Title: Massachusetts Bay Colony | Facts, Map, & Significance | Britannica
Headings: Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
American history
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When was the Massachusetts Bay Colony founded, and how long did it last?
What was the purpose of the Massachusetts Bay Colony?
What is the importance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony?
Top Questions: Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony

Content: Massachusetts Bay Colony | Facts, Map, & Significance | Britannica
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Massachusetts Bay Colony
American history
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Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original English settlements in present-day Massachusetts, settled in 1630 by a group of about 1,000 Puritan refugees from England under Gov. John Winthrop and Deputy Gov. Thomas Dudley. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company had obtained from King Charles I a charter empowering the company to trade and colonize in New England between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. The grant was similar to that of the Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors with rights of ownership and government. The intention of the crown was evidently to create merely a commercial company with what, in modern parlance, would be called stockholders, officers, and directors. By a shrewd and legally questionable move, however, the patentees decided to transfer the management and the charter itself to Massachusetts. By this move, they not only paved the way for local management, but they established the assumption that the charter for a commercial company was in reality a political constitution for a new government with only indefinable dependence upon the imperial one in England. Among the communities that the Puritans established were Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, Medford, Watertown, Roxbury, and Lynn. Massachusetts Bay Colony Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Top Questions
When was the Massachusetts Bay Colony founded, and how long did it last? In 1629 King Charles I of England granted the Massachusetts Bay Company a charter to trade in and colonize the part of New England that lay approximately between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers, and settlement began in 1630. Boston was made the capital in 1632.