State of Connecticut History
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The first colonies that would become Connecticut flanked the shores of Long Island Sound and the banks of the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers. Influenced by Rev. Thomas Hooker's principle of authority growing out of the free expression of its people, the utopian experiment of Connecticut Colony, begun in 1636, produced little class distinction, a change from the heavy-handed authoritarian expectations of the Massachusetts colonies. The Congregational church would not only be thoroughly integrated in town life, but interpretation of its theology seemed to create less social stratification.
Similar to Rhode Island in its political organization, Connecticut differed from the new settlements in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in possessing a rich agricultural terrain. First settlements along the Connecticut River, co-existing with the Native Americans and Dutch at a trading post at what is now Windsor and Hartford, were reached primarily on foot by settlers from Massachusetts towns. Concurrently, John Winthrop, Jr., brought a group of more notable settlers from England to establish Saybrook along the coast. By 1638, with other settlements already harvesting their crops and increasing their number of clapboard houses, New Haven Colony, under the theological leadership of John Davenport, entrenched itself along the coast building the more elaborate houses they had become accustomed to in England.
New Haven Colony merged with Connecticut Colony in 1662 while others, dissatisfied, moved farther north on the Connecticut River to settle western Massachusetts towns, and one group founded Newark, New Jersey. More and more of the rich agricultural land was purchased from the Native Americans, but through the middle of the eighteenth century, Connecticut's, as well as the rest of New England's, relationship with the original inhabitants deteriorated as the French and Indian wars heated up and persisted.
Connecticut's homogeneous, community centered form of government, out of the mainstream of royal imperial affairs, remained focused on the town and its people. With events of the impending Revolution espousing the principles of freedom of expression, Connecticut began to move away from a solely town focus and look out toward the broader community of colonies opposing Royal authority. Connecticut people fought on both sides of the conflict, with many Loyalists migrating north and east to Canada and its eastern provinces.
By the end of the Revolution family farms were unable to support the large number of young people in the area. The population boom made it necessary for more and more descendants of original settlers to leave for the north, west, and south to provide for themselves and their families. Cheaper, available land elsewhere provided much of the motivation. Farms gave way to the newly burgeoning Industrial Revolution, and new ethnic groups wended their ways along the Long Island Shoreline of Connecticut's growing metropolitan areas.
- Connecticut’s immigration lists are included in the NARA microfilm publication, M575, Copies of Lists of Passengers Arriving at Miscellaneous Ports on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, 1820–1873.
- As with other states, naturalizations might have been granted in any Connecticut court up to the twentieth century. Some are still in the county courthouses, but all that were held at the Connecticut State Library were transferred to the National Archives—Northeast Region in 1984 and have been microfilmed with a copy of the film returned for research at the state library. Those filed and granted after 1906 are in the federal district court in Bridgeport, Hartford, or New Haven. See <www.cslib.org/natural.htm> for a full description and explanation.
- From colonial times, African Americans have been a major ethnic group in Connecticut, providing a large number of Revolutionary soldiers. A research guide is available on the Connecticut State Library website <www.cslib.org/blagen.htm>.
- White, David Oliver. Connecticut’s Black Soldiers, 1775–1783. Connecticut Bicentennial Series, no. 4. Chester, Conn.: Pequot Press, 1973.
- Rose, James M., and Barbara W. Brown. Black Roots in Southeastern Connecticut, 1650–1900. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001.
- Rose, James M. Tapestry: A Living History of the Black Family in Southeastern Connecticut. New London, Conn.: New London Historical Society, 1979.
- Weed, Ralph Foster. Slavery in Connecticut. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935.
- A research guide is available on the Connecticut State Library website <www.cslib.org/indians.htm>.
Connecticut History by County
