The Masschusetts Bay Colony Franchise in 1647

Abstract

HE debate concerning the nature of the government in seventeenth-century Massachusetts Bay has raged for many years. Was it a democratic society, an aristocratic society, a deferential society, or, as has been recently suggested, a society containing some elements of all three? While still caught in the quagmire of terminology, much recent scholarship has also attempted to uncomplicate matters by head-counting. Using the case study method, historians have isolated individual towns, established approximate populations, and contrasted the percentages of voters and relative economic status of the leadership and the masses.1 None of these case studies alone, or taken together as a unit, have adequately settled the issues. Part of the problem lies in the case study approach itself. It tells us no more than what occurred within the narrow limits of the study. At the same time, the case study approach frequently suffers from too grand a focus by trying to make generalizations concerning the whole century and as a result missing the fluctuations in political practices within the century. What was true of i640 was not necessarily true of i66o.