Local Leadership and the Typology of New England Towns, 1700-1785
In recent years, students of colonial New England society have produced a large number of studies of local communities which seek to describe the social structure, community ethos, and political structure of the area by presenting one community as a microcosm, in one sense or another, of the general society. As most of these scholars admit, however, their ability to generalize is severely hampered by the absence of studies providing comparative data for a number of communities and establishing any kind of conceptual framework for explaining how the experience of one town might relate to that of another. At the same time, a substantial debate has been raging over what the nature of the political system was, specifically whether the system was "democratic" or "consensual," both of which terms refer to an egalitarian political order, or "oligarchic" or "deferential," terms which refer to more stratified orders.' All of these contentions are supported to