Comprehensive, reliable account of 17th-century life in one of the country's earliest settlements. Contemporary records, over 100 historically valuable pictures vividly describe early dwellings, furnishings, medicinal aids, wardrobes, trade, crimes, more.

Using an intensely local lens, McWilliams explores the century-long process whereby the Massachusetts Bay Colony went from a distant outpost of the incipient British Empire to a stable society integrated into the transatlantic economy. An inspiring story of men and women overcoming adversity to build their own society, From the Ground Up reconceptualizes how we have normally thought about New England's economic development

Extant letters addressed to England by Massachusetts Bay colonists during the colony's first decade are provided with linking narrative and explanatory notes.

Early American colonists were optimistic adventurers who helped build a new settlement. But they also experimented with creating a new society. The Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first political document written in the United States, a first attempt at self-government. Discover who wrote this document and why, and how it influenced the creation of the United States government.

Enemies of the Bay Colony offers a narrative history of Puritan New England from its beginnings through the Great Awakening of the mid-18th Century. This newly expanded and revised edition features two new chapters on the Salem Witchcraft frenzy of 1692 and an account of the Pequot War and the death of Narragansett sachem, Miantonomo. In addition to the two new chapters, Enemies of the Bay Colony has been updated to include recent scholarship.