Connecticut

Not all the motivation was over religious differences, however; the relatively rocky and unfriendly coast of Massachusetts was not as appealing as, for example, the Connecticut River Valley. Thomas Hooker was the pastor in Newtown, Massachusetts, in the early 1630s. Because of his differences with the leadership of the Massachusetts colony in the person of Governor Winthrop, Hooker decided to take his flock westward, and in 1636 his entire congregation set out for the Connecticut River Valley, which had been discovered by Dutchman Adrian Block some years earlier. Two additional congregations soon followed. Hooker quickly founded the town of Hartford at the confluence of the Connecticut and Park Rivers. Other groups from Massachusetts later founded the towns of Windsor and Wethersfield. The colony was granted a royal charter in 1662 as the Connecticut colony.

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were written in 1639. (See appendix.) Although the Mayflower compact had laid down the broad outlines of government, the Fundamental Orders filled in the details and became the first full-blown constitution written for government in America. They were adopted by the government of the colony under the 1662 charter.

The orders contained no reference to the British government; thus the document occupies an important place in American political history. It was a more liberal document than that of Massachusetts, and is the origin of Connecticut's motto of "The Constitution State."

The colony of New Haven, led by the Reverend John Davenport, was founded in 1637, and Stamford was settled in 1641. Additional towns joined with them to create the New Haven colony. They were absorbed into the Connecticut colony in 1665. Eventually the settlers on the north shore of Long Island Sound also merged with the Puritans in the Connecticut River Valley. Although the Dutch colony at New Amsterdam had claimed parts of Connecticut, the English settlers eventually controlled the colony. Following a bloody war with the Pequot Indians, known as the Pequot War, the people of Connecticut obtained a charter from Charles II. As was the case with most colonial charters, the one restriction was that the laws of the colony must conform to the laws of England.