Notes:BC1.AH.New England - the Great Emigration

2014/06/15 User:Jeff

The Massachusetts Bay Company

The Massachusetts Bay Company can be thought of as a subsidiary of New England. It was established by the Council for New England to develop a land grant received from the king in 1627.

• It was not founded for religious principle or reasons, it was a commercial venture.

Most of the founding associates were Nonconformists or Separatists with a few conforming to the Established Church.

• In 1629, control of the company was secured by the Nonconformists whose objectives were to plant a colony based on their religious objectives.

John Winthrop

It is interesting to ponder why a government would insist on uniformity in religion. Some historians (Edward Channing, for example) attribute the reason to the need at the time to protect religion from foreign control. This can be understood by understanding the society and customs of the times. Religion had a larger influence over the actions of people than it does today and could turn a segment of society against the government and cause adherents to plot the overthrow of its leadership. Religion has to loosen its grip on society for toleration to exist.

But the pursuit of such uniformity came at the cost of freedom of conscious and freedom of action. So, given the English tradition of ever expanding freedom for the individual and group, it is no surprise that toleration had to come. But such a thing does not happen over night. The adventuresome people that came to America for religious reasons to found their own societies did not have toleration in mind. The early seekers of religious freedom came to secure the freedom of their own consciences and not to establish a haven for the religiously persecuted. They came, in the words of John Winthrop, to establish a "particular church" (Channing, Vol I page 329

John Winthrop lead the emigration that founded Boston as part of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Winthrop recorded his reasons for emigrating.

• He wanted to establish a "bulwark against the kingdom of anti-Christ which the Jesuits labor to rear up in those parts."

"What can be a better work and more honorable and worthy a Christian than to help raise ansd support a particular church?"

• He considered England overpopulated.

People "the most precious of all creatures, is here more vile and base than the earth we tread upon . . and thus it is come to pass, that children, servants, and neighbors, especially if they be poor, are counted the greatest burdens, which if things were right would be the chiefest earthly blessing."

While on the other side of the Atlantic lay a continent that should not "lie waste without any improvement."

It must be realized that making a living - getting enough to eat and providing shelter and clothing - was much more difficult then.

• Winthrop also decried luxury and conspicuous consumption of the time characterized by a

"height of intemperance in all excess of riot, as no man's estate almost will suffice to keep sail with his equals."

• Winthrop came to America "to live under a due form of government, both civil and ecclesiastical." I.e., he and those traveling with him came to live in a place in which they would not offend either others or their own consciences. But it was not for tolerance. They wanted a place where the uniformity of religion was of their own type.
• Finally he was ambitious as were many others who emigrated. He felt that he would not find suitable employment for what he saw as his considerable talents, due to his religious nonconformity.

More important to the success of the Boston settlement was Winthrop's preparations. He made himself aware of the reasons for the failures and near tragic hardships of earlier settlements and planned against such an end as best he could.

The Cambridge Agreement

Mathew Craddock, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, proposed to the shareholders that government and control of the company should be transferred to those who were to emigrate to the colony. This was both different and far sighted.

• 4 weeks later a dozen men of substance met at Cambridge pledging that they were ready to emigrate on the condition that the government be legally turned over to them.

This was done and John Winthrop was elected the new governor.

• This agreement gave the management and government of the company to these dozen men. It did not establish a democratic colony. But that was to come

The first fleet sails

11 vessels of the Massachusetts Bay Company set sail and arrived at Salem harbor after a relatively easy voyage on June , 1630.

• Salem was in dire straights. A previous group had arrived there a couple of years earlier. Many had died and the remaining were in poor health and spirits. So discouraging was it that many of Winthrop's group returned to England on the ships that brought them.
• Winthrop continued with his fleet to Boston harbor and disembarked.

It was a mild Fall, but a ferocious Winter. The settlement would have failed had not Winthrop had the foresight to send one of the ships back to England to return with supplies. It reached the colony in the middle of February 1931 with more passengers and needed supplies. Another ship arrived from Virginia with corn.

Boston had their own hard times, but it was nothing like what the first Virginian's had suffered.

Freemen, representation, and control of religion

The most precious commodity to the efforts to settle America and establish a critical mass of commerce was people. A colony charter might be granted to a group of highly principled company leaders who had their own vision of how to govern and which form of church was to be established in within their grant, but they encountered the problem of having to bend to the wishes of the settlers on numerous occasions.

Otherwise, people would not emigrate in sufficient numbers, or, in the case of those already in America, they might pick up and move to a neighboring colony that suited them better. This was the case on Massachusetts Bay.

• It had been John Winthrop's intention to establish a "particular church" along the lines of his own nonconformist views. However, the influence of conditions in the American wilderness had their own effect.
• By the time that Massachusetts Bay had reached a population of 2000, there were only 12 members of the Massachusetts Bay Company living there and governing them.

Of the 12 were the governor, assistants, and "freemen".

"Freeman" referred to a member of the company. The governor, assistants and freemen, possessed by grant from the king, the authority to govern the rest.

They had voted themselves the authority to act as magistrates. They had no laws prepared for Massachusetts Bay, but they had knowledge of English Common Law and Mosaic law and elected to govern using those. (Channing (page 340) quotes Massachusetts Colony Records.) This proved effective enough, but the law of the wilderness took somewhat immediate effect.

• In 1630, 109 applied to the Great and General Court (the ruling body of the Company) for admission to the freedom of the corporation.

The problem for Winthrop and the Company was how to satisfy the request (which they thought necessary lest they loose people to New England to the north or New Plymouth to the south) without relinquishing too much control lest they dilute their purpose to establish their "particular church". According to Channing (page 341), they saw themselves in the roles of Moses and Aaron.

• They granted the request in 1631 with limitations:

The added freemen could elect assistants but not participate in governing directly. The number of assistants was to be kept small in the belief that only leading men would be elected - probably a safe bet in those days.

In future, only men that were members of the churches in the colony would be granted these privileges.

About the same time,

Rapid growth

In 1633 the tide of emigration rose. In May, 1634, Winthrop estimated the population of Massachusetts at 4 thousand people. The pace of emigration alarmed some English authorities who feared that it would harm the economy at home. but they could not stem the tide. They had larger issues on other fronts.

• Massachusetts outgrew all other colonies.

In the summer of 1633, almost 40 ships arrived at Massachusetts.

In 1643, Massachusetts Bay had a population of over 16,000 and had more people than the rest of the English colonies combined.

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