Page 23 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Boston

THE HIST OR Y OF BOST ON  21

communities along the Massachusetts Bay. Seeds of Rebellion
The vast majority, however, followed John The British had passed the Navigation
Winthrop, their newly appointed governor, Acts to encourage the colonists to trade
to the mouth of the Charles River. Across only with them, but when the colonists
the river lived a recluse, an Anglican refused to obey, Charles II withdrew the
clergyman, William Blackstone. Massachusetts Bay Charter in
He learned that disease was 1684, putting the colony under
rampant among the Puritans the control of the king. His
due to the scarcity of fresh successor James II appointed
drinking water, and invited Sir Edmund Andros as royal
them to move their governor. After James II lost
settlement over the river. power, the colonists arrested
Winthrop and his followers their governor and in 1689
were quick to accept. They established their own
first called this new land Mary Dyer with other condemned Quakers, government. But in 1691
Trimountain, but soon before being hanged in 1660 William and Mary granted
renamed it Boston after a new charter to the
the town in England they had left behind. Massachusetts Colony, combining the
In 1635 they established the Boston Latin Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies
School, the first public school in the British and recognizing a bicameral legislature.
colonies. A year later the Puritans founded a Later, the British and French started a long
university, named subsequently after John series of battles over New World territory.
Harvard, who had bequeathed it his library. France finally ceded control of Canada and
Although the Puritans had come to the American West, but the cost of war
Massachusetts in pursuit of religious had taken its toll on the British, and the
freedom, they often proved intolerant of colonists were asked to pay their share in
others. Anne Hutchinson was driven out of taxes. The seeds of rebellion were sown.
Boston in 1638 for not conforming to the
Puritan tradition. Many Quakers were also
beaten, fined, or banished. The Quaker
preacher Mary Dyer was hanged for
religious unorthodoxy on June 1, 1660 on
Boston Common. In 1692 after several girls
in the town of Salem accused three women
of witchcraft, mass hysteria broke out
throughout Massachusetts, and many
innocents were tried, and hanged. No
one felt safe until Governor William Phips
put an end to the trials in 1693. Painting of the commercial port of Boston in about 1730

Execution for witchcraft
1691 William and Mary grant new at Salem in 1692 1763 France cedes control
charter to Massachusetts Colony of Canada and the West
1670 1690 1710 1730 1750
1692 Women in Salem
accused of witchcraft 1754 French and Indian
War between the French
1689 Colonists oust Governor Andros and the British begins

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