List of colonial governors of Massachusetts
The Dominion was extremely unpopular in the colonies, and it was disbanded when its royally appointed governor Sir Edmund Andros was arrested and sent back to England in the wake of the 1688 Glorious Revolution.
The Popham Colony was founded on the coast of Phippsburg, Maine in 1607 as a colonization attempt by the Virginia Company of Plymouth.
[2] The Plymouth Colony originated as a land grant issued by the London Virginia Company to a group of English separatist Puritans who had fled to Holland to avoid religious persecution.
Their migration to the New World in 1620 aboard the Mayflower was funded by the Merchant Adventurers, who sent additional settlers to engage in profit-making activities in the colony.
Instead of protecting the colony's autonomy, the charter incorporated Plymouth into the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which took effect in 1692 with the arrival of royal governor Sir William Phips.
[17][18] Some of his settlers remained in the area without formal governance, moving to occupy the Shawmut Peninsula (site of Boston, Massachusetts) among other places.
In that year, the company elected Matthew Cradock as its governor and received a grant from the Plymouth Council for New England for land roughly between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers.
The governorship was dominated by a small group of early settlers who sought to ensure that the vision of a Puritan settlement was maintained; Richard Bellingham, John Leverett, and Simon Bradstreet all served extended terms, in addition to Winthrop and Endecott, and Thomas Dudley served 4 1-year terms.
[25] The colony's governance and religious attitudes came under greater scrutiny following the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, which led to the revocation of its charter in 1684.
[26][27] King James II then established the Dominion of New England, an appointed regime which was strongly against the will of the American colonists.
[28] It took effect in 1686 and lasted until 1689, when the Glorious Revolution toppled James, and colonists in Massachusetts immediately arrested the Dominion's governor Sir Edmund Andros.
[30] In 1691, King William III merged the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay along with the territory of Maine, the islands south of Cape Cod (including Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands), and Nova Scotia (which included New Brunswick) to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
[38] After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed James, Massachusetts political operatives arrested Andros and shipped him back to England.
[39][40] All of the affected colonies reverted to their previous forms of rule, although Massachusetts did so without constitutional authority because its charter had been revoked.
[10] The government did not formally begin operating until royally appointed governor Sir William Phips arrived in 1692.
