Title: Massachusetts Bay Colony | Facts, Map, & Significance | Britannica
Headings: Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
American history
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Massachusetts Bay Colony

Content: The General Court was made into a bicameral assembly in 1644. In addition, Puritans believed that churchgoers should read the Bible for themselves, and thus the education of children was required. The first public school in North America, the Boston Latin School, was established in Boston in 1635, and Harvard University was founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636. Harvard University
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The Puritans established a theocratic government with the franchise limited to church members. Winthrop, Dudley, the Rev. John Cotton, and other leaders zealously sought to prevent any independence of religious views, and many with differing religious beliefs—including Roger Williams of Salem and Anne Hutchinson of Boston, as well as unrepentant Quakers and Anabaptists —were banished. By the mid-1640s Massachusetts Bay Colony had grown to more than 20,000 inhabitants. Increasing estrangement between the colony and England resulted in the annulment of the company’s charter in 1684 and the substitution of royal government under a new charter granted in 1691.