1628 and chartered in 1629. Its Puritan leaders built a self-governing colony centered on Boston.

Massachusetts Bay Company: An English joint-stock company that received the 1629 royal charter for settlement in Massachusetts Bay. It held the charter that became the colony's governing framework.
General Court of Massachusetts: The legislature and governing assembly of colonial Massachusetts, descended from the Massachusetts Bay Colony's General Court. It developed from the company's governing body into the colony's legislature.
John Cotton: An English Puritan minister who became a leading religious authority in Boston after emigrating in 1633. His theology helped define the colony's influential religious establishment.
Pequot War: A 1636–1638 conflict between English colonists and their Indigenous allies against the Pequot people in southern New England. Massachusetts Bay forces took part in a war that devastated Pequot communities and expanded English power.
John Winthrop: An English Puritan lawyer who led the 1630 migration and served repeatedly as governor of Massachusetts Bay. His leadership shaped the colony's founding institutions and religious vision.
Freeman (colonial New England): A male colonist granted full civic and political privileges under the laws of a New England colony. In early Massachusetts Bay, freeman status—and its church-membership requirement—limited voting and officeholding.
Anne Hutchinson: A Puritan religious dissenter banished from Massachusetts Bay in 1637 after challenging its ministers and authorities. Her trial exposed conflicts over doctrine, authority, and women's public religious speech.
King Philip's War: A 1675–1676 war between Indigenous coalitions led by Metacom and English colonies and their allies in New England. The conflict brought widespread destruction to Massachusetts Bay and neighboring communities.
Great Migration (Puritan): The migration of English Puritans to New England, especially Massachusetts, during the 1630s. Thousands arrived in the colony during its rapid early expansion.
Congregational polity: A church-governance system in which each local congregation governs itself rather than submitting to bishops. Local congregations reflected the colony's religious structure and influenced town governance.

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