Boston

Boston was the site chosen in 1630 by the English Puritans for their political, administrative, and religious capital. Located on a promontory, it offered both a defensive position and a central location for the other settlements of Massachusetts Bay. Under the leadership of John Winthrop (1588–1649) the town grew rapidly, sustained by a stream of immigrants from England and the presence of a good harbor. For the first ten years, Boston's commerce was largely with the mother country. The outbreak of the English Civil War (1642–1651), however, prompted its merchants to open new markets in the Chesapeake and West Indies. Despite the Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663, Boston continued to prosper, as witnessed by its expanding fleet and numerous wharfs and warehouses. By the end of the seventeenth century its population had reached almost 8,000, making it the largest overseas English town. Unsurprisingly its inhabitants played a leading role in the overthrow of the Dominion of New England in 1689.

During the first half of the eighteenth century, Boston did not enjoy such unremitting growth. One reason for this was the emergence of New York and Philadelphia as rivals for the carrying trade. In addition, Boston lacked a dynamic internal market, because the region's rocky soils limited its agricultural potential. During the wars of the eighteenth century, Boston did profit from military contracting and the equipping of privateers. But the coming of peace invariably led to economic dislocation and unemployment, though the population continued to grow, reaching 16,000 by 1760. Boston, as a result, was the first American town to experience urban poverty. However, it remained a center of politics, culture, and ideas because of the presence of nearby Harvard College. It also was the most democratically governed town in British North America, having a franchise that effectively included all white males. Boston had a heady mixture of an educated elite and working-class majority citizens that Samuel Adams (1722–1803) and his patriot colleagues exploited against Britain during the Stamp Act riots, the Boston Massacre, and final separation from Britain in 1776.

see also American Revolution; Atlantic Colonial Commerce.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nash, Garry B. The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.

Rutman, Darett B. Winthrop's Boston, Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630–1649. Williamsburg, VA: University of North Carolina Press, 1965.

Whitehill, Walter Muir, and Lawrence W. Kennedy. Boston: A Topographical History, 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000.