Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Flag of Massachusetts Seal of Massachusetts
State nickname: Bay State
Official languages	English
Capital	Boston
Largest city	Boston
Governor	Mitt Romney (R)
Senators	Edward Kennedy (D) John Kerry (D)
Area  - Total  - % water	Ranked 44th 27,360 km² 25.7
Population  - Total (2000)  - Density	Ranked 13th 6,349,097 312.68/km² (3rd)
Admission into Union	February 6, 1788 (6th)
Time Zone	Eastern: UTC-5/-4
Coordinates  - Latitude  - Longitude  - Width  - Length	41°10'N to 42°53'N 68°57'W to 73°30'W 305 km 80 km
Elevation  - Highest point  - Mean  - Lowest point	1,063 m 150 m 0 m
Abbreviations  - USPS  - ISO 3166-2	MA US-MA
Web site	www.mass.gov

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the United States of America.

Name

Mass-adchu-et

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett, whose name can be segmented

mass-adchu-et

where mass is "great", adchu is "hill" and et is a locative suffix. It has been translated as

at the great hill, or at the place of large hills, or at the range of hills

with reference to the Blue Hills, or in particular, Big Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton, to the southwest of Boston.

Commonwealth

Main article: Commonwealth and State naming debate

Massachusetts officially designates itself a "commonwealth", although "state" is commonly used.

Geography

A portion of the north-central Pioneer Valley near South Deerfield, much more rural than Springfield, in the southern part of the valley, or Boston, which is on the coast.

Main article: Massachusetts Geography

Massachusetts is bordered on the north by New Hampshire and Vermont, on the west by New York, on the south by Connecticut and Rhode Island, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. At the southeastern corner of the state is a large, sandy, arm-shaped peninsula called Cape Cod. The islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lie to the south of Cape Cod.

Massachusetts is known as the Bay State because of the several large bays that give its coastline its distinctive shape: Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay on the state's east coast, and Buzzards Bay to the south. A few cities and towns on the Massachusetts–Rhode Island border are also adjacent to Narragansett Bay.

Boston is the largest city, located at the inmost point of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of the Charles River, the longest river entirely within Massachusetts. Most of the population of the Boston metropolitan area (approximately 5,800,000) does not live in the city; eastern Massachusetts on the whole is fairly densely populated and largely suburban. Western Massachusetts is more rural and sparsely populated, especially in the Berkshires, the branch of the Appalachian Mountains which forms the western border of the state. The most populated part of western Massachusetts is the "Pioneer Valley," alongside the Connecticut River, which flows across Western Massachusetts from north to south.

History

Indians

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.

The Massachusett, as were all the Indians on the coast of New England, 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 beganin 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 prification 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.

Tensions with the Puritans led Massasoit's son, Philip. King Philip's War (1675-76), to launch the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period. There were major campaigns in the Pioneer Valley and Plymouth Colony. The praying indians were caught in the middle. Most left Massachusetts. Only 400 remained in 1677, to reoccupy Wampanoag lands in southeastern Massachusetts.

But 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, under its own Constitution, slavery did not exist, as all men had been declared free.

=Leader in Industrialization: 1815-1860

Massachusetts led the country in abolitionism.

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 1945-1980

Postmodern Massachusetts: Economy and Society 1980-2006

Scholarly books on Massachusetts History

• 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 by leading scholar.
• Axtell, James, ed. The American People in Colonial New England (1973), new social history
• Baum, Dale. The Civil War Party System: The Case of Massachusetts, 1848-1876 (1984) new political history
• Bremer, Francis J. John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (2003)
  • Hosmer, James Kendall ed. Winthrop's Journal, "History of New England," 1630-1649 - Vol. 1; Hosmer, James Kendall ed. Winthrop's Journal, "History of New England," 1630-1649 - Vol. 2
• Brewer, Daniel Chauncey. Conquest of New England by the Immigrant (1926).
• Deutsch, Sarah. Women and the City: Gender, Space, and Power in Boston, 1870-1940 (2000)
• Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride (1994)
• Conforti, Joseph A. Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century (2001)
• Hart, Albert Bushnell ed.Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Colony, Province and State Vol. 1 (1927)
• Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (1998), new social history*
• Lazerson, Marvin, Origins of the Urban School: Public Education in