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The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts was created in the
late 1700s. Prior to English colonization of the
area, it was inhabited by various indigenous tribes.
The state has no singular characteristic, geographic
or cultural, that helps to distinguish it from the
surrounding areas. This article discusses the
history of the people who inhabited the land that
eventually became the modern Commonwealth, which is
intertwined with the histories of the neighboring
states and what would become the nation of the
United States of
America.
Early settlement
Various
Algonquian 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.
Europeans: Pilgrims, Puritans and
Yankees: 1620–1629
The
Pilgrims from the
Humber region of England and
originally landed at what is now
Provincetown,
Massachusetts. After scouting the coastline they
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 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 like taylor built small compact villages, leaving
alone vast stretches of the state. Their numbers swelled by
the harsh treatment of Puritans by
King Charles I.
Massachusetts Bay Colony period:
1629–1686
Before
heading to the New World, the Puritans headed to
Holland to avoid their persecution in
England. They were accepted in Holland, but left within 50
years. The liberalism and openness of the Dutch to all
styles of life horrified the Puritans. Once their children
grew up Dutch and became more Dutch than Puritan, the
Puritans decided to head out to the New World.
The
Puritans were from the
River Thames region of
England and 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 other religions, although Pilgrims,
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 families 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.
During this time, the colony launched an unsuccessful
expedition against Quebec
under William Phips in 1690,
which had been financed by issuing paper bonds set against
the gains expected from taking the city. Bradstreet merged
Massachusetts Bay Colony and
Plymouth Colony in 1691, and the following year, Phips
was appointed governor 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
Massachusetts became a single colony in 1692, the largest in
New England, and one where many
American institutions and traditions were formed. Unlike
southern colonies, it was built around small towns rather
than scattered farms. The Pilgrims
settled the Plymouth Colony,
and Puritan settlers traveled to
Salem and later to
Boston in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
As the Puritans gradually secularized and became known as
Yankees, the
Congregational Church
they founded continued to dominate most small towns. Late in
the colonial period Baptist and other
dissenting churches emerged, and the elites in Boston and
other large towns turned to the Anglican and Unitarian
religions. The colony, usually including present-day Maine
fought alongside British regulars, a series of
French and Indian Wars
that were characterized by brutal border raids and
successful attacks on Canada. Notable royal governors during
this period were Thomas
Hutchinson, Jonathan Belcher,
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 4,
1776, the
Declaration of
Independence was signed in
Philadelphia. It was signed first by Massachusetts
resident John Hancock, president
of the Continental Congress.
Soon afterward the Declaration of Independence was read to
the people of Boston from the balcony of the
Old State House.
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 surprise, 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 money
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.
Shays'
Rebellion or Shays's Rebellion was an
armed uprising in western
Massachusetts from 1786 to
1787. The rebels, led by Daniel
Shays and known as Shaysites (or
"Regulators"), were mostly small farmers angered by crushing
debt and taxes.
Failure to repay such debts often resulted in imprisonment
in debtor's prisons. A
rebellion started on August 29,
1786. A
Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private
army defeated the main Shaysite force on
February 3, 1787.
There was a lack of an institutional response to the
uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the
Articles of
Confederation and gave strong impetus to the
Constitutional Convention
which began in May 1787.
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.
On
March 15, 1820,
the District of Maine was
separated from Massachusetts and entered the Union as the
23rd State as a result of the enactment of the
Missouri Compromise.
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.) The Granite Railway
in 1826 became the first commercial railroad in the nation.
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
strait-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
In the
years leading up to the Civil
War, Massachusetts was a center of
abolitionist activity within the
United States. Two prominent abolitionists from the state
were William Lloyd
Garrison and Wendell
Phillips. Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery
Society in 1832, and helped changed perceptions on slavery.
The movement increased antagonistic over the issues of
slavery. The antagonism resulted in anti-abolitionist riots
in Massachusetts between 1835 and 1837. The works of
abolitionists contributed to the eventual actions of the
state during the Civil War.
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
Massachusetts entered the
twentieth century with a strong industrial economy.
Despite a lack of agricultural progress, the economy
prospered between 1900 and 1919. Factories throughout the
state produced goods varying from paper to metals.
Boston, in the year 1900, was still
the second most important port within the United States, as
well as the most valuable U.S. port in terms of its fish
market. By 1908, however, the value of the port dropped
considerably due to competition. Population growth within
this period, which was aided by immigration from abroad,
helped in urbanization and forced a change in the ethnic
make-up of the state.
The largely
industry based economy of Massachusetts began to falter,
however, due to the dependence of factory communities upon
the production of one or two goods. External low-wage
competition, coupled with other factors of the Great
Depression in later years, led to the collapse of
Massachusetts’s two main industries: shoes and textiles.
Between 1921 and 1949 the failure of those industries would
reveal itself to be responsible for rampant unemployment and
the urban decay of
once-prosperous industrial centers.
Depression and war: 1929–1945
Even before
the Great Depression struck
the United States, Massachusetts was experiencing economic
problems. The crash of the state’s major industries led to
declining population in factory towns. The Boston
Metropolitan area became one of the slowest growing areas in
the United States between 1920 and
1950. Internal migration within the
state, however, was altered by the Great Depression. In wake
of economic woes, people moved to the metropolitan area of
Boston looking for jobs, only to find high
unemployment and dismal
conditions. In the depressed situation that predominated in
Boston during this era, racial tension manifested itself in
gang warfare at times, notably with clashes between the
Irish and Italians.
Massachusetts also endured class
conflict during this period. This might be represented
by the 1912 general strike of
Lawrence, Massachusetts.
In the course of the disruptive event, almost all of the
town’s mills were forced to shut down as a result strife
over wages that sustained only poverty. The issues of worker
conditions and wages had been subjects of discussion in the
state before. In example, when the legislature decreed that
women and children could work only 50 hours per week,
employers cut wages proportionally. Eventually, the demands
of the Lawrence strikers were given into, and a pay increase
was made.
The net
result of the economic and social turmoil in Massachusetts
was the beginning of a change in the state’s way of
functioning. Politics helped to encourage stability among
social groups by elevating members of various ranks in
society, as well as ethnic groups, to influential posts. The
two major industries of Massachusetts, shoes and textiles,
had entered of recession of worth that not even
World War II could prevent
permanently. Thus, the state’s economy was ripe for change
as the post-war years dawned.
Economic changes: decline of
manufacturing 1945–1985
World War
II precipitated great changes in the economy of
Massachusetts, which in turn led to changes in society. The
aftermath of WWII created a global
economy that was focused upon the interests of the
United States, both militarily and in relation to business.
The domestic economy in the United States was altered by
government procurement policies focused on defense. In the
years following WWII, Massachusetts was transformed from a
factory system to a largely service and high-tech based
economy. During WWII, the U.S. government had built
facilities that they leased, and in the post-war years sold,
to defense contractors. Such facilities contributed to an
economy focused on creating specialized defense goods. That
form of economy prospered as a result of the Cold War, the
Vietnam War, and the Korean War.
In the
ensuing years, government contracts, private investment, and
research facilities helped to create a modern industry,
which reduced unemployment and increased
per capita income. All of these
economic changes encouraged
suburbanization and the formation of a new generation of
well-assimilated and educated middle-class workers. At the
same time, suburbanization and urban decay made the
differences between various social groups evident, leading
to a renewal of racial tension. Boston, a paragon of the
problems in Massachusetts cities, experienced numerous
challenges that led to racial problems. The problems facing
urban centers included; declining population, middle-class
flight, departure of industry, high unemployment, rising
taxes, low property values, and competition among ethnic
groups.
Modern economy and society:
1985–2007
Massachusetts in the past twenty 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 1990s. Increased
white-collar jobs have driven suburban sprawl. The state had
several notable citizens in federal government in the 1980s,
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.
In recent
years, the state has lost population as skyrocketing housing
costs have driven many away from Massachusetts. The Boston
area is the third-most expensive housing market in the
country. Over the last several years there has been about a
19,000 person net outflow from the state.
On October
27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox baseball team won their first
World Series in 86 years.
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