Freemanship in Early Massachusetts: Some Suggestions and a Case Study

Abstract

j^ROM i63i to i664 full political participation in the affairs of Massa> chusetts was legally restricted to one particular group of men, those church members who became freemen.' Nonfreemen who were of age and had taken the oath of fidelity were allowed some voice in town affairs beginning in i647. Eleven years later the General Court extended this privilege to all Englishmen of age who had estates rated at twenty pounds. But both of the laws which granted this exclusively local franchise also prohibited nonfreemen from becoming a majority on the towns' ruling boards of selectmen.2 Freemen legally retained their political ascendancy in local affairs and their political monopoly in colony-wide affairs. This restriction of the full franchise to church members was a part of the attempt by the leaders of the colony to create an orthodox and Godly state. Political freedom and religious freedom were to be synonymous. Until the halfway covenant of i662, church membership was granted only after a rigorous examination into the individual's certainty of salvation and general orthodoxy,3 and the church that granted it had to be approved by the General Court.4 Church members were expected to take up their freedom, especially after nonfreemen were given some part in town affairs in i647. Church members who did not were liable, after that date, to the same financial penalties as freemen if they refused to perform the duties of any office to which they were elected.5 Membership in a church was to be outward proof of Godly citizenship in both earthly and heavenly states.