Page 21 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Boston

INTRODUCING BOST ON  19

HISTORY OF

BOSTON

Evidence of human occupation in Massachusetts dates from around
7500 BC. By around AD 500 Algonquin Indians were widespread in the
region. Hunter-gatherers, they fished, farmed beans and pumpkins, and
hunted moose and deer. They were made up of seven tribes, the closest
geographically to present-day Boston being the Massachusetts,
Wampanoags, and Nipmucks.
Other tribes in the region included 16th century, the English, French,
the Nausets around Cape Cod, the Portuguese, Spanish, and Italians
Pennacooks farther north, and Pocumtucs explored the East Coast, whaling, fishing,
and Mohicans to the west. Their dialects and trading with the natives. In 1602
came from the same language, and their the English man Bartholomew Gosnold
physical features were similar. Each tribe sailed to Massachusetts, landing on the
lived in close-knit communities of peninsula he called Cape Cod and
approx imately 250 people. traversing the island he would name
Martha’s Vineyard after his daughter.
The First Europeans He returned to England with furs from
During the Age of the Vikings, Norsemen the natives and sassafras (bark of a North
from Scandinavia adventured far from American tree) to be used medicinally.
home, reaching North America. The In 1607 James I of England offered land
coastal land of Vinland discovered by in the New World to two companies. What
Leif Erikson in around AD 1000 may is now Virginia he gave to the London
well have been on the Massachusetts company, led by Captain John Smith. To a
coast. French and Spanish fishermen group from Plymouth, England, he assigned
fished here in the mid-15th century New England and land as far south as what
and the Italian-born explorer John Cabot is now Delaware. The Plymouth Company
led an English expedition to the New set out in 1607 to found a colony along
England coast once in 1497 and again the Kennebec River in present-day Maine,
in 1498. A few years later Miguel Cortereal but the harsh winter led the company to
sailed from Portugal to Massachusetts, return to England. John Smith’s Virginia
where his ship was wrecked. His name expedition was more successful. In May
was found carved on a granite rock 1607 he arrived in Jamestown, where he
with the year 1511. Throughout the founded a permanent colony.

1608 Puritan
1497 John Cabot leads English separatists flee
Viking casket expedition to New England coast England for the
Netherlands
AD 500 1000 1500
1511 Portuguese Miguel
500 Algonquin tribes inhabit land Cortereal explores Massachusetts 1607 James I assigns
stretching from Canada to Florida
land to Plymouth
1000 Viking explorer Leif Erikson is thought 1602 English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold Company
to have reached Massachusetts names Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard
Inhabitants of Boston watching the Battle of Bunker Hill (see p22)

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