Massachusetts Bay Colony

3 Pages 650 Words

The Massachusetts Bay Company was formed by a group of non-Separatist Puritans who was being persecuted for their beliefs in England. The charter was brought along with the colonists, and was used as a constitution. The immigrants from England set sail on eleven ships in 1630 to the shores of Massachusetts. The Bay Colony’s first governor, John Winthrop, was an affluent Englishman who believed that a God had propelled him to lead the new colony. The skills of Winthrop facilitated the prosperity of Massachusetts. Fur trading, fishing, and shipbuilding industries boomed, as the Bay Colony quickly became the most dominant of the New England colonies. The Puritans believed that they had created a safe haven for freedom, but in truth, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was hypocritical in its religious, social, and political foundations.
One of the main reasons the Puritans escaped to America was for religious freedom. It would be sensible for the Puritans to allow religious freedom in their fledgling colony, but the conflicts were inevitable. The Quakers, who ignored the Puritan authority, were persecuted with fines, floggings, and evictions. Anne Hutchinson challenged the Puritan clergy with unorthodox views. She claimed that people did not need to obey the laws of God in order to be saved. This was considered high heresy in the Puritan colony. Hutchinson committed another sacrilege at her trial, when she testified that her beliefs had come through God. The Puritans had little choice but to expel her, for she would contaminate the religious purity of the Bay Colony if she were allowed to stay. Another threat to the Puritans was a minister, Roger Williams. He demanded that the colony break from the Church of England and opposed the power of government to control religious behavior. The outraged Puritans planned to ship Williams off to England, but he fled to the Rhode Island area in 1636, where he established the first Baptist church in Ameri...