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The Massachusetts Bay Colony was the direct predecessor of the colony and then the state of Massachusetts. While this remained the official name of the colony until after the American Revolution, its history is usually considered to be the same as Massachusetts from 1691 when its new charter absorbed the Plymouth Colony. The colony was established under a charter issued to the Massachusetts Bay Company.
There were actually two companies that preceded the Massachusetts Bay Company. the Dorchester Company planted a fishing colony on Cape Ann (at modern Gloucester) in 1624, but this did not succeed. Most colonists returned to England, but a few under Roger Conant moved to Salem where they set up a trading post. They were followed by the New England Company which received a land patent extending from the Merrimack River to the Charles River plus three miles on either side. John Endicott led a group of Puritan settlers to Salem, and served as governor from their arrival on September 6, 1628. The Massachusetts Bay Company replaced both of these when the Puritans were able to convert the patents into a Royal Charter on March 4, 1629.
The first 400 settlers under this new charter departed in April 1629. Most, but not all of the members of the Company were Puritans, and events during the spring and summer of 1629 convinced them they could only remain non conformists in the Church of England by getting out of England. Charles I had dissolved the parliament, and William Laud, the Bishop of London, renewed the pressure on the separatist Puritans to conform with church practices. His harassment was a direct cause of the progressively larger emigration over the next few years.
Perhaps by oversight, the company's charter made no mention of the location of its headquarters. On August 29, the shareholders who wished to move to America reached an agreement (The Cambridge Agreement) and bought out those who wished to remain in England. So when John Winthrop set out with the next wave of 700 settlers in March of 1630 they carried their Charter with them, and Winthrop replaced Endicott as governor of the Colony. When they settled at Boston, the leadership and headquarters of the Colony and the Company were united in America. The idea that this colony was a community with a special covenant with God was laid out in Winthrop's sermon, A City upon a Hill. The idea that theirs was a holy community shaped life in the colony enormously, making it imperative that colonists legislate morality, enforcing marriage, church attendance, and education in the Word of God as well as relentlessly seeking out and punishing sin and sinners.
The colony celebrated its first Thanksgiving Day on July 8, 1630.
Massachusetts Bay continued its rapid growth, in spite of serious difficulties. During the first winter (1630-1631), over 200 died. When the next ships came, more chose to return to England. This was, in fact, the only tragic winter faced by the young colony. Since the pressures on the Puritan non-conformists at home continued, so did increasing and rapid immigration, and by the end of 1631 the colony numbered over 2,000. Over the next several years, as Archbishop Laud continued to add rigor to the Church hierarchy, the growth continued. Ministers rejected in England also made the trip with their flocks, so John Cotton, Roger Williams, Thomas Hooker, and others became leaders of Puritan congregations in Massachusetts.A Puritan Colony
