History of Massachusetts

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This is the History of the state of Massachusetts, a state in the northeastern U.S.

Indians

Various Algonquin tribes inhabited the area prior to European settlement. In the Massachusetts Bay area resided the Massachusett tribe. Near the Vermont and New Hampshire borders and the Merrimack River valley was the traditional home of the Pennacook tribe. Cape Cod 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 were heavily decimated by waves of smallpox brought by sailors and explorers well before the settlers came. (The explorers and dsailors had much more contact with Indians than did the settlers.) Indians had developed no immunity to European diseases, as the record of the Columbian Exchange shows.

English: Pilgrims, 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, amounting to a few square miles; they avoided the hunting areas used by the Indians. Plymouth always was small and later became part of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1629-1686

A much larger influx were the Puritans, primarily from eastern England. They established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, centered around Boston, with its fine harbor.

Relations with the natives were still good at this time. In 1646 John Eliot started 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 village, 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 the 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

Massachusetts was the first colony to revolt against the Crown, and thus the instigator of the American Revolution. On February 9, 1775, the British Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and sent additional troops to restore order to the colony.

In Boston on March 5, 1770, 5 protestors were shot by British soldiers in the Boston Massacre.

Several early Revolutionary battles took place in Massachusetts, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord (where the famous shot heard 'round the world was fired), the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. After Lexington militia swarmed to Boston, surrounding the British in the city. General George Washington soon 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.

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 rejecting the Lowell girls (young Yankee women) brought in Irish and French Canadian workers. 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. 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 Stow:

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.

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.

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 1985-2007

Bibliography

Surveys

Specialized scholarly books

To 1780

  • Adams, James Truslow. The Founding of New England (1921) online edition
  • Adams, James Truslow. Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776 (1923) online edition
  • Adams, James Truslow. New England in the Republic, 1776-1850 (1926) online edition
  • Andrews, Charles M. The Fathers of New England: A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths (1919)] short survey online edition
  • Axtell, James, ed. The American People in Colonial New England (1973), new social history
  • Bailyn, Bernard. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (1975), the leading Loyalist before the Revolution
  • Bailyn, Bernard. The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (1970)
  • Bremer, Francis J. John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (2003) online edition
    • Hosmer, James Kendall ed. Winthrop's Journal, "History of New England," 1630-1649 - Vol. 1 & vol 2
  • 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), enviornmental history
  • Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride (1994)] explains 1775 in depth online edition
  • Hart, Albert Bushnell ed.Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Colony, Province and State Vol. 1 (1927)] to 1689 online edition
  • 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) online edition
  • 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)
  • Weisman, Richard. Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts U of Massachusetts Press, 1984 online edition
  • Zobel, Hiller B. The Boston Massacre (1978)

1780-1900

1900-2007

Primary Sources

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