Religion and Governance in England’s Emerging Colonial Empire, 1601–1698

Abstract

Abstract: This chapter examines the development of a different form of corporate religious governance in the Atlantic in the years after the Jamestown massacre. It focuses on the denominational identity of its members and how this influenced the direction and formation of a theocratic model of governance that the company would adopt. This chapter illustrates how the leaders of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay companies, such as William Bradford, John Endicott and John Winthrop, established authoritarian governments by manipulating charter privileges, forming a theocratic model of governance in New England. It examines how the leaders and members of the Plymouth Company and Massachusetts Bay Company, as corporate bodies, established and nurtured a distinct form of governmental identity. By tracing the development of the Massachusetts Bay Company’s congregational theocratic governance through works such as Bradford’s