"[1] The records of the New England Company, now held at London Metropolitan Archives, tell the history of colonial America and its Indigenous peoples.

[2] It was founded by the Act for the promoting and propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England, passed by Oliver Cromwell's Parliament on 27 July 1649.

That charter provided for the promotion and propagation of "the Gospel of Christ unto and amongst the heathen natives in or near New England and parts adjacent in America".

Due to the independence of the United States from Great Britain, after 1786 the Society continued to operate only in Canada and the British West Indies.

The Society supported the early efforts of John Eliot in Massachusetts, culminating in the first printed translation of the Christian Bible into a Native American language.