History

The history started when the Native American People started living in what’s now called Massachusetts about 12,000 years ago, when retreating glaciers uncovered the land. Some artifacts have even been discovered in lakes and rivers created by melting glaciers. Thousands of years later Native American tribes including the Wampanoag, Mohegan, and Mohican lived on the land.

In 1620 a ship called the Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod carrying settlers called Pilgrims. These people were escaping religious persecution in England and created the first permanent European settlement in New England, called Plymouth. (New England is a region in the northeastern United States that was settled by people from England.) Soon after the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving with members of the Wampanoag tribe, which still exists in Massachusetts today. Massachusetts has been the scene of many historical events. In 1639 America’s first post office opened in Boston. In 1692 and 1693, untrue rumors led to witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts. And in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the first telephone.

But Massachusetts may be most historically significant for the role its people played in the Revolutionary War. Anger erupted in 1770 after five colonists were killed by British soldiers in what’s known as the Boston Massacre. Three years later, colonists disguised as Native Americans threw cases of tea into Boston Harbor to protest high taxes from England. The event is now known as the Boston Tea Party. In 1775 the Battles of Lexington and Concord became the first fight of the Revolutionary War. The movement of the British troops prompted silversmith Paul Revere to make his famous midnight ride to warn the colonists. Five years after the war ended, Massachusetts became the sixth U.S. state in 1788.