48.  The Founding of Massachusetts, 1629-30.—­Unlike the poor and humble Pilgrims were the founders of Massachusetts.  They were men of wealth and social position, as for instance, John Winthrop and Sir Richard Saltonstall.  They left comfortable homes in England to found a Puritan state in America.  They got a great tract of land extending from the Merrimac to the Charles, and westward across the continent.  Hundreds of colonists came over in the years 1629-30.  They settled Boston, Salem, and neighboring towns.  In the next ten years thousands more joined them.  From the beginning Massachusetts was strong and prosperous.  Among so many people there were some who did not get on happily with the rulers of the colony.

[Sidenote:  Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts. Higginson, 68-70.]

[Sidenote:  He founds Providence, 1636. Source-book, 52-54.]

49.  Roger Williams and Religious Liberty.—­Among the newcomers was Roger Williams, a Puritan minister.  He disagreed with the Massachusetts leaders on several points.  For instance, he thought that the Massachusetts people had no right to their lands, and he insisted that the rulers had no power in religious matters—­as enforcing the laws as to Sunday.  He insisted on these points so strongly that the Massachusetts government expelled him from the colony.  In the spring of 1636; with four companions he founded the town of Providence.  There he decided that every one should be free to worship God as he or she saw fit.

[Sidenote:  Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends.]

[Sidenote:  They settle Rhode Island, 1637.]

50.  The Rhode Island Towns.—­Soon another band of exiles came from Massachusetts.  These were Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers.  Mrs. Hutchinson was a brilliant Puritan woman who had come to Boston from England to enjoy the ministry of John Cotton, one of the Boston ministers.  She soon began to find fault with the other ministers of the colony.  Naturally, they did not like this.  Their friends were more numerous than were Mrs. Hutchinson’s friends, and the latter had to leave Massachusetts.  They settled on the island of Rhode Island (1637).

[Sidenote:  The Connecticut colonists.]

[Sidenote:  Founding of Connecticut, 1635-36. Higginson, 71-72.]

51.  The Connecticut Colony.—­Besides those Puritans whom the Massachusetts people drove from their colony there were other settlers who left Massachusetts of their own free will.  Among these were the founders of Connecticut.  The Massachusetts people would gladly have had them remain, but they were discontented and insisted on going away.  They settled the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Weathersfield, on the Connecticut River.  At about the same time John Winthrop, Jr., led a colony to Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut.  Up to this time the Dutch had seemed to have the best chance to settle the Connecticut Valley.  But the control of that region was now definitely in the hands of the English.