USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 10
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BRADFORD, William .- History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston, by the State, 1898) .- Chief source for the period. Several other editions.
BRADFORD, William .- Letter Book (In Massachusetts Historical So- ciety's Proceedings for 1794, vol. III) .- The first 338 pp. missing. First hand information.
BRIGHAM, William, editor .- The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth (Boston, by the State, 1836).
BROWN, John .- The Pilgrim Fathers (Boston, Congregational Publishing Society, 1895) .- Scholarly work by an Englishman.
BURRAGE, Champlain, editor .- John Pory's Lost Description of Plym- outh Colony (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1918) .- One of the earliest acounts by a visitor en route from Virginia to England in 1622.
DAVIS, William T .- Ancient Landsmarks of Plymouth (Boston, Damrell & Upham, 1889) .- Chapters i to iii. By a painstaking antiquarian. DEXTER, Morton .- The Story of the Pilgrims (Boston, Congregational Publishing Society, 1894) .- Brief relation by a competent authority. GOODWIN, John A .- The Pilgrim Republic (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1920) .- Admirable account of the Colony for entire separate existence. Next to Bradford the best book.
HART, Albert Bushnell, editor .- American History told by Contempor- aries (New York, Macmillan, 1908) .- Vol. I, chap. 15. Writings by men of the times and places.
LORD, Arthur .- The Mayflower Compact (Worcester, American Anti- quarian Society, 1921) .- Critical inquiry into its nature, purpose and influence.
MASON, Thomas .- New Lights on the Pilgrim Story (London, Con- gregational Union, 1920) .- On English family connections of the Pilgrim Fathers.
MEMORIAL, Mourt's Relation, first published in 1622, Cushman's Dis- course, Bradford's Dialogue, and smaller parts .- Has the intimate touch of the Fathers themselves. Best edition of Mourt's Relation is Dexter's, with notes.
MORTON, Nathaniel .- New England's Memorial (Boston, Club of Odd Volumes, 1903) .- Facsimile edition with introduction by Arthur Lord. Many other editions. Also in Young's Chronicles.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
MORTON, Thomas .- The New English Canaan (Boston, the Prince So- ciety, 1883) .- With introduction and notes by Charles Francis Adams Jr. Bright light on Morton and the Merry Mount affair.
NOBLE, Frederick K .- The Pilgrims (Boston, Pilgrim Press, 1907) .- Excellent account arranged for the most part topically.
PALFREY, John G .- History of New England (Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1899) .- Vol. I, chapters 4 to 6. Good brief account written before finding of the Bradford Book.
SHURTLEFF, Nathaniel, editor .- Records of the Colony of New Ply- mouth (Boston, by the State, 1855).
SMITH, Capt. John .- A Description of New England, also New Eng- land's Trials (in Works vol. I, p. 175, Arber's English Scholar's Li- brary, London, 1884) .- Information from one at Plymouth six years before the Pilgrims.
SYLVESTER, Herbert M .- Indian Wars of New England (Boston, W. B. Clarke Co., 1910) .- Complete account of Plymouth's Indian rela- tions.
THACHER, James .- History of the Town of Plymouth (Boston, Marsh, Capen & Lyon, 1835) .- By a long time resident and historical student. USHER, Roland G .- The Pilgrims and their History (New York, Mac- millan, 1918) .- Good, especially on economic side.
WEEDEN, William B .- Economic and Social History of New England (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1891) .- Contains many side lights on liv- ing conditions.
YOUNG, Alexander .- The Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (Boston, Little & Brown, 1897).
CHAPTER V
THE MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER AND THE BAY COLONY (1628-1660)
BY JOHN DICKINSON Lecturer on Government, Harvard University
ORIGINS
To the Pilgrims of Plymouth belongs the honor of having planted the first permanent settlement which was to become a part of Massachusetts; but the growth and expansion of the Commonwealth trace back directly to the great migration of John Winthrop and his associates of the Massachusetts Bay Company nine years later, which peopled the country about Salem and Boston. It was the Bay colony which expanded into the Province and then to the Commonwealth and in the fulness of time absorbed the settlement of the Pilgrims.
Considering the industrial and commercial greatness of the present state there is a certain fitness in the fact that the origins of the Bay colony are connected with business no less than religion. The "Governor and Company of the Massa- chusetts Bay in New England," the official style by which the colony was designated during the first half century of its existence, originated as a private trading company,-as one of those commercial corporations, like the East India Com- pany, or the Hudson Bay Company of a later time, which pushed outward the boundaries of English empire by extend- ing the radius of English commerce; and a trading com- pany it remained in legal form and in its framework of or- ganization until its charter was revoked in 1684. How, to use James Byrce's words, this "trading company grew into a colony, and the colony into a state," is the story which it is the purpose of the present chapter to tell.
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MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
THE ENGLISH TRADING COMPANIES (1553-1648)
British colonial expansion, from the days of John Cabot to the days of Cecil Rhodes, has proceeded almost always in its first stages through the medium of private business enter- prise, and in close step with the expansion of foreign trade. As is shown in the first chapter of this volume impulse for foreign trade leaped forward suddenly in Tudor England after the middle of the sixteenth century. The greater part of this activity took place through chartered companies, of which the Muscovy Company and the Adventurers to Guinie, both founded in 1553, were the earliest, and of which later examples were the Levant or "Turkey" Company (1582), the East India Company (1600), the Virginia Company (1606), the Bermuda (Somers Islands) Company (1611), and the African Company (1618).
These chartered trading companies bridge the gap between the mediaeval guild, or economic brotherhood, and the modern business corporation. While they were the forerunners of the modern corporation, they differed from it in a number of im- portant respects. For one thing, they often had no permanent capital or "stock," but were mere associations of individuals, some or all of whom would from time to time contribute their share to the temporary capital needed for a particular voyage or "adventure." The essential characteristic of the company was thus not the ownership by the members of a share of the capital, but their participation in a common line of enterprise, and consequently in the common advancement or protection of their interests. In many of the companies all the shareholders had an equal vote without regard to the amount of their contributions. Their motive for such organi- zation was in part the fact that it was the tradition and habit of the time; and in part it was to secure the special favor and protection of the crown in foreign lands, and to avoid the dangers and losses of competition between fellow-countrymen in their dealings with foreigners. It was a time of intense particularism when foreigners were everywhere looked on with active distrust and were generally held jointly liable for the misdeeds of any of their nationality.
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From the original in the Massachusetts Archives
A £25 SHARE IN THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY
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TRADING COMPANIES
For these reasons the functions of the governing body of a sixteenth or seventeenth century company, its "governor" and "assistants" as they were often called, were much wider in scope than those of their modern counterpart, the board of directors of a corporation. Not only did they have to manage such common business ventures as the company en- gaged in, and see to the profitable use of the "stock" contrib- uted to those ventures, but they were also empowered to oversee the conduct of the members in many ways. Minute rules were often laid down not only as to the times and man- ner of trading, but also as to the details of the social and private activities of the members. "How far-reaching some of the ordinances of the latter class were, may be realized by the citation of one of them, which forbade any member to marry an alien under penalty of the forfeiture of his membership."
In addition, there survived from the older guilds some- thing of the tradition of social solidarity among the members, reaching beyond their mere economic association for business purposes. This tendency is shown in the usual designation of the members as "brethren" or "freemen" of the company ; and in the occasional use of the term "society" or "fellowship" or "brotherhood" to describe the company itself. A corpora- tion of this character operating at a distance from England was obviously a "body-politic" in a fuller and more complete sense than a modern business corporation; and consequently better fitted to expand, if given the opportunity, into a full- fledged political community.
In no instance except the Massachusetts Bay Company did such political expansion take place. In Russia, in Asia, in Hudson Bay the business activities more and more engrossed them. They were associations of business men, who, if en- gaged in colonization, remained in London, and sent out colo- nists to their plantations to be governed there on such terms as the company thought most consistent with the profit of its own members and with the tenure on which it held its lands from the crown. The most familiar example of such a relationship between colonists and company is afforded by the Virginia Company of London under its early charters. The colony on the James River was a proprietary province, subject to a business company in London as its overlord and
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proprietor. The Company consisted of the holders of shares, which were transferable, and represented a contribution to the joint-stock; and while the colonists, or "planters," were entitled to shares for their investment of time and labor, nevertheless since the meetings, or "courts," of the sharehold- ers were held in London, the planters had no effective voice in the management of the Company.
MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER IN ENGLAND (1629)
"The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," derived its corporate existence from a charter which passed the seals March 4, 1629, and created a company which in the letter of its patent was of the same general char- acter as the Virginia Company of London. The charter granted and confirmed to the Company "all that part of New England in America" bounded on the south by a line drawn three miles south of the Charles River, and on the north by a line drawn three miles north of the Merrimac River, and ex- tending from the Atlantic Ocean on the east "to the south sea on the west." The management of the Company, like that of other chartered companies of a similar nature, was to be in the hands of a governor, a deputy governor, and eigh- teen "assistants," (or, as we should say, directors) of whom seven, together with the governor or deputy governor, were to constitute a quorum "for the better ordering and directing of their affairs." Four times in every year there was to be held a "great and general court," or meeting of all the "freemen," or members, of the Company. At these meetings the freemen, wherein were always to be included the governor and six assistants, were empowered to admit new members to the free- dom of the Company, and to make laws and ordinances "for the good and welfare of the said company, and for the govern- ment and ordering of the said land, and plantation and the people inhabiting the same so as such laws and or- dinances be not contrary or repugnant to the laws and statutes of England." The governor, deputy governor and other officers were to be chosen annually by the greater part of the freemen present at the court held during the Easter term.
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THE DORCHESTER ADVENTURE
Of the twenty-six original incorporators to whom the char- ter was granted, ten or more were later active members of the Bay colony. Whether at the time when the charter was is- sued it was their purpose to do more than found a commercial company for profit is a point which probably must always remain doubtful. The grant of the charter came as the cul- mination of several years of tentative and more or less un- successful experiments at colonizing without a charter with- in the territory later covered by the grant; but the history of these experiments sheds little light on the real purpose of the promoters of the enterprise, and their methods, particularly toward the end, are marked by a significant indirectness and caution.
THE DORCHESTER ADVENTURE (1623-1627)
The project had its inception in the town of Dorchester in 1623. Merchants of the neighborhood, who were sending ships on yearly voyages to fish for cod off the New England coast, conceived the idea that by founding a settlement on the mainland in the neighborhood of the fisheries they would not merely have at their service a larger number of hands for the fishing, but that during the rest of the year these surplus hands might be employed in agriculture, raising fresh provi- sions to victual the ships or to sell at a profit to other fisher- men frequenting the coast. The local minister, John White, had some share in the merchants' counsel, and a faint religious motive seems to have colored their project. It was pointed out that the fishermen "being usually upon these voyages nine or ten months in the year, they were left all the while without any means of [religious] instruction." Thus some "com- passion toward the fishermen and partly some expectation of gain prevailed so far that there was raised a stock of £3000" __ equivalent in the difficulty of raising the capital to $500,000 nowadays.
The Dorchester Adventurers chose the site of the present town of Gloucester, and placed in charge of it Roger Conant of Nantasket, who had fallen out with the men of Plymouth and left that colony because of religious differences. From the first the venture was financially disappointing; matters
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were not improved by removing the settlement from Glou- cester to Salem; and in 1627 the enterprise, in modern lan- guage, was "reorganized," and seems to have come more fully under the control of a group strongly influenced by religious motives. The services of John Endecott, an active church member at Dorchester, were secured to supersede Conant; and through the influence of the Earl of Warwick, a Puritan nobleman, a grant of land to Endecott and five associates was procured from the Council for New England, covering sub- stantially the same territory between the Merrimac and the Charles which was afterwards granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company. Complications subsequently arose from the fact that some of this land had already been granted by the Council to Robert Gorges ; but Gorges thought at the time that his rights were safeguarded.
THE MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY (1628-1629)
So far nothing indicates that motives other than financial dominated the enterprise. The project seems, however, to have begun about this time to attract the attention of a group of well-to-do persons of strong Puritan convictions in the eastern counties, including a number connected with the fa- mily or household of the Earl of Lincoln, who had already been discussing the desirability of "planting the gospel in New England." These associated themselves with the holders of the Endecott grant, and applied directly to the crown for the charter which was in due course issued to them under the name of the Massachusetts Bay Company. A modern scholar, Professor C. M. Andrews of Yale, has written that "it has always been a matter for surprise that the associates were able to gain the support of the crown." Their action was a deliberate defiance both of Gorges and the Council for New England. But Gorges was absent in France at the time, and the associates had the support of Warwick's influence. "The charter was obtained March 4, 1621,-how we do not know." Six days later Charles I dissolved Parliament, announced that princes are not bound to give account of their actions but to God alone, proclaimed his intention of reigning without a par- liament, and "inhibited all men upon the penalty of censure so much as to speak of a parliament."
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THE MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY.
During the following spring and summer opinion was at a white heat of excitement among the factions in England which were in opposition to the crown, and there was much hurrying to and fro and consulting together among prominent Puritans. Endecott had already gone out to Salem with additional set- tlers, and the Massachusetts Company continued to correspond with him about trade and planting, cattle and fish, sassafras and sarsaparilla root; but the minds of many of its leading members were apparently on larger things.
At a general court (stockholders' meeting) held July 28, 1629, the governor, Matthew Cradock, "read certain propo- sitions, viz. that for the advancement of the plantation, the encouraging persons of quality to transplant themselves thither, to transfer the government of the planta- tion to those who shall inhabit there, and not to continue the same in subordination to the Company here, as now it is." The question was adjourned for deeper consideration by the members; "and in the meantime they are desired to carry this business secretly, that the same be not divulged." Apparently, selected friends were taken into their confidence; promising recruits were solicited; and at Cambridge, August 26, 1629, an agreement was entered into between twelve gentlemen of substance, a majority of whom were already members of the Company, binding themselves to emigrate with their families to the new plantation "provided that before the last of Sep- tember next the whole government, together with the patent for the said plantation, be first, by an order of court, legally transferred and to remain with us and others which shall in- habit upon the said plantation." The connection of John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley with the history of Massachu- setts commences with their appearance as signers of this docu- ment. Three days later at a general court of the Company, . "by erection of hands it appeared by the general consent of the company that the government and patent should be set- tled in New England."
Steps were at once taken to divorce the financial activities of the Company from its political functions. A board of ten, called undertakers, and headed by Winthrop, agreed to take over the Company's assets and liabilities and in return to accord to the Company half the profits of the colony's fur
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trade, besides a monopoly of salt-making, and of the trans- portation of passengers and goods to and from the colony, and also of furnishing the colonial magazine with stores. By this adjustment the Company was left as a purely political and land-owning corporation, expecting dividends through these privileges. Winthrop was elected governor and preparations were made to fit out an expedition. Eleven ships, bearing Winthrop, the charter, and between nine hundred and a thou- sand emigrants sailed from Cowes and Southampton in the spring of 1630 and in June reached the New England coast, where the settlers dispersed themselves into the localities which afterwards became the towns of Charlestown, Boston, Med- ford, Watertown, Roxbury, Lynn and Dorchester. Other ships followed, and by the end of the year the total number of persons in the colony is estimated at two thousand, the largest body of English settlers brought into one community at one time, till Penn's settlement a century and a half later.
THE CHARTER IN MASSACHUSETTS (1629-1630)
The transfer of the Company and charter to New England has raised two questions about which historians have disputed ever since. In the first place, was it legal? Were those res- ponsible for the step acting within the terms of their grant, or were they quietly stretching the powers which the crown had conferred upon them? The legality of the removal has been argued at length by Chief Justice Parker, who based his con- tention on the fact that the charter itself contained no ex- press language requiring the Company to reside and exercise its power in England; and pointing out that, as a matter of law, this absence of language in the grant could not be sup- plied by implication from the fact that the docket accompany- ing the patent when it passed the seals expressly stated that it provided for the "election of governors and officers here in England" and conferred the powers usual to "corporations in England." But certainly the presence of this language in the docket indicates that in the minds of the royal officials re- sponsible for the issue of the patent there was no intention that the Company could or would transfer itself to the planta- tion.
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CHARTER IN MASSACHUSETTS
The second important question thus raised is whether at the time the patent was issued there was any secret intention on the part of the grantees to take the step they afterwards de- cided upon and remove the Company to New England. On this question of fact there is as much conflict of opinion as there is doubt concerning the question of law. In a paper written many years afterward, Winthrop implies that they had such an intention; and that in the negotiations for the charter "with much difficulty we got abscinded" a clause re- quiring us "to keep the chief government in the hands of the company residing in England.
In any event there cannot be the slightest doubt of the will- ingness of the Massachusetts leaders to go beyond the strict limits of the charter when necessary to accomplish their pur- poses. In the words of Judge Story, "they did not indeed surrender up their charter, or cease to recognize its obligatory force. But they extended their acts far beyond its expres- sions of powers; and while they boldly claimed protection from it against the royal demands and prerogatives, they nevertheless did not feel that it furnished any limit upon the freest exercise of legislative, executive or judicial functions." An illustration is the exercise by the government,-i.e. the Company,-of the powers of taxation, affecting as it did per- sons who, while inhabitants of the colony, were not freemen of the Company. No such power over non-freemen was con- ferred by the charter, and at a later date English officials ex- pressly pronounced it illegal.
The rapidity and haste with which the Massachusetts lead- ers, once settled in the colony, proceeded to expand their char- ter rights and cast off, one after another, the ties that bound them to England, soon attracted the unfavorable attention of the English Government. This attention was stimulated by Sir Ferdinando Gorges. At the time when the Council for New England made the grant of land which was later con- firmed to the Massachusetts Bay Company by its charter, Gor- ges supposed that his own prior rights and those of his son Robert were safeguarded. No sooner had the Company been set up in Massachusetts, however, than he found that it flatly denied these rights, and his agents were ejected by force from the colony. Accordingly in 1632 he preferred charges against
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the Company before the Privy Council, which for the time its English representatives and friends were in some unexplained manner able to repel, even to the point of securing from King Charles himself a statement that "he would have them sever- ely punished who did abuse this government and plantation."
Gorges persisted, and met with greater success by arousing the suspicions of the English High Church party. Colonial affairs were about this time placed in the hands of a body of commissioners headed by Archbishop Laud, who demanded the production of the Massachusetts charter in England. The authorities at Boston temporized and delayed; and in 1635 a quo warranto proceeding was brought against the Company in the Court of King's Bench and the charter was vacated, or supposed to be vacated, though never so certified to the colony. English politics, however, were moving in a direction which soon caused the affairs of Massachusetts to sink into oblivion; but the temper of the colonial leaders is significantly evidenced by the fact that they ignored the judgment of the King's Bench, raised £600 to fortify Boston Harbor, and announced their intention to "defend our lawful possessions if we are able ; if not, to avoid and protract."
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