“The Attachment of the People”: The Massachusetts Charter, the French and Indian War, and the Coming of the American Revolution

During the French and Indian War, Massachusetts colonists invoked their charter rights to control mobilization. Colonists revered their charter because it provided effective government that tangibly affected their lives. They entered the Imperial Crisis believing that British officials such as William Shirley, Francis Bernard, and Thomas Hutchinson acknowledged the charter as the inviolable constitution of the province.