<P> The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628--1691) was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay . The lands of the settlement were located in southern New England in what is now Massachusetts, with initial settlements situated on two natural harbors and surrounding land, about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart--the areas around the present - day cities of Salem and Boston . </P> <P> The territory nominally administered by the colony included much of present - day central New England, including portions of the U.S. states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut . Territory claimed but never administered by the colonial government extended as far west as the Pacific Ocean . The earlier Dutch colony of New Netherlands disputed many of these claims, arguing that they held rights to lands beyond Rhode Island up to the western side of Cape Cod and the Plymouth Bay Colony . </P> <P> The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which included investors in the failed Dorchester Company that had established a short - lived settlement on Cape Ann in 1623 . The colony began in 1628 and was the company's second attempt at colonization . It 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 . Its governors were elected, and 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 . </P> <P> The colonists initially had good relationships with the local Indian populations, but frictions developed that ultimately led to the Pequot War (1636--38) and then to King Philip's War (1675--78), after which most of the Indians in southern New England made peace treaties with the colonists (apart from the Pequot tribe, whose survivors largely merged with the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes after the Pequot War). </P>

Who led the first group of puritans to new england