Province of New Hampshire British colony ← 1691 – 1783 → Capital Portsmouth Language(s) English Government Constitutional monarchy King  - 1664-1685 Charles II  - 1769-1776 George III Royal Governor  - 1741-1775 List of colonial governors of New Hampshire Legislature General Court of New Hampshire History  - Separation from Massachusetts Bay Colony 1691  - Treaty of Paris (1783) September 3, 1783 Currency Pound sterling, Spanish dollar

The Province of New Hampshire was a crown colony organized on October 7, 1691 during the period of British colonization of the Americas. The charter was enacted May 14, 1692 by William and Mary, the joint monarchs of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, at the same time that the Province of Massachusetts Bay was created. Both were formerly parts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Province of New Hampshire was located in the present-day U.S. state of New Hampshire, and was named after the county of Hampshire in southern England by John Mason.^[1]

The province did not get its own colonial governor until 1741, when Benning Wentworth was appointed. Many of the subsequent New Hampshire Grants later became the state of Vermont.

History

Before colonization

Prior to British colonization, the area which became the province was populated by bands of the Abenaki, who lived in sometimes large villages of longhouses.^[2] Depending on the season they would either remain near their villages to fish, gather plants, engage in sugaring, and trade or fight with their neighbors, or head to nearby fowling and hunting grounds; later they also farmed tobacco and the "three sisters": corn, beans, and squash.^[2]

Early British colonies

Prior to 1691, the "New Hampshire Colony" was the product of several English land grants dating from 1623 to 1680. For much of its colonial history it was controlled by the Massachusetts Bay Colony based in Boston.

In 1631 Captain Thomas Wiggin served as the first governor of the province of the Upper Plantation of New Hampshire, comprising modern-day Dover, Durham and Stratham.

Other settlements followed: Little Harbor, Dover, Portsmouth and Exeter. David Thomson, Edward Hilton, and Thomas Hilton were sent by John Mason, who wished to send settlers to create a fishing colony. They established the cities of Dover and Little Harbor. The settlement at Exeter was founded in 1638 by John Wheelwright, a disciple of Anne Hutchinson. These towns agreed to unite in 1639 and in 1641 agreed to join the Massachusetts Colony.

On January 1, 1680, New Hampshire was separated from the Massachusetts Colony, becoming a colony with a separate government. It was reunited with Massachusetts in 1688, and separated out one last time in 1691, at which point it became the Province of New Hampshire.

References

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