Begun as a trading venture, the Massachusetts Bay Company soon took on a spiritual mission as Puritans used it to emigrate from England to Boston. Issued in May 1628 at the instigation of Sir Richard Saltonstall and Issac Johnson, the company received a charter, which, for a limited time of seven years, allowed it to ship people and provisions to establish a “plantation” in New England. If the company had the land surveyed, then the short indenture could be changed to a patent. The company’s subscribers elected a governor, Mathew Cradock, who served with the aid of six associates. The first company ship was sent out under the command of John Endecott to take possession of the Dorchester settlement at Salem. In the following April the company sent out a further five ships carrying an additional 200 passengers, many of them poor.
In England disagreements soon emerged between those who wanted the company to be primarily a trading enterprise and those, like John Winthrop, who had a more spiritual end in view. The non-Puritan elements sold their interests to the religious men on August 26, 1629, and Winthrop became the new governor. While the company remained headquartered in England, Anglican bishops could easily spy on its operations and anyone could threaten the control of the Puritans by buying into the company. Fortunately for the Puritans, the company’s charter did not specify that it had to remain in the mother country. It was hoped that the members of the company could slip away unnoticed and that the distance of North America would make English interference impossible. The Puritans took the charter and set sail in March 1630 in a fleet of 11 ships with the aim of joining the substantial base of people already established in New England. The Salem location did not prove satisfactory, so the company chose to establish itself in Boston, a thin neck of land protruding into the sea. When the government transferred to North America, the Massachusetts Bay Company became the New England Company.
Further reading: Frances Rose-Troup, The Massachusetts Bay Company and Its Predecessors (New York: Grafton Press, 1930).
—Caryn E. Neumann
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