1631, 1635
1631. At this time Massachusetts had a population of about 15,000. To all New England 21,200 emigrants came between 1628 and 1643, the total White population at the latter date being about 24,000. So early as 1631 this colony decreed to admit none as freemen who were not also church members. Thus Church and State were made one, the government a theocracy. The Massachusetts settlers, though in many things less extreme than the Pilgrims, were decided Puritans, sincere but formal, precise, narrow, and very superstitious. They did not, however, on coming hither, affect or wish to separate from the Church of England, earnestly as they deprecated retaining the sign of the cross in baptism, the surplice, marriage with ring, and kneeling at communion. Yet soon they in effect became Separatists as well as Puritans, building independent churches, like those at Plymouth, and repudiating episcopacy utterly. 1635. Much as these Puritans professed and tried to exalt reason in certain matters,...