<P> With the start of the English Civil War in 1642, emigration came to a comparative standstill, and some colonists even returned to England to fight for the Parliamentary cause . In the following years, most of the immigrants came for economic reasons; they were merchants, seamen, and skilled craftsmen . Following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the colony also saw in an influx of French Protestant Huguenots . During the period of the charter colony, small numbers of Scots immigrated, but these were assimilated into the colony . The population of Massachusetts remained largely English in character until the 1840s . </P> <P> Slavery existed but was not widespread within the colony . Some Indians captured in the Pequot War were enslaved, with those posing the greatest threat being transported to the West Indies and exchanged for goods and slaves . Governor John Winthrop owned a few Indian slaves, and Governor Simon Bradstreet owned two black slaves . The Body of Liberties enacted in 1641 included rules governing the treatment and handling of slaves . Bradstreet reported in 1680 that the colony had 100 to 120 slaves, but historian Hugh Thomas documents evidence suggesting that there may have been a somewhat larger number . </P> <P> The Massachusetts colony was dominated by its rivers and coastline . Major rivers included the Charles and Merrimack, as well as a portion of the Connecticut River, which has been used to transport furs and timbers to Long Island Sound . Cape Ann juts into the Gulf of Maine, providing harbors for fishermen plying the fishing banks to the east, and Boston's harbor provided secure anchorage for seagoing commercial vessels . Development in Maine was restricted to coastal areas, and large inland areas remained under native control until after King Philip's War, particularly the uplands in what is now Worcester County . </P> <P> The colonial charter specified that the boundaries were to be from three miles (4.8 km) north of the Merrimack River to three miles south of the southernmost point of the Charles River and thence westward to the "South Sea" (i.e., the Pacific Ocean). At the time, the course of neither of the rivers was known for any significant length, which eventually led to boundary disputes with the colony's neighbors . The colony's claims were large, but the practicalities of the time meant that they never actually controlled any land further west than the Connecticut River valley . The colony also claimed additional lands by conquest and purchase, further extending the territory that it administered . </P>

The massachusetts bay colony was unusual because it was the only colony in which