Chapter Four: Early Expansion
"The people of Massachusetts Bay are hardy and plain, like the soil they farm. Their militias are dour when they march to the parade ground, and those who watch are no more joyous. They are a simple people, and that makes the events in Quebec even more surprising."
-Colonel Mordaunt, British Commander-in-Chief, Nova Scotia
Massachusetts Takes Form
Massachusetts first took a familiar form in 1692, after being granted a new Royal Charter to replace that of the Dominion of New England, which superseded the original Massachusetts Bay charter. The new charter created the
Province of Massachusetts Bay out of the previously existent colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Nantucket, Martha's Vinyard, New Hampshire [1], Maine, Acadia, Nova Scotia (officially ceded by France at the end of Queen Anne's War in 1713), and Dukes County, New York. This new Province had inherited both massive stretches of wilderness and several valuable ports, including Boston, Portsmouth, and Halifax. Over the coming decades, Massachusetts would face hostile natives, French incursions, and conflict with neighboring provinces. The storms of fate were bearing down on upon the Province, and her mettle would be truly tested for the first time.
Connecticut River Colonies
While Massachusetts continued to expand north along the Atlantic Coast, the end of the fledgling conflict between New Hampshire and Massachusetts opened up the
Connecticut River Valley to concentrated settlement. A series of numbered plantations were established along the river, with the last one being
Plantation No. 6, built in 1738 just south of the White Mountains, in present day Stuart, New Hampshire Province.
The new colonies were not without their conflicts, for native incursions became more common the farther north the colonists ventured. The fertile soil of the Connecticut Valley was drawing in many settlers, both from cities like Boston and from the Isles, and the increasing number of settlers made it more difficult for local militias to defend the entirety of the Plantations. The tensions in the region came to a head after half a decade of low-scale warfare, when the
Plantation No. 6 Raid was conducted by the Mohawk Indians and their French allies, leading to over 30 colonial deaths. The attack shocked Boston, and in response Governor William Shirley ordered the formation of the
Governor's Own Regiment, the first unit of regular infantry to be raised by Massachusetts. Their arrival at Plantation No. 5 the following year (1744) frightened the Franco-Indian forces, who feared that the military supremacy afforded to them by the French Marines was being threatened.
Tensions With New York
The fertile lands of the Connecticut Valley attracted more than just Massachusettsians. New York farmers moved into the region, encouraged by the joint governor of New York and New Jersey, William Cosby. Conflicting land grants led to considerable strife between the two groups of settlers, and in some regions, inter-province warfare was more common and deadly than Indian raids. The tensions were only inflamed by the refusal of either province to allow outside interference, fearing that what they saw as rightfully their own would be taken away from them.
The largest colony of New York on the Connecticut was the settlement of Galesburg. Founded by Edward Gale in 1734, it was located a mere seven miles north of Plantation No. 4, which its claimed boundaries overlapped with. Conflict between the two settlements was common, and an estimated 120 people died during the period from 1734-1746. The conflict led to a considerable distrust of New York permeating the popular culture of Massachusetts.
The conflict also emboldened the more distant rivals of New York, the residents of New Jersey. The colony had been under the administration of New York for decades, and conflict over their border was often settled in favor of New York, even if all evidence pointed to the contrary. By 1748, militias were forming in the north of the colony, with the intent to prevent further loss of land to New York.
Unlike with their other rivals, New York competed with Connecticut for trade rather than for land. The Port of New York, on the mouth of the Hudson River, was the main trade hub between Boston and Hampton Roads, and was responsible more most of the trade that occurred from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. This deprived Connecticut merchants of funds, as the Port of New Haven was unable to even maintain full control of its fisheries. As a result of these tensions, a boycott of New Yorker goods was established in 1741. Despite the boycott being more damaging to Connecticut than to New York, it was popular, and by 1746 trade between the two colonies was negligible.
Conflict in Acadia
Colonial expansion in the north led to further conflict with the Franco-Indians. Settlers from Nova Scotia, acting upon land grants extended to them by the Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor, who resided in Halifax, began moving into Acadia, a region long claimed but sparsely settled by the French. The first colony, New Boston, was founded in 1711, but the English presence in the region exploded over the next few decades. By the 1740's, the French came to see the British settlers as a threat to their control over New France, and moved troops into what they called Acadia, and the colonists had taken to calling
Nova Hibernia. The move was seen as highly provocative by Lieutenant Governor Paul Mascarene, who ordered a militia force raised in order to defend the crucial settlement of New Belfast. In 1745, he sent a missive to the British Parliament, requesting the presence of British regulars in order to defend his borders. Prime Minister Henry Pelham, seeing a chance to remove the French from the region for good, sent the Royal Regiment of Ireland under Sir John Mordaunt to reenforce the colonial militias in Nova Scotia. With him he carried news from England, that a European war had broken out. The American Campaign of the War of Austrian Succession was about to begin.
Culture and Society
The first half of the 18th century was characterized by growing pains for Massachusetts. The traditional farming class was becoming spread out over the ever-expanding territory of the Province, and the merchant class was becoming wealthier thanks to increase in land use and trade with the (relatively) friendly Iroquois Indians. This newfound wealth was often used to fund the crossing of indentured servants to Massachusetts, most often Irish or Scots men. As a result, the Gaelic population of Massachusetts doubled between 1720 and 1740, with the cities of Portsmouth and Halifax having the largest populations-Boston brought in fewer indentured servants, and went to greater lengths to encourage them to leave the city when their time was done. In Boston, slaves were often seen as a better investment than indentured servants, due to the ability to breed them. By 1740, the slave population had reached 5,000, and free blacks made up 15% of Boston's population.
The upper class of Massachusetts found itself intrigued by the new arrivals, despite themselves. The Scottish settlers, dressed in simple belted plaids and practicing much the same religion as that of Massachusetts, found assimilation much easier than the Irish Catholics, who often moved out into the country rather than face prosecution for their faith. The Scottish influence on Massachusetts culture was first noted in 1733 by the Reverend Philip Edwards of Boston, and was popularized by what is often seen as the first great North American novel. Written by English author Daniel Defoe,
The Charleston Scot told a story of a Scot just freed from indentured servitude who tries to establish a homestead while fighting Indian attacks and yearning to return to a Jacobite Scotland. The novel was responsible for making Scots become seen as a part of Massachusetts, and led to what satirists called the
Great Scot Revival, which made a somewhat romanticized view of the "old" Scotland become popular amongst the urban population. This led to tensions going into the War of Austrian Succession, as many citizens remembered the tumult that had followed the collapse of the Stuarts (particularly the Dominion of New England), and to some extent blamed England and the unpopular King George II for it.
The first half of the 18th century saw a steady decline is church attendance, as many people began to become less religious. The upper class began experimenting with deism, much to the displeasure of the Congregationalist old guard, and many lower class citizens engaged in religious activities only when necessary or when they felt they were being punished from above. This drop in religiosity, known as the
Great Awakening by those who saw it as a positive force, led to the formal establishment of the Deistic Temple of God in Boston in 1742, the first such establishment in Massachusetts. By 1760, deism was seen a threat to the puritan faith, particularly due to its popularity amongst intellectuals and merchants-who of course brought in the biggest tithes. Social tensions between the two groups would decline slowly, as larger events superseded such concerns.
[1]-Our PoD: In OTL, New Hampshire had its relatively recent charter renewed.
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This is my first timeline; I would appreciate any constructive criticism by which to improve it or my style in general.