New England

[[File:New England pine flag.svg|thumb|Stolen from Stanford University]]
The geographic region of '''New England''' comprises the [[U.S.]] [[state]]s of [[Connecticut]], [[Rhode Island]], [[Massachusetts]], [[Vermont]], [[New Hampshire]], and [[Maine]]. It has about 15 million people. Its largest city and cultural "capital" (as it were) is [[Boston]], Massachusetts, which makes everyone think that all of New England is Boston...which isn't ''too'' far from the truth, as the history below will show.

==History==
In a word, [[irony]].

===Medieval times===
{{wpl|New England (medieval)|Medieval New England}} was a separate colony that (probably) existed beginning in the 11th century, in [[Crimea]]. Yes, it was called New England, too.<ref>Caitlin R. Green (May 19, 2015). [https://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/05/medieval-new-england-black-sea.html "The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast"].</ref>

===Colonial times===
The first [[Europe]]an colony in the better-known New England, [[Plymouth Colony]], was founded by the English Dissenters, a [[Congregationalist]] group who felt that the [[Church of England]] wasn't going far enough in purging those pesky [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] [[tradition]]s from jolly old [[England]].  Feeling that the motherland was a lost cause, a group first emigrated to the [[Netherlands]], but like so many [[Undocumented immigration|immigrant]] communities, they became worried about their next generation assimilating into the local [[culture]].  And so, a few of those we know as the Pilgrims (of [[Thanksgiving]] fame), decided to get on board the ''Mayflower'' and head to the Hudson River area to start a new life for themselves, free of the "papist" Anglicans and the [[Netherlands|Dutch]]. However, the boat got lost in a storm and instead landed inside the hook tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Since their charter was for them to settle at the mouth of the Hudson River, which was pretty damn far away,<ref group=notes>As anyone who's been on I-95 on a Friday evening should know.</ref> the Pilgrims had to put together their own [[government]], called the Mayflower Compact.<ref>[http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/researchstarters/plymouth/ Plymouth Colony], ''Scholastic''</ref>

Despite early struggles, the Plymouth Colony was successful enough that, ten years later, a group of [[Puritan]]s, who shared most of the Plymouth pilgrims' [[theology|theological]] views, arrived in the region.  This group landed to the north of Plymouth and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the mouth of the Charles River, building their settlement, Boston.  Like the Pilgrims, the Boston Puritans came to the New World for [[Freedom of religion|religious freedom]].  And in that, we get New England's first contradiction: the Massachusetts Bay Colony promptly set up a [[theocracy]] that [[Hypocrisy|denied that very same freedom]] to anybody who dissented from ''its'' religious authorities.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/368431/Massachusetts-Bay-Colony Massachusetts Bay Colony], ''Encyclopedia Britannica''</ref> The guy running the colony, John Winthrop, wanted Boston to be a "[[Utopia|city on a hill]]" to symbolize the virtue of Puritanism, and to do this, he set up strict standards of [[morality]] and persecuted non-Puritans, especially [[Quakers]].<ref>[http://www.ushistory.org/us/3c.asp Massachusetts Bay — 'The City Upon a Hill'], Independence Hall Association</ref> Eventually, a number of people in Massachusetts grew so upset with their colony's theocratic government that, in 1636, a group led by Roger Williams left and set up the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, where religious freedom would be assured.  Two years later, Thomas Hooker led the foundation of the Connecticut Colony for the same reason.<ref group=notes>Complaining about Massholes is a ''very'' old tradition.</ref>  While King Charles II would eventually step in in the year 1661 to prevent the Puritans' worst abuses, Massachusetts remained a very, well, puritanical place, as evidenced by the fact that [[Salem witch trials|the only organized witch hunt]] in the [[American]] colonies was carried out there in 1692, and [[War on Christmas|Christmas was banned]] in the colony from 1659 through 1681, when it was re-legalized by decree of the royally-appointed governor.

In 1686, the short-lived Dominion of New England was set up, merging Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut (and, later, [[New York]] and [[New Jersey]]) into one colony.  Not only was it too big for one governor to manage, but said governor, Sir Edmund Andros, was by all accounts a major-league [[Asshole|prick]] who pissed off just about everybody in the colonies (especially Connecticut, who continued electing their own legislature, which in turn [[Troll|sent occasional assurances]] to Andros that it did not, in fact, exist), violently alienating the Puritan population with his attempts to support King James II's anti-[[Protestant]] policies. The Dominion of New England was overthrown and dissolved in the wake of the Glorious Revolution in 1689, just three years after it was created.<ref>[http://thehistoricpresent.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/the-dominion-of-new-england-or-the-puritan-revolution/ "The Dominion of New England; or, the Puritan Revolution"]</ref><ref group=notes>The exception was {{wpl|Plymouth Colony#Final years|Plymouth Colony}}, which was merged into Massachusetts as it technically never had a royal charter. There were attempts to get a charter for Plymouth, but the colony was dissolved in 1692.</ref>

===Post-revolution===
New England was the birthplace of the [[American Revolution]], between the Boston Massacre, the [[Boston Tea Party]], and the Battles of Lexington and Concord.<ref>[http://www.britishbattles.com/american-revolution.htm "The War of the Revolution 1775 to 1783"]</ref> After the revolution, we get into Irony #2 — during the War of 1812, New England, despite having been the first place to rise up against the [[British]] the last time, was the region where pro-British sentiment ran the highest. The New England states discouraged enlistment in the [[US Army]], and blocked the use of their state militias to fight in the war. At the Hartford Convention in 1814-15, they denounced [[James Madison]]'s administration and proposed several constitutional amendments that would have restricted the power of the federal government and [[the South]]ern states, which they blamed for the war; while there was not talk of [[secession]] at the convention itself, such ideas did exist among the more [[radical]] sectors of Yankee society.<ref>[http://history.howstuffworks.com/revolutionary-war/hartford-convention.htm "The Hardford Convention"]</ref><ref group=notes>This [[Jesusland|would not be the last time]] that Yankees would consider seceding from the other 44 states.</ref> This time, however, the situation made a fair bit of sense — New England's economy rested upon trade, particularly with Britain, which was cut off for the duration of the conflict.

New England was the first part of the country to industrialize, and with it, it was also the first part of the country to [[Trade union|unionize]].<ref>[http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Labor-History-Timeline Labor History Timeline], AFL-CIO</ref> You can bet that this has [[Blue state|colored its politics]] ever since.

Starting in the mid-19th century, [[Irish]] Catholics started to mix in with the English Protestants. Irony #3 — the fact that a region that had been founded as a refuge from Catholicism was now turning into the American Catholic heartland — was not lost on the original inhabitants, who [[Know Nothing Party|reacted]] as [[Xenophobia|you might expect]], claiming that the [[Pope]] was throwing waves of Catholic immigration at America in order to subvert it and make it bow to the Holy Mother Church in [[Rome]]. That, on top of the usual [[racism]] and "they're taking our jobs!"<ref group=notes>Or, since it's New England, it should be "thay'ah takin' ah jahbs!"</ref> rhetoric that is usually thrown around by nativists. Even so, New England's reputation for puritanical moral guardianship changed little, with the Catholics making for just as efficient culture police as the Puritans. All the way into the 1950s, the Watch and Ward Society, composed of both Catholics and Protestants, made "banned in Boston" a phrase that people would attach to their [[literature|books]], plays and [[Films|movie]]s in order to [[Streisand effect|drum up publicity]].<ref>Miller, Neil. [http://www.amazon.ca/Banned-Boston-Societys-Crusade-Burlesque/dp/080705111X ''Banned in Boston — The Watch and Ward Society's Crusade against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil.''] Beacon Press, 2011.</ref>

==Today==
The region's Puritan heritage has, today, morphed into social [[liberalism]]. The 'Cradle of Liberty' is a [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] stronghold, and even in those areas that swing [[Republican]] ([[New Hampshire]], for instance), the [[conservatism]] is more [[libertarian]] than [[Religious Right]]. This is New England's Irony #4 — that a region that, for all of its [[history]], had been so uptight could also be so remarkably intelligent on so many issues. New England, more so than the rest of the North, was a hotbed of [[abolition]]ist and [[feminist]] sentiment in the 19th and 20th centuries. More recently, the first four U.S. states to legalize [[same-sex marriage]] — Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire — were New England states, and the state of Massachusetts also provided America with Gerry Studds and [[Barney Frank]], the first two openly [[gay]] members of [[Congress]].<ref group=notes>It is also the home of [[Bernie Sanders]], the only open [[socialist]] in the [[US Senate|Senate]].</ref>

At the same time, well, "banned in Boston" sums it up, and if you think that it's any different now, keep in mind that, in the state of Massachusetts, tattoo parlors were outlawed until the first decade of the 21st century, and were legalized only by [[judicial activism|court order]] as opposed to legislation.<ref>[http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20001108&slug=TTK628PGJ Judge throws out 38-year-old ban on Massachusetts tattoo artists], ''The Seattle Times''</ref> But even then it gets interesting: according to [[statistics]], New England (and the Northeast in general) actually lives up to the [[family values]] rhetoric espoused in the [[Bible Belt]] far better than the Bible Belt itself does; Massachusetts has had the lowest [[divorce]] rate in the nation for a while,<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/weekinreview/14pamb.html?_r=0 To Avoid Divorce, Move to Massachusetts], ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>[http://www.floatingpath.com/2013/03/09/massachusetts-lowest-divorce-rate-nation/ Massachusetts Has The Lowest Divorce Rate In The Nation], Floating Path</ref> and the region as a whole has some of the lowest rates of teen [[pregnancy]]<ref>[http://www.livescience.com/27417-teen-pregnancy-rates-by-state.html Teen Pregnancy Rates By State], ''LiveScience''</ref> and [[pornography]] viewership<ref>[https://www.pornhub.com/insights/what-do-people-in-the-us-search-for-in-pornhub-and-how-long-they-last-in-each-visit As determined by PornHub.] (Link is SFW)</ref> in the nation. (Some of the highest rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, and porn viewership are ''in'' the South, so the definition of "family values" starts to get a little awkward.)

And on top of that, there's Irony #5 — the direct descendants of the old Puritan congregational churches, the [[United Church of Christ]], one of the most liberal Christian denominations in America (and possibly the world), and the [[Unitarian Universalist Church]], throwing their support behind gay rights and other progressive causes.  From John Winthrop to Barney Frank, indeed...

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=notes}}

==References==
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[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:United States]]

Categories: Geography, United States