On his terms, those who wanted to emigrate to the New World could buy shares held by shareholders who wanted to stay at home. The agreement was therefore a precursor to the founding of Boston, Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE AGREEMENT. On August 17, 1629, twelve Puritan members of the Massachusetts Bay Company, under the leadership of John Winthrop, signed an agreement in Cambridge, England, in which they agreed to emigrate with their families to New England. The signatories to the Cambridge Agreement insisted that the charter of companies be transposed into the New World and that it serve as a constitution for the new colony. This was an unprecedented demand, as traditionally a board of directors governed chartered colonies in England. A few days later, the general court of the company adopted an application to transfer the company and the Charter to New England, becoming the only English colonization company without a board of directors in England. Subsequently, all shareholders who did not want to settle in America sold their shares to those who were willing to make the trip. By taking the Charter, the Puritans shifted the attention of the business from commerce to religion, and they guaranteed that the Crown would not endanger their religious freedom in America. The agreement guaranteed that the Massachusetts Colony would be self-administered, only for the English crown. The colony and society then became, in all respects, one and the same. The Puritans of Winthrop carried this charter across the Atlantic when they arrived in America in 1630. In the spring of 1630 Winthrop and about 100 followers sailed the Arbella to the New World.
The group arrived in Massachusetts in June 1630 and was soon accompanied by other English emigrants. By the end of the year, two thousand English-born settlers lived in Massachusetts. The Arbella`s journey marked the beginning of a 10-year period of mass emigration from England, known as the Great Migration. By the end of the decade, about eighty thousand men, women and children had left England, and twenty thousand of them had settled in Massachusetts. Richard Saltonstall Thomas Dudley William Vassall Nicholas West Isaac Johnson John Humfrey Thomas Sharpe Increase Nowell John Winthrop William Pinchon Kellam Browne William Colbron . In return for the guarantee of local control of the colony, the non-emigrant shareholders were bought out by the emigrant shareholders. John Winthrop became the leader of Puritan emigration following the Cambridge Agreement negotiations, and it was understood that he would be governor upon his arrival. The agreement is named after Winthrops Alma Mater, University of Cambridge. . A remarkable caveat concludes this document that “the whole government, with the patent of the plantation in question,” must go with them to the new colony. Indeed, they are determined to establish the full independence of the plantation from any authority in England.
The Society`s Court of Justice accepted, in a few days and after many discussions, this reservation, which was no doubt influenced by the determination of the signatories and by the fact that their willingness to establish the plantation depends on this point. Previous patents had been in default because of the lack of action, and the adventurers of the company as a whole therefore affected this loss of authority over those in the company who were willing to risk their lives and the lives of their families in an attempted colony in New England.