Boston. History. Resistance and revolution

Early settlement. Massachusetts Indians lived in what is now the Boston area before the first Europeans settled there in 1630. By the time the European settlers arrived, the area's Indian population had been nearly wiped out by disease. From 1615 to 1617, epidemics of measles, scarlet fever, and other diseases killed about 2,500 of the 3,000 Indians in the area. The diseases had been carried to the New World by European explorers.

The promise of open land that could be settled without the threat of Indian raids attracted many English colonists to the Boston area. William Blackstone, the first European settler, built a cottage on what is now Beacon Hill in the 1620's. In 1630, a group of about 800 Puritans led by John Winthrop founded Charlestown, now part of Boston. Later that year, Winthrop and many of the settlers crossed the Charles River and founded Boston on a peninsula that the Indians called Shawmut. Boston became the capital of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632 (see Massachusetts Bay Colony).

Boston began as a tightly knit village of craft workers, farmers, and ministers. The settlers had been persecuted in England for their Puritan beliefs. Yet the town's leaders tried to drive out of Boston any new settlers who did not share their beliefs.

Only Puritans could vote or hold public office. Laws forbade the staging of plays and the celebration of Christmas. The Puritans considered cooking on Sunday a sin. Many Puritan women prepared baked beans every Saturday and served them for Sunday dinner. This custom earned Boston the nickname Beantown.

Despite the Puritans' restrictions, Boston grew rapidly. By 1720, it was a thriving town with about 12,000 people of various political and religious beliefs. By the mid-1700's, Boston had become a leading commercial, fishing, and shipbuilding center of the American Colonies. Wealthy merchants were now the town leaders, and most of the strict Puritan laws were forgotten.

Resistance and revolution, Boston's patriots helped lead the colonies in their struggle for independence from the United Kingdom. In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which required the colonists to pay a tax on newspapers, legal documents, and various other items. Angry Bostonians violently protested against this "taxation without representation." Mobs rioted and looted the homes of British officials.

In 1770, a street fight between a Boston mob and British soldiers resulted in what became known as the Boston Massacre. Soldiers fired into the mob, killing five men and wounding six others. The incident further embittered the colonists.

In 1773, a band of colonists staged the Boston Tea Party to protest a British tax on imported tea. Bostonians disguised as Indians crept onto British ships in Boston Harbor and dumped their cargoes of tea overboard. Three major clashes with British troops—the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill—occurred near Boston in 1775. In March 1776, General George Washington ordered his troops to occupy Dorchester Heights, which overlooks Boston.

From Dorchester Heights, the patriots threatened to fire cannon at the British troops guarding Boston. This forced the British to flee the city. The capture of Boston was the first major American victory of the revolution.

Economic growth. After the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, Boston merchants began to build huge fortunes through foreign trade. Ships loaded with fish, rum, salt, and tobacco left Boston Harbor for ports throughout the world. The ships returned with silk and tea from China, sugar and molasses from the West Indies, and gold and mahogany from Africa.

Boston was chartered as a city in 1822. Between 1824 and 1858, several landfill projects more than doubled the size of the Shawmut peninsula. The rapid growth of Boston's garment, leather goods, and machinery industries made the city one of the nation's leading manufacturing centers.

Boston in 1775 occupied a peninsula between the Charles River and the Boston Harbor. Much of the water area has since been filled in. Many famous buildings, including Old North Church, King's Chapel, and Faneuil Hall, still stand.

During the 1840's, more than 500,000 Irish immigrants fled to Boston to escape starvation in their homeland, where the potato crop had failed. The immigrants provided cheap labor for the city's factories, railroads, and wharves. Most of them lived in crowded, crime-ridden slums and faced discrimination and hostility from native Bostonians.

Boston became a center of literary activity during the 1800's. Such famous authors as Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived there and became close friends. William Lloyd Garrison started a powerful anti-slavery movement in Boston in the 1830's. His fiery newspaper, The Liberator, and Harriet Beecher Stowe's antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, were both published in Boston.

On Nov. 9, 1872, a fire wiped out about 60 acres (24 hectares) of downtown Boston. The area was soon rebuilt, and the city continued to grow. The nation's first subway opened in Boston in 1897. By 1900, the city's population had reached about 560,000.

Rise of Irish politicians. In the early 1900's, the descendants of Irish immigrants began to dominate Boston's politics. John F. (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald, grandfather of President John F. Kennedy, served two terms as Boston's mayor, in 1906 and 1907 and from 1910 to 1914. During his terms, the city enlarged City Hall, modernized the Port of Boston, and built the Franklin Park Zoo.

James Michael Curley, another powerful Irish politician, served four terms as mayor between 1914 and 1950. After taking office, both men found or made jobs for their Irish supporters and so increased the economic and political power of the city's Irish people.