The Custom House

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The lands of the settlement were located in southern New England in Massachusetts, with initial settlements situated on two natural harbors and surrounding land, about 15.4 miles apart—the areas around Salem and Boston. The territory nominally administered by the colony covered much of central New England, including portions of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. Territory claimed but never administered by the colonial government extended as far west as the Pacific Ocean. The earlier Dutch colony of New Netherlands disputed many of these claims, arguing that they held rights to lands beyond Rhode Island up to the western side of Cape Cod and the Plymouth Colony. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which included investors in the failed Dorchester Company that had established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann in 1623. The colony began in 1628 and was the company's second attempt at colonization. It was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. The population was strongly Puritan, and its governance was dominated by a small group of leaders who were strongly influenced by Puritan religious leaders. Its governors were elected, and the electorate were limited to freemen who had been examined for their religious views and formally admitted to the local church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership exhibited intolerance to other religious views, including Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies. The colonists initially had good relationships with the local Indian populations, but frictions developed that ultimately led to the Pequot War and then to King Philip's War , after which most of the Indians in southern New England made peace treaties with the colonists . The colony was economically successful, engaging in trade with England and the West Indies. A shortage of hard currency in the colony prompted it to establish a mint in 1652. Political differences with England after the English Restoration led to the revocation of the colonial charter in 1684. King James II established the Dominion of New England in 1686 to bring all of the New England colonies under firmer crown control. The dominion collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed James, and the colony reverted to rule under the revoked charter until 1691, when a new charter was issued for the Province of Massachusetts Bay. This province combined the Massachusetts Bay territories with those of the Plymouth Colony and proprietary holdings on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Sir William Phips arrived in 1692 bearing the charter and formally took charge of the new province. The political and economic dominance of New England by the modern state of Massachusetts was made possible in part by the early dominance in these spheres by the Massachusetts Bay colonists.
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