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History of Massachusetts

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This is the History of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a state in the United States.

Early settlement

Various Algonquin tribes inhabited the area prior to European settlement. In the Massachusetts Bay area resided the Massachusett. Near the Vermont and New Hampshire borders and the Merrimack River valley was the traditional home of the Pennacook tribe. Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and southeast Massachusetts were the home of the Wampanoag, whom the Pilgrims met. The extreme end of the Cape was inhabited by the closely related Nauset tribe. Much of the central portion and the Connecticut River valley was home to the loosely organized Nipmuc peoples. The Berkshires were the home of both the Pocomtuc and the Mahican tribes. Spillovers of Narragansett and Mohegan from Rhode Island and Connecticut, respectively, were also present.

All the Indians on the coast of New England, including the Massachusett, were heavily decimated by waves of smallpox both before and after the arrival of Captain John Smith in 1614. They had developed no immunity to the disease, a common story when Europeans visited parts of the world remote from Europe. If the tribe had survivors, there is no record of them after this point.

Europeans: Pilgrims, Puritans and Yankees 1620-1629

The Pilgrims from the Humber region of England established their settlement at Plymouth in 1620, arriving on the Mayflower. One of their first tasks was to form a government, the Mayflower compact. They also suffered grievously from the native smallpox, but they were assisted in their time of trouble by the Wampanoags under chief Massasoit. In 1621 they celebrated their first Thanksgiving Day together to thank God for their survival. About half survived the first year.

The English settlers built small compact villages, leaving alone vast stretches of the state. Their numbers swelled by the harsh treatment of puritans by King Charles I. The natives called them the Yengeeze, their pronunciation of English, which became yankee.

Massachusetts Bay Colony period 1629-1686

The Pilgrims were soon followed by puritans from the River Thames region of England, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This colony eclipsed Plymouth in population and economy, the chief factor being the good harbor at Boston. When the English Revolution began in 1642, Massachusetts Bay Colony became a Puritan stonghold.

Relations with the natives were still good at this time. In 1646 the Long Parliament gave John Eliot a commission and funds to preach to the Wampanoags. He succeeded in converting a large number. The colonial government placed them in a ring of villages around Boston as a defensive strategy. They were called praying indians. The oldest, Natick, was built in 1651.

The Puritans came to Massachusetts for religious purification and would not tolerate impure religion. Pilgrims, as well as Anglicans, Quakers, and a handful of other denominations were grudgingly accepted in the Puritan communities for a time. Then Quakers were banned, and in 1660 four were hanged in Boston Common (see Mary Dyer). Dissenters such as Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and Thomas Hooker left Massachusetts because of the Puritans' lack of religious tolerance. Williams ended up founding the colony of Rhode Island and Hooker founded Connecticut.

Racial tensions led to King Philip's War 1675-76, the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period. There were major campaigns in the Pioneer Valley and Plymouth Colony. Massachusetts. Starting in the 1670s, Massachusetts followed the general colonial practice of adopting slave codes, which removed the limitation on the term of slavery for non-whites only. It became fashionable for respectable familes to own one or more household slaves as cooks or butlers.

Dominion of New England 1686-1692

In 1685 King James II of England, an outspoken Catholic, acceded to the throne and began to militate against Protestant rule, including the Protestant control of New England. In May 1686, the Massachusetts Bay Colony ended when its charter was annulled. The King appointed Joseph Dudley to the new post of President of New England. Dudley established his authority later in New Hampshire and the King's Province (part of current Rhode Island), maintaining this position until Edmund Andros arrived to become the Royal Governor of the Dominion of New England. After James II was overthrown by King William and Queen Mary, the colonials overthrew Andros and his officials. Andros's post was given to Simon Bradstreet until 1692. He merged Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony in 1691. In 1692 a new governor, William Phips, was appointed with a new colonial charter. He governed the colony by leaving it alone. Consequently, during the Salem Witch Trials, Phips only intervened when his own wife was accused.

Royal Colony of Massachusetts 1692-1774

Notable governors during this period were Thomas Hutchinson, Francis Bernard, and General Thomas Gage. Gage was the last British governor of Massachusetts.

Revolutionary Massachusetts 1760s-1780s

Boston was the center of revolutionary activity in the decade before 1775, with Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock as leaders who would become important in the eventual war. Under military occupation, since 1768, when customs officials were attacked by mobs, two regiments of British regulars had been housed in the city with increasing public outrage.

In Boston on March 5, 1770, in what began as a rock throwing incident against a few british soldiers, ended in the shooting of five men by British soldiers in what became known as the Boston Massacre. The incident caused to further rile anger in the commonwealth over taxes and the presence of the British soldiers.

One of the many taxes protested by the colonists was the Tea Act, and laws that forbade the sale of non-East India Company Tea. On December 16 1773, when a tea ship of the East India Company was planning to land taxed tea in Boston, a group of local men known as the Sons of Liberty sneaked on to the boat the night before and dumped all the tea into the harbor, an act known as the Boston Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party caused the British government to pass the Intolerable Acts that brought stiff punishment upon Massachusetts. They closed the port of Boston, the economic lifeblood of the state, and eliminated any self-government. The suffering of Boston and the tyranny of its rule caused great sympathy and stirred resentment throughout the colonies. With the local population largely opposing British authority, troops moved from Boston on April 18, 1775 to destroy the powder supplies of local resisters in Concord. Paul Revere made his famous ride to warn the locals in response to this march. That day, in the Battle of Lexington and Concord, where the famous "shot heard round the world" was fired, British troops, after running over the Lexington militia, were forced back into the city by local resistors. The city was quickly brought under siege. In response, on February 9, 1775, the British Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and sent additional troops to restore order to the colony. Fighting broke out when the British attempted to take the Charlestown Peninisula in what is known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British won the battle, but at a very large cost. Soon afterwards General George Washington took charge, and when he acquired cannon in spring 1776, the British were forced to leave, marking the first great American victory of the war. This was the last fighting in the state but the Massachusetts state navy did manage to get itself destroyed by the British fleet.

The fighting brought to a head what had been brewing through out the colonies, and on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed. It was signed first by Massachusetts resident John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress.

Federalist Era 1780-1815

A Constitutional Convention drew up a Constitution drafted mainly by John Adams, and the people ratified it on June 15, 1780. At that time, Adams along with Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin wrote in the Preamble to the Constitution of the Commonwealth, 1780:

We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe, in affording us, in the course of His Providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprize, on entering into an Original, explicit, and Solemn Compact with each other; and of forming a new Constitution of Civil Government, for Ourselves and Posterity, and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, Do agree upon, ordain and establish, the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts was the first state to assert that, slavery no longer could exist. The new Constitutional also dropped any religious tests for political office, though local tax moneys had to be paid to support local churches. People who belonged to non-Congregational churches paid their tax money to their own church. (The churchless paid to the Congregatinalists.) Baptist leader Isaac Backus vigorously fought these provisions, arguing people should have freedom of choice regarding financial support of religion.

Leader in industrialization 1815-1860

Massachusetts became a national and world leader in industrialization, with its mastery of machine tools. Boston capital funded textile mills in many towns; the new textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence were founded. Mill owners, after briefly using local farm women, Lowell girls, brought in Irish and French Canadian workers. The immigrant work force worked for little pay, at long hours and died young from respitory problems and unsafe machinery. Child labor was heavily used during this time, and the mill families lived in harsh poverty. Lowell grew to a city of 30,000 people, 300,000 spindles and 9000 looms. Its mills were highly integrated and centrally controlled. An ingenious canal system provided the water power that drove the machinery (steam engines came much later). In output per worker-hour it could claim to be the most efficient textile center in the world. Industrial cities, especially Worcester and Springfield became world leaders in machinery. Boston did not have factories, but it became increasingly important as the transportation hub of all of New England, as well as a national leader in finance, law, medicine, learning, and publishing. Stung by New York City's control of western markets via the Erie Canal, Massachusetts turned to railroads. (With so many hills a canal system would not have worked.) In 1830 the legislature chartered three new railroads--the Boston and Lowell, the Boston and Providence, and most important of all, the Boston and Worcester. In 1833 it chartered the Western Railroad to connect Worcester with Albany and the Erie Canal. The system flourished and western grain began flowing to the port of Boston for export to Europe.

Horace Mann made the state system of schools the national model. The state made its mark in Washington with such political leaders as Daniel Webster and Charles Sumner. Building on the many activist Congregational churches, abolitionism flourished. William Lloyd Garrison was the outstanding spokesperson, though many "cotton Whig" mill owners complained that the agitation was bad for their strong business ties to southern cotton planters. The Congregationalists remained dominant in rural areas but in the cities a new religious sensibility had replaced their straight-laced Calvinism. By 1826, reported Harriet Beecher Stowe:

All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarians. All the trustees and professors of Harvard College were Unitarians. All the élite of wealth and fashion crowded Unitarian churches. The judges on the bench were Unitarian, giving decisions by which the peculiar features of church organization, so carefully ordained by the Pilgrim fathers, had been nullified.

Some of the most important writers and thinkers of this time came from Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, are well known today for their contributions to American thought. Part of an Intellectual movement known as Trancendentalism, they emphasized the importance of the natural world to humanity, and were also part of the abolitionist call.

Civil War and Gilded Age 1860-1900

Massachusetts was among the first states to respond to President Lincoln's call for troops. Massachusetts was the first state to recruit, train and arm a black regiment, with white officers, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Prosperity decades 1900-1929

Depression and war 1929-1945

Economic changes: decline of manufacturing 1945-1985

Modern economy and society 1985-2006

Massachusetts in the past 20 years has cemented its place as a center of education and high-tech industry. With better than average schools overall and many elite universities, the area was well placed to take advantage of the technology-based economy of the 90's. Increased jobs meant increased population, which gave rise to increased suburban sprawl. The state had several notable citizens in federal government in the 1980's, including almost presidential hopeful and Senator Ted Kennedy and House Speaker Tip O'Neill. This legislative influence allowed the state to receive federal highway funding for the $14.6 Billion Central Artery/Tunnel Project. Known colloquially as the "the Big Dig," it was the biggest federal highway project ever at the time approved. Designed to relieve some of the traffic problems of the poorly planned city, it was approved in 1987, and construction lasted until 2005. As of late 2004, leaks caused by poor construction had begun to sprout in the tunnel. The state is attempting to force contractors to pay for the leaks.

In 2002 the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal among local priests became public. The diocese was found to have knowingly moved priests who sexually molested children from parish to parish and to have covered up abuse. The revelations caused the resignation of the archbishop, Cardinal Law, and resulted in a $85 million dollar settlement with the victims. With the large Irish and Italian Catholic populations in Boston, this was a big concern. The diocese under financial pressure closed many of its churches. In some churches, parishioners camped out in the churches to protest and block closure.

On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) deemed that the state could not deny marriage rights to same-sex couples under the state constitution. On February 4, 2004, the SJC followed that ruling with a statement saying that civil unions would not pass constitutional muster and that only full same-sex marriage rights met constitutional guarantees. On May 17, 2004, the ruling took effect and thousands of gay and lesbian couples across the state began to marry. Opponents of gay marriage have pushed for a state constitutional amendment that would allow the state to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. The amendment must be approved in two consecutive legislative sessions and pass a statewide referendum. It is unclear whether the amendment will pass, but polls indicate public support in the Bay State for same-sex marriage has grown since its legalization. On May 15, 2005, the state Democratic party approved a platform endorsing gay marriage.

On October 27, 2004 the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years.

References

Surveys

  • Brown, Richard D. and Jack Tager. Massachusetts: A Concise History (2002), the most recent scholarly history
  • Clark, Will L. ed., Western Massachusetts: A History, 1636–1925 (1926), history of towns and institutions
  • Cumbler, John T. Reasonable Use: The People, the Environment, and the State, New England, 1790-1930 (2001), environmental history
  • Formisano, Ronald P., and Constance K. Burns, eds. Boston, 1700-1980: The Evolution of Urban Politics (1984)
  • Green, James R., William F. Hartford, and Tom Juravich. Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions (1996)
  • Hall, Donald. ed. The Encyclopedia of New England (2005)
  • Hart, Albert Bushnell ed.Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Colony, Province and State 5 Vol. (1927-30), in-depth history; politics and economy
  • Langtry, Albert P. ed., Metropolitan Boston: A Modern History 4 vols. (1929).
  • Wilkie, Richard W. and Jack Tager. Historical Atlas of Massachusetts (1991)
  • Winsor, Justin ed., The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880 4 vols.
  • WPA. Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People. (1937), guide to every city and town

Specialized books

To 1780

  • Adams, James Truslow. The Founding of New England (1921)
  • Adams, James Truslow. Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776 (1923)
  • Adams, James Truslow. New England in the Republic, 1776-1850 (1926)
  • Andrews, Charles M. The Fathers of New England: A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths (1919), short survey
  • Axtell, James, ed. The American People in Colonial New England (1973), new social history
  • Bailyn, Bernard. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (1975)
  • Bailyn, Bernard. The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (1970)
  • Bremer, Francis J. John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (2003)
  • Brown, Robert E. Middle Class Democracy in Massachusetts, 1691-1789 (1955)
  • Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (1983), environmental history
  • Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride (1994), explains 1775 in depth
  • Hart, Albert Bushnell ed.Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Colony, Province and State Vol. 1 (1927), to 1689
  • Hosmer, James Kendall ed. Winthrop's Journal, "History of New England," 1630-1649
  • Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (1998), new social history
  • Labaree, Benjamin Woods. Colonial Massachusetts: A History (1979), scholarly overview
  • Labaree, Benjamin W. The Boston Tea Party (1964)
  • Lockridge, Kenneth A. A New England Town: The First Hundred Years: Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636-1736 (1985), new social history
  • Miller, John C. Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda (1936)
  • Palfrey, John Gorham. History of New England vol 1 (1858), political narrative.
  • Rutman, Darrett B. Winthrop's Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649 (1965)
  • Taylor, Robert J. Western Massachusetts in the Revolution (1954)
  • Vaughan, Alden T. New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians 1620-1675 (1995)
  • Warden, G. B. Boston 1689-1776 (1970)
  • Weeden, William. Economic and Social History of New England, 1620–1789 (1890)
  • Zobel, Hiller B. The Boston Massacre (1978)

1780-1900

  • Adams, James Truslow. New England in the Republic, 1776-1850 (1926)
  • Banner, James. To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789-1815 (1970)
  • Baum, Dale. The Civil War Party System: The Case of Massachusetts, 1848-1876 (1984), new political history
  • Blodgett, Geoffrey The Gentle Reformers: Massachusetts Democrats in the Cleveland Era (1966)
  • Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865(1936), famous writers
  • Clark, Christopher. The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780–1860 (1990)
  • Deutsch, Sarah. Women and the City: Gender, Space, and Power in Boston, 1870-1940 (2000)
  • Dublin, Thomas. Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860 (1993)
  • Faler, Paul Gustaf. Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts, 1780-1860 (1981)
  • Formisano, Ronald P. The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s-1840s (1983), new political history
  • Goodman, Paul. The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts (1964)
  • Green, James R., William F. Hartford, and Tom Juravich. Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions (1996)
  • Gutman, Herbert. The New England Working Class and the New Labor History (1987)
  • Handlin, Oscar and Mary Flug Handlin. Commonwealth: A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1774-1861 (1947), influential study
  • Handlin, Oscar. Boston's Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (1941), social history to 1865
  • Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860 (1921)
  • Nelson, William. Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760–1830 (1994)
  • Peters Jr., Ronald M. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: A Social Compact (1978)
  • Porter, Susan L. Women of the Commonwealth: Work, Family, and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts (1996)
  • Prude, Jonathan. The Coming of Industrial Order: A Study of Town and Factory Life In Rural Massachusetts, 1813–1860 (1983)
  • Rosenkrantz, Barbara. Public Health and the State: Changing Views in Massachusetts, 1842–1936 (1972),
  • Story, Ronald. The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard and the Boston Upper Class, 1800-1870 (1980).
  • Szatmary, David. Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection (1980);
  • Tager, Jack, and John W. Ifkovic, eds. Massachusetts in the Gilded Age: Selected Essays (1985), essays on ethnic groups
  • Wilson, Harold Fisher. The Hill Country of Northern New England: Its Social and Economic History, 1790–1930(1967)

1900-2006

  • Abrams, Richard M. Conservatism in a Progressive Era: Massachusetts Politics, 1900-1912 (1964)
  • Black, John D. The rural economy of New England: a regional study (1950
  • Blewett, Mary H. The Last Generation: Work and Life in the Textile Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, 1910-1960 (1990)
  • Brewer, Daniel Chauncey. Conquest of New England by the Immigrant (1926)
  • Conforti, Joseph A. Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century (2001)
  • Deutsch, Sarah. Women and the City: Gender, Space, and Power in Boston, 1870-1940 (2000)
  • Freeland, Richard M. Academia's Golden Age: Universities in Massachusetts, 1945-1970 (1992)
  • Green, James R., William F. Hartford, and Tom Juravich. Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions (1996)
  • Gutman, Herbert. The New England Working Class and the New Labor History (1987)
  • Huthmacher, J. Joseph. Massachusetts People and Politics, 1919-1933 (1958)
  • Kane, Paula M. Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900-1920 (1994)
  • Lazerson, Marvin, Origins of the Urban School: Public Education in Massachusetts, 1870-1915 (1971)
  • Litt, Edgar. The Political Cultures of Massachusetts (1965).
  • Lockard, Duane. New England State Politics (1959), covers 1945-58
  • Peirce, Neal R. The New England States: People, Politics, and Power in the Six New England States (1976), in-depth coverage of the 1958-75 era
  • Stack Jr., John F. International Conflict in an American City: Boston's Irish, Italians, and Jews, 1935-1944 (1979).
  • Trout, Charles. Boston, The Great Depression and the New Deal (1977)
  • White, William Allen. A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge (1938)
  • Whitehill, Walter Muir. Boston in the Age of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1966)
  • WPA. Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People. (1937), guide to every city and town
  • Zimmerman, Joseph F. The New England Town Meeting: Democracy in Action (1999)

Primary sources

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