This book presents the history of two religious sects successfully established in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, where it was illegal to participate in any faith other than the legally established congregationalism of the Puritan founders of the colony. The author examines the Quaker meeting in Salem and the Baptist church in Boston over more than a century. The work opens with the dramatic events surrounding dissenters' efforts to gain a foothold in the colony, and goes on to locate sectarians within their families and communities, and to examine their beliefs and the changing nature of the organizations they founded and their interactions with the larger community and its leaders. The work deals with the religiosity of lay colonists, finding that men and women responded to these sects differently. It also analyzes sociological theories of sectarian evolution, the politics of dissent, and changes in beliefs and practices.

Quakers and Baptists in Colonial Massachusetts is a welcome addition...this book is both a good starting point for those just beginning to be interested in this subject, and a good review of the literature for those already immersed in it." Sociological Analysis

"...we should be grateful for what Pestana has given us...Doing the historian's real work, telling us what has not been told before, is the author's strength." The Catholic Historical Review

"...this is a model work that should inspire others to continue to examine communities where Dissenters were numerous." American Historical Review

"Pestana has uncovered a substantial amount of significant new information...Pestana's accomplishment in creating a history of two alternatives to Puritanism is noteworthy because source materials are quite limited...The result is a provocative local history." The New England Quarterly

"Pestana's willingness to tackle a comparative model over time, while remaining alert to changes in both sects as well as in Massachusetts society, makes this a useful addition to the literature on colonial America." Journal of American History

"Pestana's treatment of Quakers is pioneering. This book gives us a glimpse of a group of radical sectarians that revises our understanding of early Quakers." Reviews in American History

"...social-religious history at its rigorous best, thoroughly researched and intelligently argued. Most important, it has a story to tell." Historian

"...this work is an important addition to our knowledge of dissent in New England and provides a model for more such carefully focused studies." William G. McLoughlin, William and Mary Quarterly

"...precise, suggestive, and pioneering." Edwin S. Gaustad, Journal of Interdisciplinary History