State Formation in the Massachusetts Bay Colony: The Participatory Foundations of Church and Civil Government

Can Mert Kökerer, The University of Chicago

This paper discusses the process of State formation in the Massachusetts Bay colony. By engaging with Puritan political theology’s analogous conception of church and civil government it demonstrates the participatory foundations of church and civil government. It argues that State formation in Massachusetts was an ongoing process which occurred on the basis of the common people’s continuous participation and restructuration of their church and civil government. Despite the contemporary scholarship’s significant contributions to understanding different aspects of State formation, this paper showcases their limitations for explaining the idiosyncratic process of State formation in the Massachusetts Bay colony. Here, Tocqueville stands out as the sole sociologist who provided a compelling argument about the distinctiveness of state formation process in New England. Thus, this paper directly builds on Tocqueville’s insight about the participatory nature of State formation in New England. On the one hand, it showcases the participatory foundations of church government by analyzing church and synod records throughout the colonial era. It reveals that the institutional structure of the congregational order was based on participatory grounds which enabled church members to participate in decision-making processes and hold the elected church officers accountable. On the other hand, this paper presents the institutionalization of civil government on participatory basis. It discusses the development of the institutional structure of the General Court and townships. It maintains that the common people’s continuous involvement in public affairs resulted in the creation of institutional mechanisms on participatory basis. As a result, this paper argues that the process of State formation in Massachusetts was not a top-down organization of the State as it emerged elsewhere in the early modern period. Rather, it was a participatory process through and through which was based on the continuous restructuration of church and civil government by virtue of the common people’s involvement.

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 Presented in Session 142. Class, Colonialism, and Empire in US History