The partnership of historic bostons brings alive the peoples and ideas of the 17th century
Who we are
If you’re curious about how Massachusetts fits into the Protestant Reformation, puzzled by the apparent paradox of New England’s slave economy and site of the first printed American anti-slavery tract, or simply want to know how ordinary people loved, worked, worshipped, and died, the Partnership of Historic Bostons is the place for you.
Through our free public-history programs, you’ll see the peoples and ideas of 17th century Massachusetts come alive. We offer lectures, discussions, walking tours, and a fall lecture series - all by experts in the field who offer unparalleled insights into the past.
Our aim is to help you explore the fascinating, multifaceted, and multiethnic history of Boston and New England through these public-history events – and to challenge the myths that have grown up since the city’s inception.
We believe that Boston’s history matters because it shapes us today.
The Partnership of Historic Bostons was founded in 1999 as a non-profit partnership between people in Boston, Massachusetts, and Boston, Lincolnshire, in England, to highlight the often forgotten history of the two Bostons. We aimed to fill the large gap in historical memory for the period between the founding of colonial Boston in 1630, and the Revolution 150 years later. We still do. But where we once focused primarily on Puritans, we now examine their impact, and the lives of the many and varied peoples who together, in both harmony and conflict, created Massachusetts.
Our commitment
The Puritans who arrived in Massachusetts in 1630 established a society more equal, with a broader franchise and greater distribution of wealth, than any other springing from Europe. They founded institutions that help define the aspirations of American democracy: free education, literacy for all, the makings of representative government, the first American bill of rights guaranteeing jury trials, and the right of free speech.
But for whom was Boston’s founding a new beginning?
For the Puritans, it offered the promise of a godly community in which they could worship as they wished and a profound set of rights. For others, 1630 marked a very different moment.
For Native Americans, it was the start of a decades-long process that began with coexistence and cooperation, but ended in war, death from epidemics, loss of land and forests, and an occupation which led to almost complete dispossession. That Native people survived, and flourish today, is a measure of their strength and tenacity.
For the handful of Africans who arrived in 1638, as recorded by governor John Winthrop, it was the start of New England slavery, as well as of a small, free Black community.
Quakers, servants, sailors, Baptists, Scottish prisoners-of-war: all experienced the beginning of Boston differently.
The Partnership of Historic Bostons tells the story of these varied beginnings. One story cannot be told without the others.
why does boston’s history matter?
because it shapes us today.
Conflict increasingly marked relations between colonists expanding their holdings and Native peoples who saw their lands, hunting grounds, and fishing ponds disappear. War engraved itself into English consciousness and even their maps. Image: Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center
Our aims
The Partnership of Historic Bostons aims to:
Tell the whole story: the complex, very human past – slavery and liberties, rights and punishment, religious freedom and religious repression. Conflict as much as cooperation marked Massachusetts’ settlement - a truth with which we need to come to terms.
Understand why Boston’s history matters. It’s not just fascinating on its own merits − although that is true. It’s a past that is both profoundly different from the 21st century and shapes who we are, what we believe, and our institutions today.
Interpret the people, events and ideas of the past on their own terms, so that we understand their intentions – as well as exploring their implications today.
Wherever possible, use people’s own words from primary documents and work with Native and Black historians and other scholars. The Puritans were voluble and assiduous record-keepers. We need to also hear the unwritten and less told stories.
“as historians, we need to heed oliver cromwell’s suggestion: paint what you see, warts and all. Our job is not to show history as good or bad, but clearly.”
Francis J. Bremer, historian