| I. | The American Background | [1] |
| II. | Staking Out Claims | [26] |
| III. | The Race for Empire | [41] |
| IV. | Some Aspects of Puritanism | [64] |
| V. | The First Permanent Settlement | [86] |
| VI. | New England and the Great Migration | [118] |
| VII. | An English Opposition becomes a New England Oligarchy | [146] |
| VIII. | The Growth of a Frontier | [175] |
| IX. | Attempts to Unify New England | [206] |
| X. | Cross-Currents in the Confederacy | [231] |
| XI. | The Defeat of the Theocracy | [253] |
| XII. | The Theory of Empire | [278] |
| XIII. | The Reassertion of Imperial Control | [310] |
| XIV. | The Inevitable Conflict | [338] |
| XV. | Loss of the Massachusetts Charter | [364] |
| XVI. | An Experiment in Administration | [398] |
| XVII. | The New Order | [431] |
| | Index | [457] |