Plymouth proved to be not so "good for situation" and failed to develop but other colonists followed the Pilgrims to this part of North America, known by them as New England. By 1628 there were eight settlements along the coast and the Massachusetts Bay Company had been granted all the land in the region, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This was usual for colonial grants to chartered trading companies, since nobody knew how far away the Pacific was. In 1629, a group of Puritans took control of the company and completely transformed the future of New England.

Initially the Massachusetts Bay Company had planned to develop Massachusetts as a purely commercial affair, like Virginia to the south. However, the Puritans, under their leader John Winthrop, intended to make it into "New Zion", a place in which God-fearing Christians could live within a purified Church of England. There was a mass exodus of Puritan families from England and by 1643 the population was 16000 - more than the rest of British America put together. Not only was it the most populated colony, but also the best educated. There was a university graduate for every forty families, a ratio not to be found anywhere else in the world.

Although the Puritans were fleeing persecution in Charles I's England, they had no intention of providing refuge for any victims other than themselves. Nor were they interested in forming a democracy . To be able to vote you had to be approved by the Company.

The only people with whom the Puritans seemed to be friendly were the Indians. They scrupulously insisted on paying the natives for all the lands they settled.