In 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held.īoston entered a period of decline in the 20th century, as older factories were abandoned for modern manufacturing facilities and cheaper labor elsewhere. Fleeing the Potato Famine, Irish immigrants flooded into Boston, and were later joined by Italian, Eastern European, Chinese and other nationalities. The city celebrated when the British evacuated the city in 1776, ending the Siege of Boston.īoston continued to grow in the 1800s, and Massachusetts-home of William Lloyd Garrison and a longtime center of the abolitionist movement-was the first state in the Union to abolish slavery. Many of the key events of the Revolutionary War occurred in or near Boston, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Paul Revere’s ride and the Battle of Bunker Hill. READ MORE: Did a Snowball Start the American Revolution? When the 1773 Tea Act levied taxes on imported tea, the Sons of Liberty staged the Boston Tea Party, dumping some 45 tons of tea into Boston Harbor. Soon, the city’s politicians and clergymen were crying out for, “No taxation without representation!”Īfter the 1770 Boston Massacre, during which British troops fired upon a mob of colonists, killing five, anti-British sentiment reached a fever pitch.

In the 1630s, Boston Latin School-where Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and Samuel Adams studied-and Harvard University were founded.ĭespite the premium placed on education and religion, Boston’s Puritans weren’t keen on tolerance: The “crime” of being a Quaker was punishable by imprisonment or death, celebrating Christmas was banned, and in 1643 the city welcomed the first slave ship into Boston Harbor.Īs Boston grew and prospered, tensions between colonists and English governors increased, especially after the British Parliament passed the Molasses Act of 1733, which levied a tax on molasses, a critical import for Boston rum makers. Originally called Tremontaine for the three hills in the area, the Puritans later changed the settlement’s name to Boston, after the town in Lincolnshire, England, from which many Puritans originated. Led by John Winthrop, the group soon merged with the Pilgrims’ Plymouth Colony, located about 40 miles to the south in Cape Cod Bay. READ MORE: Did Colonists Use Smallpox as Biological Warfare?Ī fleet of ships helmed by Puritans left England in 1630, settling in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Within a few years, more than half the Native Americans in the region had died of smallpox introduced by European explorers. by the Massachusetts tribe of Native Americans, who called the peninsula Shawmut.Ĭaptain John Smith in 1614 explored the coastline of what he christened “New England” (to make the area sound more attractive to settlers). The region had been inhabited since at least 2400 B.C. Boston, the largest city in New England, is located on a hilly peninsula in Massachusetts Bay.

Men of Color by Lloyd Boston