The first European to explore Connecticut was Adriaen Block. He sailed up a river that the Algonquin Indians called Quinnenhtukqut, which meant "long river". The word Quinnenhtukqut was hard for the colonists to say ,so later they changed its name to Connecticut.

The Dutch, who are from the Netherlands, built a trading post called the House of Hope in 1633. The Dutch traded for furs with the Algonquin Indians and some furs were shipped back to Europe to make hats and coats. They weighed the furs before they traded them to see how much they were worth.

Colonists often bought land from the Indians. The land, New Haven, was purchased from the Quinnipiac Indians for 24 coats, 12spoons, 12 hatchets, 12 hoes, 24 knifes, 12 bowls and a few scissors in 1638. After the Indians traded their land Indians had to move out of their homes.

Three towns on the river of Connecticut ,Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, joined together to make the Connecticut colony. Thomas Hooker led log settlers to Hartford because it was too crowded in Connecticut and the laws were too strict. In 1639 the people of the Connecticut colony were approving of Hooker’s ideas until 1662.

In the year 1662 colonists in the colony of Connecticut were worried that the colony of Massachusetts or the colony of New York would take over Connecticut. John Winthrop Jr. got a charter for Connecticut from England’s king Charles. Connecticut remained an English colony for 100 years.

Most colonists farmed, fished and built ships. People would trade or barter extra eggs and vegetables to town and traded them to the general store for sugar, spices and guns. Peddlers nicknamed the Yankee Peddlers would sell the things the colonists needed.

By the 1760’s Connecticut and the other colonies were doing well and making money. The English government wanted more money so the colonists had to pay more taxes. The taxes in Boston made the people there so angry that they tossed lots of tea into the Boston Harbor on December 16^th 1773.

In 1774 leaders from Connecticut and other colonies got together in Philadelphia for two months to try to fix England’s problem. The English soldiers were called Redcoats because of the red coats that they wore with their uniforms. England refused to lower their taxes or open Boston Harbor.

On April 19^th 1775, the American Revolutionary War began in Massachusetts. When the news reached Connecticut 3,600 members from the Connecticut militia rushed to Massachusetts. More than 30,000 soldiers from Connecticut fought in the Revolutionary War.

The Connecticut navy did its part during the Revolutionary War by capturing five hundred English ships. Connecticut’s David Bushnell built America’s first submarine, the Turtle, to help the war effort. Ships and the sea played a big part in Connecticut’s past.