Puritan settlement of New England

Timeline

1. 1650–1655Massachusetts Bay Colony · MassachusettsBy 1650, New England's Puritan population exceeded 23,000; although immigration slowed after the English Civil War, natural increase of locally born people continued driving westward and northward expansion. Massachusetts Bay founded several new towns along the Charles and Merrimack valleys, Connecticut extended along the Connecticut River, and the mature town meeting system became the core form of Puritan self-governance. Each new town centered on a church and common land, embodying the Puritan ideal of the 'city upon a hill.'
2. 1655–1659New England · New EnglandBetween 1655 and 1659, colonial governments continued legislating to strengthen Puritan social order, expelling Quaker missionaries (Massachusetts passed the Quaker Act in 1656) and strictly banning heterodox religious activity. Meanwhile, agricultural expansion and land purchases (or seizures) increasingly squeezed the living space of Wampanoag, Narragansett, and other native tribes, sparking frontier friction and small armed conflicts. Missionary John Eliot translated the Bible into Algonquian languages, promoting the establishment of 'Praying Towns,' but Christianization policies also damaged indigenous cultural structures, planting deep social contradictions.