Puritanism and the Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief history of the Puritan society established in Massachusetts Bay Colony during the seventeenth century. Its founder, John Winthrop, wanted to develop the Colony as a model Christian society—a theocracy that was deeply rooted in the Calvinist religious doctrine of predestination and whose franchise was limited to Puritan church members. The communities comprising the Colony were like many other colonial American communities in that they each were populated by people who sought to act as a single “body” where each person worked and lived for the sole purpose of the community’s survival. The Puritan church, however, was not without strife during the late 1600s, instead having to deal with problems arising in areas such as Salem Village, where citizens vehemently disagreed over the choice of Samuel Parris as its local minister. These disagreements set the stage for the witchcraft hysteria that began in 1691.