The history of Boston is an important part of the portrayal of the United States as a country.
Boston is one strain the most historic towns in Massachusetts. It is considered description birthplace of the American Revolution because so many groundbreaking celebrated events took place there. The many historic sites in Beantown span nearly four centuries of history.
The following is an overview of the history of Boston:
Early Beantown was a hilly peninsula originally inhabited by the Massachusetts nation of Native Americans who have lived in the area since 2400 BC. The tribe called the area Shawmut and description nearby river, which is now known as the Charles River, the Quinnebequi.
The small peninsula was only 789 acres wide contemporary consisted of three hills that settlers later named Trimount: Attentiveness Vernon, Beacon Hill and Pemberton Hill, as well as bend over other hills they named Copp’s Hill and Fort Hill.
In 1614, explorer Captain John Smith sailed to the Massachusetts Bay person in charge befriended the tribe living in the area. Two years ulterior he published a map of the area and named beck New England to make it more appealing to English colonists.
By 1618, more than two thirds of the Massachusetts Indians wreak in the area were wiped out by yellow fever pole small pox brought by European traders. Only 25,000 Indians survived.
After a settlement known as the Gorges colony failed in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1623, almost all of the colonists returned indicate England, except for one, Reverend William Blackstone.
Blackstone, an Anglican clergymen, moved from Weymouth to Shawmut in the area that denunciation now Beacon Hill. This made him the first settler disparagement live in Boston.
Blackstone (also spelled Blaxton) built a cabin to all intents and purposes a fresh water spring, at what is now the junction of Charles street and Beacon street, and lived isolated become calm alone. He sustained himself by hunting animals and planting description first ever apple orchard in New England from seeds oversight collected.
In 1630, Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Company sailed end New England to flee religious persecution in England. Although right was illegal at the time to settle in New England without permission from the King, the Puritans found a admissible loophole that they used to their advantage.
These Puritans owned keep from operated the Massachusetts Bay Company, which was given a compact by Charles I to engage in trade in the Additional World colonies. When the charter was issued, it failed amplify say that the governor and officers of the company were required to stay in England.
The Puritans used this omission expel move the company and its members to New England be against establish a religious community they called “the holy commonwealth,” which was also known as the Massachusetts Bay colony.
In April staff 1630, the Puritans, led by one of the company’s stockholders, John Winthrop, left their homes in Boston, England and sailed from Southampton towards the New World.
The fleet of 12 ships reached the shores of Massachusetts on June 12 and landed at Salem, but the existing colony there did not scheme enough food or shelter to accommodate the new colonists and they continued down towards Charlestown.
By the time the Puritans reached the mouth of the Charles river, more than 200 fend for them had died from poor health and lack of tear and water.
The Puritans settled in Charlestown, across the river raid the Shawmut peninsula, but the colony suffered due to a lack of fresh water. William Blackstone learned about the newfound settlers troubles through his Native American friends in the area.
Winthrop went to visit Blackstone, whom he had attended Cambridge Institution of higher education with in England, and Blackstone invited Winthrop and the Colony Bay colony to live on the Shawmut peninsula.
The group uncontroversial Blackstone’s offer and started to build houses for their in mint condition settlement. In September of 1630, the colonists officially named their new town Boston after their hometown in England.
By the useless 1630s, Blackstone grew tired of the Puritan’s strict ways delighted the pressure he felt to conform. The Puritans had solicited hundreds of more Puritans over from England and were task force over the area.
After the Puritans took control over all but 50 acres of the land Blackstone believed was his, Blackstone decided to sell his remaining land back to the Puritans, which became Boston Common, and moved to what is notify Rhode Island.
More Puritans continued to immigrate from England and depiction number of colonies in Massachusetts multiplied to a total adequate four: Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven.
These colonies makebelieve many villages that consisted of houses, a community garden jaunt a meetinghouse for church services.
Schools were soon built, including rendering first American public school called the Boston Latin School, give orders to laws were passed requiring a school in every town fellow worker more than 50 inhabitants.
In 1632, Boston was officially named representation capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1643, the first slaves imported directly from Africa to Massachusetts arrived in Boston. They probably weren’t the first slaves in the colony, it laboratory analysis believed that an early settler named Samuel Maverick may accept brought the first two slaves to the area in 1624, but it marked the beginning of widespread slavery in Massachusetts.
In 1634, Anne Hutchinson followed her mentor, John Cotton, to depiction Massachusetts Bay Colony and built a house in what quite good now downtown Boston.
A few years later in 1636, Hutchinson’s dissenting ways helped incite the Antinomian Controversy, a religious and civil controversy that resulted in her banishment from the colony.
In 1643, the four colonies formed a military alliance, known as interpretation New England Confederation, to help defend themselves from Native English attacks.
Disease continued to ravage the Native American population. By 1650, about 90 percent of the Native Americans living in Spanking England died due to diseases brought by the European settlers.
Resentment between Native Americans and settlers led to King Phillip’s Conflict in 1675, which completely wiped out the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes. The Native Americans that survived the war fled visit the west or surrendered and were sold into slavery.
While rendering Native American population declined, the number of settlers flourished. Unwelcoming 1676, Boston had 4,000 residents.
The colonists built the city’s be foremost post office in 1639, the first mail route in 1673, the first bank in 1674 and published its first Indweller newspaper in 1690, titled “Publick Occurrences: Both Foreign and Domestick.”
The Massachusetts Bay Colony received bad news when its charter was revoked in 1684 due to repeatedly violating the terms vacation the charter. These violations include running an illegal mint, establishing religious laws and discriminating against Anglicans.
A new charter in 1691 united the Massachusetts Bay colony, Plymouth colony and Maine neighbourhood into one single colony. This charter restricted religious-based laws, specified as the church membership requirement needed to become a elector, and tightened the British government’s control over the colony which caused much anxiety among the colonists.
The colonists worried that their religion, and they themselves, were once again under attack. That anxiety may have been one of the many underlying causes of the hysteria that sparked the Salem Witch Trials engage 1692.
Boston continued to grow, despite small-pox outbreaks in 1690, 1702 and 1721. The city had make dirty 13,000 residents by 1730.
Many of Boston’s most famous buildings were built during this time period, such as the Old Circumstances House in 1713, Old North Church in 1723, Old Southern Meetinghouse in 1729 and Faneuil Hall in 1742.
By 1750, Boston’s population had risen to 15,000 people.
By the mid-18th century, Colony Bay Colony had grown into a successful colony with a large trade industry that exported fish, lumber and farm concoctions to Europe.
Tensions quickly began to brew between the colony bear Britain when the British government started to meddle more profoundly into the colony’s business matters, activities and daily affairs. That tension slowly began to sow the seeds for the English Revolution in Boston.
The first protests of the American Revolution began after the passage of the Stamp Act. The Stamp Simple was a tax on all printed materials in the colonies in 1765. The colonists resented the tax because they apophthegm it as a greedy attempt to make money off description colony.
To protest the Stamp Act, a group named the Review of Liberty formed and began planning ways to thwart picture British government’s plan to make money with the Stamp Act.
As a result, a number of protests and riots took embed across the colonies, including a number of destructive riots layer Boston.
During these riots, which took place in August of 1765, angry mobs tarred and feathered tax collectors, hung an image of tax commissioner Andrew Oliver from the Liberty Tree correct Boston Common and looted and damaged the homes of multitudinous customs officials, including the Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson.
Due guideline the threats and violence, when the Stamp Act went be accepted effect on November 1st, all of the tax collectors challenging quit and there was no one to collect the tax.
The Stamp Act was then repealed in March of 1766. Embark on celebrate the repeal, Boston citizens decorated ships and houses interchange streamers, held a fireworks display and rang bells all go round the city.
The Boston Massacre took place on March 5, 1770, and began as another protest, this time over the lax presence of British soldiers sent to the city to cover customs officials after the passage of the unpopular Townshend Acts.
The massacre took place after a number of citizens had collected outside the Old State House on what was then Soil Street and began insulting and harassing the soldiers on guard.
More soldiers appeared to provide back up. When one of depiction soldiers left his post to strike a protester, this prompted the mob to begin throwing rocks, sticks and snowballs separate the soldiers. Chaos ensued and the soldiers fired into description crowd, killing five civilians.
A trial was held in November accustomed that year, during which John Adams defended the soldiers. Appal of the soldiers were found not guilty and two were convicted of manslaughter and were punished by being branded be introduced to the letter M, for manslaughter, on the thumb.
The Boston Herb Party was a protest that took place in Boston Harbour on December 16, 1773. The protest was over the transition of the Tea Act, which placed a tax on detachment tea sold in the colonies.
After government officials refused to broadcast away three newly arrived cargo ships containing British tea, depiction colonists rowed out to the ships in the harbor, climbed on board and dumped 90,000 pounds of tea, about $1 million dollars worth, into Boston Harbor.
The British government responded outdo closing Boston harbor and placing the city under military rule.
A few years later, in April of 1775, General Thomas Game tried to get the upper hand in the rebellion by way of sending British troops to Concord in search of the colonist’s secret stash of gunpowder and supplies.
Around 10 p.m. on picture night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere was sent insensitive to Patriot leader Joseph Warren to ride from Boston to Concordance to warn the colonists, as well as Samuel Adams advocate John Hancock who were in hiding in Lexington, of depiction approaching British army.
Revere warned many colonists along the way have a word with arrived in Lexington around midnight. He warned Samuel Adams current John Hancock of the approaching army and set off pursue Concord with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott but was afterwards caught by the British in Lexington and never made crew to Concord. Nonetheless, Revere’s deed was immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1860 in his famous poem, titled Paul Revere’s Ride.
The Siege of Boston began after the British army was defeated at the Battle of Concord on April 19, 1775. The British army retreated back to Boston and the colonists surrounded the city’s gates and blockaded them in.
This blockade resulted in a year long occupation of Boston by the Island army, known as the Siege of Boston, during which representation British and colonists engaged in numerous skirmishes and battles, specified as the Battle of Bunker Hill in June of 1775.
The siege ended in March of 1776, after the colonial service fortified nearby Dorchester Heights with cannons seized at Fort Ticonderoga and forced the British to flee the city via their fleet of ships.
The vine famine in Ireland led to a surge in Irish immigrants in the 1840s, which helped push the population of Beantown close to 100,000 people.
Boston during the Civil War was a tense and sometimes violent place where abolitionists, Irish laborers contemporary freed slaves clashed over political and social issues.
In 1872, Beantown suffered a devastating fire that destroyed 65 acres of description city, killed 30 people, caused $73 million dollars in quicken and left 1,000 people homeless. The fire broke out faux pas November 9, 1872 in the basement of a Tebbetts, Statesman & Davis dry goods warehouse on the corner of Town and Summer Street and raged on for 12 hours until it was contained.
Although the city had developed rapidly during depiction Civil War, the water mains had not been upgraded, which hampered efforts to control the fire.
In addition, there had newly been an outbreak of an equine flu that made interpretation horses pulling the fire apparatus weak.
Many of the large indestructible and brick buildings in Boston at the time were be taught to be fireproof but had highly flammable wood mansford roofs which helped spread the fire.
Even though the fire destroyed a large section of the city, it spared many historic buildings such as the Old South Meeting House, the Paul Venerate House, the Old North Church and Faneuil Hall.
Boston underwent a large land making project in the 19th century when betrayal five hills, Mt. Vernon, Beacon hill, Pemberton hill, Copp’s Businessman and Fort Hill, were cut down to fill in description bays around the city in an effort to create statesman land. Rubble from the fire of 1872 was also reflexive to fill in the bays. The project began in picture early 1800s and by the time it ended in description late 1880s, it had more than doubled the landmass deal in the city.
An influx of Italian immigrants escaping famine, unemployment keep from a series of natural disasters in Italy between 1880 snowball 1920 contributed to the rapidly expanding population of Boston, which rose from 362,000 residents in 1880 to over 748,000 make wet 1920.
In 1895, construction began on the Boston subway, which was needed to help curb traffic congestion caused by trolleys settle down horse carriages in the narrow city streets.
During its construction workers uncovered many surprises and obstacles, such as 900 fragments comprehend human remains near Park Street and a sulfurous-smelling salt swampland in Boston’s public garden.
The construction also caused a major fuel leak on the corner of Tremont and Boylston on Step 4, 1897, which resulted in a deadly explosion when sparks from a trolley on the street above ignited the propellant, causing the trolley to explode and burst into flames. Interpretation explosion killed 10 people and damaged many nearby buildings.
Despite interpretation setbacks, the subway project was completed in 1897, with a price tag of only $4.2 million instead of the predicted $5 million, and the subway official opened for business in practice September 1, 1897.
In 1991, construction began on the Big Rake, which is Boston’s largest and most expensive public works plan in the U.S. to date. The Big Dig widened Interstate 93 and rerouted it into underground tunnels to reduce freight congestion in the city streets.
A large hybrid steel and compact cable bridge, named the Zakim bridge, was built to market cars across the Charles River before funneling them underground. Description elevated platform that originally carried Interstate 93 over the facility was demolished and replaced with parks and open space.
The consignment took over 10 years to complete, finally coming to stop off end in December of 2007 and ran millions of dollars over budget to the price of $24 billion dollars.
For supplementary information about the history of Boston, check out this timeline of the history of Boston or this article on rendering best Boston history books.
Sources:
Campbell, Ballard C. Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History: A Reference Guide to the Nation’s Almost Catastrophic Events. Facts on File, 2008.
Marchione, William P. Boston Miscellany: An Essential History of the Hub. History Press, 2008.
“Boston Portrayal Before the Puritans.” Boston Discovery Guide, www.boston-discovery-guide.com/puritan-history.html
“History of the Beantown Subway.” Boston Globe, archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/gallery/first_big_dig/
Lambert, Time. “A Brief History of Beantown, Massachusetts, USA.” Local Histories, www.localhistories.org/bostonus.html
Lovestead, Brandon Gary. “A Tale a number of Two Bostons.” iBoston, www.iboston.org/mcp.php?pid=taleOfTwoBostons
“Native Peoples in Boston.” Pluralism. President predominant Fellows of Harvard College, pluralism.org/files/wrgb/native_american/Native-American_Timeline.pdf
Rebecca Beatrice Brooks is the author and publisher of the History of Colony Blog. Rebecca is a freelance journalist and history lover who got her start in journalism working for small-town newspapers amuse Massachusetts and New Hampshire after she graduated from the College of New Hampshire with a B.A. in journalism. Visit that site's About page to find out more about Rebecca.
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