Massachusetts Bay Colony

About Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (sometimes called the Massachusetts Bay Company, for the institution that founded it) was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, centered around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The area is now in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 United States.

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 1607. 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.