Introduction to History of Massachusetts
Massachusetts' first inhabitants were nomadic Indians who lived by fishing and hunting. These people were replaced by Indians from the southwest belonging to the Algonquian language family. They introduced agriculture. Seven tribes occupied the area—Nauset, Nipmuc, Pennacook, Mohegan, Pocumtuc, Wampanoag, and Massachusett. Their first contact with Europeans probably came in the 15th century with sailors fishing in the coastal waters. There were about 30,000 Indians in Massachusetts when European settlement began in the 17th century.
Important dates in Massachusetts1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, an English explorer, visited the Massachusetts region.1620 The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.1630 The Puritans founded Boston.1636 Harvard became the first college in the colonies.1641 Massachusetts adopted its first code of law, the Body of Liberties.1675-1676 Massachusetts colonists won King Philip's War against the Indians.1689-1763 Massachusetts colonists helped the British win the French and Indian Wars.1691 Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay colonies were combined into one colony.1764 The colonists began to resist enforcement of British tax laws.1770 British soldiers killed several colonists in the Boston Massacre.1773 Patriots dumped British tea into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party.1775 The American Revolutionary War began at Lexington and Concord.1780 Massachusetts adopted its constitution.1788 Massachusetts became the sixth state in the union on February 6.1797 John Adams of Massachusetts became president of the United States.1807 The Embargo Act ruined Massachusetts shipping and led to the rise of manufacturing.1825 John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts became president of the United States.1912 A strike of textile workers at Lawrence led to improved conditions in the textile industry.1919 Settlement of the Boston police strike brought national prominence to Governor Calvin Coolidge.1959 The U.S. Navy launched its first nuclear-powered surface ship, the cruiser Long Beach, at Quincy.1961 John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts became president of the United States.1988 Massachusetts celebrated its statehood bicentennial.2003 In Boston, the underground highway replacing the city's overcrowded Central Artery opened.2007 Democrat Deval L. Patrick became the first African American governor of Massachusetts.Exploration and Settlement
The coast of Massachusetts was first explored in 1602 by the English navigator Bartholomew Gos-nold. In 1620 the Pilgrims founded the first permanent colony in New England at Plymouth. During the next decade several small fishing settlements grew up along the Massachusetts coast. A few settlers started a trading post at Salem in 1626. In 1628 they were joined by John Endecott, representing a group of English Puritans.
In England the Puritan group formed a company and secured a royal charter for a Massachusetts Bay Colony. (
Friction With England
In 1651 England began passing legislation, called Navigation Acts, designed to control the commerce of the colonies for the benefit of the mother country. Massachusetts, declaring itself an independent commonwealth, ignored the English laws as far as possible. In 1648 England revoked the Bay Colony charter, and in 1685 it consolidated the New England colonies, New York, and the Jerseys into the Dominion of New England under Sir Edmund Andros as governor.
The Glorious Revolution in England (1688) brought an end to this arrangement. In 1691 Massachusetts was granted a new royal charter, which incorporated Plymouth and Maine into the Bay Colony. The first royal governor, Sir William Phips, arrived at the height of a frenzy that had arisen over witchcraft and initiated the witchcraft trials held in Salem in 1692.
In the intermittent warfare with the French from 1689 to 1760, Massachusetts troops were often the mainstay of the British colonial forces. There was growing resentment against Great Britain, however, as restrictions on colonial trade increased. Massachusetts led in opposition to the Stamp Act (1765) and to the Townshend Acts (1767). British troops were stationed in Boston to maintain order, and this led to the Boston Massacre in 1770.
The Boston Tea Party (1773) led Britain to pass the Intolerable Acts (1774), which closed the port of Boston and deprived Massachusetts citizens of many of their rights. The Revolutionary War started with the action of Massachusetts Minutemen at Lexington and Concord in April, 1775.
Boston in 1775. This map shows Boston as it was in 1775. The city occupied a peninsula between the Charles River and the Boston Harbor. Much of the water area has since been filled in. Many famous buildings, including Old North Church, King's Chapel, and Faneuil Hall, still stand.Growth As A State
Economic depression followed the war, and in 1786 Massachusetts farmers under Daniel Shays rose against the state legislature in a demand for debt relief. ( Formation of the federal government (1789) brought economic and political stability to the country, and prosperity returned to Massachusetts. Agricultural prices rose, and trade and manufacturing expanded.
When the War of 1812 began, Massachusetts led the New England states in opposing what they considered a rash and unnecessary conflict. It was on the proposal of the state legislature that the Hartford Convention was held in 1814.
In the 19th century, Massachusetts-with writers such as Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, and Thoreau—was the center of literary activity in the United States. Boston was recognized as the cultural capital of the country and was called “the Athens of America."
Massachusetts early became a stronghold of the abolition movement. William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator, was founded in Boston in 1831. The state strongly supported the Union in the Civil War. In the latter half of the 19th century a flood of immigrants supplied cheap labor for Massachusetts factories and the state became a leading producer of textiles and shoes.
The 20th Century. Unionism took a firm hold in Massachusetts in the 20th century. In 1919 the members of the Boston police force, denied the right to join a union, went on strike. Governor Calvin Coolidge won national attention when he called out the state militia to maintain order.
A tropical hurricane struck the New England coast in September, 1938, doing severe damage in Massachusetts. More than 3,000 homes and cottages were destroyed; 21,500 more were damaged.
During the depression of the 1930's many textile plants closed and many moved from Massachusetts to the South. Industry revived during World War II, but in the postwar period the decline of textile and shoe manufacturing hurt the economy. Diversification of industry begun in the 1950's, particularly the establishment of electronics and other science-based industries in the Boston area, returned Massachusetts to its place among the nation's leading manufacturing states.
During the 1970's, racial problems centering on the issue of school busing for integration caused strife in Boston, where most of the state's black population was concentrated. Also in the 1970's, there was a severe downturn in the economy, with the unemployment rate reaching 12 per cent in 1975. By the mid-1980's, however, an economic boom was well under way, stimulated in part by growth in the state's technically advanced industries. The boom proved short-lived, and the economy was in a severe recession by the early 1990's. Further growth in the technology and tourism industries helped the economy recover.
In November, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that homosexual couples should be allowed to marry and not allowing them to do so was a violation of the state's constitution. On May 17, 2004, marriage licenses were offered by the state to couples of the same sex.
In April, 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to require residents to obtain health care. Legislation signed by Governor Mitt Romney required health insurance to be bought by July 1, 2007, and called for the state government to subsidize the cost of coverage for low-income residents.
In November, 2006, Deval L. Patrick became the first African American governor of the state.