Massachusetts Bay Colony: Encyclopedia II - Massachusetts Bay Colony - Previous nearby settlements

Massachusetts Bay Colony - Previous nearby settlements

Given the overlapping land patents that various colonial groups obtained from English kings and companies, and later consolidation of territory into the Thirteen Colonies, several pre-existing groups would later become directly involved in the history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Virginia Company of Plymouth was granted land from the 38th parallel to the 45th as part of the Virginia Charter in 1606. The only settlement, the Popham Colony (at the mouth of the Kennebec River in present-day Maine) was abandoned 1608. Land south of the 41st parallel (south of about Long Island Sound) was awarded to the sister Virginia Company of London, which had previously held joint claim to this territory.

In 1620, the territory of defunct "Plymouth Company" was reorganized under the Plymouth Council for New England. King James I granted a charter for all the lands in America between 40° North and 48° N, "throughout the Maine Land from Sea to Sea." This included everything from the middle of present-day New Jersey in the south to present-day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the north.

Later in 1620, a group of Puritan separatist settlers now referred to as the Pilgrims (who sailed from England on the Mayflower) independently founded the Plymouth Colony on land owned by the Plymouth Council. The first settlement of the colony is now the site of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The writing of the Mayflower Compact and the founding of the Plymouth Colony are taught in the United States as seminal events in the history of the nation. But it was the Massachusetts Bay Colony and its successors in the Boston area which would come to dominate the New England region in population and economic strength. And it was Massachusetts Bay that would give its name to the Province of Massachusetts when it absorbed Plymouth and other neighboring colonies in 1691-2.

The Province of Maine was granted a royal patent in 1622, which included the coast from the Merrimac River (which is slightly south of the current Massachusetts-New Hampshire border) to the Kennebec River (in the middle of the coast of present-day Maine).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Previous nearby settlements", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki