Join the 17th Century
Explore the story of early Boston, Massachusetts, and the wider 17TH century world
Take our summer challenge!
J.T., author of The World turn’d upside down (pictured right), styled himself a “well-willer to King, Parliament and Kingdom,” but in 1647, when his pamphlet was published, the recipient of his good wishes - both monarch and parliament - were at war, and the kingdom was stained with blood. Britain found itself, he wrote, in “distracted Times.”
For England, the 17th century was indeed a world turned upside down, when civil war pitted families against each other, the monarch was executed, and a republic took his place. In New England, the tumultuous century meant the founding of a colony, war and annexation of Indigenous land, slavery, and a government of laws and rights. At least, that’s what we at the Partnership of Historic Bostons think. For us, the 17th century is the most exciting and foundational century going. But what’s your view?
Our challenge to you this month is: tell us what you think of the 17th century - and why it matters today.
Take our short survey, here. Or go wild and email us, in 300 words or less, your views of the 17th century and why it matters - or not.
The winner gets a chance to be published - and a copy of Jared Hardesty’s book Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds.
The deadline is July 31. Get thinking and writing now!
J.T., The World turn’d upside down (London: John Smith, 1647). British Library
Events
1630: from shawmut to boston
roxanne reddington-wilde
WALKING TOUR, TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2025, 6-7:30PM ET
Meet the people, places and ideas of 1630s Boston with our updated tour, 1630: From Shawmut to Boston. Led by our experienced, knowledgeable, entertaining tour guides, you’ll start on the Native land of the Shawmut peninsula, where the colonists created their town in the Puritan colonial image. We’ll walk in the footsteps of English colonists such as John Winthrop, William Blackstone and Anne Hutchinson to discover how they saw their society and polity, and consider its legacy today.
“It really hit home that this is why history is so critical.”
participant, reading group
black lives, white worlds
Who tells the story of history - the powerful or the powerless? In this pithy book review, Evana Rose Tamayo asks what Jared Hardesty’s masterful book, Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds has to tell us about people in the least powerful position of all, how how they retained their own agency, and their role in building New England into the strongest economy in the new nation..
English New England, 1620
We think of colonial Massachusetts as the home of black hatted puritans, friends of Oliver Cromwell and led by John Winthrop. Yet it was separatist puritans settling in Plymouth a decade earlier who established the New England Way of church practice, based on participation and self-government. Cattle, advice, and leadership flowed north. Award-winning historian Francis J. Bremer tells the story.
Defend your rights!
The rights we take for granted did not begin in the 20th century, or in the Revolutionary era - but with the Massachusetts Body of Liberties in 1641, the first bill of rights in the English-speaking world. Honoured as much in the breach as in practice, the rights of 1641 - to equal justice under law and protection from arbitrary rule - remain for us to expand and defend today, as historian Lori Rogers-Stokes argues.
