The document summarizes the founding and growth of the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Puritans in the early 1600s. It details how John Smith surveyed the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine in 1614. Many Puritans fled religious persecution in England and settled in Holland but later moved to North America on the Mayflower in 1620, signing the Mayflower Compact which established a governing authority. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1628, attracting over 20,000 migrants led by John Winthrop who envisioned the colony as a "city upon a hill" with God's favor and exceptional among others. The colony grew through additional settlements founded from Plymouth.

1. A SURVEY OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
Unit 1: Colonialism and Nationhood
Part 5: The Massachusetts Bay Colony

2. JOHN SMITH: A RETURN TO NORTH AMERICA
John Smith returned
home to England after
he left Jamestown in
1609. But in 1614, he
made another voyage
to North America.
Smith surveyed the
coasts of present-day
Massachusetts and
Maine, and gave the
name New Plymouth to
a spot on the southern
tip of Cape Cod.

3. A PURITAN EXODUS
FROM ENGLAND
• In the early 1600s, a group of
English Protestants known as the
Puritans experienced what they
saw as religious persecution.
• The Church of England is a
Protestant institution that
receives official support from the
English Government. It separated
from the Roman Catholic Church
in 1534 and the Puritans wanted
it to be purged of all remaining
traces of Catholicism.
• When King James I did not agree
to the Puritans’ demands, many
of them decided to separate from
the church by leaving England.

4. WHAT DID THE
PURITANS BELIEVE?
• The Bible should be interpreted
and followed literally.
• Human beings are corrupt and
wicked and must therefore
work for the glory of God in
order to receive salvation.
• Physical or worldly pleasure is a
distraction from glorifying God.
• These sorts of distractions are
the work of the Devil, so that
anyone who offers them to you
is one of the Devil’s servants.
Non-believers are ‘heathen’ and
thus also serve the Devil.

5. WHAT DID THE
PURITANS BELIEVE?
• Women should be subservient
to men in all respects of life.
• Men should be subservient to
their elders, particularly elders
in positions of church authority.
• There should be no distinction
between, or separation of, the
church and the government.
• The first Puritans left England to
settle anew in Holland, but the
difficulties they faced there
caused them to try again in
North America. They left aboard
a ship called the Mayflower.

6. THE MAYFLOWER
COMPACT (1620)
• Established a Puritanical
governing authority for the
Plymouth settlement.
• Established this governing
authority by majoritarian
approval, by an affirmative vote
of a majority of all those
deemed eligible to vote, without
any input from King James I.
• Signed by forty-one of the 101
passengers on the Mayflower.
• Gave the governing authority a
way to ensure the peace and
stability of the settlement.

7. THE GROWTH OF THE
PLYMOUTH COLONY
A colony usually grows from several scattered
settlements. Other settlements in the Plymouth
Colony were founded by those who left
Plymouth itself to settle elsewhere in the area.

8. THE MASSACHUSETTS
BAY COLONY (1628)
Founded by the Massachusetts Bay Company in
1628, this Puritan colony was centered around
the ports of Salem and Boston. It attracted about
20,000 migrants to America over the next decade.

9. JOHN WINTHROP: MINISTER AND GOVERNOR
“We shall be
as a city
upon a hill.
The eyes of
all people are
upon us.”
One of the founders of
the Massachusetts Bay
Company, the lawyer
John Winthrop led
waves of migrants to
the colony from 1630.
He was an authoritarian
figure who governed
the colony for most of
its first twenty years.

10. “We shall be
as a city
upon a hill.
The eyes of
all people are
upon us.”
In his famous sermon
‘A Model of Christian
Charity,’ quoted above,
Winthrop laid out a
vision of America as a
blessed land whose
people were favored by
God and were therefore
special, exceptional, in
comparison to others.
JOHN WINTHROP: MINISTER AND GOVERNOR

11. A SURVEY OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
Unit 1: Colonialism and Nationhood
Part 5: The Massachusetts Bay Colony