Massachusetts Bay

Massachusetts Bay is a bay on the Atlantic Ocean that forms part of the coastline of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Description

The bay extends from Cape Ann on the north to Plymouth Harbor on the south, a distance of about 42 miles (68 km). Its northern and southern shores incline toward each other through the entrance to Boston Harbor, where they are about five miles apart. The depth from the base of the triangle to Boston Harbor is about 21 miles (34 km). The westmost point of the bay is at the city of Boston.

The northern shore of Massachusetts Bay is rocky and irregular, but the southern shore low, marshy, and sandy. Along the shores are a number of capes and headlands, and off the coast a number of small islands, especially in the entrance to Boston Harbor. The principal inlets are: on the north coast, Gloucester Harbor, Nahant Bay, Salem Harbor, Marblehead Harbor, and Lynn Harbor, and on the west, Boston Harbor, Dorchester Bay, and Quincy Bay (the two latter being part of the Outer Boston Harbor), and on the south coast, Hingham Bay. Massachusetts Bay is itself part of the Gulf of Maine, which extends from Nova Scotia south to Cape Cod Bay. Cape Cod Bay is sometimes considered to be part of Massachusetts Bay. Under this interpretation, the name "Massachusetts Bay" denotes the entire rectangular area of ocean between Cape Ann and Cape Cod.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America (Massachusetts Bay) in the 17th century. The settlement was located in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions of the U.S. states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Territory claimed but never administered by the colonial government extended as far west as the Pacific Ocean.

The colony was founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which included investors in the failed Dorchester Company, which had in 1623 established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, begun in 1628, was the company's second attempt at colonization. The colony was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. The population was strongly Puritan, and its governance was dominated by a small group of leaders who were strongly influenced by Puritan religious leaders. Although its governors were elected, the electorate were limited to freemen, who had been examined for their religious views and formally admitted to the local church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership exhibited intolerance to other religious views, including Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies.

Bay Colony

Bay Colony may refer to

Massachusetts

Massachusetts ⁱ/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsᵻts/, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, Vermont and New Hampshire to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Massachusetts is the 7th smallest state by land area, but the 15th most populous and the 3rd most densely populated of the 50 states. With an estimated 6.8 million residents in 2015, it is the most populous of the six New England states and has the nation's sixth highest GDP per capita. The capital of Massachusetts, as well as the state's largest city, is Boston. The state features four separate metropolitan statistical areas: the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan area in the east, the Worcester metropolitan area in the center, the Springfield metropolitan area in the west, and the Barnstable metropolitan area in the southeast. Over 80% of Massachusetts' population currently lives in the Greater Boston Combined Statistical Area.

Colony

In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state, distinct from the home territory of the sovereign. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception.

The Metropolitan state is the state that owns the colony. In Ancient Greece, the city that founded a colony was known as the metropolis. "Mother country" is a reference to the metropolitan state from the point of view of citizens who live in its colony. There is a United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

Unlike a puppet state or satellite state, a colony has no independent international representation, and its top-level administration is under direct control of the metropolitan state.

The term informal colony is used by some historians to refer to a country under the de facto control of another state, although this term is often contentious.