Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company

History[edit]

After the failure of the Dorchester Company in founding a settlement on Cape Ann, the settlers and shareholders of the company wished to form another colonial settlement, this time further south.^[2]


The colony was to be settled between the Charles River and the Merrimack River in New England. The Massachusetts Bay Company, like other colonial joint-stock companies, was to be a corporate entity as well as a governmental one. The first settlers of the colony were Puritans who sought to create a society based on their religious beliefs unfettered from the Royal Anglican government of the Kingdom of England. The settlers were to be shareholders, with all those wishing to emigrate to New England required to buy shares. This agreement was formulated in Cambridge and came to be known as the Cambridge Agreement.^[3][4]


Unlike other colonial companies whose presiding members resided and met in England, the governors and other colonial officials moved to New England as well. The government consisted of a Governor, Deputy Governor, a council of assistants who would provide legal counsel and jurisprudence, and a General Court of delegates elected from each town.^[5][6]


Voting rights in the colony were to be for only men of the Puritan church. Once settled in what is now Boston, the delegates formed a quasi-democratic and theocratic state based on the Laws of Moses.^[7]


The charter served as the constitution of the colony. It was revoked by an English court in 1684, but continued to serve as a de facto constitution until the creation of the Dominion of New England in 1686. Following the 1689 Boston revolt and collapse of the dominion, it again served as the governing document until the issuance of the royal charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692.