New England: Encyclopedia II - New England - History

New England - History

New England - The indigenous peoples of New England

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 Verrazano, 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.

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

New England - Early European settlement 1610s-1630s

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

On April 10, 1606, King James I of England chartered two Virginia Companies, headquartered in different cities, to establish colonies along the coast of North America, including islands within 100 miles and, by implication, extending inland 100 miles: The Virginia Company of London, assigned coast between 34 degrees and 41 degrees north Latitude (between Columbia, South Carolina and Greenwich, Connecticut); and the Virginia Company of Plymouth, assigned coast between 38 degrees and 45 degrees north Latitude (between Fredericksburg, Virginia and Montreal, Quebec). Colonies of the two companies were to be at least 100 miles apart, even where the grants overlapped. The former charter granted what today are Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, while the latter granted what today are the Northeastern States north of that point, and eastern Canada. This included New England.

The Dutch East India Company established the beginnings of New Netherland in 1613, when they established trading posts on the Hudson River, and claimed all territory between the Connecticut River (72 Degrees, 41 Minutes East Longitude) and the Delaware River (38 Degrees, 46 Minutes, north Latitude). They claimed as far north and east as they could hold, and so they never really expected to go father west/south than the Delaware, or north of what today is the Canadian border. This meant that they claimed what today are western Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, southeast Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and placed them in conflict with both Virginia Companies. That the English did not immediately move in and extinguish New Netherland was a mark of fear based on the fact that the Dutch were militarily suprior to the English at the time, and the two powers were in competition elsewhere on the planet. England was militarily over-extended for the time being.

In 1616, Captain John Smith described the area in a pamphlet "New England." The name was officially sanctioned, on November 3, 1620, when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a charter for the Plymouth Council for New England "...to establish colonies in a region between 40 Degrees and 48 Degrees north Latitude and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, including present New York." (Swindler, 5:16-26) The region was subsequently divided through further grants, including the 1624 formal establishment of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, which included Fort Orange (today's Albany, New York), and followed in two years by the establishment of New Amsterdam (today's New York City). Conflict over this establishment included the over-running of the Dutch portion of Connecticut, and Suffolk County on Long Island; the March 4, 1628 charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company "...to establish a colony in the region streching from 3 miles south of the Charles River, and extending westward from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean, including present central New York" (Swindler, 5:32-42; Andrews, 1:359); the 1629 royal grant of "Hampshire" which was issued for "makeing a Plantation & establishing of a Colony or Colonyes in the Countrey called or knowen by ye name of New England in America."

New England - The New England Confederation 1630s-1650s

On March 3, 1636, the Connecticut Colony established its own government, which establishment left Vermont and Maine the only New England colonies left to be formed.

Following the Pequot War, in 1637, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined together in a loose compact called the New England Confederation. The confederation was designed largely to coordinate mutual defense against the Dutch in the New Netherland colony to the south and the French in New France to the north, as well as to enforce the return of runaway slaves. The confederation had a council comprising two delegates from each of the four colonies, but it had no formal enforcement powers and relied on the individual colonies to voluntarily follow council decisions. The confederation disintegrated, in the 1650s, when the powerful Massachusetts Bay Colony refused to follow decisions of the confederation council regarding the conflict with the Dutch. King Philip's War (1675-1676), the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period, had a devastating effect on the colonies of southern New England, but effectively ended the power and influence of the Native Americans in the region.

On March 12, 1663, King Charles II granted the Duke of York a charter for all territory 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 confronted the New Netherland colony, but also included most of present-day Maine, and part of Quebec.

New England - The Dominion of New England 1686-1689

In 1686, King James II, concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, in particular their open flouting of the Navigation Acts, decreed the Dominion of New England, an administrative union comprising all the New England colonies. Two years later, the provinces of New York and New Jersey, which had been acquired from the Dutch, were added. The union, imposed from the outside, was highly unpopular among the colonists. In 1687, when the Connecticut Colony refused to follow a decision of the dominion governor Edmund Andros, he sent an armed contigent to seize the colony's charter, which the colonists, according to popular legend, hid inside the Charter Oak tree. Andros' efforts to unify the colonial defenses met little success and the dominion ceased after only three years, after the removal of King James II in the Glorious Revolution in 1689.

New England - Modern New England 1689-present

The colonies were not formally united again until 1776, when they became part of the United States; however, especially 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 talk of secession from the Union, as New England merchants opposed the war with 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.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki