Connecticut Colony

Connecticut Colony
Connecticut Colony
1636–1686; 1689–1776
	Flag
	Map of the Connecticut, New Haven, and Saybrook colonies
Status	Colony of England (1636–1707); Colony of Great Britain (1707–1776)
Capital	Hartford (1636–1776); New Haven (joint capital with Hartford, 1701–76)
Common languages	English, Mohegan-Pequot, and Quiripi
Religion	Congregationalism (official)
Government	Self-governing colony
Governor
• 1639-1640	John Haynes (first)
• 1769-1776	Jonathan Trumbull (last)
Legislature	General Court
History
• Established	March 3, 1636
• Dominion of New England ; Independence	1686; 1689–1776
Currency	Connecticut pound
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Saybrook Colony
	New Haven Colony
Connecticut
Today part of	United States ; ∟ Connecticut

Last updated August 22, 2024

The Connecticut Colony or Colony of Connecticut, originally known as the Connecticut River Colony or simply the River Colony, was an English colony in New England which later became the state of Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settlement for a Puritan congregation, and the English permanently gained control of the region in 1637 after struggles with the Dutch. The colony was later the scene of a bloody war between the colonists and Pequots known as the Pequot War. Connecticut Colony played a significant role in the establishment of self-government in the New World with its refusal to surrender local authority to the Dominion of New England, an event known as the Charter Oak incident which occurred at Jeremy Adams' inn and tavern.

Leaders

Thomas Hooker delivered a sermon to his congregation on May 31, 1638, on the principles of government, and it influenced those who wrote the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut later that year. The Fundamental Orders may have been drafted by Roger Ludlow of Windsor, the only trained lawyer living in Connecticut in the 1630s; they were transcribed into the official record by secretary Thomas Welles. The Reverend John Davenport and merchant Theophilus Eaton led the founders of the New Haven Colony, which was absorbed into Connecticut Colony in the 1660s.

In the colony's early years, the governor could not serve consecutive terms, so the governorship rotated for 20 years between John Haynes and Edward Hopkins, both of whom were from Hartford. George Wyllys, Thomas Welles, and John Webster, also Hartford men, sat in the governor's chair for brief periods in the 1640s and 1650s.

John Winthrop the Younger of New London was the son of the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he played an important role in consolidating separate settlements into a single colony on the Connecticut River. He also served as Governor of Connecticut from 1659 to 1675, and he was instrumental in obtaining the colony's 1662 charter which incorporated New Haven into Connecticut. His son Fitz-John Winthrop also governed the colony for 10 years starting in 1698.

Major John Mason was the military leader of the early colony. He was the commander in the Pequot War, a magistrate, and the founder of Windsor, Saybrook, and Norwich. He was also Deputy Governor under Winthrop. Roger Ludlow was an Oxford-educated lawyer and former Deputy Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He petitioned the General Court for rights to settle the area, and he led the March Commission in settling disputes over land rights. He is credited as drafting the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1650) in collaboration with Hooker, Winthrop, and others. He was also the first Deputy Governor of Connecticut.

William Leete of Guilford served as president of New Haven Colony before its merger into Connecticut, and he also served as governor of Connecticut following Winthrop's death in 1675. He is the only man to serve as governor of both New Haven and Connecticut. Robert Treat of Milford served as governor of the colony, both before and after its inclusion in the Dominion of New England under Sir Edmund Andros. His father Richard Treat was one of the original patentees of the colony. Roger Wolcott was a weaver, statesman, and politician from Windsor, and he served as governor from 1751 to 1754. Oliver Wolcott was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and also of the Articles of Confederation, as a representative of Connecticut and the nineteenth governor. He was a major general for the Connecticut Militia in the Revolutionary War serving under George Washington.

Religion

The original colonies along the Connecticut River and in New Haven were established by separatist Puritans who were connected with the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. They held Calvinist religious beliefs similar to the English Puritans, but they maintained that their congregations needed to be separated from the English state church. They had immigrated to New England during the Great Migration. In the middle of the 18th century, the government restricted voting rights with a property qualification and a church membership requirement.^[2] Congregationalism was the established church in the colony by the time of the American War of Independence until is was desistablished in 1818^[3]

Economic and social history

Historical population
Year	Pop.	±%
1640	1,472	—
1650	4,139	+181.2%
1660	7,980	+92.8%
1670	12,603	+57.9%
1680	17,246	+36.8%
1690	21,645	+25.5%
1700	25,970	+20.0%
1710	39,450	+51.9%
1720	58,830	+49.1%
1730	75,530	+28.4%
1740	89,580	+18.6%
1750	111,280	+24.2%
1760	142,470	+28.0%
1770	183,881	+29.1%
1774	197,842	+7.6%
1780	206,701	+4.5%
Source: 1640–1760;^[4] 1774^[5] includes New Haven Colony (1638–1664) 1770–1780^[6]

The economy began with subsistence farming in the 17th century and developed with greater diversity and an increased focus on production for distant markets, especially the British colonies in the Caribbean. The American Revolution cut off imports from Britain and stimulated a manufacturing sector that made heavy use of the entrepreneurship and mechanical skills of the people. In the second half of the 18th century, difficulties arose from the shortage of good farmland, periodic money problems, and downward price pressures in the export market. In agriculture, there was a shift from grain to animal products.^[7] The colonial government attempted to promote various commodities as export items from time to time, such as hemp, potash, and lumber, in order to bolster its economy and improve its balance of trade with Great Britain.^[8]

Connecticut's domestic architecture included a wide variety of house forms. They generally reflected the dominant English heritage and architectural tradition.^[9]

Related Research Articles

Roger Williams was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and later the State of Rhode Island. He was a staunch advocate for religious freedom, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with the Native Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Winthrop</span> English Puritan lawyer, leader of Massachusetts Bay Colony (1587–1649)

John Winthrop was an English Puritan lawyer and a leading figure in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of colonists from England in 1630 and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and religions of neighboring colonies in addition to those of Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The lands of the settlement were in southern New England, with initial settlements on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salem and Boston, north of the previously established Plymouth Colony. The territory nominally administered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony covered much of central New England, including portions of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

Theophilus Eaton was a wealthy New England Puritan merchant, diplomat and financier, who took part in organizing and financing the Great Puritan Migration to America. He was a founder of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a founder and eventual governor of New Haven Colony. He also cofounded Boston, Massachusetts, Greenwich, Connecticut and Eaton's Neck in New York.

New Haven Colony was an English colony from 1638 to 1664 that included settlements on the north shore of Long Island Sound, with outposts in modern-day New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The colony joined Connecticut Colony in 1664.

John Underhill was an early English settler and soldier in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Province of New Hampshire, where he also served as governor; the New Haven Colony, New Netherland, and later the Province of New York, settling on Long Island. Hired to train militia in New England, he is most noted for leading colonial militia in the Pequot War (1636–1637) and Kieft's War which the colonists mounted against two different groups of Native Americans. He also published an account of the Pequot War.

The Pequot War was an armed conflict that took place in 1636 and ended in 1638 in New England, between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of the colonists from the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies and their allies from the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes. The war concluded with the decisive defeat of the Pequot. At the end, about 700 Pequots had been killed or taken into captivity. Hundreds of prisoners were sold into slavery to colonists in Bermuda or the West Indies; other survivors were dispersed as captives to the victorious tribes.

The U.S. state of Connecticut began as three distinct settlements of Puritans from Massachusetts and England; they combined under a single royal charter in 1663. Known as the "land of steady habits" for its political, social and religious conservatism, the colony prospered from the trade and farming of its ethnic English Protestant population. The Congregational and Unitarian churches became prominent here. Connecticut played an active role in the American Revolution, and became a bastion of the conservative, business-oriented, Constitutionalism Federalist Party.

The Province of New Hampshire was an English colony and later a British province in New England. It corresponds to the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America. It was named after the English county of Hampshire in southern England by Captain John Mason in 1629, its first named proprietor. In 1776, the province established an independent state and government, the State of New Hampshire, and joined with twelve other colonies to form the United States.

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded by Roger Williams. It was an English colony from 1636 until 1707, and then a colony of Great Britain until the American Revolution in 1776, when it became the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Haynes (governor)</span> English politician

John Haynes, also sometimes spelled Haines, was a colonial magistrate and one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony. He served one term as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was the first governor of Connecticut, ultimately serving eight separate terms. Although Colonial Connecticut prohibited Governors from serving consecutive terms at the time, "John Haynes was so popular with the colonists that he served alternately as governor and often as deputy governor from 1639 to his death in 1653."

John Winthrop the Younger was an early governor of the Connecticut Colony, and he played a large role in the merger of several separate settlements into the unified colony.

John Mason was an English-born settler, soldier, commander and Deputy Governor of the Connecticut Colony. Mason was best known for leading a group of Puritan settlers and Indian allies on a combined attack on a Pequot Fort in an event known as the Mystic Massacre. The destruction and loss of life he oversaw effectively ended the hegemony of the Pequot tribe in southeast Connecticut.

Charter colony is one of three classes of colonial government established in the 17th century English colonies in North America, the other classes being proprietary colony and royal colony. These colonies were operated under a corporate charter given by the crown. The colonies of Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay were at one time or another charter colonies. The crown might revoke a charter and convert the colony into a crown colony. In a charter colony, Britain granted a charter to the colonial government establishing the rules under which the colony was to be governed. The charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut granted the colonists significantly more political liberty than other colonies. Rhode Island and Connecticut continued to use their colonial charters as their State constitutions after the American Revolution.

Robert Seeley, also Seely, Seelye, or Ciely, (1602-1668) was an early Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who helped establish Watertown, Wethersfield, and New Haven. He also served as second-in-command to John Mason in the Pequot War.

William Phelps, was a Puritan who emigrated from Crewkerne, England in 1630, one of the founders of both Dorchester, Boston Massachusetts and Windsor, Connecticut, and one of eight selected to lead the first democratic town government in the American colonies in 1637. He was foreman of the first grand jury in New England, served most of his life in early colonial government, and according to noted historian Henry Reed Stiles, Phelps "was one of the most prominent and highly respected men in the colony."

In the early 17th century, thousands of English Puritans settled in North America, almost all in New England. Puritans were intensely devout members of the Church of England who believed that the Church of England was insufficiently reformed, retaining too much of its Roman Catholic doctrinal roots, and who therefore opposed royal ecclesiastical policy. Most Puritans were "non-separating Puritans" who believed there should be an established church and did not advocate setting up separate congregations distinct from the Church of England; these were later called Nonconformists. A small minority of Puritans were "separating Puritans" who advocated for local, doctrinally similar, church congregations but no state established church. The Pilgrims, unlike most of New England's puritans, were a Separatist group, and they established the Plymouth Colony in 1620. Puritans went chiefly to New England, but small numbers went to other English colonies up and down the Atlantic.

The Restoration of the monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the republic that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The term Restoration may apply both to the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and to the period immediately following the event.

Captain Thomas Yale was a British military officer, merchant and magistrate. He was a puritan who emigrated from London to the New England Colonies aboard the Hector in 1637, and cofounded, with his stepfather, Governor Theophilus Eaton, the colony of New Haven. He was also a deputy to the Connecticut General Assembly and fought in King Philip's War.

References

Notes

↑ Barck, Oscar T.; Lefler, Hugh T. (1958). Colonial America. New York: Macmillan. p. 398.
↑ Barck, Oscar T.; Lefler, Hugh T. (1958). Colonial America. New York: Macmillan. pp. 258–259.
↑ Weston Janis, Mark (2021). "Connecticut 1818: From Theocracy to Toleration Connecticut 1818: From Theocracy to Toleration". University of Connecticut School of Law.
↑ Purvis, Thomas L. (1999). Balkin, Richard (ed.). Colonial America to 1763. New York: Facts on File. pp. 128–129. ISBN 978-0816025275.
↑ Purvis, Thomas L. (1995). Balkin, Richard (ed.). Revolutionary America 1763 to 1800. New York: Facts on File. p. 147. ISBN 978-0816025282.
↑ "Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. p. 1168.
↑ Daniels (1980)
↑ Nutting (2000)
↑ Smith (2007)

Bibliography

Berkin, Carol (1996). First Generations: Women in Colonial America. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0-8090-1606-8.
Bushman, Richard L. (1993). The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. New York, NY: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-679-74414-6.
Butler, Jon (1990). Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People . London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-67405-601-5.
Daniels, Bruce C. (1980). "Economic development in colonial and revolutionary Connecticut: an overview". William and Mary Quarterly . 37 (3): 429–450. doi:10.2307/1923811. JSTOR 1923811.
Green, Jack P.; Pole, J. R. (1984). Colonial British America: Essays in the New History of the Early Modern Era. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801830556.
Hull, Brooks B.; Moran, Gerald F. (1999). "The churching of colonial Connecticut: a case study" (PDF). Review of Religious Research . 41 (2): 165–183. doi:10.2307/3512105. hdl: 2027.42/60435 . JSTOR 3512105.
Lipman, Andrew (2008). ""A meanes to knitt them togeather": the exchange of body parts in the Pequot War". William and Mary Quarterly . third series. 65 (1): 3–28. JSTOR 25096768.
Nutting, P. Bradley (2000). "Colonial Connecticut's search for a staple: a mercantile paradox". New England Journal of History . 57 (1): 58–69.
Smith, Ann Y. (2007). "A New Look at the Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut". Connecticut History Review. 46 (1): 16–44. doi:10.2307/44369757. JSTOR 44369757. S2CID 254492604.
Williams, Peter W., ed. (1999). Perspectives on American Religion and Culture . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 978-1-5771-8117-0.

Further reading

Andrews, Charles M. The Colonial Period of American History: The Settlements, volume 2 (1936) pp 67–194, by leading scholar
Atwater, Edward Elias (1881). History of the Colony of New Haven to Its Absorption into Connecticut. author. to 1664
Burpee, Charles W. The story of Connecticut (4 vol 1939); detailed narrative in vol 1-2
Clark, George Larkin. A History of Connecticut: Its People and Institutions (1914) 608 pp; based on solid scholarship online
Federal Writers' Project. Connecticut: A Guide to its Roads, Lore, and People (1940) famous WPA guide to history and to all the towns online
Fraser, Bruce. Land of Steady Habits: A Brief History of Connecticut (1988), 80 pp, from state historical society
Hollister, Gideon Hiram (1855). The History of Connecticut: From the First Settlement of the Colony to the Adoption of the Present Constitution. Durrie and Peck., vol. 1 to 1740s
Jones, Mary Jeanne Anderson. Congregational Commonwealth: Connecticut, 1636–1662 (1968)
Roth, David M. and Freeman Meyer. From Revolution to Constitution: Connecticut, 1763–1818 (Series in Connecticut history) (1975) 111pp
Sanford, Elias Benjamin (1887). A history of Connecticut. S.S. Scranton.; very old textbook; strongest on military history, and schools
Taylor, Robert Joseph. Colonial Connecticut: A History (1979); standard scholarly history
Trumbull, Benjamin (1818). Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical. very old history; to 1764
Van Dusen, Albert E. Connecticut A Fully Illustrated History of the State from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (1961) 470pp the standard survey to 1960, by a leading scholar
Van Dusen, Albert E. Puritans against the wilderness: Connecticut history to 1763 (Series in Connecticut history) 150pp (1975)
Zeichner, Oscar. Connecticut's Years of Controversy, 1750–1776 (1949)

Specialized studies

Buell, Richard, Jr. Dear Liberty: Connecticut's Mobilization for the Revolutionary War (1980), major scholarly study
Bushman, Richard L. (1970). From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674029125.
Collier, Christopher. Roger Sherman's Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution (1971)
Daniels, Bruce Colin. The Connecticut town: Growth and development, 1635–1790 (Wesleyan University Press, 1979)
Daniels, Bruce C. "Democracy and Oligarchy in Connecticut Towns-General Assembly Office holding, 1701-1790" Social Science Quarterly (1975) 56#3 pp: 460-475.
Fennelly, Catherine. Connecticut women in the Revolutionary era (Connecticut bicentennial series) (1975) 60pp
Grant, Charles S. Democracy in the Connecticut Frontier Town of Kent (1970)
Hooker, Roland Mather. The Colonial Trade of Connecticut (1936) online; 44pp
Lambert, Edward Rodolphus (1838). History of the Colony of New Haven: Before and After the Union with Connecticut. Containing a Particular Description of the Towns which Composed that Government, Viz., New Haven, Milford, Guilford, Branford, Stamford, & Southold, L. I., with a Notice of the Towns which Have Been Set Off from "the Original Six.". Hitchcock & Stafford.
Main, Jackson Turner. Connecticut Society in the Era of the American Revolution (pamphlet in the Connecticut bicentennial series) (1977)
Pierson, George Wilson. History of Yale College (vol 1, 1952) scholarly history
Selesky Harold E. War and Society in Colonial Connecticut (1990) 278 pp.
Taylor, John M. The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut, 1647–1697 (1969) online
Trumbull, James Hammond (1886). The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633–1884. E. L. Osgood., 700pp

Historiography

Daniels, Bruce C. "Antiquarians and Professionals: The Historians of Colonial Connecticut", Connecticut History (1982), 23#1, pp 81–97.
Meyer, Freeman W. "The Evolution of the Interpretation of Economic Life in Colonial Connecticut", Connecticut History (1985) 26#1 pp 33–43.

External links

Published colonial records

Archival collections

Guide to the Connecticut Colony Land Deeds. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Other

41°43′05″N72°45′05″W / 41.71803°N 72.75146°W / 41.71803; -72.75146

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Barck, Oscar T.; Lefler, Hugh T. (1958). Colonial America. New York: Macmillan. p. 398.

[Barack_&_Lefter_pp._258–259-2] Barck, Oscar T.; Lefler, Hugh T. (1958). Colonial America. New York: Macmillan. pp. 258–259.

[3] Weston Janis, Mark (2021). "Connecticut 1818: From Theocracy to Toleration Connecticut 1818: From Theocracy to Toleration". University of Connecticut School of Law.

[4] Purvis, Thomas L. (1999). Balkin, Richard (ed.). Colonial America to 1763. New York: Facts on File. pp. 128–129. ISBN 978-0816025275.

[5] Purvis, Thomas L. (1995). Balkin, Richard (ed.). Revolutionary America 1763 to 1800. New York: Facts on File. p. 147. ISBN 978-0816025282.

[Colonial_and_Pre-Federal_Statistics-6] "Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. p. 1168.

[7] Daniels (1980)

[8] Nutting (2000)

[9] Smith (2007)

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

v t e Thirteen Colonies
New England Colonies Middle Colonies Chesapeake Colonies Tobacco Colonies Southern Colonies United Colonies
Virginia (1607–1776) New Hampshire (1629–1641; 1679–1686; 1689–1776) Maryland (1632–1776) Connecticut (1636–1776) Rhode Island (1636–1776) Delaware (1664–1776) New Jersey (1664–1673; 1702–1776) New York (1664–1776) Pennsylvania (1681–1776) Massachusetts Bay (1691–1776) North Carolina (1712–1776) South Carolina (1712–1776) Georgia (1732–1776)
Other British colonial entities in the contemporary United States
Roanoke (1585–1590) Popham (1607–1608) Jamestown (1607–1699) Berkeley Hundred (1619) Plymouth (1620–1686; 1689–1691) Maine (1622–1658) Saint Croix (1625–1650) Carolana (1629–1663) Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629–1686; 1689–1691) Saybrook (1635–1644) New Haven (1638–1664) New England Confederation (1643–1654; 1675–c. 1680) Carolina (1663–1712) Rupert's Land (1670–1811) North-Western Territory (1670–1870) East Jersey (1674–1702) West Jersey (1674–1702) Dominion of New England (1686–1689) Indian Reserve (1763–1783) Quebec (1763–1783) East Florida (1763–1783) West Florida (1763–1783) New Ireland (1779–1783; 1814–1815) Columbia District (1810–1846) Red River Colony (1811–1818) Stickeen Territories (1862–1863) Colony of British Columbia (1863–1866) Colony of British Columbia and Vancouver Island (1866–1871) Province of British Columbia (1871–1903)
Non-British colonial entities in the contemporary United States
Columbian Viceroyalty (1492–1535) New Spain 1521–1821; Spanish Florida, 1565–1763 New Navarre, 1565–1821 Captaincy General of the Philippines, 1565–1898 Captaincy General of Puerto Rico, 1580–1898 Santa Fe de Nuevo México, 1598–1821 Captaincy General of Cuba, 1607–1801 Spanish Saint Croix, 1650–1651 Spanish Texas, 1690–1821 Las Californias, 1767–1804 Spanish Louisiana, 1769–1801 Provincias Internas, 1776–1821 Spanish East Florida, 1783–1821 Spanish West Florida, 1783–1821 Alta California, 1804–1821 New France 1534–1763; French Florida, 1562–1565 Hospitaller Saint Croix, 1651–1665 French Saint Croix, 1665–1733 French Louisiana, 1682–1763 and 1801–1803 New Netherland (1614–1667) Dutch Virgin Islands (1625–1672) New Sweden (1638–1655) Danish West Indies (1672–1917) Brandenburger Saint Thomas (1685–1754) Krabbeninsel (1689–1693) Scottish Darien Company (1698) Russian America (1799–1867)
Related Documents
Discourse Concerning Western Planting (1584) Mayflower Compact (1620) Mourt's Relation (1622) Of Plymouth Plantation (1630–1651) Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1638) Quintipartite Deed (1676)
Category

Authority control databases
International	VIAF
National	Germany Israel United States Australia
People	Trove