History of New England

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This article presents the History of New England, the oldest clearly-defined region of the United States, unique among U.S. geographic regions in that it is also a former political entity. While New England was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples, English Pilgrims, fleeing religious persecution in Europe, arrived nearly four hundred years ago at the beginning of the 17th century. It was one of the first regions of the original North American British colonies to demonstrate ambitions of independence from the Crown in the 18th century, although it would later collectively oppose the War of 1812 with Great Britain. In the 19th century, it played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States, became a source of some of the first examples of American literature and philosophy, and showed the first signs of the effects of the Industrial Revolution in North America.^[1]

[edit] The indigenous peoples of New England

See also: List of place names in New England of aboriginal origin

New England has long been inhabited by Algonquian-speaking native peoples, including the Abenaki, the Penobscot, the Wampanoag, and many others. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans such as Giovanni da Verrazzano, Jacques Cartier and John Cabot (known as Giovanni Caboto before being based in England) charted the New England coast. They referred to the region as Norumbega, named for a fabulous native city that was supposed to exist there.

[edit] Early European settlement (1615-1620)

A 17th century map shows New England as a coastal enclave extending from Cape Cod to New France.

For the early history of the Connecticut Colony, see New Netherland.

On April 10, 1606, James I of England chartered the Virginia Companies of London and Plymouth. The latter included land extending as far as present-day northern Maine.^[2] The purpose of both was to claim land for England and trade.^[3] The Dutch New Netherland Company established the beginnings of New Netherland in 1615, when they established trading posts on the Hudson River, near present-day Albany, New York.^[4]

The region was named "New England" by Captain John Smith, who explored its shores in 1614.^[5]

[edit] Plymouth Council for New England (1620-1643)

The name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620, when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint stock company established colonize and govern the region.^[6] On March 3, 1636, the Connecticut Colony was granted a charter and established its own government. Vermont was then unsettled, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were then governed by Massachusetts. The oldest colony, Plymouth, would eventually be absorbed by Massachusetts, and New Haven would be absorbed by Connecticut.

[edit] The New England Confederation (1643-1686)

Six years after the Pequot War of 1637, in 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation (officially "The United Colonies of New England"). The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense against a possible war with Native Americans, the Dutch in the New Netherland colony to the west, the Spanish in the south and the French in New France to the north, as well as to assist in the return of runaway slaves. The organization was composed of two delegates from each of the four member colonies. Six of the eight votes were necessary to adopt any measure. Regular annual meetings were to be held, but additional ones could be called as necessary. Each member colony retained its own governing institutions.^[7] King Philip's War (1675-1676), the bloodiest colonial Indian war of the early colonial period, had a devastating effect on the colonies of southern New England and Rhode Island, but effectively limited the power and influence of the Native Americans in the region that sided with the insurgents. The strains brought on by this war led to the Confederation's decreasing influence in the region.

The first coins struck in the Colonies were the silver New England coins.

The first coins struck in the Colonies, prompted by a shortage of change, were the New England coins produced by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first series was a simple design including "NE" on the obverse and the various denominations on the reverse. Other series included the "Willow," "Oak," and "Pine Tree." The "Pine Tree" coinage was the last type in the series, struck by coiner John Hull. Although the majority were dated 1652, it is generally acknowledged that production spanned about thirty years, despite the disapproval of King Charles II.^[8]

King Charles II was restored to power in 1661 after the execution of his father Charles I in the English Civil War. On March 12, 1663 he ignored conflicting claims and arbitrarily granted to his brother, the Duke of York and the future king James II, a charter for an enormous swath of territory in North America. This charter covered all the land between the Connecticut River and the Delaware River, Long Island; Martha's Vinyard; Nantucket; and the area between the Kennebec River and the St. Croix River, extending inland from the Atlantic coast to the St. Lawrence River. This grant not only directly confiscated the Dutch colony in New York, but also included a large part of settled land in Long Island, Connecticut and most of present day Maine, (then administered by Massachusetts) and part of Quebec.

[edit] The Dominion of New England (1686-1689)

In 1686, King James II, concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, in particular their self governing Charters, open flouting of the Navigation Acts and their increasing military power decreed the Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all the New England colonies. Two years later, the provinces of New York (New Amsterdam) and the New Jersey, which had been confiscated by force from the Dutch, were added. The union, imposed from the outside, and removing nearly all their popularly elected leaders, was highly unpopular among the colonists. In 1687, when the Connecticut Colony refused to follow a decision of the dominion governor Edmund Andros to turn over their charter, he sent an armed contingent to seize the colony's charter. The colonists, according to popular legend, hid the charter inside the Charter Oak tree. Andros' efforts to loot the colonies, replace their leaders and to unify the colonial defenses under his control met little success and the dominion ceased after only three years. After the very popular removal of King James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1689. Andros was arrested and sent back to England by the colonists.^[9]

[edit] Modern New England (1689-present)

The Old World's enduring influence over New England is evident in the architecture of Boston College, originally dubbed Oxford in America

After the Glorious Revolution in 1689 the charters of most of the colonies were significantly modified with the appointment of Royal Governors to nearly each colony. An uneasy tension existed between the Royal Governors, their officers and the elected governing bodies in the colonies. The governors wanted essentially unlimited arbitrary powers and the different layers of locally elected officials resisted as best they could. In most cases the local town governments continued operating as self-governing bodies as they had before the Royal Governors showed up and to the extent possible ignored the Royal Governors. This tension eventually led to the American Revolution when the states formed their own governments. The colonies were not formally united again until 1776 as newly formed states, when they declared themselves independent states in a larger (but not yet federalist) union called the United States.

The New England States were originally settled between 1620 and 1640 by about 30,000 settlers and received little immigration until the Irish showed up in the 1840s. The almost one million inhabitants 130 years later at the time of the Revolution were nearly all descended from the original settlers, whose 3 percent annual natural growth rate caused a doubling of population every 25 years. Their beliefs and ancestry were nearly all shared and made them into what was probably the largest more-or-less homogeneous group of settlers in America. Their continued high birth rate continued for at least a century more, making the descendants of these New Englanders well represented in nearly all states today. In the 18th century and the early 19th century, New England was still considered to be a very distinct region of the country, as it is today. During the War of 1812, there was a limited amount of talk of secession from the Union, as New England merchants, just getting back on their feet, opposed the war with their greatest trading partner — Great Britain.

Aside from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, or "New Scotland," New England is the only North American region to inherit the name of a kingdom in the British Isles. New England has largely preserved its regional character, especially in its historic sites. Its name is a reminder of the past, as many of the original English-Americans have migrated further west.

[edit] Notes