Could you survive in Puritan Boston? Board Game

 A group of wealthy Puritans, including John Winthrop, set up the Massachusetts Bay Company and asked the English King for permission to found a colony in New England. The King agreed and granted the Company a Charter. He wanted to get rid of the Puritans. He was also eager to plant English colonies in the New World before other European countries got too much of a head start. Caught between the ideals of God’s Law and the practical needs of the people, John Winthrop and the Puritans walked a thin and dangerous line when they settled frontier New England.

   Five days after his arrival in 1630, Winthrop led his settlers first to Salem and then to Charlestown. But the sudden arrival of Winthrop’s large group more than quadrupled Charlestown’s tiny population. Overcrowding became a problem. Sickness spread quickly. There wasn’t enough water to go around. Two hundred people died before winter came, and another two hundred decided to go back to England. Before winter set in, Winthrop decided to move again. This time he went across the Charles River to Shawmut Peninsula (Boston).

 In this board game students role-play various personalities in Puritan Boston trying to cope with the various challenges faced by the people of the so-called “city on the hill.” The game begins with the arrival of John Winthrop and the first Massachusetts Bay settlers and ends in 1700, Whether a wealthy magistrate or a poor indentured servant; whether a Quaker woman or a Puritan minister; whether a teenage apprentice or a skilled shipbuilder; whether a farmer or his wife; or, whether a tavern owner or an enslaved servant; Puritans were vulnerable and had much to fear in the years leading up to the beginning of the eighteenth century.