School is back in session next week. What better way to celebrate than with a history lesson on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? Seriously! Every now and then I go searching through the state website, www.mass.gov, for interesting tidbits for my personal edification as well as to pass on to my constituents.
I do this mostly during the summer when the Legislature is not in formal sessions and there is less happening on Beacon Hill or around the district for me to report on. I came across the following history of Massachusetts on Secretary of State William Galvin’s webpage. I cut it down a lot to fit this column. If you would like to read the whole essay, go to http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cismaf/mf2.htm#introduction.
The SecState’s webpage gave, as its source, the Department of Economic Development’s Toward A New Prosperity: Building Regional Competitiveness Across the Commonwealth, 2002. I found it interesting. I hope you do as well. There will be a test on Monday…
Historical Sketch…
At the time of earliest European contact (around 1500 A.D.) tens of thousands of Native Americans made their homes in Massachusetts. They were speakers of a variety of dialects and languages, all of which were part of the Algonquian language family and lived in many communities among which some of the best known were the Massachusett, Wampanoag, Pennacook, Mahican (Stockbridge), Pocumtuck, and Nipmuck. Their settlements and hunting grounds were spread across the entire state from easternmost Cape Cod (Nauset) to the western mountains (Housatonic). Tragically, early European travelers introduced new diseases to which the Indians had no natural immunities. The first recorded epidemics began in coastal Massachusetts in 1616 and 1617, and devastated populations by as much as 90%. When the Pilgrims arrived in 1620 they found many areas abandoned. Plimoth plantation itself was established on the site of Patuxet, a depopulated Native American settlement. Disease and war took a heavy toll of Native American lives during the remainder of the seventeenth century…
European history in Massachusetts begins with adventurous explorers, who roved about the coast of Massachusetts centuries before the Mayflower made its famous voyage. There is a legend that Leif Ericson and his Norsemen touched here in the year 1000, and probably fishermen from France and Spain, bound for the teeming waters off the Grand Banks, stopped now and again to cast their nets for cod. In 1497 and 1498 John Cabot carried through the explorations upon which England based her original claim to North America. Other occasional landings were made by voyagers seeking a new route to the fabled treasures of the exotic East, and occasionally abortive plans for colonization took vague shape. In 1602 Bartholemew Gosnold explored the bay and christened Cape Cod for the fish that swarmed about it…
The Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, set sail for North America. After approximately 65 days at sea their first landing was in what is now Provincetown harbor on Saturday, the 11th of November 1620. The Pilgrims spent a few weeks exploring the surrounding area before deciding to cross the bay establishing their colony in Plymouth, which they had chosen under the influence of Smith’s “A Description of New England”. There they set up a democratic government in accordance with the terms of the famous “Mayflower Compact”, an agreement binding all to conform to the will of the majority. In spite of great hardship, the Pilgrim settlement prospered (the local Wampanoag, including the English-speaking Squanto and Chief Massasoit, were very helpful), and in 1621 the first Thanksgiving was observed…
More important, however, was the arrival of the Puritans, who were also determined to find a place where their religious views and practices would be free from persecution. In 1628 a shipload of emigrants led by John Endicott left England for Salem to join Roger Conant’s band of refugees from the abandoned fishing station on Cape Ann, which had been originally formed in 1623 as the “Dorchester Company” by Rev. John White…
In 1627 Woodbury was chosen to return to England to try and obtain a charter for Rev. White’s supporters. On March 19, 1628, a royal charter was granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company, to promote the settlement of the territory “from sea to sea” that had been granted to the Puritans, and to govern its colonies. The charter given to the Company was the foundation of the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It provided for a General Court which was a single body, of which the Court of Assistants was an integral part. Later the Court of Assistants separated from the General Court and became America’s first elected Upper House.
Colonizing
When John Winthrop and a large group of Puritans arrived at Salem in 1630, bearing with them the prized charter, a self-contained English colony, governed by its own members, was assured. Winthrop moved from Salem to Charlestown and thence to Boston, other settlements were founded, and by 1640 the immigrants in Massachusetts numbered 16,000, all seeking greater opportunity and a free environment for their dissentient religious views. Many also felt it their mission to “civilize” the land and its people; the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony shows a Native American saying “Come Over and Help Us”…
Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony worked out its problems without interference from across the sea until 1660, when the Stuarts were restored to the throne. Thereafter, a policy of stricter control was instituted. Massachusetts stoutly resisted all attempts at regulation from abroad, and consequently lost its charter in 1684, becoming a part of the Dominion of New England under the administration of Sir Edmund Andros. Massachusetts continued to oppose the will of the Crown for four years. When James II fled in 1688 the Puritans failed in their attempt to revive the Massachusetts Bay Company, and Massachusetts, in 1691, became a Royal Province under a Governor appointed by the Crown. Two legislative houses were permitted, however, and the requirement that every voter must be a church member was abolished.
The new restrictions incidental to the status of a Royal Province, applied in Massachusetts and elsewhere, provoked the series of controversies that culminated in the Revolutionary War. During the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century, Massachusetts grew in population and in maritime trade…
Repressive Measures
Lax enforcement of the restrictive laws, due to the fact that England was engrossed through much of the eighteenth century by a series of wars with France, gave Massachusetts a breathing spell. The conduct of the colonies, however, in carrying on trade with the enemy during these struggles of the mother country, and their failure to pay a fixed share of the war’s expenses finally brought about a stricter colonial policy. The Sugar Act (1764) almost abolished the foreign trade upon which Massachusetts depended for its gold; the Stamp Act (1765) taxed out of the colony most of the funds remaining to her. Rioting and boycotts brought about the repeal of the Sugar Act in 1766, but other repressive measures followed and the people of Massachusetts were active in their defiance of each new imposition.
The “Boston Massacre” of March 5, 1770, when British soldiers of the garrison stationed in that recalcitrant town fired upon a taunting crowd of citizens, was an ominous portent of the Revolution to come. When the Tea Act was passed in 1773 it gave overwhelming subsidies, by means of a tax rebate, to the East India Company. Samuel Adams organized and directed a group of Bostonians, disguised as Indians, and dumped the cargoes of three East India Company ships into Boston Harbor. England retaliated by closing the Port of Boston and by other “Intolerable Acts”, and the colonial patriots called a Continental Congress that ordered a general boycott of English goods.
On April 19, 1775, the embattled farmers, warned by the historic rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes, engaged the British regulars at Lexington and Concord, firing “the shot heard round the world”. There followed the siege ofBoston, the “glorious defeat” at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and on March 17, 1776, the British evacuation.Massachusetts, where the first blood of the Revolution was shed, had won the first important victory. hereafter, the State had no enemy troops within its borders.
Post-War Problems
With independence came the post-war problems of government, social, and economic progress without, for the first time in history, the English Parliament’s guidance. After several years of friction under an unsatisfactory Executive Council, which did not properly represent the people, a Constitutional Convention drew up a Constitution drafted in the main by John Adams, and the people ratified it on June 15, 1780. Massachusetts originated the Constitutional Convention and insisted on separate popular ratification of every article in the original Constitution and of every subsequent amendment. The Constitution of Massachusetts is the oldest written Constitution in the world still in effect.
After a period of economic depression and political discontent, the Federal Constitution was adopted, and under the presidency of Washington, Massachusetts prospered and expanded her foreign commerce both by entering upon the renowned and immensely profitable China trade and by acquiring, after 1793, much of the carrying trade formerly shared between England and France, then at war…
The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 accelerated the decline of agriculture. Products from the fertile West now moved cheaply and rapidly to New England, and competition was difficult. Massachusetts farmers went West or left their farms for the factories. Young women were also employed in great numbers in the factories, for the first time; this allowed women to be more accepted in public life, and later, in political activism.
Dismayed by the westward movement of its people, the Commonwealth attempted to stay the trend by reforming governmental and religious affairs. The Constitutional Convention of 1820 liberalized the Constitution in a number of ways, giving the people a greater voice in their government, and in 1833 another Constitutional Amendment completely separated Church and State. The course of government had moved nearer to the goal of a democratic people…
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not the staff, editor, or publisher of the Westfield News.
Representative Don Humason and his Chief of Staff Maura Cassin may be reached at their Westfield District Office, 64 Noble Street, Westfield, MA 01085, (413) 568-1366.
Representative Don Humason may be reached at his Boston office, State House Room 542, Boston, MA02133, (617) 722-2803.
Email address: [email protected]
Website: www.donhumason.org
