50 States = 50 Micros (Massachusetts)
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This cache is my contribution to the 50 States = 50 Micros series
in Vermont. I chose Mass because it is the state in which I
attended college and the only other state in which I have lived. I
have included some quirky observations on the history of the Bay
State.
Massachusetts was one of the first colonies to be settled (after
Virginia, 1609) and was among the first to rebel against British
rule about 150 years later.
Religion
The Pilgrims settled at Plymouth (1620) in order to maintain their
cultural identity and freedom to practice their religion. Others
soon followed, including the Puritan's Massachusetts Bay Colony at
Boston (1630).
Those who sought religious freedom for themselves were also
concerned with keeping their faith free of heresy, so sought to
exclude those whose views they considered heretical. Religious
freedom did not mean what it would mean to Jefferson, Madison, and
the others who shaped our founding documents: the separation of
religion and government for the preservation and protection of
both. It meant theocracy: leadership by the heads of the churches
and the expulsion (Roger Williams) or hanging (Mary Dyer) of those
who disagreed. It's hard to imagine that being a member of The
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) was a hanging offence, but
it was in Boston in 1660 when Dyer was executed on the
Common.
Later residents of Massachusetts would destroy Puritanism's hold on
their communities, in many cases with a majority taking up the new
faith, Unitarianism, and seizing control of institutions from local
congregations to Harvard College. Religious diversity continued to
expand as such thinkers as Ralph Wald Emerson found even the looser
strictures of Unitarianism too confining and introduced Eastern
religions, including Buddhism and Taoism into American culture via
the Transcendentalism movement.
Immigration waves have brought Catholicism, Judaism, Islam,
Hinduism, and uncountable Protestant churches to the state.
Rebellion
Boston, or the Hub [of New England? or the nation? of the world?],
as it thought of itself, was one of the most important ports in
colonial America--and one of the first to feel the pinch of new
taxes meant to pay for what we called the French and Indian War.
(The British thought of it as a small part of the Seven Years'
War.) The war had doubled Britain's debt and there was great
resistance to higher taxes at home. The government had already been
forced to withdraw a new tax on cider after serious protests.
Wealthy merchants and firebrands such as John Hancock and Samuel
Adams along with with more sober, but still seriously peeved, men
such as attorney John Adams led the fight against the Stamp Act,
the Intolerable Acts, the quartering of British troops in
residents' homes, and other outrages. As Bostonians became more
troublesome, the port was blockaded and ever more troops were sent
to hold the city--and quartered in residents' homes. You all know
how that came out. After the "shot heard 'round the world,"
Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and related unpleasantness,
Boston was besieged by the Continental Army, newly under the
command of George Washington. The Continentals were greatly
outnumbered and the enlistments of many regiments were about to
expire. Something had to be done, preferably something dramatic and
soon.
Cannons captured by Ethan Allen at Fort Ticonderoga were dragged
across a couple hundred miles of winter and, eventually, set up on
Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor.
The Royal Navy, always a quick study, caught on immediately to the
fact that the Americans had superior firepower on high ground and
could bombard their ships with deadly plunging fire. They did the
only thing they could. Fortunately for Boston Brahmins to come, the
Brits vamoosed on March 17, which gave 19th Century employers a
good reason to give their Irish employees the day off--they could
call it Evacuation Day.
The Boston Brahmins are the elite who got rich early enough to
avoid ever being noveaux riches. They are the families referred to
in the old ditty about dear old Boston, the home of the bean and
the cod, where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots and the Cabots
speak only to God. Many of those families made piles of money on
the "triangular trade," one leg of which involved shipping formerly
free African men and women to the colonies of North America or the
Caribbean to be sold into slavery. Ironically Boston was also a
hotbed of Abolitionism as well.
Massachusetts enjoys a reputation for bucking trends into the
present time. When forty-nine states chose Nixon over McGovern, the
one exception was the Bay State. "Don't Blame Me, I'm from
Massachusetts" bumperstickers became popular items during the
Watergate scandal. When it looked like George W. Bush had another
Nixonian landslide coming his way in 2004, a Massachusetts senator,
John Kerry, took on the challenge of attempting to deny him a
second term.
Feisty those Bay Staters!
Congratulations to hrhvt for the FTF.
Additional Hints
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