Massachusetts
About Massachusetts
Region: New England colony
Royal colony:1691
When were they a colony:
1630- colony
1620-Plymouth colony
Industry: fishing, corn, livestock, lumbering, shipbuilding (agriculture)
State motto: "Ence petit placidam sub libertate quietem."
Founded by: John Winthrop
Religious Aspirations & reason for finding: Religious freedom for puritans
Summary: 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 Governor John Winthrop. 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. Omitted from the charter was the usual clause requiring the company to
hold its business meetings in England, a circumstance that the Puritan stockholders used to transfer control of the colony to America. The Puritans
established a theocratic government with the franchise limited to church members. Growing 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. The charter of 1691 merged the
Plymouth colony and Maine into the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Plymouth had created its own form of government through the Mayflower Compact.
Massachusetts Bay was created by a charter from King Charles I which accidentally allowed the colony to set up their own government. John Winthrop became the governor of the colony. However, the freemen were to have powers that Winthrop kept secret from them until the General Court ruled in 1634 to create a representative legislative body, divided into two houses.
Government: General court
Geography/Economy:
Rocky soil (poor for farming)
Forest full of richest(cut down trees and make new products like ships to transport goods)
Haunted
Whaling and fishing are big businesses on the coast and supplied oil for lamps and other products
John Winthrop
John Winthrop: John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. First governor of Massachusetts bay colony and the founder.
Born: January 12, 1587, Edward stone, United Kingdom
Died: March 26, 1649,Boston,MA
Spouse :Margaret Tyndal Winthrop
Children: Henry Winthrop
Education: Trinity College ,Cambridge, University of Cambridge
About Winthrop:
Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years of existence. Slavery, according to Puritan thought, was condoned in the Old Testament, and therefore was not considered sinful towards God. John Winthrop (12 January 1588 - 26 March 1649) was famous for the founding, and as a leader of, the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England. He was a strict Puritan and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Winthrop and the Puritans believed that they would establish a pure church in New England that would offer a model for the churches in the 'mother-land' and reform the Anglican Church.
Facts:
Fact 1-He was famous as a leader and he was the founder of Massachusetts bay colony.
Fact 2-John Winthrop had an excellent education, tutored at home, attending a grammar school.
Fact 3-Attending Trinity he met two other Puritans who would feature in the history of the colonization of America and New England. The first was John Cotton, the grandfather of Cotton Mather who played a major role in the Salem Witchcraft Trials and the other was John Wheelwright, who was banished from Massachusetts along with Anne Hutchinson.
Fact 4-John Winthrop married Mary Forth on 16 April 1605 - they were to have 5 children but two died in infancy. His son, John, was one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony.
Fact 5-His first wife died in 1615 and he married his second wife Thomasine Clopton but she died on 8 December 1616 from complications of childbirth.
Fact 6-John Winthrop then studied law and in 1617 met his third wife Margaret Tyndal, whom he married on 29 April 1618.
Fact 7-Charles I became king in 1624 and the Puritans were under threat due to their religious beliefs. John Winthrop believed that safety lay in the New World
Fact 8-John Winthrop was instrumental in developing the Cambridge Agreement allowing the immigration of Puritans, who would control the government and the charter of the Massachusetts Bay company and its trading potential. He secretly planned to develop a religion based government.
Fact 9-In the spring of 1630, Winthrop led a fleet of 11 vessels and 700 passengers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Fact 10-John Winthrop was one of 20,000 Puritans who journeyed to America between 1620 and 1640.
Fact 11-He traveled on the ship called the Arbella on which he made his famous 'City upon a hill' sermon.
Fact 12-John Winthrop settled in Boston, which quickly became the capital and chief port of Massachusetts.
Fact 13-He served as governor of Massachusetts for 12 terms.
Fact 14-In 1636 he clashed with Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson and was forced to banish them from the colony. In March, 1637, John Wheelwright, the brother-in-law of Anne Hutchinson, was convicted of sedition and contempt because his religious views departed from orthodox Puritanism.
Fact 15-In 1645 Winthrop became the first president of the Confederation of New England.
Fat 16-His third wife, Margaret, died on 14 June 1647 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Fact 17-In 1648, he married his fourth wife, Martha Rainsborough.
Fact 18-John Winthrop died on March 26,1649 in Boston, MA. He was buried at King's Chapel Burying Ground, Boston, Massachusetts.
Fact 19-Winthrop's History of New England was published after his death in 1649.
Fact 20-As part of the General Court, the governing body in one New England colony, he was disliked by few others on this list for his religious tolerance and close-mindedness towards women's rights.
YouTube Vide: Biography of John Winthrop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3g9KQxW1cOY
General court
Only male stockholders had the right to vote. Eventually all male church members were allowed to vote. Their last election was on November 6, 2012.The general court, which functioned as a legislature, administrative agency, and judicial body, served as the central governing body of Massachusetts Bay from the colony's inception. By royal charter, King Charles I of England granted Puritans (Protestant dissenters against the Church of England)the right to form
a company that would hold four "Greater and General Courts" each year where freemen would administer company business, making "wholesome
and reasonable orders, laws, statutes, and ordinary" that would not contravene English law. The court gained importance when Puritan leaders in 1629 decided to shift the Massachusetts Bay Company's whole government from London to New England. No chartered group had ever moved its entire headquarters and administrative structure to the colonies—previously, most of the important decisions about England's New World Colonies had remained in the hands of men in England. This event converted the trading company's general court into a local, not remote, body that could eventually function as a
colonial assembly. In 1644, the court became a bicameral organization, with a House of Assistants (later the Senate) and a House of Deputies (later the House of Representatives)that could mutually veto each other's legislative proposals. Adopting parliamentary procedures, proposed laws were read in the general court on three separate days prior to their enactment. Puritan leaders specifically encouraged education; their earliest initiatives through the general court created local grammar schools and a university, later known as Harvard College. The court also passed laws in many other areas, regulated certain professions (such as the practice of medicine), and served as the final court of appeal for local lawsuits. The general court of Massachusetts Bay invited imitation and attracted controversy. Other colonies in New England, including New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Plymouth copied the name or methods of the Massachusetts general court. Technically speaking, a general court assembled together the colonial governor, his assistants or council, and colonial freemen or their representatives. Men like John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay, attempted to limit who might serve in the general court by restricting the designation of "freemen" to colonists who were devout Puritan churchmen, and this religious restriction eased only after sixty years. Individuals who protested against the authority of the general court or the colony's dominant Puritan regime were banished, as in the cases of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Divisiveness did not disappear, however; the court itself fragmented into competing parties during the eighteenth century. Members of Massachusetts's general court eventually rebelled against the English monarchy in the 1770s, transforming the colonial assembly into a state legislature. On for finding: Puritans found it for religious freedom
Puritans
The Puritans were a group of people who grew discontent in the Church of England and worked towards religious, moral and societal reforms. The writings and ideas of John Calvin, a leader in the Reformation, gave rise to Protestantism and were pivotal to the Christian revolt. They contended that The Church of England had become a product of political struggles and man-made doctrines. The Puritans were one branch of dissenters who decided that the Church of England was beyond reform. Escaping persecution from church leadership and the King, they came to America.
The Puritans believed that the Bible was God's true law, and that it provided a plan for living. The established church of the day described access to God as
monastic and possible only within the confines of "church authority". Puritans stripped away the traditional trappings and formalities of Christianity which had been slowly building throughout the previous 1500 years. Theirs was an attempt to "purify" the church and their own lives.
Most of the Puritans settled in the New England area. As they immigrated and formed individual colonies, their numbers rose from 17,800 in 1640 to 106,000 in 1700. Religious exclusiveness was the foremost principle of their society. The spiritual beliefs that they held were strong. This strength held over to include
community laws and customs. Since God was at the forefront of their minds, He was to motivate all of their actions. This premise worked both for them and
against them.
The common unity strengthened the community. In a foreign land surrounded with the hardships of pioneer life, their spiritual bond made them sympathetic to each other's needs. Their overall survival techniques permeated the colonies and on the whole made them more successful in several areas beyond that of the colonies established to their south.
Each church congregation was to be individually responsible to God, as was each person. The New Testament was their model and their devotion so great that it permeated their entire society. People of opposing theological views were asked to leave the community or to be converted. The doctrine of predestination kept all Puritans constantly working to do good in this life to be chosen for the next eternal one. God had already chosen who would be in heaven or hell, and
each believer had no way of knowing which group they were in. Those who were wealthy were obviously blessed by God and were in good standing with Him. The Protestant work ethic was the belief that hard work was an honor to God which would lead to a prosperous reward. Any deviations from the normal way of Puritan life met with strict disapproval and discipline. Since the church elders were also political leaders, any church infraction was also a social one. There was no margin for error.
For the first time in history, free schooling was offered for all children. Puritans formed the first formal school in 1635, called the Roxbury Latin School. Four
years later, the first American College was established; Harvard in Cambridge. Children aged 6-8 attended a "Dame school" where the teacher, who was usually a widow, taught reading. "Ciphering" (math) and writing were low on the academic agenda.
In 1638, the first printing press arrived. By 1700, Boston became the second largest publishing center of the English Empire. The Puritans were the first to write books for children, and to discuss the difficulties in communicating with them. At a time when other Americans were physically blazing trails through the
forests, the Puritans efforts in areas of study were advancing our country intellectually.
Religion provided a stimulus and prelude for scientific thought. Of those Americans who were admitted into the scientific "Royal Society of London," the vast majority were New England Puritans.
Basic facts-
*Powerful group in England
*well educated
*Felt new England fallen into evil times
Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson, born Anne Marbury, was a Puritan spiritual adviser, mother of 15, and important participant in the Antinomian Controversy that shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638.
Born:
July 20, 1591, Alford, United Kingdom
Died:
August 1643, New Netherland
Spouse:
William Hutchinson (m. 1612)
Parents:
Francis Marbury
Children:
Susanna Cole, Edward Hutchinson, Faith Savage, Bridget Sanford
Anne Hutchinson is a woman to be admired by any of us who believe in the rights of the individual to freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship .Real heroes are people who in the face of adversity, refuse to betray their ideals or ethics, no matter what the cost.
Anne Hutchinson was such a woman. It may be difficult for us to imagine exactly how it must have been like living under Puritan rule in the newly established American colonies, especially if you were a woman, as at this point in our history, women weren't even allowed to think for themselves.
Anne Hutchinson was a wife, mother, religious leader, and perhaps the first American feminist. It is important to note that even though her views were construed as dissent by the rulers of the Puritan colony, Anne had never intended to offend anyone. Her views were simply those of an educated individual with a healthy attitude towards a Church she wished to actively participate in and help flourish.
"She was a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, a nimble wit and active spirit, a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man," said Governor John Winthrop of religious pioneer Anne Hutchinson, whom he expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638 for her insistence on practicing religion as she chose, and on preaching herself. An immigrant from England who settled in the New World in 1634, Anne Hutchinson came under fire from the colony elders when she began expounding her theology at meetings in her home. She believed in a "covenant of grace," in which faith alone was enough to achieve salvation. Others disagreed, and when Winthrop became governor, Hutchinson was banished and excommunicated. She moved with her family to the area of the country that became Rhode Island, and after her husband's death, she moved to Long Island, where in 1643 she and five of her six children were killed in an Indian attack. This advocate of freedom of religion, the right to free assembly and women's rights was honored in the naming of the Hutchinson River and the Hutchinson River Parkway.
Anne Hutchinson was born on July 20, 1591, in Alford, England. Growing up, she questioned the religious teachings of her father, a deacon in the Church of
England. In 1634, Hutchinson and her husband followed Protestant Minister John Cotton to New England. There, she shared her own interpretations of Cotton’s teachings, leading to the Antinomian Controversy. Hutchinson was killed circa 1643 in Pelham Bay, New York. Devoted puritan who held meetings after church to discuss the sermons with friends and neighbor's.
Basic facts:
*Puritan leaders grew angry. woman did not have right to explain god’s law. The trail with general court-exposed weakness said god spoke directly to her by the voice of his own soul.
*She was ordered to fleet from colony to Rhode island
YouTube Vide: Biography of Anne Hutchinson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zxYPuVYY7M
Mayflower Compact:
They created the mayflower compact. Everybody worked for the general good of the colony. Basically if they did not work and went to dig for gold they are not contributing to the colony so, they would not be given a single food .This was how they planned on surviving.
Short brief role play of the mayflower compact:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3fPullxOWo