Massachusetts

History

Discovery and Expansion

Massachusetts is a state of the United States that was first settled by English Pilgrims in 1620.  These Pilgrims left England to avoid religious persecution and set out for the New World.The Pilgrims first set sail on the Mayflower in 1619 and landed in modern day Provincetown, a northern section of Cape Cod.  They first settled in Plymouth a year later, building settlements and villages around the area. Years later as more and more people began to migrate to the New World more colonies were founded, one of the most notable of these colonies was the Massachusetts Bay Colony which was established in 1629.
 

During the early years of Massachusetts and it's colonies there were various conflicts with the natives of North America.  In the year 1634 the Pequot War began as tensions arose between the newly settled Pilgrims and the native tribes of the area. These tensions were escalated as each native tribe had specific trading alliances with different groups of settlers.  The Mohegan for instance aligned themselves with the English and the Pequot traded with the Dutch.  Things sparked when the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to manufacture and trade wampum, a kind of beaded necklace, which the Pequot had been the main trader of before then.

The Pequot War saw battles between the English settlers and the Pequot and eventually lead to the elimination of the Pequot people all together.  Both sides raided and attacked each another's settlements and many lives were lost, but something known as the Mystic Massacre has become an infamous event during this war.  

The Mystic Massacre was an English raid that took place near the Mystic River where the English set fire a Pequot settlement and shot any survivors who tried to flee from the village.  This massacre took the lives of almost every Pequot in the village including woman and children.

A Call for Revolution

The settings of the American Revolution was born in the Massachusetts city of Boston with the Boston Massacre on March 5,1770.  The Boston Massacre got it's name after a number of townspeople began to throw rocks at British soldiers in response to the Townshend Act, which taxed the British colonies to regulate trade.  The British soldiers then opened fire on a crowd of civilians, killing five. This event only made the people of Massachusetts angrier with England trying to impose their laws on them.

Three years later another important event in setting up the American Revolution took place, the Boston Tea Party.  The Boston Tea party was a protest against the British empire and their taxation of Massachusetts.  On December 16, 1773 a group of Massachusetts colonists boarded a ship carrying three loads of taxed tea overboard into Boston Harbor.  As a result of this the British Parliament implemented the Coercive Acts, which closed and blocked many of Boston's trading commerce until the destroyed tea had been re payed.  
 
As time passed the colonists of New England all knew that a full scale British invasion was imminent.  As a result of this many Patriots were stationed regularly around the ports of Massachusetts awaiting any sign of British ships, one of these Patriots being Paul Revere.  Paul Revere has gone down in history as the famous messenger who brought news to fellow New Englanders that the British were coming while traveling on horseback.  This event lead to a famous poem that was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Except:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

As the American Revolution sparked the colonies were in no shape to fight against the British army, having no actual army.  As a result the common man took to arms and united to fend off the British and defend their colonies from oppression and dictatorship.  Farmers, black smiths, shop keepers, and just about every person of every occupation banded together. Since most of these common people had little to no military training or experience, they adapted guerilla tactics.  One of the most famous officers to adopt this style of combat was Francis Marion, also known as The Swamp Fox.