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Hyundai Massachusetts, MA. Information Page
Massachusetts, MA.
Bay State
Massachusetts (officially, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the United States of America. Its nickname is the Bay State. Other nicknames are the Old Colony State, and less commonly the Puritan state and the Baked Bean state. On December 18, 1990, the Legislature decided that the people of the Commonwealth would be designated as Bay Staters.
The United States Postal Service abbreviation for Massachusetts is MA and its traditional abbreviation is Mass.
Seven ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Massachusetts in honor of this state.
Various Algonquin tribes inhabited the area prior to European settlement. In the Massachusetts Bay area resided the Massachusett. Near the Vermont and New Hampshire borders and the Merrimack River valley was the traditional home of the Pennacook tribe. Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and southeast Massachusetts were the home of the Wampanoag, whom the Pilgrims met. The extreme end of the Cape was inhabited by the closely related Nauset tribe. Much of the central portion and the Connecticut River valley was home to the loosely organized Nipmuc peoples. The Berkshires were the home of both the Pocomtuc and the Mahican tribes. Spillovers of Narragansett and Mohegan from Rhode Island and Connecticut, respectively, were also present.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett, whose name can be segmented
mass-adchu-et
where mass is "great", adchu is "hill" and et is a locative suffix. It has been translated as
"at the great hill" or "at the place of large hills", or "at the range of hills"
with reference to the Blue Hills, or in particular, Big Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton, to the southwest of Boston. Big Blue gives a good overlook of Boston and the bay. There is a weather observatory on the summit, but the hills have been preserved as a nature reservation and are laced with hiking trails.
It isn't clear that there was any distinction between the Massachusett and the Wampanoag, whose descendants occupy various locations, such as Mashpee, today. The Mash- in Mashpee is the same as the Mass- in Massachusetts. Very likely, they were all Wampanoag, but the Wampanoags inhabiting Massachusetts Bay were also named the Massachusett, after their place of residence.
The Massachusett, as were all the native Americans on the coast of New England, were heavily decimated by waves of smallpox both before and after the arrival of Captain John Smith in 1614. They had developed no immunity to the disease, a common story when Europeans visited parts of the world remote from Europe.
The Pilgrims from the Humber region of England established their settlement at Plymouth in 1620, arriving on the Mayflower. They also suffered grievously from the native smallpox, but they were assisted in their time of trouble by the Wampanoags under chief Massasoit. In 1621 they celebrated their first Thanksgiving Day together to thank God for their survival.
From that time on the English settlers spread rapidly into clearings and fields depopulated by smallpox, their numbers swelled by the harsh treatment of puritans by Charles I at home. The natives called them the Yengeeze, their pronunciation of English, which became yankee. A shared culture prevailed for a time.
The English Revolution began and in 1646 the Long Parliament gave John Eliot a commission and funds to preach to the Wampanoags. He succeeded in converting a large number. The colonial government placed them in a ring of villages around Boston as a defensive strategy. They were called praying indians. The oldest, Natick, was built in 1651.
The colonists treated natives as simpletons, leading at last to a sanguinary attempt to drive the English into the sea under Massasoit's son, Philip, which attempt the New Englanders came to call King Philip's War. The praying indians did their job and gave ample warning and would have fought for the yankees, but they were scorned and ignored. When the blow fell in 1675 the praying indians were caught in the middle. Most left Massachusetts.
The colonists took those who stayed into internment on Deer and Long Islands in Boston Harbor, partly for their own protection. The government succeeded in preventing the colonists from massacring them there, but they died of deprivation and disease. Only 400 emerged in 1677, to reoccupy Wampanoag lands in southeastern Massachusetts.
The villages of the praying indians were taken by eminent domain and resettled with yankees. For example, Captain Samuel Butterfield of Woburn (formerly of England) led a party across the Concord River to found the town of Chelmsford in the vicinity of the former praying Indian village of Wameset.
Until 1691 when they merged, Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony were separate colonies.
Massachusetts Bay Colony period (1629-1686)
The Pilgrims were soon followed by the Puritans from the River Thames region of England, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although the Puritans came to Massachusetts for religious freedom, they were not particularly tolerant of any other religion than theirs. Pilgrims, as well as Anglicans, Quakers, and a handful of other denominations were grudgingly accepted in the Puritan communities for a time, although Quakers were banned, and in 1660 four were hanged on Boston Common (see Mary Dyer). People such as Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and Thomas Hooker left Massachusetts and went South because of the Puritans' lack of religious tolerance. Williams ended up founding the colony of Rhode Island and Hooker founded Connecticut. King Philip's War (1675-1676), the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period, included major campaigns in the Pioneer Valley and Plymouth Colony. It took many years for the colonies of southern New England to recover from the effects of the war.
Dominion of New England (1686-1692)
In May of 1686, the Massachusetts Bay Colony came to an end, as Joseph Dudley became President of New England under a commission of King James II. He established his authority later in New Hampshire and the King's Province (part of today's Rhode Island), maintaining this position until Sir Edmund Andros arrived to become the Royal Governor of the Dominion of New England. Dudley continued on as a member of Governor Andros' council.
At the news of the accession of William and Mary, the Boston colonials rebelled. Andros and his officials were held on Castle Island and then sent back to England as prisoners. Andros was exonerated and went on to become Governor of Virginia (1692–98).
Royal Colony of Massachusetts (1692-1774)
Notable governors during this period were Thomas Hutchinson, Sir Francis Bernard, and Thomas Gage. Gage was the last British governor of Massachusetts.
Revolutionary Massachusetts (1760s-1780s)
Massachusetts was the first colony to revolt against British rule, and thus the instigator of the American Revolution. On February 9, 1775, the British Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and sent additional troops to restore order to the colony.
In Boston on March 5, 1770, an African-American named Crispus Attucks, from Framingham, was killed (along with four other American colonists) at an event that became known as the Boston Massacre; Attucks is often considered the first casualty of the American Revolution.
Several early Revolutionary battles took place in Massachusetts, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord (where the famous shot heard 'round the world was fired), the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1780-present)
A Constitutional Convention drew up a Constitution drafted mainly by John Adams, and the people ratified it on June 15, 1780. At that time, Adams along with Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin wrote in the Preamble to the Constitution of the Commonwealth, 1780:
"We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe, in affording us, in the course of His Providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprize, on entering into an Original, explicit, and Solemn Compact with each other; and of forming a new Constitution of Civil Government, for Ourselves and Posterity, and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, Do agree upon, ordain and establish, the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
Other notable history
John Hancock was the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
On February 6, 1788 Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
According to a 1790 census, Massachusetts had a zero population of slaves.
On March 15, 1820 the area of Maine was separated from Massachusetts, of which it had been a non-contiguous part, and entered the Union as the 23rd State.
Basketball was invented in Massachusetts, as was Volleyball. The earliest reference to Baseball was also in Massachusetts, in the city of Pittsfield.
Battles of Lexington and Concord, Siege of Boston, Bunker Hill, and Shays' Rebellion
Massachusetts contains many historic houses.
source:http://wikipedia.org/
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