New England is the oldest clearly defined region of the United States, being settled more than 150 years before the American Revolution. The first colony in New England was Plymouth Colony, established in 1620 by the Puritan Pilgrims who were fleeing religious persecution in England. A large influx of Puritans populated the New England region during the Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640), largely in the Boston and Salem area. Farming, fishing, and lumbering prospered, as did whaling and sea trading.

New England writers and events in the region helped launch the American War of Independence, which began when fighting erupted between British troops and Massachusetts militia in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The region later became a stronghold of the Federalist Party.

By the 1840s, New England was the center of the American anti-slavery movement and was the leading force in American literature and higher education. It was at the center of the Industrial Revolution in America, with many textile mills and machine shops operating by 1830. The region was the manufacturing center of the entire United States for much of the nineteenth century, and it played an important role during the American Civil War as an intellectual, political, and cultural promoter of abolitionism and civil rights.

Manufacturing in the United States began to shift south and west during the 20th century, and New England experienced a sustained period of economic decline. By the beginning of the 21st century, however, the region had become a center for technology, weapons manufacturing, scientific research, and financial services.

Pre-Colonial

Before the arrival of colonists, the Western Abenakis inhabited New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine. Their principal dwelling was Norridgewock in Maine. The Penobscots were settled along the Penobscot River in Maine. The Wampanoags occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket; the Pocumtucks were in Western Massachusetts. The Narragansetts occupied most of Rhode Island, particularly around Narragansett Bay.

The Connecticut region was inhabited by the Mohegan and Pequot tribes before colonization. The Connecticut River Valley linked different tribes in cultural, linguistic, and political ways.Bain, Angela Goebel; Manring, Lynne; and Mathews, Barbara. Native Peoples in New England. Retrieved July 21, 2010, from Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. The tribes grew maize, tobacco, kidney beans, squash, and Jerusalem artichoke.

The first European to visit the area was Portuguese explorer Estêvão Gomes in 1525, who mapped the shores of Maine. The first European settlement in New England was a French colony established by Samuel de Champlain on Saint Croix Island, Maine, in 1604.Maine: A Guide 'Down East,' Federal Writers' Project, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1937 As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders began to trade metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.

Colonial era

Early English plans (1607–1620)

On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for the Virginia Company of Plymouth, (often referred to as the Plymouth Company). The Plymouth Company did not fulfill its charter and did not settle anyone. However the region chartered to it was named "New England" by Captain John Smith of Jamestown in his account of two voyages there, published as A Description of New England (1616).

Plymouth Colony (1620–1643)

The name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620, when the charter of the Plymouth Company was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint-stock company established to colonize and govern the region. In December 1620, the permanent settlement of Plymouth Colony was established by the Pilgrims, English Puritan separatists who arrived on the Mayflower. They held a feast of gratitude which became part of the American tradition of Thanksgiving. Plymouth Colony had a small population and size, and it was absorbed into Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.

Massachusetts Bay

Puritans began to immigrate from England in large numbers, and they established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 with 400 settlers. They sought to reform the Church of England by creating a new, pure church in the New World. By 1640, 20,000 had arrived, although many died soon after arrival.

The Puritans created a deeply religious, socially tight-knit, and politically innovative culture that still influences the United States.Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer nation: the idea of America's millennial role (University of Chicago Press, 1980) They fled England and attempted to create a "nation of saints" or a "City upon a Hill" in America, a community designed to be an example for all of Europe.

Rhode Island and Connecticut

Roger Williams preached religious liberty, separation of Church and State, and a complete break from the Church of England. He was banished from Massachusetts for his theological views and led a group south to found Providence Plantations in 1636. It merged with other settlements to form the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which became a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and others, including Anne Hutchinson who had been banished during the Antinomian Controversy.Benjamin Woods Labaree, Colonial Massachusetts: a history (1979)

On March 3, 1636, the Connecticut Colony was granted a charter and established its own government, absorbing the nearby New Haven Colony. Vermont was still unsettled, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were governed by Massachusetts.

The Dominion of New England (1686–1689)

King James II of England became concerned about the increasingly independent ways of the colonies, in particular their self-governing charters, open flouting of the Navigation Acts, and increasing military power. He decreed the Dominion of New England in 1686, an administrative union of all the New England colonies, and the Province of New York and the Province of New Jersey were added into it two years later. The union was imposed upon the colonies and removed nearly all the leaders who had been elected by the colonists themselves, and it was highly controversial in America. The Connecticut Colony refused to deliver their charter to dominion Governor Edmund Andros in 1687, so he sent an armed contingent to seize it. According to tradition, the colonists hid the charter inside the Charter Oak tree. King James was removed from the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1689, and Andros was arrested and sent back to England by the colonists during the 1689 Boston revolt.Dominion of New England

Government of the colonies Most of the colonial charters were significantly modified after the Glorious Revolution in 1689, with the appointment of royal governors to nearly every colony. An uneasy tension existed between the Royal Governors and the officials who had been elected by the colonists themselves. The governors wanted essentially unlimited powers, and the different layers of elected officials resisted as best they could. In most cases, towns continued operating as self-governing bodies as they had done previously, and they ignored the royal governors whenever possible. The New England colonies were not formally united again until 1776. The Enlightenment led to more concern in political behaviors and less religious interference in government.

Population and demographics The regional economy grew rapidly in the 17th century, thanks to heavy immigration, high birth rates, low death rates, and an abundance of inexpensive farmland.Daniel Scott Smith, "The Demographic History of Colonial New England," Journal of Economic History, 32 (March 1972), 165-183 in JSTOR The population grew from 3,000 in 1630 to 14,000 in 1640, 33,000 in 1660, 68,000 in 1680, and 91,000 in 1700. About 20,000 Puritans arrived between 1630 and 1643, settling mostly near Boston; after 1643, fewer than 50 immigrants arrived per year. The average size of a family was 7 children; the birth rate was 49 babies per year per thousand people, and the death rate was about 22 deaths per year per thousand people. About 27 percent of the population was composed of men between 16 and 60 years old.Terry L. Anderson and Robert Paul Thomas, "White Population, Labor Force and Extensive Growth of the New England Economy in the Seventeenth Century", Journal of Economic History, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sept 1973), p. 647, 651 in JSTOR

Economics The New England colonies were settled largely by farmers who became relatively self-sufficient. The region's economy gradually began to focus on crafts and trade, in contrast to the Southern colonies whose agrarian economy focused more heavily on foreign and domestic trade.

New England fulfilled the economic expectations of its Puritan founders. The Puritan economy was based on the efforts of self-supporting farmsteads which traded only for goods that they could not produce themselves, unlike the cash crop-oriented plantations of the Chesapeake region.Anne Mackin, Americans and their land: the house built on abundance (University of Michigan Press, 2006) p 29 New England became an important mercantile and shipbuilding center, along with agriculture, fishing, and logging, serving as the hub for trading between the southern colonies and Europe.James Ciment, ed. Colonial America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, 2005.

The region's economy grew steadily over the entire colonial era, despite the lack of a staple crop that could be exported. All the colonies fostered economic growth by subsidizing projects that improved the infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, inns, and ferries. They gave bounties and monopolies to sawmills, grist mills, iron mills, fulling mills (which treated cloth), salt works, and glassworks. Most important, colonial legislatures set up a legal system that was conducive to business enterprise by resolving disputes, enforcing contracts, and protecting property rights. Hard work and entrepreneurship characterized the New England region, as the Puritans and Yankees endorsed the "Protestant Work Ethic" which enjoined men to work hard as part of their divine calling.Margaret Alan Newell, "The Birth of New England in the Atlantic Economy: From its Beginning to 1770", in Peter Temin, ed., Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England (Harvard UP, 2000), p. 41

New England conducted a robust trade within the English domain in the mid-18th century. They exported pickled beef and pork to the Caribbean, onions and potatoes from the Connecticut Valley, northern pine and oak staves from which the planters constructed containers to ship their sugar and molasses, a custom breed of horses from Rhode Island, and "plugs" to run sugar mills.

The growing population led to shortages of good farmland on which young families could establish themselves; one result was to delay marriage, and another was to move to new lands farther west. In the towns and cities, there was strong entrepreneurship and a steady increase in the specialization of labor. Wages went up steadily before 1775, and new occupations were opening for women, including weaving, teaching, and tailoring. The coastal ports began to specialize in fishing, international trade, shipbuilding, and whaling after 1780. These factors combined with growing urban markets for farm products and allowed the economy to flourish despite the lack of technological innovation.Gloria L. Main and Jackson T. Main, "The Red Queen in New England?" William and Mary Quarterly, Jan 1999, Vol. 56 Issue 1, pp 121-50 in JSTOR