What were the Puritans thinking? What possessed them to get on small, ticketing boats and venture out into the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean? My weather app tells me that there are riptides and 10-foot waves in the Atlantic today, so I can only wonder at the Puritans’ decision.

So begins the sermon by the Rev. Stephanie May, first woman minister of First Church Boston, as she explores the meaning of the Puritans’ little democracy and the legacy it has left us today - for better and worse.

After a statewide consultation, Massachusetts governor Maura Healey has finally signed the bill to change the Massachusetts flag, seal and motto! The decision marks the culmination of years of campaigning by Indigenous Tribes and their supporters, who argue that the image of a Native man under a sword is a colonial relic. We don’t know what the new flag will look like - stay tuned! But here’s the story so far.

At a time when certain politicians have had a hard time leaving office - and hundreds more, at the highest level, endorse that resistance - we look to Massachusetts’ first governor, John Winthrop, for a lesson in how to respect democratic elections.

Historian Francis J. Bremer offers a vital crash course on the lives, beliefs, and vision of New England Puritans’ new society - placing these English colonists within their own time, with their belief in magic, diabolical forces, and the power of faith. Essential reading as we near colonial Boston’s 400th anniversary.

Massachusetts’ state flag and seal are increasingly controversial, with their central image of a Native man with a sword wielded over his head. Now a state commission is asking for Massachusetts residents to decide: should the flag and seal change?

Was it a sermon, a publication - or not delivered by John Winthrop at all? Renowned scholar Francis J. Bremer examines the debate over Winthrop’s Model of Christian Charity and concludes that it was given, in person, in Southampton, England, on the eve of the Great Migration. As we head towards the 400th anniversary of Boston, Massachusetts, why is it so important?

An Act Against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits. The mark of Squaw Sachem on a land deed. A law proclaiming "A" for adultery. These documents take us behind the scenes at the Commonwealth Museum and Massachusetts Archives to witness the 17th century firsthand.

Sometimes history is hidden in plain view. That’s what Dave Weed found when he began to look around in the Sowams area of Rhode Island: the signs and monuments of the Pokanoket, lost, ignored, made invisible. His Sowams Heritage Area Project aims to restore this history and to honor the 53 sites, colonial and Native, within it.

Witches, heretics, or “good wives”? The options for 17th century women, as defined by men, were few. Renown historian Francis J. Bremer argues that if we look behind typical histories, we see that women played a vital, even leading, role in shaping and perpetuating religious culture, particularly Puritanism.

Photographer Sandra Matthews explains how she came to document the layers of history of the Massachusetts landscape - producing the evocative images of her new book, Occupying Massachusetts: Layers of History on Indigenous Land, with texts by David Brule and Suzanne Gardinier.

What happens when you pull on a thread? Wayne Tucker tells us how he began to unravel the story of Massachusetts’ enslaved people during covid - leading to an important new website charting Massachusetts’ widespread slavery, eleven-names.com. His first major discovery: that the illustrious Dudley family - including Massachusetts governors - held 11 enslaved people.

Who owns history? Barry O’Connell, professor of English emeritus at Amherst College, asks us to consider who controls history - and how we decide. This thought-provoking article was originally published in website Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704.

We think of 17th century women as being powerless compared to women today. And it’s true: they could not be judges or ministers. They could not vote or sign a legal document. In the private sphere, in matters of childbirth and control of their bodies, they were powerful. But even here, the most private aspects of women’s lives were subject to debate by men. Award-winning author Eve LaPlante tells us why.

What do we do when the history we’ve learned turns out to be wrong? When the heroes are no longer heroic, when victory is conquest, and the story turns upside down? Lori Rogers-Stokes gives her take on why change is good - especially for historians. “When I read more, I lost a lot - my comfort zone. But this loss paved the way for a tremendous gain.”

Kazakhstan, China, Mesoamerica, England, the eastern woodlands themselves - food in early New England came from around the globe, the ingredients mingling in a combination of Native and European cookery. Steve Kenney, director of the Commonwealth Museum, reports on the changing landscape, the arrival of livestock, and a new menu.

Colonial records notoriously tell a one-sided, often derogatory, story of Native people. Congregational church records, by contrast, recorded Native people’s spiritual lives as they did for any other congregant. Here, Lori Rogers-Stokes tells the story of three Nipmuc women in what today we call Grafton and the decisions they made about marriage, baptism, and church belonging for themselves and their families.

For Native people, the land that became Boston and its harbor islands were a paradise for fishing and cultivation. Just decades later, Deer Island was a war-time prison, where 500 Native people died of cold, starvation, and disease. Lance Young, chief sachem of the Nemasket, tells a history we cannot forget.

Should we wear masks? Are vaccines safe? The public-health questions prompted by Covid-19 are more pressing than ever in our lifetime. But they’re not new. In 1721, debate erupted in Boston as smallpox broke out: to inoculate or not. A single physician said yes. Find out how the 17th century version of anti-vaxxers changed their tune and inoculations saved lives.

All people are of one blood, wrote New England’s most influential minister, Cotton Mather - but only in heaven. On earth, enslaved people are in their rightful place. Read Eduardo Gonzalez’s penetrating and eloquent discussion of Cotton Mather’s theology of a “Christian slavery.”

Did they come for freedom? Did they hate sex? Was H.L. Mencken correct: that Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy? Lori Rogers-Stokes explodes the myths.