scholarly journals The Plymouth Company and Massachusetts Bay Company (1622–1639): Establishing Theocratic Corporate Governance

2022 ◽  
pp. 71-111
Author(s):  
Haig Z. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
New England ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
Denominational Identity ◽  
Structural Framework ◽  
Plimoth Plantation ◽  
The Town ◽  
Stock Corporation

AbstractThis chapter examines the development of a different form of corporate religious governance in the Atlantic in the years after the Jamestown massacre. It focuses on the denominational identity of its members and how this influenced the direction and formation of a theocratic model of governance that the company would adopt. This chapter illustrates how the leaders of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay companies, such as William Bradford, John Endicott and John Winthrop, established authoritarian governments by manipulating charter privileges, forming a theocratic model of governance in New England. It examines how the leaders and members of the Plymouth Company and Massachusetts Bay Company, as corporate bodies, established and nurtured a distinct form of governmental identity. By tracing the development of the Massachusetts Bay Company’s congregational theocratic governance through works such as Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation, the Winthrop Papers, as well as the Records of the Town of Plymouth and the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay New England, it shows how the joint stock corporation offered its members the legal and structural framework that would dogmatically police the religious behaviour of its members to secure and establish a godly republic.

Breathing the “Free Aire of the New World”: The Influence of the New England Way on the Gathering of Congregational Churches in Old England, 1640–1660

2010 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-46
Author(s):  
Ralph F. Young
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New World ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Church Polity

Puritans in England, although engaged in the struggle against Charles I and setting up the Commonwealth under Cromwell closely watched the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. In demonstrating how the New England Way of church polity influenced the rise of Congregationalism in England, Young details the transatlantic flow of ideas from colony to motherland.

Conflicts of Law: Reconsidering the Influence of Religion on Law in Massachusetts Bay

Numen ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Dale
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Legal System ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Single Point ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Governing System ◽  
Practical Effect ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Practical Impact

AbstractThe idea that there were different points of view in seventeenth century Massachusetts Bay is not a new one. Several recent studies have undermined Perry Miller's monolithic “Puritan Mind”—demonstrating there were many strands of thought even among the nominally orthodox, and suggesting that we think of the settlers in New England as members of a movement with many ideas, rather than holders of a single point of view.While the idea that there were divisions within the category of Puritan is not a new one, the extent to which that ideological pluralism had a practical impact on the Bay colony's institutions, from its families to its governing system, has not yet been explored. This paper is a preliminary effort to demonstrate how ideological pluralism led to different conceptions of law, and had a practical effect on the legal system developed in the first generation of settlement in Massachusetts Bay.

Building Bensalem at Massachusetts Bay: Francis Bacon and the Wisdom of Eden in Early Modern New England

2010 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-606
Author(s):  
Zachary Mcleod Hutchins
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Religious Leaders

Francis Bacon's influence on seventeenth-century New England has long passed unnoticed, but his plan for the restoration of prelapsarian intellectual perfections guided John Winthrop's initial colonization efforts, shaped New England's educational policies, and had an impact on civic and religious leaders from John Cotton to Jonathan Edwards.

Native Americans, Conversion, and Christian Practice in Colonial New England, 1640—1730

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linford D. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
New England ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Native Culture ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
The One ◽  
Christian Practices ◽  
Gospel Message ◽  
Over Time

Fortunately, the two travelers arrived before sunset. Earlier in the day, on 5 May 1674, John Eliot and Daniel Gookin had set out from Boston for Wamesit, the northernmost of the fourteen Indian “praying towns” within the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the one most subjected to retaliatory attacks from raiding bands of Mohawks in the previous few years. Upon safe arrival, the Englishmen greeted their Pennacook friends and gathered as many as they could at the wigwam of Wannalancet, the head sachem of Wamesit, where Eliot, the aging missionary to the Indians, proceeded to talk about the meaning of the parable of the marriage of the king's son in Matthew 22:1—4. Wannalancet, according to Gookin, was a “sober and grave person, and of years, between fifty and sixty”; he had from the beginning been “loving and friendly to the English,” and in return they had tried to encourage him to embrace Christianity. Although the English missionaries would have desired him to readily accept the gospel message they preached, Wannalancet voluntarily incorporated Christian practices slowly, over time, without necessarily repudiating his native culture and traditional religious practices.1 For four years Wannalancet “had been willing to hear the word of God preached”; when Eliot or other missionaries made their periodic visits to Wamesit, Wannalancet made sure he was there. Over time, Wannalancet adopted the English practices of keeping the Sabbath, learning to go to any available meeting or instruction, fellowshipping, and refraining from various activities proscribed by the town's praying leaders. Despite all that, however, the English missionaries still complained that he “hath stood off” since he had “not yielded up himself personally.”2

Distancing

2019 ◽  
pp. 116-160
Author(s):  
Lisa Blee ◽  
Jean M. O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Geographic Distance ◽  
Related Phenomenon ◽  
History Museum ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Plimoth Plantation

This chapter brings personal experience with history into focus by recounting interviews with passersby as they talk about Massasoit and what the statue means to them, and juxtaposing these accounts with the living history museum Plimoth Plantation and the Public Broadcasting Station "experiential history" series Colonial House. This chapter seeks to understand three related phenomenon: how people experience historical distance between the past and present; how people endeavour to close the distance through consuming history as experience; and the ways in which Native peoples force a reckoning with Indigenous perspectives in Plymouth-centered narratives. Massasoit statues outside of Plymouth offer the greatest cognitive and geographic distance, and therefore a "safe" way to wrestle with the discomfort involved in coming to terms with colonialism. But the place of Plymouth and presence of Native educators makes a difference for closing the distance. Since the first 1970 United American Indians of New England protests, viewers of Massasoit must engage more fully in the nation's history. Plimoth Plantation and Colonial House likewise work to close the distance between the past and present through personal experience. This chapter argues that Native educators and activists play a crucial role for closing the distance and pushing a reckoning with history.

“Two Suns in One Firmament”: John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and the 1655 New Haven Sodomy Statute

2018 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 1003-1028
Author(s):  
Sandra Slater
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
The Other ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Sexual Activities ◽  
Legal Code ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Stark Contrast

This piece explores the origins of the anomalous 1655 New Haven statute against sodomy that broke with legal traditions and codes both in England and New England. A lengthy and extraordinarily specific piece of legislation, the New Haven law stands in stark contrast to the minimalist language favored by the English in the early seventeenth century. When viewed within the larger context of clerical animosities, particularly between Thomas Hooker and John Cotton, there is a strong circumstantial case to make for its implementation as an extension of John Cotton's rejected Massachusetts Bay legal code,Moses His Judicials, applied by his friend and admirer John Davenport in New Haven. A devout disciple of John Cotton, John Davenport's New Haven colony relied on Cotton's influence and stood as a rebuke to Thomas Hooker's Connecticut settlements, often criticized as too spiritually lax by those in Massachusetts Bay and New Haven. While seeking to demonstrate greater piety and rigidity, John Cotton and Thomas Hooker sought to exert dominance over the other, with Cotton employing Davenport's colony as an effective castigation of Hooker's perceived liberality. This piece is reflective of trends in studies of sexuality which suggest that ideas and identities related to sexuality do not operate in isolation, but often mirror anxieties not necessarily connected to the regulation of sexual activities. This article situates the 1655 Sodomy Statue within a broader context in order to understand its origins and animosities that potentially motivated its inclusion into the New Haven legal statutes.

The Village District in New Hampshire

1946 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 962-965
Author(s):  
Lashley G. Harvey
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
The State ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Outward Appearance ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
State Tax ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Town ◽  
Railroad Station

Although legally buried since 1891, the “precinct” in New Hampshire, like Banquo's ghost, continually arises to baffle students of New England local government. To the lawmakers, it is known as the village district; while in its annual report the state tax commission lists village districts as precincts, only adding to the confusion.In making a count of governmental areas in New Hampshire, one finds the state divided into ten counties. Within these, there are eleven municipalities classed as cities and 224 towns. The cities were once towns, but have been incorporated as cities by the legislature, not in accordance with a population prerequisite, but upon application. The first city to be incorporated was Manchester in 1846.All New Hampshire cities and towns include within their limits a great deal of rural land. Clusters of houses or settlements are sprinkled over these areas. Frequently, a settlement has several stores, a post office, and a railroad station and has the outward appearance of a village. Legally, however, such a settlement is not a village. It is administered entirely as a part of the town or city in which it is located, although it may be several miles from the principal urban center. New Hampshire has 639 such settlements, none of which is incorporated. Villages are not incorporated in New Hampshire as they are in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine. Frequently they are referred to as places, but they should not be confused with the 23 so-called “unincorporated places” (found principally in the White Mountains), which are administered by the county and state governments almost completely. However, there are a few of the “villagelike” settlements within unincorporated places.

Letters from New England: The Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1629-1638

1977 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 556
Author(s):  
Darrett B. Rutman ◽  
Everett Emerson
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony
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