Colony of Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, a territory inhabited by Algonquian Native American tribes. The colony was in a territory the colonists called New England, with initial settlements on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salem and Boston, north of the previously established Plymouth Colony. The territory nominally administered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony covered much of central New England, including portions of what are now Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. The territory of the Massachusetts Bay colony was one of the several colonial territories reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.