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'I Hear that God Saith Work': Wunnampuhtogig and Puritans Laboring for Grace in Massachusetts, 1643-1653," details how beliefs about life after death transformed, and were transformed by, labor practices for both wunnampuhtogig ("praying Indians") and English colonizers as they navigated the fraught terrain of seventeenth-century colonial encounters. This article argues that beliefs about the afterlife and those about labor were mutually constitutive, building distinctive and sometimes paradoxical worldviews for wunnampuhtogig and English alike. Traumas wrought by virulent epidemics among Eastern Algonquian polities catalyzed reassessment of eschatology and labor practices, the two variables appearing profoundly intermeshed in the conversion narratives spoken in Wôpanâak by wunnampuhtogig and translated for English readers across the Atlantic. Epistemological emphasis on the confluence of labor and cosmology was not a foreign imposition, but an engrained element of Eastern Algonquian cultural histories. Labor and eschatology converged in English evangelists' rhetoric in ways that both reinforced and strained key tenets of Puritan covenantal theology, pointing toward scriptural tensions that preoccupied colonial evangelists. This article examines how religious beliefs about death and afterlives organized, inflected, and recast the labor performed by Indigenous and settler communities in Massachusetts throughout the mid-seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1758 and 1769, Anglo‐American artist John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) produced three paintings of members of the Royall family, who had more people in bondage than any other family in colonial Massachusetts. Placing these works at the crux of period discourses about the body in the Anglophone world, this essay explores the function and popularity of portraiture in mid‐eighteenth‐century New England. Specifically, it analyses Copley's techniques for depicting flesh and reads them in relation to nascent formulations of race, arguing that the artist's portraits helped construct whiteness as a perspicacious state and a biological inheritance. They located sensorial capacity in the white body; visualized its transmission across generations; and, thereby, attempted to mitigate the sitters' anxieties about their tenuous place in the racial imaginary. Long understood to mediate the ambivalent relationship between Britain and its American colonies, Copley's portraits emerge here as actors in the distinctly circum‐Atlantic networks that united these regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the role played by Thomas Hutchinson, a businessman, historian, royal governor of Massachusetts, in promoting the loyalist viewpoint before the U.S. Revolution. Topics discussed include personalities included in his list of instigators of discontent including James Otis Jr. and Samuel Adams, a background of Hutchinson's conflict with his antagonists, and his efforts to disclose the wickedness in the Patriot cause.

Slaveholders in colonial Massachusetts sold, traded, purchased, and employed black women on a regular basis throughout much of the eighteenth century, a fact that is evinced in scores of newspaper advertisements. Through exploring the experiences of enslaved women as workers in colonial Massachusetts, I highlight black women's value as productive laborers, thereby complicating our understanding of enslaved women as so-called drudges and menials. While the experiences of enslaved women in Massachusetts diverged from those of enslaved women working in plantation colonies, enslaved women throughout the colonies shared the condition of unremunerated, lifelong servitude. Exploring these differences yields a deeper, more nuanced, and complex portrait of slavery in the North American colonies and complicates ideas of northern slavery as being gentler and more benign than its southern and Caribbean plantation counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the origins of the 1862 Homestead Act signed by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, which opened up much of the Western U.S. to free settlement. The author traces these origins to the 1839 Anti-Rent movement of New York State tenant farmers, which was opposed by plantation owners in the Southern States. He also traces the demand for free land back to the colonial era, noting boundary disputes between Colonial New York and the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The article explores the New England turpentine trade at the turn of the 18th century. Noted are issues relating to empire, economic markets and the colonial landscape. Other topics discussed include an incidence of violence that took place in 1708 over turpentine at the border between Connecticut and Massachusetts, how New England was a major producer of turpentine, which is distilled from the resin of live trees, and the ecological impact of these activities.

The article focuses on the resistance petition campaigns of 1664 and 1665 in the Massachusetts Bay colony and how it exhibits the history of political activism. The author discusses constitutionalism, explains the relations between the American colonies and British king Charles II during this time, and examines the influence of the English Restoration.

In 1690 the government of Massachusetts created the first paper money in the Western world to pay for the unsuccessful invasion of Canada at the opening of King William's War. So-called bills of public credit were based on radical ideas about money and value that had emerged in England during the Commonwealth and spread to the colonies shortly thereafter, where they were widely implemented in the first half of the eighteenth century. Far from being a neutral medium, paper money was inseparable from colonial politics; its value came from public faith in provincial legislatures to accept the money as payment for taxes. Moreover, it expressed the legislative prerogative to make war, define markets, and, with the establishment of the first public land banks in the 1710s, stimulate commerce. This essay explores the origins of paper money in early America and argues that it became the basis of a colonial political economic order founded on the legislative authority to make such money as well as a notion of value that tied local monetary worth to a colony's collective political and economic future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the loyalist essay "Massachusettensis," by Daniel Leonard, which was responded to through the patriot writing "Novanglus," by John Adams. Particular focus is given to how the writings relate to issues of identity, patriot resistance and colonial autonomy during and around the Revolutionary War in New England. Additional topics discussed include the interpersonal dimension of political discourse, social and political conditions in Boston, Massachusetts, before 1800 and charts and timelines interpreting the events of 1775.

Using the theory of a communications circuit for books and publishing forwarded by historian Robert Darnton, the article considers the history of seventeenth-century London, England bookseller John Dunton. He traveled to New England between 1685-1686, operated bookstores in both Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, established relationships with people including Puritan minister Cotton Mather and New England reader Sarah Griggs Kidder, and wrote "A Summer’s Ramble" about his travels.

The article considers inscriptions in the history of printing and books, focusing particularly on colonial American accounts of the Native American rock inscription now known as Dighton Rock, located in present-day Berkley, Massachusetts, which is referred to in the 1690 thanksgiving sermon "The Wonderful Works of God Commemorated" by Cotton Mather. Other topics include material texts, print culture, and relations between Native Americans and European settlers in New England.

The article considers the change in the meanings of edition, impression, and reprint, which were considered interchangeable prior to 1850 in the printing industry in the U.S. It compares two versions, printed in 1644 and 1692, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony text "A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Antinomians," attributed variously to Governor John Winthrop, Roxbury minister Thomas Weld, and others it presents an account of the Antinomian Controversy, a public political-theological debate between 1636 to 1638.

The article focuses on the origins and formation of the United Colonies of New England between 1630 and 1643. Topics include the expansion of Puritans beyond Massachusetts Bay and their desire to form a commonwealth, the role of Massachusetts governor John Winthrop, and the role of Connecticut minister Thomas Hooker.

A case study is provided on the impact that slavery and gender had on African American families in New England during the colonial period, including through referencing a slave family that lived in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts. An overview of the role that patriarchy played in the emancipation of slaves, including the freeing of male slaves more often than women, is provided. The division of power within slave families is discussed.

The Monhantic Fort site is a Mashantucket Pequot fortified village occupied during King Philip’s War (1675-1677). Archaeological investigations resulted in the recovery of over 900 pieces of European flint (English and continental European) derived from ballast cobbles, believed to be primarily associated with the wartime production of gunflints. The majority of the gunflints are bifacial (86%), indicating a process of manufacture distinct from contemporaneous English manufacture. While many lithic tools had been replaced with European metal tools by this time, the flint assemblage also contains a number of objects indicating use of lithic tools in domestic contexts. Spatial analysis of the flint assemblage in the context of domestic and nondomestic spaces indicates individual production of gunflints and tools, rather than specialized production confined to a single workshop area by a limited number of individuals. Comparison of the flint assemblage at Monhantic Fort with a contemporaneous domestic site at Mashantucket and the Aptucxet Trading Post in Bourne, Massachusetts, supports the contention that the fort assemblage was the result of the wartime production of gunflints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented concerning the significance of religious identities in diplomatic efforts between New France and Massachusetts during and following the Acadian Civil War in the mid-17th century. It examines a dispute between French governors Charles de Menou d'Aulnay and Charles de Saint-Etienne de la Tour, religious arguments in diplomatic negotiations with Massachusetts, and public opinion in Massachusetts regarding concern among Puritans over the possible advancement of Catholicism.

Early eighteenth-century Boston experienced significant population and economic growth as it became fully integrated into Atlantic trade and credit networks. Shipbuilding boomed, and the hundreds of vessels entering the port each year required provisions, supplies, and repairs. Building and outfitting vessels generated well-paying jobs for maritime specialists and laborers. Merchants, however, had no desire to spend scarce silver or gold to pay waterfront tradesmen. Instead, they formed long-term credit arrangements through complex bookkeeping practices that moved food, goods, labor, and debts among multiple parties. They also attempted to protect this system during periods of crisis and strategically employed waterfront tradesmen to build or work on vessels for foreign partners as part of their wider Atlantic ambitions. This article places building and outfitting ships at the center of everyday interactions in colonial Boston and broadens our understanding of credit arrangements, commodity exchange, and capital formation in the Atlantic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay discusses the c. 1709-1716 devotional journal of eighteenth-century mother Lydia Prout of Boston, Massachusetts, found in the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. It details her personal thoughts on god and religion. Topics include her own health, as well as the birth, health, and death of her children. A transcription of the journal is also provided.

The article presents the early 18th century document "Important Points, relating to the Education at Harvard-Colledge; needful to be enquired into, præpared and humbly offered, by Some who have newly pass'd thro' the first four years of their being there" by pastor and Harvard College president Cotton Mather. Also presented are a 1707 letter from Mather to government official William Denison and the 1718 document "Directions for a Son going to the Colledge" from Mather to his son Samuel Mather.

This article contends that slaves were able to successfully appropriate Christian institutions to decode the Euro-American world they arrived in and resist the dehumanization associated with African slavery in the Americas. Looking beyond religiosity, eschewing the teleological obsession with freedom that obfuscates our understanding of slavery, and using Boston—an Atlantic port city full of churches and slaves—as a case study, we are able to see how enslaved Africans were able to use what they learned in Boston's churches, including the ability to read and write and a powerful Christian vocabulary, in order to meet the master class and other whites on their own terms and challenge the boundaries of slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spring of 1727 members of Christ Church in Boston's North End received word that British logwood merchants residing along the Bay of Honduras intended to contribute over one hundred tons of costly dyewood to the newly constructed church. Although their settlements on the periphery of the Spanish American empire were not official English colonies, and they traded with all nations, British logwood cutters--known as Baymen--maintained strong ties to the British Empire, and this gift embedded them in the inner workings of Christ Church. This act of patronage by a small group of logwood merchants enhanced the Baymen's collective commercial reputation and provided an example of benevolence worthy of emulation, marking them as participants in a trans-Atlantic network of Anglicans who financially supported needy New England churches. As a gesture of thanks, the church furnished a prominently located double pew for these merchants' exclusive use. The Bay-men's pew was a fixture at Christ Church for over thirty years, during which time church vestrymen actively solicited and procured logwood from the Bay of Honduras, and Baymen participated in religious life and governance at Christ Church. This article places the story of the Baymen's pew and larger trade in logwood within the imperial rivalries and voluntary associations of religion and commerce that characterized the mid-eighteenth-century Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Indian psalmody in Massachusetts Bay Colony, focusing on the years 1651 to 1675. It considers colonial sources that documented Indians singing psalms in 1651 in Natick, in 1674 in Wabquissit, and in 1675 in Brookfield. The author reflects on Puritan-Indian relations, particularly focusing on the Massachusett and Nipmuck Indians. She considers Indian translations of psalms, the role of missionary John Eliot, and the establishment of praying towns, or villages designed to encourage Christian lifestyles among Indian converts.

An essay on Puritan minister Reverend Cotton Mather's views concerning seafarers and his relations with the seafaring community of Boston, Massachusetts is presented. It examines Mather's views on what he saw as sailors' irreligiousness and immorality and his attempts to proselytize to them. The author comments on privateering and piracy, noting on the arrest of pirate Captain William Kidd in Boston in 1699. Mather's son Increase Mather, a ship captain, is also considered.

A literary criticism of the book "History of New England" by John Winthrop is presented. Particular focus is given to Winthrop's depiction of light apparitions in the text. According to the author, Winthrop's descriptions of these phenomena emphasize the importance of controversy in the shaping of the Massachusetts Bay colony as a social and religious community. Puritan literary and intellectual culture is also discussed.

This cultural biography traces the multiple meanings of a large parcel of land in colonial Dunstable, Massachusetts, for members of the Tyng family between the late 17th and the end of the 18th centuries by examining the representation of the land in the documentary record of deeds and probate documents. The land and the deeds employed to transform new territory into a bounded and saleable item were artifacts used in the definition of the Tyngs' ethnicity (Anglo-American), particularly in the context of 17th-century interactions with the Native Americans. The land was also tied to the expression of independent masculinity and the ability to provide a competence for sons. The role that the land played in the construction of their identities, however, could never be reduced to simply one of these factors since both land ownership and the idea of Englishness and masculinity were tied to concepts of status, family hierarchy, and profession. Finally, an analysis Sarah Tyng's land transactions at the end of the 18th century demonstrates the ways in which women could also use land to make statements of power and about lineage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which compares the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord on the eve of the U.S. Revolutionary War. It comments on the reasons behind the factions and local animosities that formed in Concord. The author examines Lexington and Concord as farm towns and considers religious, political, ideological, social, and demographic factors.

The article looks at the life and works of Samuel Kneeland, leading bookseller, printer, and publisher in colonial U.S. It states that he started his print business in 1718 and started the "New-England Weekly Journal" on March 20, 1727. It notes that his firm produced a wide array of publications for over twenty years. It mentions that by the time he retired, he could boast nine hundred imprints with his name.

A reprint of the manuscript "Relation of the Pequot Warres," by English New World settler and soldier Lion Gardiner, which has been published in various editions throughout history, is presented. The work deals with the Pequot War, which pitted English settlers in the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies against the Pequot Indians, and its aftermath. Gardiner also details his experiences as an engineer constructing fortifications in the colonies.

This article considers the larger material and political contexts of the 1636 murder of John Oldham aboard his boat by Narragansett-allied Indians, an event that was one of the causes of the 1636-38 Pequot War. Oldham's slaying illustrates how the contested region between New England and New Netherland was a "saltwater frontier" where the primary arena of cross-cultural exchange was the coastline and its nearshore waters, not the land. Natives and colonists relied on each other's maritime technologies and knowledge. At the same time the tricky logistics of their encounters made this zone uniquely perilous. Oldham's Indian killers were also motivated by an intense trade rivalry between Native powers. A series of events caused them to harbor suspicions of Oldham and inspired them to commit small-scale piracy during his murder. The article concludes that the ensuing Pequot War should be seen as a naval war that turned into terrestrial war, reflecting the English desire to shift the frontier off the water and onto dry land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the views of Puritan minister Cotton Mather on smallpox inoculations, noting his support for inoculations during the 1721 smallpox epidemic in Boston, Massachusetts. Several of Mather's writings are considered, including his diary entries and his books "The Angel of Bethesda" and "Philosophical Transactions." The author explores Puritan conceptions of divine intervention and disease as punishment. Mather's thoughts on the relationship between sin and illness are also explored.

In 1686 the leadership of Massachusetts became involved in the first operational bank scheme in America. In 1688 this note-issuing bank was mysteriously aborted at an advanced stage. I suggest a new, simple explanation for the bank's demise. The bank's notes were supposed to be backed mostly by private land in Massachusetts, but a new royal governor invalidated all the land titles. This episode demonstrates the importance of clearly defined and enforced property rights for the development of financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The essay examines the ways in which the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, an image of which is provided, represented the relationship between Native Americans and English colonial settlers. More specifically, the author explains how the seal functioned to reinforce settlers' notions of cultural identity. The author documents the experiences of the Anglicized Nipmuck typesetter James Printer.

This work of poetry, non-fiction, and historical source material deals with the gathering of the first 'Praying Indian' congregation at Natick, Massachusetts Bay colony, in 1654. The Reverend John Eliot and one of his Native American translators, possibly John Sassamon, helped guide the Praying Indians through their professions of saving grace, a puritan requirement for full church membership. Before the formal gathering, Eliot's translator and two other Native Americans got drunk and forcefully inebriated the eleven-year-old son of a sachem. This event nearly derailed the church gathering. Most of the events depicted here, and a good part of Eliot's narrative, are a matter of historical record; the rest has grown, through language, momentum, and human logic, from that historical record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Entering the Lists" traces the relationship between printing and coercion that underlay the consolidation and maintenance of Revolutionary-era "patriotism." Focused on a set of related ephemeral texts produced in eastern Massachusetts in the spring and summer of 1774, the essay models an approach to the world of printed material that does not assign it automatically to the Habermasian categories of "abstraction," "impersonality," or dispassionate critique. In so doing, it provides a counterpoint to long-held narratives of the natural flowering of American liberalism and the remarkable spontaneity of the American Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a historical overview of indentured servitude in the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Boston, Massachusetts during the colonial period of U.S. history and examines how the differences in the political economies of each city were shaped by social and labor structures. It explores how both black and white immigrant laborers were impacted by severe labor restrictions due to the Puritan heritage in Massachusetts and discusses how this differed from the free markets experienced in Pennsylvania due to their Quaker legacy. It also presents a discussion of the reasons why printing apprentice Benjamin Franklin fled from Boston to Philadelphia in an effort to experience more social mobility.

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Transformations in Puritan ideas about God's rule in the world, or Providence, spurred the reception of formal economic theories in New England from 1680 through the 1720s. English political economists such as William Petty and Charles Davenant critiqued customary notions of money and credit as they promoted England's competition with European powers. New Englanders turned to these thinkers to inform provincial monetary policy. They imported political economy through serial accounts of parliamentary debates about the Bank of England, the South Sea Bubble, and trade policies, as well as through merchant handbooks and literary accounts of merchants. Religious convictions informed this receptivity. Boston clergy such as Cotton Mather and civic leaders such as Samuel Sewall understood the British Empire to be a bulwark against Catholic hegemony. Taking the works of Petty and Davenant to be descriptions of an economic order that abetted Protestant empire, they reshaped Puritan moral convictions. Once hostile to treating credit as a commodity and money as a fungible good, they embraced the latest techniques for exchanging credit and abandoned prohibitions against usury. In this sense, changes in Puritan theology were integral to the development of a market culture in provincial New England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 1644 tract written by Massachusetts minister Thomas Weld which attacked religious dissidents and Antinomians Mary Dyer and Anne Hutchinson. The criticisms were published following the trials of Hutchinson and Dyer in what became known as the Antinomian Controversy of 1636-1638 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Both women had suffered miscarriages after being jailed and put on trial and leading members of the Boston Church reported that the fetuses where monstrously distorted, a superstitious view vindicating their persecution of the Antinomians.