New England Colonies

The New England Colonies of British Colonial America included colonies of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Connecticut Colony, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and Province of New Hampshire. They were part of the Thirteen Colonies including the Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies. It would be important to note that these were early col hi onies of what would later be the states in New England. Captain John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, wrote a book based on his voyages of 1614 and 1615 titled “A Description of New England” published in 1616. The book was the first to apply the term “New England” to coastal lands of North America from the Long Island Sound to Newfoundland.

Events of the 1500's Leading to Colonization

The New England coast was largely populated by indigenous tribes of Wampanoag, Tarrantine, Wabanaki, Narragansett, Passamaquoddy and Pequot. The tribes often battled with each other with the Tarrantine feared as raiders of neighboring tribal villages. The first documented contact the tribes had with Europeans was the exploratory voyage by Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 of the New England coastline sailing for the French crown. In a letter to King Francis I dated July 8th, 1524, Verrazzano describes his interactions with the tribes in multiple places along the coast of New England. Verrazano returned to Spain with stories about a fabled city of gold called Norumbega, in hopes of sparking further interest in voyages to New England. There is also some debate that Portuguese explorer, Miguel Corte-Real, may have been the first to live in New England because of his disappearance from a second voyage in 1501 and the inscriptions on the Dighton Rock.

The early explorers of the coastline were in search of a “northwest passage”, searching for a large waterway through the continent. A lesser known Portuguese Esteban Gómez (also known as Gomes) explored the New England coast in 1525 sailing for the Spanish crown. Gómez returned to Spain with only slaves from indigenous tribes which failed to impress Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who had hoped for gold or a “northwest passage”. Other explorers, traders and fisherman visited New England following these early explorer routes. By the late 1500’s, the indigenous tribes had formed a coastal exchange network trading goods with European traders in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

New England Colonies of the Early 1600s

The English royal charters granted land to the north to the Plymouth Company, land to the south to the London Company and the land between could be settled first by either company

There were several attempts early in the 1600’s to colonization New England by France, England and other countries who were in often in contention for lands in the New World. French nobleman Pierre Dugua de Monts (Sieur de Monts) established a settlement on Saint Croiz Island in June 1604 under the authority of the King of France. The small St. Croiz River Island is located on the northern boundary of present-day Maine. After nearly half the settlers perished due to a harsh winter and scurvy, they moved out of New England north to Port-Royal of Nova Scotia (see symbol "R" on map to the right) in the spring of 1605.

King James I of England recognizing the need for a permanent settlement in New England, granted competing royal charters to the Plymouth Company and the London Company. The Plymouth Company ships arrived at the mouth of the Kennebec River (then called the Sagadahoc River) in August 1607 where they established a settlement named Sagadahoc Colony or more well known as Popham Colony (see symbol "Po" on map to the right) to honor financial backer Sir John Popham. The colonists faced a harsh winter, the loss of supplies following a storehouse fire and mixed relations with the indigenous tribes.

After the death of George Popham and a decision by a second leader, Raleigh Gilbert, to return to England to take up an inheritance left by the death of an older brother, all of the colonists decided to return to England. It was around August 1607, when they left on two ships, the Mary and John and a new ship built by the colony named Virginia. The 30-ton Virginia was the first English-built ship in North America.

Conflict over rights to the lands of New England continued through the early 1600's, with the French constructing Fort Petagouet near present day Castine, Maine in 1613. The fort protecting a trading post and a fishing station was considered the first longer term settlement in New England. The fort traded hands multiple times throughout the 1600's between the English, French and Dutch colonists.

In 1614, the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block sailed along the coast of Long Island Sound, and then up the Connecticut River to site of present day Hartford, Connecticut. By 1623, the new Dutch West India Company regularly traded for furs there and ten years later they fortified it for protection from the Pequot Indians as well as from the expanding English colonies. They fortified the site, which was named "House of Hope" (also identified as "Fort Hoop", "Good Hope" and "Hope"), but encroaching English colonization made them agree to withdraw in the Treaty of Hartford, and by 1654 they were gone.

Mayflower Pilgrims and Puritans Arrive in New England (1620's)

The Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower from England and the Netherlands late in 1620 to establish Plymouth Colony, which was the first successful British colony in New England to last over a year and one of the first several colonies of British Colonial America following Jamestown, Virginia. Only around half of the one hundred plus passengers on the Mayflower survived that first winter, mostly because of diseases contracted on the voyage. The main reason the Pilgrims came was to practice religion freely and to be away from England including the restrictions on religion. A Native American named Squanto taught the colonists how to catch eel and grow corn the following year (1621). His assistance was remarkable, considering that the Pilgrims were living on the site his deceased Patuxet tribe had established as a village before they were wiped out from diseases brought over by earlier traders from Europe.

Although the Plymouth settlement faced great hardships and earned few profits, it enjoyed a positive reputation in England and may have sown the seeds for further immigration. Edward Winslow and William Bradford published an account of their adventures in 1622, called Mourt's Relation. This book glossed over some of the difficulties and challenges carving a settlement out of the wilderness, but it may have been partly responsible for erasing the memory of the Popham Colony (aka Sagadahoc Colony) and encouraging further settlement.

Major boundaries of Massachusetts Bay and neighboring colonial claims in the 1600s and 1700s. Modern state boundaries are partially overlaid for context.

Learning from the Pilgrims harsh experiences of winter in the Plymouth Colony, the Puritans first sent smaller groups in mid-1620s from England to establish colonies, buildings and food supplies. In 1623, the Plymouth Council for New England (successor to the Plymouth Company) established a small fishing village at Cape Ann under the supervision of the Dorchester Company. The first group of Puritans moved to a new town at the nearby Naumkeag, after the Dorchester Company dropped support and fresh financial support was found by Rev. John White. Other settlements were started in nearby areas, however the overall Puritan population remained small through the 1620's. A larger group of Puritans arrived in 1630, leaving England because they were unable to change the Church of England, by their name to "purify" the church. The Puritans had very different religious beliefs compared to the Pilgrims who were Separatists from the Church of England and their colonies were governed independent of each other until the Massachusetts Bay Colony was reorganized in 1691 combining both colonies as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Prior to the formation of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the Puritan leaders used the government to enforce the strict religious rules that all Puritans were expected to follow.

Early dissenters of the Puritan laws were often banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Connecticut Colony was started after a Puritan minister, Thomas Hooker, left Massachusetts Bay with around 100 followers in search of greater religious and political freedom. Another Puritan minister, Roger Williams (theologian) left Massachusetts Bay founding the Rhode Island Colony, while John Wheelwright left with his followers to a colony in present day New Hampshire and shortly thereafter on to present day Maine. The Puritan beliefs of not having to directly pay for school also helped shape the public school system today.

Commerce of the Early Colonies

Whaling in small wooden boats with hand harpoons was a hazardous enterprise, even when hunting the "right" whale.

The earliest colonies in the New England Colonies were usually fishing villages or farming communities along the more fertile land along the rivers. While the rocky soil in the New England Colonies was not as fertile as the Middle or Southern Colonies, the land provided rich resources including timber that was valued for building of homes and ships. Timber was also a resource that could be exported back to England, where there was a shortage of timber. In addition, the hunting of wild life provided furs to be traded and food for the table. The New England Colonies were located near the ocean where there was an abundance of whales, fish and other marketable sea life. Excellent harbors and nearby inland waterways offered protection for ships and were also valuable for fresh water fishing. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony named the main settlement on the Shawmut Peninsula as Boston. For most of the early years, Boston was the largest city in all of the British Colonial America.

See Also

• History of Massachusetts
• Historical outline of Massachusetts
• Dominion of New England
• Thirteen Colonies
• British Colonial America
• New England Confederation
• New England