Geography
The state of Connecticut covers 5,006 square miles (the third smallest of America's states) and is located in the northeastern United States, with New York a long its western border, Massachusetts to the north, Rhode Island to the east, and the Long Island Sound along its southern coast. Across Long Island Sound is Long Island, part of which once belonged to Connecticut but was ceded to New York. In exchange for Long Island, Connecticut was able to keep its southwestern handle, which jutted into New York and in which the cities of Greenwich, Stamford, and Norwalk are found. This was no simple process. The first agreement in 1664 fell apart because of very bad surveying of the borders. In 1683, commissioners from New York and Connecticut again tried to settle their border dispute, agreeing to trade Connecticut's territory on Long Island for the panhandle, but Connecticut backed out because the borders were again badly drawn, costing it several towns. In 1684, the commissioners finally agreed on the trade of territory and on borders, but their governments continued to bicker over who had what territory.
In 1700, King William III of England confirmed the 1684 agreement as binding, but Connecticut and New York continued to bicker. In 1718, New York tried to restart the whole process, but Connecticut essentially ignored them; New York then declared itself satisfied with the 1684 agreement; in 1723, Connecticut appointed new commissioners to negotiate with New York's commissioners, which appointed new commissioners in 1725, and a new survey was begun but ran out of funding before it was complete. In 1731, it all began again, this time with a complete survey, and then both sides decided to go with the 1684 agreement. Arguments over the border continued almost incessantly, although the trade of the panhandle for Connecticut's Long Island territory was considered official. In 1855, Connecticut restarted official inquiries because markers for the 1684 agreement's border had disappeared and the state's government thought it had been denied northern lands that should belong to it. Commissioners of New York and Connecticut redid the border survey in January 1856, trying to settle where an area called the "Oblong" was located, but the commissioners could not agree on what the survey had found. In 1859, new commissioners met in September in Port Chester, but did not agree on a border. In 1860, New York independently marked the border from the panhandle to Massachusetts as it saw fit. Connecticut complained about this until new commissioners were appointed by both states in 1878, who met in 1878 and 1879, finally agreeing on 5 December 1879 that the 1860 New York line was acceptable where it matched the 1731 line, about which there was still uncertainty because of lost markers. Eventually, both state legislatures ratified the 1860 (based on the 1731) border, and in 1881, the United States Congress confirmed the border. This did stop the states from continuing to bicker over the details for seemingly endless decades thereafter.
Connecticut is shaped in large part like a rectangle and its borders look as though they were planned, but in fact Connecticut owes its shape to about 150 years of wrangling with its neighbors from about 1633 to state-hood in 1776.
Connecticut is split north to south by the Connecticut River, which enters the state from Massachusetts to the north near the town of Enfield, flows south to Middletown, then shifts to a southeasterly direction, eventually flowing into Long Island Sound at the town of Old Saybrook. The Connecticut River is shallow at its mouth, limiting accessibility to ships, but the river itself has served as a highway for people since before the coming of European settlers. The Mohawks probably used it to raid Connecticut tribes just before English colonists arrived in Massachusetts.
Temperatures in Connecticut usually vary from July highs in the low 70s to January highs in the mid-20s. However, severe heat occasionally occurs, with 105 the record high on 22 July 1929 at Waterbury, and lows can be very low indeed, with 32 below zero being the record low, set on 16 February 1943 at Falls Village. Annually, rain and snow combine for about forty-eight inches of precipitation.
The banks of the Connecticut River have been appealing to farmers for their nutrient rich, smooth soil, although during the industrialization of the state, the adjacent land was turned over to mills and other factories that used the flowing water to generate power and to dump waste. The rest of Connecticut's soil is very rocky, and although farmers cleared native forests to create huge tracts of farmland, the rocky terrain makes agriculture a difficult proposition.
Geographers customarily divide Connecticut into four parts: the eastern hill country, the Connecticut River Valley, the western hill country, and the southern coast. Some geographers suggest that the southwestern handle be considered a separate region of Connecticut because of its dense population, starting with the city of Danbury in the north to Stratford in the southeast to Greenwich in the southwest.
The Connecticut River valley has been the center of commerce and political power since colonial times because the river made a good trade route and so the first colonial settlements were established near it. Rivers attracted population elsewhere in Connecticut, although to a lesser extent. The western hill country has always been less populated than other parts of Connecticut, although the city of Waterbury is located on the Naugatuck River. The eastern hill country is most heavily populated along the southern part of the Thames River, where the towns of Norwich and Ledyard are located. Much of the northern part of the eastern hill country has remained heavily forested since prehistoric times.
The Connecticut coast is sometimes referred to as the Gold Coast of Connecticut because of its many seaports and its attractive beaches. Since the late 1600s, Connecticut's ports have been a source of international trade, with Yankee traders sailing far and wide in search of markets and goods. The Connecticut River valley has been a rich source of manufactured goods since the early 1700s and many of them were shipped overseas.
Prehistory
Connecticut was covered by a glacier 11,000 years ago. When this glacier retreated, it scoured the land, leaving many indentations that became lakes and pools that total 146 square miles. A great forest grew after the retreat of the glacier; it became dense with several different species of trees and home to abundant wildlife.
There may be no way to tell when human beings first entered the region of Connecticut because some may have been there before or during the last ice age; if so, the glacier would have obliterated their remains as it retreated. It is likely that at least three waves of culturally diverse Native American groups passed through Connecticut as they explored the North American coastline. It is also possible that none of these groups were the direct ancestors of the Native Americans that colonists found when they began exploring the Connecticut River.
The Narragansetts were in eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. It was a large, politically savvy, and well-organized tribe. In southeastern Connecticut were the Mohegans, and to their west the Pequots. The Mohegans and the Pequots were of the same cultural stock, but they were enemies at the time Europeans arrived. It is possible that a dispute over a sachem, a political leader similar to a chief, led to hostilities between the two tribes.
By 1630, the Pequots and Mohegans were drifting apart in their social organization. The Mohegans had a loose tribal organization in which individual villages looked after their own affairs and tended to be small and far apart. Each village had its own sachem, who selected an overall leader for negotiations with other tribes or for leading the Mohegans into war. The Pequots were more centrally organized, living in large stockades. In the early 1600s, the Mohegans stretched from southern Rhode Island into New York, but the Pequots migrated from the Hudson River valley into western Connecticut to the Connecticut River, displacing the Mohegans west of the river. Both the Mohegans and the Pequots were primarily farmers.
The Sequins (sometimes called the River People or Quinnipiacs) were also farmers who lived along the Connecticut River and had probably been in Connecticut longer than any other group of Native Americans. In addition to farming, the Sequins traded with the Narragansetts and other tribes that lived to the north in what is now Massachusetts. The Sequins gave Connecticut its name, because they called the river Quinnipiac (variously translated as "long tidal river," "long river," and "land along the long river"). The word "Quinnipiac" was transliterated into "Connecticut."
In the early 1600s, the Pequots and Mohegans stopped fighting one another when a new, bigger problem arose as the Mohawk tribe began raiding the tribes in Connecticut. The Mohawks were part of the Iroquoian Five Nations, a well-organized federation of powerful tribes. Their attacks on other Native Americans resulted in burned villages, lost crops, and dead villagers, including children. The Mohawks also captured people for slaves. It was at this time that the English began colonizing Connecticut.
Colonial Era
In 1614, Dutch explorer Adrian Block was shipwrecked on the New England coast. He and his sailors built another ship, but because it was too small for a sea voyage, Block decided to explore the coast. When he found the mouth of the Connecticut River, he sailed into it, eventually meeting the Sequins, who were friendly and willing to trade goods with the sailors.
Windsor, the first English colony in Connecticut, was established in 1633. It was intended to be a trading outpost. Wethersfield was established in 1634 and was populated by farmers and traders. In 1635, Thomas Hooker led about one hundred of his followers from Newtown, Massachusetts, to Hartford. Hooker and his followers were fleeing the oppressive Puritan colonies to the north, and hoped to create a freer society. In 1638 Hooker said, "The foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people." On 14 January 1639, the Fundamental Orders—based on Hooker's ideas about freedom—were adopted. They were a set of rules that limited the scope of the government. Although not fully a constitution, the Fundamental Orders have earned Connecticut the nickname "the Constitution State."
The Pequot War was fought in 1637. The Pequots had always been hostile to the colonists and had killed explorers and traders, and during that year they tried to form alliances with the Narragansetts and other tribes to wage war against the colonists. Meanwhile, the Mohegans and Sequins had been friendly with immigrants from Massachusetts, encouraging their settlement to form a buffer between them and their more violent enemies. The efforts of the Pequots were alarming enough so that the colonists and Mohegans formed an alliance and attacked them. A force of about one hundred colonists and seventy Mohegans twice defeated the Pequots in battle, burning their largest stockade and nearly wiping them out
In 1665, the various villages established by colonists were united into the Connecticut colony. During the 1600s, large areas of forest were cleared to make way for farming. Farming on rocky soil, however, was very difficult, and by the 1720s Connecticut's people were leaving their farms for work in mills and factories. In 1702, Abraham Pierson established a "collegiate school" at Killing-worth (later called Clinton). In 1716 the college moved to New Haven; in 1718, it was named Yale College after Elihu Yale, a merchant who donated a small fortune to it.
In 1765, the Sons of Liberty was founded in Connecticut. The organization was at first intended to resist the Stamp Act of 1765 that taxed newspapers and other publications, but as dissatisfaction with Britain's treatment of its colonies grew, it became a resistance organization. By 1776, the only large community of pro-royalists, or Tories, was in Connecticut's southwestern region; otherwise, Connecticut almost entirely backed revolt against Britain. When war broke out, Connecticut contributed several thousand soldiers to the Continental army. No major battles were fought in Connecticut, but it was invaded four times, with British troops burning towns and killing civilians. In 1781, the British army captured about eighty American soldiers at Fort Griswold and massacred all of them.
Statehood
At the close of the American Revolution, in 1783, there was confusion among the states about matters such as trade, currency, and taxes. Connecticut enjoyed success as a manufacturing state and "Yankee peddlers" carried and sold Connecticut manufactured goods and imports in the other states. Connecticut itself had a decentralized government, with most political power resting in small communities. Only rich, landed men could vote. When the Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia to determine the future of the United States, Connecticut resisted the creation of a strong central government, but it was outvoted. The convention stalled on the type of legislature the new American government should have; one based on population would favor the states with bigger populations. Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman presented the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed dividing the legislature into two parts: one elected by population, the other elected on the basis of two senators from each state regardless of population, thus ensuring a degree of security for small states. This approach having been adopted, Connecticut in 1788 became the fifth state to ratify the new Constitution.
In 1818, Connecticut overhauled its Fundamental Orders, expanding the right to vote beyond landed men and providing a stronger central state government. This constitution would govern Connecticut until 1965. The 1818 constitution gave the state's cities, towns, and villages one or two representatives each to the state's assembly, regardless of population. The state capitol moved between New Haven and Hartford for nearly sixty years. In 1964, the United States Supreme Court ruled Connecticut's constitution unconstitutional, and at a state constitutional convention, legislators created a constitution providing for one man-one vote representation.
During the 1840s, Connecticut received a large number of Irish immigrants who were integrated into the state's manufacturing economy. By the beginning of the Civil War, Connecticut was a major arms manufacturing center that contributed many weapons to the Union army. The state had been a hotbed of antislavery sentiment in the antebellum years, and during the war, it contributed more troops, mostly volunteers, to the Union cause than any state except Massachusetts. In 1875, Hartford was chosen as the permanent home of state government and the capitol building there was finished in 1880. Influxes of immigrants arrived from eastern Europe and Italy, with Italian Americans becoming the largest ethnic group in the state.
The era from 1880 to the Great Depression was one of expansion and social change. In 1865, the were 500,000 people living in Connecticut; by 1900, there were 1,000,000. In 1870, the gross state product was $160,000,000; in 1900, the gross state product was $300,000,000. Immigrants from Europe were drawn to Connecticut because of jobs in mills and the small arms industry. In 1917, a submarine base was established in Groton, and the manufacturing of submarines became one of the state's biggest employers. Nuclear submarines were still made there at the turn of the twenty-first century.
While this growth was underway, Connecticut farms were failing, with farm families abandoning their homes for jobs in the city. The western countryside of Connecticut looked desolate, with old roads passing by empty homes and overgrown farmland. Yet, in about 1900, Connecticut began to attract artists who enjoyed the privacy of Connecticut country life and wealthy New Yorkers and Bostonians who could pick up large swaths of land cheaply and turn them into estates. With the advent of the automobile, much of rural Connecticut became bedroom communities for people who worked in New York or Massachusetts and then commuted in their cars to homes away from the noise of the city.
Modern Era
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Connecticut suffered along with the rest of the nation. About one-fourth of the state's workers were unemployed and the areas of highest industrialization, especially in cities, were decaying. At this time, service industries such as insurance were becoming more important. During World War II, Connecticut's economy boomed as money for weapons poured in. The state was also a major manufacturer of submarines and aircraft engines. In 1954, the first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus, was launched at the shipyards in Groton.
A great disparity of wealth between the inner cities and the suburbs of Connecticut began during the 1980s and became acute in the 1970s as the state's middle class abandoned the central cities for the more secure and beautiful countryside.
Although African Americans made up only about 8 percent of the state's population, they were densely packed into cities. In 1967, a ferocious race riot in Hartford was followed by another in Bridgeport, the state's second and third largest cities—inspired by high unemployment among African Americans and a perception that African American needs were being neglected by the state and city governments. Afterward, efforts were made to revitalize city centers by making them tourist attractions and tourism became one of Connecticut's major sources of income.
During the 1990s the state's population declined, although many immigrants arrived from Southeast Asia. By the twenty-first century, the population was approximately 3.2 million people, the twenty-seventh largest state population in the United States. About 84 percent of the population was European American (exclusive of Hispanics), 8 percent African American, 6.5 percent Hispanic American, and 1.5 percent Asian American. Most of the population was centered in the cities, with agriculture accounting for only one percent of the state's revenue by 2001. Insurance and banking were the biggest employers, with employment in defense-related industries shrinking after the end of the Cold War. Even so, Connecticut was a major manufacturer of helicopters, aircraft engines, high technology electronics, and weapons. Growth in the financial and tourist industries in the 1990s began to change the state's economy, with people working in Connecticut while living in New York or Massachusetts. The per capita income in Connecticut is the highest of any state ($31,816 in 2000).
Much of the remaining original forest of Connecticut is in the northwest, but the forest has reasserted itself in many regions that had been cleared of trees by the 1800s. About one third of the state is covered by forest and the numerous state parks have become important attractions for campers and hikers, while the old towns have become attractions for tourists. The few descendants of the Pequots and Mohegans began operating casinos on their lands in the 1980s and 1990s, attracting tourists and pumping over $100 million in taxes annually to the state government.
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—Kirk H. Beetz
