Sir William Phips arrived in 1692 bearing the charter and formally took charge of the new province, when the colony, beginning in Salem Village, was coming to grips with the witch trials crises.

[5] This number was significantly larger as late as 1616; in later years, contemporaneous chroniclers interviewed Indigenous people who described a major pestilence which killed as many as two-thirds of the population.

[9] The Plymouth Company under the guidance of Sir Ferdinando Gorges covered the more northern area, including New England, and established the Sagadahoc Colony in 1607 in Maine.

An effort by Robert Gorges to establish an overarching civil and religious colonial structure for New England based in the same location likewise failed and most of the settlers left.

[23] Archbishop William Laud was a favorite advisor of King Charles I and a dedicated Anglican, and he sought to suppress the religious practices of Puritans and other nonconforming beliefs in England.

It was not apparent whether Charles knew that the company was meant to support the Puritan emigration, and he was likely left to assume that it was purely for business purposes, as was the custom.

This independence helped the settlers to maintain their Puritan religious practices without interference from the king, Archbishop Laud, or the Anglican Church of England.

[36] Many ministers reacted to the repressive religious policies of England, making the trip with their congregations, among whom were John Cotton, Roger Williams, Thomas Hooker, and others.

Minister John Wheelwright was banished after the Antinomian controversy (like Anne Hutchinson), and he moved north to found Exeter, New Hampshire.

Massachusetts authorities were sympathetic to the Parliamentary cause and had generally positive relationships with the governments of the English Commonwealth and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.

[37] English colonists took control of New Netherland in 1664, and the crown sent royal commissioners to New England from the new Province of New York to investigate the status of the government and legal system of the colonies.

However, chief among the colonists' transgressions were the coining of money (the pine tree shilling) and their violations of the Navigation Acts, which had been passed by Parliament to regulate trade within the English colonial empire.

This infuriated many English merchants, commercial societies, and Royal committees who petitioned the King for action, claiming that the New England colonists were hurting their trade.

The moderate faction of the General Court was supportive of Randolph and the changes that the crown wished to make, but the conservatives remained too powerful and blocked any attempt to side with England.

The two options were to immediately submit to royal authority and dismantle their government or to wait for the crown to revoke their charter and install a new governmental system.

The dominion was governed by Sir Edmund Andros without any local representation beyond his own hand-picked councillors, and it was extremely unpopular throughout New England.

Massachusetts authorities arrested Andros in April 1689 after the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England, and they re-established government under the forms of the vacated charter.

Many colonists lived in fairly crude structures, including dugouts, wigwams, and dirt-floor huts made using wattle and daub construction.

[46] Wealthier individuals would extend their house by adding a lean-to on the back, which allowed a larger kitchen (possibly with a brick or stone chimney including an oven), additional rooms, and a sleeping loft.

[51] A town center that was well laid out would be fairly compact, with a tavern, school, possibly some small shops, and a meeting house that was used for civic and religious functions.

[63] Dudley was elected governor in 1634, and the general court reserved a large number of powers for itself, including those of taxation, distribution of land, and the admission of freemen.

[66] The King and the British government held enough power in Massachusetts Bay in the 1630s that Puritans and others were afraid of being sent home if they got word of unorthodox beliefs such as what Roger Williams expounded.

[70] These laws formed the nucleus of colonial legislation until independence and contained some provisions later incorporated into the United States Constitution, such as the ideas of equal protection and double jeopardy.

Conversely, there were laws which reflected attitudes that are still endorsed by popular sensibilities in the 21st century US, against things such as smoking tobacco, abusing one's mother-in-law, profane dancing, and pulling hair.

She was hanged in 1638 for murdering her daughter, as the common law of Massachusetts made no distinction at the time between insanity or mental illness and criminal behavior.

[95] The trades of shoe-making and coopering (barrel-making) were authorized to form guilds, making it possible to set price, quality, and expertise levels for their work.

Many of the colonists came from the county of Lincolnshire and East Anglia, northeast of London, and a large group also came from Devon, Somerset, and Dorset in the southwest of England.

[99] The pattern of migration often centered around specific Nonconformist clergy who sought to leave England under threat from Archbishop Laud, who encouraged their flock to accompany them.

Some Indians captured in the Pequot War were enslaved, with those posing the greatest threat being transported to the West Indies and exchanged for goods and slaves.

[121] The most significant exception was the eastern boundary with Rhode Island, which required extensive litigation, including Supreme Court rulings, before it was finally resolved in 1862.