The early history was rendered unquiet at times by wars with the Indians, the chief of which were the Pequot War in 1637, and King Philip’s War in 1675-76; and for better combining against these enemies, Massachusetts, with Connecticut, New Haven and New Plymouth, formed a confederacy in 1643, considered the prototype of the larger union of the colonies which conducted the War of American Independence (1775-83). The struggle with the Crown, which ended in independence, began at the foundation of the colony, with assumptions of power under the charter which the colonial government was always trying to maintain, and the crown was as assiduously endeavouring to counteract. After more than half a century of struggle, the crown finally annulled the charter of the colony in 1684, though not until 1686 was the old government actually supplanted on the arrival of Joseph Dudley, a native of the colony, as president of a provisional council; later, Sir Edmund Andros was sent over with a commission to unite New York and New England under his rule. The colonists had been for many years almost independent; they made their own laws, the Crown appointed natives as officials, and the colonial interpretation of the old charter had in general been allowed to stand. Massachusetts had excluded the English Book of Common Prayer, she had restricted the franchise, laid the death penalty on religious opinions, and passed various other laws repugnant to the Crown, notably to Charles II. and James II.; she had caused laws and writs to run in her own name, she had neglected to exact the oath of allegiance to the sovereign, though carefully exacting an oath of fidelity to her own government, she had protected the regicides, she had coined money with her own seal, she had blocked legal appeals to the English courts, she had not compelled the observance of the navigation acts. The revocation of the charter aroused the strongest fears of the colonists Andros speedily met determined opposition by measures undertaken relative to taxation and land titles, by efforts to secure a church for Episcopal service, and an attempt to curb the town meetings. His government was supported by a small party (largely an Anglican Church party), but was intensely unpopular with the bulk of the people; and—it is a disputed question, whether before or after news arrived of the landing in England of William of Orange—in April 1689 the citizens of Boston rose in revolution, deposed Andros, imprisoned him and re-established their old colonial form of government. Then came a struggle, carried on in England by Increase Mather as agent (1688-1692) of the colony, to secure such a form of government under a new charter as would preserve as many as possible of their old liberties. Plymouth Colony, acting through its agent in London, endeavoured to secure a separate existence by royal charter, but accepted finally union with Massachusetts when association with New York became the probable alternative. The province of Maine was also united in the new provincial charter of 1691, and Sir William Phips came over with it, commissioned as the first royal governor. As has been mentioned already, the new charter softened religious tests for office and the suffrage, and accorded “liberty of conscience” except to Roman Catholics. The old religious exclusiveness had already been greatly lessened: the clergy were less powerful, heresy had thrived under repression, Anglican churchmen had come to the colony and were borne with perforce, devotion to trade and commerce had weakened theological tests in favour of ideals of mere good order and prosperity, and a spirit of toleration had grown.
Throughout the continuance of the government under the provincial charter, there was a constant struggle between a prerogative party, headed by the royal governor, and a popular party who cherished recollections of their practical independence under the colonial charter, and who were nursing the sentiments which finally took the form of resistance in 1775. The inter-charter period, 1686-1691, is of great importance in this connexion. The popular majority kept up the feeling of hostility to the royal authority in recurrent combats in the legislative assembly over the salary to be voted to the governor; though these antagonisms were from time to time forgotten in the wars with the French and Indians. During the earl of Bellomont’s administration, New York was again united with Massachusetts under the same executive (1697-1701). The scenes of the recurrent wars were mostly distant from Massachusetts proper, either in Maine or on Canadian or Acadian territory, although some savage inroads of the Indians were now and then made on the exposed frontier towns, as, for instance, upon Deerfield in 1704 and upon Haverhill in 1708. Phips, who had succeeded in an attack on Port Royal, had ignominiously failed when he led the Massachusetts fleet against Quebec in 1690; and the later expedition of 1711 was no less a failure. The most noteworthy administration was that of William Shirley (1741-1749 and 1753-1756), who at one time was the commanding officer of the British forces in North America. He made a brilliant success of the expedition against Louisburg in 1745, William Pepperell, a Maine officer, being in immediate command. Shirley with Massachusetts troops also took part in the Oswego expedition of 1755; and Massachusetts proposed, and lent the chief assistance in the expedition of Nova Scotia in 1755 which ended in the removal of the Acadians. Her officers and troops also played an important part in the Crown Point and second Louisburg expedition (1758).
The first decided protests against the exercise of sovereign power by the crown, the first general moral and political revolt that marked the approach of the American War of Independence, took place in Massachusetts; so that the most striking events in the general history of the colonies as a whole from 1760 to 1775 are an intimate part of her annals. The beginning of the active opposition to the crown may be placed in the resistance, led by James Otis, to the issuing of writs (after 1752, Otis’s famous argument against them being made in 1760-1761) to compel citizens to assist the revenue officers; followed later by the outburst of feeling at the imposition of the Stamp Act (1765), when Massachusetts took the lead in confronting the royal power. The governors put in office at this time by the crown were not of conciliatory temperaments, and the measures instituted in parliament (see [United States]) served to increase bitterness of feeling. Royal troops sent to Boston (several regiments, 1768) irritated the populace, who were highly excited at the time, until in an outbreak on the 5th of March 1770 a file of garrison troops shot down in self-defence a few citizens in a crowd which assailed them. This is known as the “Boston Massacre.” The merchants combined to prevent the importation of goods which by law would yield the crown a revenue; and the patriots—as the anti-prerogative party called themselves—under the lead of Samuel Adams, instituted regular communication between the different towns, and afterwards, following the initiative of Virginia, with the other colonies, through “committees of correspondence”; a method of the utmost advantage thereafter in forcing on the revolution by intensifying and unifying the resistance of the colony, and by inducing the co-operation of other colonies. In 1773 (Dec. 16) a party of citizens, disguised as Indians and instigated by popular meetings, boarded some tea-ships in the harbour of Boston, and to prevent the landing of their taxable cargoes threw them into the sea; this incident is known in history as the “Boston tea-party.” Parliament in retaliation closed the port of Boston (1774), a proceeding which only aroused more bitter feeling in the country towns and enlisted the sympathy of the other colonies. The governorship was now given to General Thomas Gage, who commanded the troops which had been sent to Boston. Everything foreboded an outbreak. Most of the families of the highest social position were averse to extreme measures; a large number were not won over and became expatriated loyalists. The popular agitators, headed by Samuel Adams—with whom John Hancock, an opulent merchant and one of the few of the richer people who deserted the crown, leagued himself—forced on the movement, which became war in April 1775, when Gage sent an expedition to Concord and Lexington to destroy military stores accumulated by the patriots and to capture Adams and Hancock, temporarily staying at Lexington. This detachment, commanded by Lord Percy, was assaulted, and returned with heavy loss. The country towns now poured their militia into Cambridge, opposite Boston; troops came from neighbouring colonies, and Artemas Ward, a Massachusetts general, was placed in command of the irregular force, which with superior numbers at once shut the royal army up in Boston. An attempt of the provincials to seize and hold a commanding hill in Charlestown brought on the battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775), in which the provincials were driven from the ground, although they lost much less heavily than the royal troops. Washington, chosen by the Continental Congress to command the army, arrived in Cambridge in July 1775, and stretching his lines around Boston, forced its evacuation in March 1776. The state was not again the scene of any conflict during the war. Generals Henry Knox and Benjamin Lincoln were the most distinguished officers contributed by the state to the revolutionary army. Out of an assessment at one time upon the states of $5,000,000 for the expenses of the war, Massachusetts was charged with $820,000, the next highest being $800,000 for Virginia. Of the 231,791 troops sent by all the colonies into the field, reckoning by annual terms, Massachusetts sent 67,907, the next highest being 31,939 from Connecticut, Virginia furnishing only 26,678; and her proportion of sailors was very much greater still. In every campaign in every colony save in 1770-80 her soldiery were in absolute, and still more in relative, number greater than those of any other colony.
After the outbreak of the war a somewhat indefinite, heterogeneous provisional government was in power till a constitution was adopted in 1780, when John Hancock became the first governor. Governor James Bowdoin in 1786-1787 put down with clemency an almost bloodless insurrection in the western counties (there was strong disaffection, however, as far east as Middlesex), known as the Shays Rebellion, significant of the rife ideas of popular power, the economic distress, and the unsettled political conditions of the years of the Confederation. Daniel Shays (1747-1825), the leader, was a brave Revolutionary captain of no special personal importance. The state debt was large, taxation was heavy, and industry was unsettled; worthless paper money was in circulation, yet some men demanded more; debtors were made desperate by prosecution; the state government seemed weak, the Federal government contemptibly so; the local courts would not, or from intimidation feared to, punish the turbulent, and demagogues encouraged ideas of popular power. A convention of delegates representing the malcontents of numerous towns in Worcester county met at Worcester on the 15th of August 1786 to consider grievances, and a week later a similar convention assembled at Hatfield, Hampshire county. Encouraged by these and other conventions in order to obstruct the collection of debts and taxes, a mob prevented a session of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace at Northampton on the 29th of August, and in September other mobs prevented the same court from sitting in Worcester, Middlesex and Berkshire counties. About 1000 insurgents under Shays assembled at Springfield on the 26th of September to prevent the sitting there of the Supreme Court, from which they feared indictments. To protect the court and the national arsenal at Springfield, for which the Federal government was powerless to provide a guard, Major-General William Shepard (1737-1817) ordered out the militia, called for volunteers, and supplied them with arms from the arsenal, and the court sat for three days. The Federal government now attempted to enlist recruits, ostensibly to protect the western frontier from the Indians, but actually for the suppression of the insurrection; but the plan failed from lack of funds, and the insurgents continued to interrupt the procedure of the courts. In January 1787, however, Governor Bowdoin raised an army of 4400 men and placed it under the command of Major-General Benjamin Lincoln (1733-1810). While Lincoln was at Worcester Shays planned to capture the arsenal at Springfield, but on the 25th of January Shepard’s men fired upon Shays’s followers, killing four and putting the rest to flight. Lincoln pursued them to Petersham, Worcester county, where on the 4th of February he routed them and took 150 prisoners. Subsequently the insurgents gathered in small bands in Berkshire county; but here, a league having been formed to assist the government, 84 insurgents were captured at West Stockbridge, and the insurrection practically terminated in an action at Sheffield on the 27th of February, in which the insurgents lost 2 killed and 30 wounded and the militia 2 killed and 1 wounded. Two of the insurgent leaders, Daniel Shays and Eli Parsons, escaped to Vermont soon after the rout at Petersham. Fourteen other insurgents who were tried by the Supreme Court in the spring of 1787 were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. They were, however, held rather as hostages for the good behaviour of worse offenders who had escaped, and were pardoned in September. In February 1788 Shays and Parsons petitioned for pardon, and this was granted by the legislature in the following June. The outcome of the uprising was an encouraging test of loyalty to the commonwealth; and the insurrection is regarded as having been very potent in preparing public opinion throughout the country for the adoption of a stronger national government. The Federal Constitution was ratified by Massachusetts by only a small majority on the 6th of February 1788, after its rejection had been at one time imminent; but Massachusetts became a strong Federalist state. Indeed, the general interest of her history in the quarter-century after the adoption of the Constitution lies mainly in her connexion with the fortunes of that great political party. Her leading politicians were out of sympathy with the conduct of national affairs (in the conduct of foreign relations, the distribution of political patronage, naval policy, the question of public debt) from 1804—when Jefferson’s party showed its complete supremacy—onward; and particularly after the passage of the Embargo Act of 1807, which caused great losses to Massachusetts commerce, and, so far from being accepted by her leaders as a proper diplomatic weapon, seemed to them designed in the interests of the Democratic party. The Federalist preference for England over France was strong in Massachusetts, and her sentiment was against the war with England of 1812-15. New England’s discontent culminated in the Hartford Convention (Dec. 1814), in which Massachusetts men predominated. The state, however, bore her full part in the war, and much of its naval success was due to her sailors.
During the interval till the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Massachusetts held a distinguished place in national life and politics. As a state she may justly be said to have been foremost in the struggle against slavery.[22] She opposed the policy that led to the Mexican War in 1846, although a regiment was raised in Massachusetts by the personal exertions of Caleb Cushing. The leaders of the ultra non-political abolitionists (who opposed the formation of the Liberty party) were mainly Massachusetts men, notably W. L. Garrison and Wendell Phillips. The Federalist domination had been succeeded by Whig rule in the state; but after the death of the great Whig, Daniel Webster, in 1852, all parties disintegrated, re-aligning themselves gradually in an aggressive anti-slavery party and the temporizing Democratic party. First, for many years the Free-Soilers gained strength; then in 1855 in an extraordinary party upheaval the Know-Nothings quite broke up Democratic, Free-Soil and Whig organizations; the Free-Soilers however captured the Know-Nothing organization and directed it to their own ends; and by their junction with the anti-slavery Whigs there was formed the Republican party. To this the original Free-Soilers contributed as leaders Charles Sumner and C. F. Adams; the Know-Nothings, Henry Wilson and N. P. Banks; and later, the War Democrats, B. F. Butler—all men of mark in the history of the state. Charles Sumner, the most eminent exponent of the new party, was the state’s senator in Congress (1851-1874). The feelings which grew up, and the movements that were fostered till they rendered the Civil War inevitable, received something of the same impulse from Massachusetts which she had given a century before to the feelings and movements forerunning the War of American Independence. When the war broke out it was her troops who first received hostile fire in Baltimore, and turning their mechanical training to account opened the obstructed railroad to Washington. In the war thus begun she built, equipped and manned many vessels for the Federal navy, and furnished from 1861 to 1865 26,163 (or, including final credits, probably more than 30,000) men for the navy. During the war all but twelve small townships raised troops in excess of every call, the excess throughout the state amounting in all to more than 15,000 men; while the total recruits to the Federal army (including re-enlistments) numbered, according to the adjutant-general of the state, 159,165 men, of which less than 7000 were raised by draft.[23] The state, as such, and the townships spent $42,605,517.19 in the war; and private contributions of citizens are reckoned in addition at about $9,000,000, exclusive of the aid to families of soldiers, paid then and later by the state.
Since the close of the war Massachusetts has remained generally steadfast in adherence to the principles of the Republican party, and has continued to develop its resources. Navigation, which was formerly the distinctive feature of its business prosperity, has under the pressure of laws and circumstances given place to manufactures, and the development of carrying facilities on the land rather than on the sea.
In the Spanish-American War of 1898 Massachusetts furnished 11,780 soldiers and sailors, though her quota was but 7388; supplementing from her own treasury the pay accorded them by the national government.
No statement of the influence which Massachusetts has exerted upon the American people, through intellectual activity, and even through vagary, is complete without an enumeration of the names which, to Americans at least, are the signs of this influence and activity. In science the state can boast of John Winthrop, the most eminent of colonial scientists; Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford); Nathaniel Bowditch, the translator of Laplace; Benjamin Peirce and Morse the electrician; not to include an adopted citizen in Louis Agassiz. In history, Winthrop and Bradford laid the foundations of her story in the very beginning; but the best example of the colonial period is Thomas Hutchinson, and in later days Bancroft, Sparks, Palfrey, Prescott, Motley and Parkman. In poetry, a pioneer of the modern spirit in American verse was Richard Henry Dana; and later came Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell and Holmes. In philosophy and the science of living, Jonathan Edwards, Franklin, Channing, Emerson and Theodore Parker. In education, Horace Mann; in philanthropy, S. G. Howe. In oratory, James Otis, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy, junr., Webster, Choate, Everett, Sumner, Winthrop and Wendell Phillips; and, in addition, in statesmanship, Samuel Adams, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. In fiction, Hawthorne and Mrs Stowe. In law, Story, Parsons and Shaw. In scholarship, Ticknor, William M. Hunt, Horatio Greenough, W. W. Story and Thomas Ball. The “transcendental movement,” which sprang out of German affiliations and produced as one of its results the well-known community of Brook Farm (1841-1847), under the leadership of Dr George Ripley, was a Massachusetts growth, and in passing away it left, instead of traces of an organization, a sentiment and an aspiration for higher thinking which gave Emerson his following. When Massachusetts was called upon to select for Statuary Hall in the capitol at Washington two figures from the long line of her worthies, she chose as her fittest representatives John Winthrop, the type of Puritanism and state-builder, and Samuel Adams (though here the choice was difficult between Samuel Adams and John Adams) as her greatest leader in the heroic period of the War of Independence.
| Governors of Plymouth Colony | ||
| (Chosen annually by the people). | ||
| John Carver | 1620-1621 | |
| William Bradford | 1621-1633 | |
| Edward Winslow | 1633-1634 | |
| Thomas Prence (or Prince) | 1634-1635 | |
| William Bradford | 1635-1636 | |
| Edward Winslow | 1636-1637 | |
| William Bradford | 1637-1638 | |
| Thomas Prence (or Prince) | 1638-1639 | |
| William Bradford | 1639-1644 | |
| Edward Winslow | 1644-1645 | |
| William Bradford | 1645-1657 | |
| Thomas Prence (or Prince) | 1657-1673 | |
| Josiah Winslow | 1673-1680 | |
| Thomas Hinckley | 1680-1686 | |
| Sir Edmund Andros | 1686-1689 | |
| Thomas Hinckley | 1689-1692 | |
| Governors of Massachusetts | ||
| (Under the First Charter—chosen annually) | ||
| John Endecott[24] | 1629-1630 | |
| John Winthrop | 1630-1634 | |
| Thomas Dudley | 1634-1635 | |
| John Haynes | 1635-1636 | |
| Henry Vane | 1636-1637 | |
| John Winthrop | 1637-1640 | |
| Thomas Dudley | 1640-1641 | |
| Richard Bellingham | 1641-1642 | |
| John Winthrop | 1642-1644 | |
| John Endecott | 1644-1645 | |
| Thomas Dudley | 1645-1646 | |
| John Winthrop | 1646-1649 | |
| John Endecott | 1649-1650 | |
| Thomas Dudley | 1650-1651 | |
| John Endecott | 1651-1654 | |
| Richard Bellingham | 1654-1655 | |
| John Endecott | 1655-1665 | |
| Richard Bellingham | 1665-1672 | |
| John Leverett (acting, 1672-1673) | 1672-1679 | |
| Simon Bradstreet | 1679-1686 | |
| ——————— | ||
| Sir Edmund Andros | 1686-1689 | |
| Simon Bradstreet | 1689-1692 | |
| Under Second Charter—appointed by the Crown[25] | ||
| Sir William Phips | 1692-1694 | |
| William Stoughton (acting) | 1694-1699 | |
| Richard Coote, earl of Bellomont | 1699-1700 | |
| William Stoughton (acting) | 1700-1701 | |
| Joseph Dudley | 1702-1715 | |
| William Tailer (acting) | 1715-1716 | |
| Samuel Shute | 1716-1722 | |
| William Dummer (acting) | 1722-1728 | |
| William Burnet | 1728-1729 | |
| William Dummer (acting) | 1729-1730 | |
| William Tailer (acting) | 1730 | |
| Jonathan Belcher | 1730-1741 | |
| William Shirley | 1741-1749 | |
| Spencer Phips (acting) | 1749-1753 | |
| William Shirley | 1753-1756 | |
| Spencer Phips (acting) | 1756-1757 | |
| Thomas Pownal | 1757-1760 | |
| Thomas Hutchinson (acting) | 1760 | |
| Sir Francis Bernard, Bart | 1760-1769 | |
| Thomas Hutchinson (acting) | 1769-1771 | |
| Thomas Hutchinson | 1771-1774 | |
| Thomas Gage[26] | 1774-1775 | |
| Under the Constitution | ||
| John Hancock | 1780-1785 | |
| James Bowdoin | 1785-1787 | |
| John Hancock | 1787-1793 | |
| Samuel Adams (acting) | 1793-1794 | |
| Samuel Adams | 1794-1797 | |
| Increase Sumner | Federalist | 1797-1799 |
| Moses Gill (lieut-governor; acting) | ” | 1799-1800 |
| Caleb Strong | ” | 1800-1807 |
| Jas Sullivan | Democratic-Republican | 1807-1808 |
| Levi Lincoln (acting) | ” | 1808-1809 |
| Christopher Gore | Federalist | 1809-1810 |
| Elbridge Gerry | Democratic-Republican | 1810-1812 |
| Caleb Strong | Federalist | 1812-1816 |
| John Brooks | ” | 1816-1823 |
| William Eustis | Democratic-Republican | 1823-1825 |
| Levi Lincoln | ” | 1825-1834 |
| John Davis | Whig | 1834-1835 |
| Edward Everett | ” | 1836-1840 |
| Marcus Morton | Democrat | 1840-1841 |
| John Davis | Whig | 1841-1843 |
| Marcus Morton | Democrat | 1843-1844 |
| George N Briggs | Whig | 1844-1851 |
| George S Boutwell | Free-Soil Democrat | 1851-1853 |
| John H Clifford | Whig | 1853-1854 |
| Emory Washburn | ” | 1854-1855 |
| Henry J Gardner | Know-Nothing | 1855-1858 |
| Nathaniel P Banks | Republican | 1858-1861 |
| Marcus Morton | Democrat | 1840-1841 |
| John A. Andrew | Republican | 1861-1866 |
| Alexander H. Bullock | ” | 1866-1869 |
| William Claflin | ” | 1869-1872 |
| William B. Washburn | ” | 1872-1874 |
| Thomas Talbot (acting) | ” | 1874-1875 |
| William Gaston | Democrat | 1875-1876 |
| Alexander H. Rice | Republican | 1876-1879 |
| Thomas Talbot | ” | 1879-1880 |
| John Davis Long | ” | 1880-1883 |
| Benjamin F. Butler | Democrat | 1883-1884 |
| George D. Robinson | Republican | 1884-1887 |
| Oliver Ames | ” | 1887-1890 |
| John Q. A. Brackett | ” | 1890-1891 |
| William E. Russell | Democrat | 1891-1894 |
| Frederic T. Greenhalge | Republican | 1894-1896 |
| Roger Wolcott | ” | 1896-1897 |
| Roger Wolcott | ” | 1897-1900 |
| W. Murray Crane | ” | 1900-1903 |
| John L. Bates | ” | 1903-1905 |
| William L. Douglas | Democrat | 1905-1906 |
| Curtis L. Guild | Republican | 1906-1909 |
| Eben S. Draper | ” | 1909-1911 |
| Eugene N. Foss | Democrat | 1911- |