As Americans prepare to go to the polls, historian Francis J. Bremer examines the radical political choices made by 17th century Puritans in New England – and the light they shed on the roots of U.S. democracy, warts and all.

This fascinating and important presentation was livestreamed from Old South Meeting House in downtown Boston, and introduced by Revolutionary Spaces’ president and CEO Nathaniel Sheidley and moderated by award-winning author Eve LaPlante.

The leaders of early Massachusetts brought with them a belief in civic republicanism, a commitment to congregational decision-sharing, and a Christian social gospel which influenced the ways in which they transformed a corporate charter into a system of governance that gave ordinary colonists the right to choose their leaders – to exercise their “free consent” to government, as governor John Winthrop wrote in 1637.

In the world of 17th century Britain, this was a revolution. The leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony could simply have retained their role as company heads, with the mass of people more or less equivalent to employees. Instead, they made a choice: to became a commonwealth, with the right to vote for white male church members, the right to equal justice, and written laws. It was a remarkable step into what was, for the time, a radically proto-democratic system – more equal than any other in the British colonial world. In the world of 17th century Britain, this was a revolution.

The leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony could simply have retained their role as company heads, with the mass of people more or less equivalent to employees. Instead, they made a choice: to start the process of becaming a commonwealth, with the right to vote for white male church members, the right to equal justice, and written laws. It was a remarkable step into what was, for the time, a radically proto-democratic system – more equal than any other in the British colonial world.

Massachusetts also recognized and instituted slavery and waged brutal, even genocidal, war against Native people.

But for the puritans themselves, the advent of a commonwealth was marked by institutions we still have today: representative government, the right of petition, local democracy, and public education.

In this important presentation, Professor Bremer explored the debates that helped shape both that system and the perimeter fence that distinguished policies and practices that would be tolerated in the colony and those that would not. He examined the role that the personalities and beliefs of individual leaders played in the legacy of government that was passed down to future Americans. And, most relevant to contemporary politics, he countered the idea that the puritans, now claimed as their own by many American Christians, were Christian nationalists.

Francis J. Bremer is professor emeritus of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He has held fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge universities in England and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. He has served as editor of the Winthrop Papers for the Massachusetts Historical Society and is a member of the board of the Congregational Library and Archives. He has published 17 books exploring puritanism in the Atlantic world, including the prize-winning John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (2003) and Building a New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds (2012), the popular Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction (2009), and more recently Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism (2015) and One Small Candle: The story of the Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England (2020). He a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Puritanism and is currently writing a biography of Plymouth's governor, William Bradford.