By
Regal
In the
early 1600s a man named Adriaen Block journeyed to Connecticut from Europe and
found land. He said that it belonged to his country because he was the first
person to go there from Europe even though he was not. Now Connecticut covers
miles including water and land.
After
Block said that he claimed the land other people started to come and build
houses. They came and built a trading post so they could send fur back to Europe
to make hats and coats. Some people had to live in dugouts before they built
houses. The Indians had to give the settlers food until the spring.
The
colonists bought land from the Indians. The Indians did not know a lot about
trading so they thought that they would be able to go back on their land but
when they did, the colonist told them to get off of their land.
By the 1760s Connecticut and the other colonies
were doing fine and making money. The government wanted some of that money, so
they told the colonists to pay more taxes. Most of the colonists refused to pay
them. The tax on tea in Boston made them so angry that they threw boxes of tea
into the Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773. The English shut down supplies of
tea until they paid for the tea that was destroyed.
Ships could not go into Boston to bring food and other supplies.
For months, colonists from New York, Connecticut,
and Rhode Island helped the people in Boston by giving them wagons full of corn
and other foods. Now the people thought of themselves as Americans because they
were together. The more they thought of themselves as Americans, the more they
did not like to pay taxes to England. The people would say
“No taxation without representation!” This means that the colonists
wanted to have a say in the government before they paid the taxes. The English
leaders did not want the people to interfere with the way they were running the
place. They just wanted the colonists’ money.
The English sent soldiers that were called
Redcoats by the colonists to scare the colonists into paying their taxes.
it did not work. England refused to lower the tax rates or open Boston Harbor.
The Colonists and England could not agree.
In 1774 the leaders of Connecticut and the other colonies met in
Philadelphia. For two months they talked about what should be done about the
problems with the English.
If war broke out with the colonies, Connecticut
wanted to be ready for it. The towns stored gunpowder and guns and
Connecticut’s army was trained hard. On April 19, 1775, the American
Revolutionary War started in Massachusetts. When the news hit Connecticut, 3,600
members of Connecticut’s army rushed to Massachusetts. No big fight had ever
been in Connecticut before. When
the war ended, every colony was invited to send representatives to sign the
Declaration of Independence and later, the Constitution.
Now I know much more about Connecticut.
You should too. I learned that Connecticut signed the Constitution in 1778
and became the 5th
state. What did you learn?
To the People
and Projects
Comments? Email Mrs. Gurwicz
Last Updated: 03/21/06