Massachusetts (mæsəˈtʃuːsɪts)
Massachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders on the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Maine to the east, Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state's capital and most populous city, as well as its cultural and financial center, is Boston. Massachusetts is also home to the urban core of Greater Boston, the largest metropolitan area in New England and a region profoundly influential upon American history, academia, and the research economy, Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing, and trade. Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, Massachusetts's economy shifted from manufacturing to services.
Massachusetts was a site of early English colonization: the Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and in 1630 the Massachusetts Bay Colony, taking its name from the indigenous Massachusett people, established settlements in Boston and Salem. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which, during the Industrial Revolution, catalyzed numerous important technological advances, including interchangeable parts. In 1786, Shays' Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, originated from the pulpit of Northampton preacher Jonathan Edwards. In the late 18th century, Boston became known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for the agitation there that later led to the American Revolution.
Massachusetts has played a powerful scientific, commercial, and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, and transcendentalist movements. In the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams and Kennedy families.
Harvard University in Cambridge is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, with the largest financial endowment of any university. Massachusetts residents have been described by the World Population Review as having the highest average IQ of all U.S. states, exceeding 104, and the state's public-school students place among the top tier in the world in academic performance.
History
Pre-colonization
Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family, including: Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn were an important part of their diet, the people of these tribes hunted, fished, and searched the forest for most of their food. Villagers lived in lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses. Tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems.Colonial period
Main articles: Mayflower Compact, Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, New England Confederation, Dominion of New England, and Province of Massachusetts Bay In the early 1600s, European colonizers caused virgin soil epidemics such as smallpox, measles, influenza, and perhaps leptospirosis in what is now known as the northeastern region of the United States. Between 1617 and 1619, what was most likely smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans. The first English colonizers in Massachusetts, the Puritans, arrived on the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620. This was the second permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, after the Jamestown Colony. The "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Puritans after their first harvest in the "New World" and lasted for three days. They were soon followed by other Puritans, who colonized the Massachusetts Bay Colony--now known as Boston--in 1630. The Puritans believed the Church of England needed to be purified and experienced harassment due to being disliked by English authority. They decided to colonize to Massachusetts intending to establish what they considered an "ideal" religious society. Unlike the Plymouth colony, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was colonized under a royal charter in 1629. Both religious dissent and expansionism resulted in several new colonies being founded, shortly after Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, elsewhere in New England. The Massachusetts Bay banished dissenters such as Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams due to religious and political conflict. In 1636, Williams colonized what is now known as Rhode Island, and Hutchinson joined him there several years later. Religious intolerance continued, and among those who objected to this later in the century were the English Quaker preachers Alice and Thomas Curwen, who were publicly flogged and imprisoned in Boston in 1676. In 1641, Massachusetts expanded inland significantly. The Commonwealth acquired the Connecticut River Valley settlement of Springfield, which had recently disputed with—and defected from—its original administrators, the Connecticut Colony. This established Massachusetts's southern border in the west, though this became disputed territory until 1803–04 due to surveying problems. Currency was another issue in the colonies. In 1652 the Massachusetts legislature authorized John Hull to produce coinage (mintmaster). "The Hull Mint produced several denominations of silver coinage, including the pine tree shilling, for over 30 years until the political and economic situation made operating the mint no longer practical." Mostly political for Charles II of England deemed the "Hull Mint" high treason in the United Kingdom which had a punishment of Hanging, drawing and quartering. "On April 6, 1681, Randolph petitioned the king, informing him the colony was still pressing their own coins which he saw as high treason and believed it was enough to void the charter. He asked that a writ of Quo warranto (a legal action requiring the defendant to show what authority they have for exercising some right, power, or franchise they claim to hold) be issued against Massachusetts for the violations." In 1691, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth were united (along with present-day Maine, which had previously been divided between Massachusetts and New York) into the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Shortly after the arrival of the new province's first governor, William Phips, the Salem witch trials took place, where a number of men and women were hanged for alleged witchcraft. The most destructive earthquake yet known in New England occurred in 1755, causing considerable damage across Massachusetts.The Revolutionary War
Massachusetts was a center of the movement for independence from Great Britain; colonists in Massachusetts had long uneasy relations with the British monarchy, including open rebellion under the Dominion of New England in the 1680s. Protests against British attempts to tax the colonies after the French and Indian War ended in 1763 led to the Boston Massacre in 1770, and the 1773 Boston Tea Party escalated tensions. In 1774, the Intolerable Acts targeted Massachusetts with punishments for the Boston Tea Party and further decreased local autonomy, increasing local dissent. Anti-Parliamentary activity by men such as Samuel Adams and John Hancock, followed by reprisals by the British government, were a primary reason for the unity of the Thirteen Colonies and the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. The Battles of Lexington and Concord initiated the American Revolutionary War and were fought in the eponymous Massachusetts towns. Future President George Washington took over what would become the Continental Army after the battle. His first victory was the Siege of Boston in the winter of 1775–76, after which the British were forced to evacuate the city. The event is still celebrated in Suffolk County as Evacuation Day. On the coast, Salem became a center for privateering. Although the documentation is incomplete, about 1,700 letters of marque, issued on a per-voyage basis, were granted during the American Revolution. Nearly 800 vessels were commissioned as privateers and are credited with capturing or destroying about 600 British ships.Federal period
Main articles: Constitutional Convention (United States), Admission to the Union, and List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union Bostonian John Adams, known as the "Atlas of Independence", was highly involved in both separation from Britain and the Constitution of Massachusetts, which effectively (the Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker cases as interpreted by William Cushing) made Massachusetts the first state to abolish slavery. David McCullough points out that an equally important feature was its placing for the first time the courts as a co-equal branch separate from the executive. (The Constitution of Vermont, adopted in 1777, represented the first partial ban on slavery. Vermont became a state in 1791 but did not fully ban slavery until 1858 with the Vermont Personal Liberty Law. The Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1780 made Pennsylvania the first state to abolish slavery by statute.) Later, Adams was active in early American foreign affairs and succeeded Washington as the second United States President. His son John Quincy Adams, also from Massachusetts, would go on to become the sixth United States President. From 1786 to 1787, an armed uprising, known as Shays' Rebellion led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays wrought havoc throughout Massachusetts and ultimately attempted to seize the Federal armory. The rebellion was one of the major factors in the decision to draft a stronger national constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation. On February 6, 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.19th century
In 1820, Maine separated from Massachusetts and entered the Union as the 23rd state as a result of the ratification of the Missouri Compromise. During the 19th century, Massachusetts became a national leader in the American Industrial Revolution, with factories around cities such as Lowell and Boston producing textiles and shoes, and factories around Springfield producing tools, paper, and textiles. The economy transformed from one based primarily on agriculture to an industrial one, initially making use of water-power and later the steam engine to power factories. Canals and railroads were used for transporting raw materials and finished goods. At first, the new industries drew labor from Yankees on nearby subsistence farms, and later relied upon immigrant labor from Europe and Canada. Although Massachusetts was the first slave-holding colony dating back to the early 1600s, in the years leading up to the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center of progressivist and abolitionist activity. Horace Mann made the state's school system a national model. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson made major contributions to American philosophy. Members of the transcendentalist movement emphasized the importance of the natural world and emotion to humanity. Although significant opposition to abolitionism existed early on in Massachusetts, resulting in anti-abolitionist riots between 1835 and 1837,opposition to slavery gradually increased throughout the next few decades. Abolitionists John Brown and Sojourner Truth lived in Springfield and Northampton, respectively, while Frederick Douglass lived in Boston and Susan B. Anthony in Adams, Massachusetts. The works of such abolitionists contributed to Massachusetts's actions during the Civil War. Massachusetts was the first state to recruit, train, and arm a Black regiment with White officers, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. In 1852, Massachusetts became the first state to pass compulsory education laws.20th century
Although the American stock market had sustained steep losses the last week in October 1929, Tuesday, October 29 is remembered as the beginning of the Great Depression. The Boston Stock Exchange, drawn into the whirlpool of panic selling that beset the New York Stock Exchange, lost over 25 percent of its value in two days of frenzied trading. The BSE, nearly 100 years old at the time, had helped raise the capital that had funded many of the Commonwealth's factories, railroads, and businesses. Governor of Massachusetts Frank G. Allen appointed John C. Hull the first Securities Director of Massachusetts. Hull would assume office in January 1930. His term would end in 1936. With the departure of several manufacturing companies, the area's industrial economy began to decline during the early 20th century. By the 1920s, competition from the South and Midwest, followed by the Great Depression, led to the collapse of the three main industries in Massachusetts: textiles, shoemaking, and precision mechanics. Massachusetts manufactured 3.4 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking tenth among the 48 states. In Eastern Massachusetts, following World War II, the economy was transformed from one based on heavy industry into a service-based economy. Government contracts, private investment, and research facilities led to a new and improved industrial climate, with reduced unemployment and increased per capita income.
"Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem"
Maps
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Lovecraft Country
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Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Founding Date
February 6, 1788
Type
Geopolitical, State
Capital
Alternative Names
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Nickname(s): The Bay State (official) The Pilgrim State, The Puritan State, The Old Colony State, The Baked Bean State
Predecessor Organization
Demonym
Bay Stater (official), Massachusite (traditional), Massachusettsan (recommended by the U.S. GPO), Masshole (derogatory or endearing)
Leader
Leader Title
Government System
Democracy, Representative
Power Structure
Federation
Economic System
Mixed economy
Currency
United States dollar
Legislative Body
Massachusetts General Court
Parent Organization
Subsidiary Organizations
Official Languages
Related Traditions
Controlled Territories
Comments