Founding
state of the United States of America
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Vermont is a landlocked state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. According to the most recent U.S. census estimates, the state has an estimated population of 644,663, making it the second-least populated of all U.S. states. It is the nation's sixth-smallest state by total area. The state's capital, Montpelier, is the least populous U.S. state capital. No other U.S. state has a most populous city with fewer residents than Vermont's most populous city, Burlington.
Native Americans have inhabited the area for about 12,000 years. The competitive tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and Iroquoian-speaking Mohawk were active in the area at the time of European encounter. During the 17th century, French colonists claimed the territory as part of New France. Conflict arose when the Kingdom of Great Britain began to settle colonies to the south along the Atlantic coast; France was defeated in 1763 in the Seven Years' War, ceding its territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain. Thereafter, the nearby British Thirteen Colonies disputed the extent of the area called the New Hampshire Grants to the west of the Connecticut River, encompassing present-day Vermont. The provincial government of New York sold land grants to settlers in the region, which conflicted with earlier grants from the government of New Hampshire. The Green Mountain Boys militia protected the interests of the established New Hampshire land grant settlers. Ultimately, a group of settlers with New Hampshire land grant titles established the Vermont Republic in 1777 as an independent state during the American Revolutionary War. The Vermont Republic abolished slavery before any other U.S. state. It was admitted to the Union in 1791 as the 14th state.
The geography of the state is marked by the Green Mountains, which run north–south up the middle of the state, separating Lake Champlain and other valley terrain on the west from the Connecticut River Valley that defines much of its eastern border. A majority of its terrain is forested with hardwoods and conifers. The state has warm, humid summers and cold, snowy winters.
Vermont's economic activity of $40.6 billion in 2022 is ranked last on the list of U.S. states and territories by GDP, but 21st in GDP per capita. Known for its progressivism, the state was one of the first in the U.S. to recognize same-sex civil unions and marriage, has the highest proportion of renewable electricity generation at 99.9%, and is one of the least religious and least racially/ethnically diverse states. Dairy, forestry, maple syrup, and wine are important sectors in Vermont's agricultural economy. Vermont produces approximately 50% of the nation's maple syrup.
The 17th-century French explorer Samuel de Champlain is sometimes credited with coining the name Vermont, but it did not in fact appear until 1777, when, at the suggestion of Thomas Young, it was adopted as the name of the Vermont Republic (replacing New Connecticut, the name the republic had borne for the first six months of its existence). It represents a French translation of Green Mountain(s), the name of the mountain range that bisects the state. The latter name first appeared in 1772 in the context of the Green Mountain Boys.
The first humans to inhabit what is now Vermont arrived about 11,000 years ago, as the glaciers of the last ice age receded. Small groups of hunter-gatherers followed herds of caribou, elk, and mastodon through the grasslands of the Champlain Valley. At that time much of the region was mixed tundra. The oldest human artifacts are 11,000 year old projectile points found along the eastern shore of the saltwater Champlain Sea. This time is known as the Paleo-Indian period.
By about 8,000 years ago, the Champlain Sea had become the freshwater Lake Champlain and the climate was more temperate, bringing increased diversity of flora and fauna. This was the beginning of the Archaic period. By about 4,300 years ago, the forests were as they are today. Large mammals underwent extinction or migrated north, and the human population became reliant on smaller game and plants. People developed fishing equipment and stone cookware, and practiced woodworking and food storage. They had time for travel, leisure, and performed elaborate ceremonies. Most of the state's territory was occupied by the Abenaki, south-western parts were inhabited by the Mohicans and south-eastern borderlands by the Pocumtuc and the Pennacook.
Over 3,000 years ago, the Woodland period began. Food was increasingly sourced from domesticated plants, including maize, beans, and squash. Agriculture meant a change from dispersed hunter-gatherering towards the establishment of larger settlements. Pottery was made from local clay, and tools were made from chert found along the Winooski River. Canoes were used for fishing and travel.
The arrival of European explorers in the 1600s marked the end of the Woodland period and the beginning of the Abenaki. At that time, there were about 10,000 Indigenous people in what is now Vermont, of whom an estimated 75–90% were killed by European diseases like smallpox. Survivors moved north to New France or assimilated with European settlers. Today, there are no Indian reservations in Vermont. In 2021, 0.2% of live births in Vermont were to American Indian people.
Nearly all information about the Pre-Columbian era of Vermont is from found artifacts. About 750 prehistoric sites are known in Vermont, but few have been excavated by archaeologists, and those on private property benefit from no legal protection.
Several native toponyms survive in the state, including Lake Bomoseen, Lake Memphremagog, Missisquoi River, Monadnock Mountain, and Winooski.
In 1609, Samuel de Champlain led the first European expedition to Lake Champlain. He named the lake after himself and made the first known map of the area. Portions of the land that is now Vermont remained part of New France until 1763.
The French had a military presence around Lake Champlain, since it was an important waterway, but they did very little colonization. In 1666, they built Fort Sainte Anne on Isle La Motte to defend Canada from the Haudenosaunee. It was abandoned by 1670. A short-lived settlement existed at Pointe à l'Algonquin, now Windmill Point, Alburgh. A village with a church, saw mill and fifty huts existed at the present site of Swanton. Much of the eastern shore of Lake Champlain was mapped out with seigniories, but settlers were unwilling to populate the area, possibly because of continual warfare and raiding there.
The English also made unsuccessful attempts to colonize the area in the 1600s. In 1724, they built Fort Dummer near what is now Brattleboro, but it remained a small and isolated outpost, often under attack by the Abenaki.
With the 1763 Treaty of Paris, France ceded its claims east of the Mississippi River to the Kingdom of Great Britain, making the area more attractive to European settlement. At the same time, New England was overcrowded; new land was needed for settlement. The territory west of the Connecticut River was the last unsettled part of New England, and both the Province of New Hampshire and the Province of New York laid claim to it.
In 1749, New Hampshire governor Benning Wentworth began to auction land in an uncolonized area between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River. This area became known as the New Hampshire Grants. This westward expansion aimed to expand New Hampshire's tax base and secure rights to local timber resources, specifically White Pine.
There were eventually 135 New Hampshire Grants. The first of Benning Wentworth's grants included a town named after himself: Bennington. A typical town, it was 6 square miles (16 km2), contained 48 lots, with land set aside for a school, a church, and a town center. Five hundred acres of the best land was kept by Wentworth for later resale.
Settlers came from across New England, and were obliged to "Plant and Cultivate Five Acres of Land" within five years. Some settlers kept to the agreement and started farms. Others, like Ethan Allen, did not. They wanted to sell the land for profit. Those who purchased New Hampshire Grants ran into disagreements with New York, which began selling off the same land as land patents.
In 1764, King George III proclaimed the territory to be under the jurisdiction of New York, which meant that the New Hampshire Grant landowners did not have legal title. Meanwhile, New York continued selling large tracts of land, many of which overlapped with those already inhabited. The dispute led to Ethan Allen forming the Green Mountain Boys, an illicit militia that attacked New York settlers and speculators through arson and mob violence. They eventually repelled the New Yorkers, and went on, with Benedict Arnold, to fight in the American Revolutionary War, where they captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British.
On January 15, 1777, representatives of the New Hampshire Grants declared the independence of the Vermont Republic. For the first six months of its existence, it was called the Republic of New Connecticut.
On June 2, 1777, a second convention of 72 delegates met and adopted the name "Vermont". This was on the advice of Thomas Young, a mentor of Ethan Allen. He advised them on how to achieve admission into the newly independent United States of America as the 14th state. On July 4, they completed the drafting of the first Constitution of Vermont (in effect from 1777 to 1786) at the Windsor Tavern, and adopted it on July 8. This was the first written constitution in North America to ban adult slavery, stating that male slaves become free at the age of 21 and females at 18. It provided for universal adult male suffrage and established a public school system.
The Battle of Bennington was fought on August 16, 1777. A combined American force under General John Stark, attacked the Hessian column at Hoosick, New York, just across the border from Bennington. It killed or captured virtually the entire Hessian detachment. General John Burgoyne never recovered from this loss and eventually surrendered the remainder of the 6,000-man force at Saratoga, New York, on October 17 of that year.
The battles of Bennington and Saratoga together are recognized as the turning point in the Revolutionary War, because they were the first major defeat of a British army. The anniversary of the battle is celebrated in Vermont as a legal holiday.
The Battle of Hubbardton (July 7, 1777) was the only Revolutionary battle within the present boundaries of Vermont. Although the Continental forces suffered defeat, the British forces were damaged to the point that they did not pursue the Americans (retreating from Fort Ticonderoga) any further.
Vermont continued to govern itself as a sovereign entity based in the eastern town of Windsor for 14 years. The independent state of Vermont issued its own coinage from 1785 to 1788 and operated a national postal service. Thomas Chittenden was the Governor in 1778–1789 and in 1790–1791.
Because the state of New York continued to assert that Vermont was a part of New York, Vermont could not be admitted to the Union under Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution until the legislature of New York consented. On March 6, 1790, the legislature made its consent contingent upon a negotiated agreement on the precise boundary between the two states. When commissioners from New York and Vermont met to decide on the boundary, Vermont's negotiators insisted on also settling the property ownership disputes with New Yorkers, rather than leaving that decision to a federal court. The negotiations were successfully concluded in October 1790 with an agreement that Vermont would pay $30,000 to New York to be distributed among New Yorkers who claimed land in Vermont under New York land patents. In January 1791, a convention in Vermont voted 105–4 to petition Congress to become a state in the federal union. Congress acted on February 18, 1791, to admit Vermont to the Union as the 14th state as of March 4, 1791; two weeks earlier on February 4, 1791, Congress had decided to admit Kentucky as the 15th state as of June 1, 1792. Vermont became the first state to enter the Union after the original 13 states. The revised constitution of 1786, which established a greater separation of powers, continued in effect until 1793, two years after Vermont's admission to the Union.
Under the Act "To Secure Freedom to All Persons Within This State," slavery was officially outlawed by state law on November 25, 1858, less than three years before the American Civil War. Vermonters provided refuge at several sites for escaped slaves fleeing to Canada, as part of the Underground Railroad.
From the mid-1850s on, some Vermonters became abolitionists, which they had previously worked to contain in the South. Abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens was born in Vermont and later represented a district in Pennsylvania in Congress. He developed as a national leader and later promoted Radical Republican goals after the American Civil War. As the Whig Party declined and the Republican Party grew, Vermont supported Republican candidates. In 1860, it voted for Abraham Lincoln, giving him the largest margin of victory of any state.
During the American Civil War, Vermont sent 33,288 troops into United States service, of which 5,224 (more than 15 percent) died.
The northernmost land action of the war was the St. Albans Raid—the robbery of three St. Albans banks, perpetrated in October 1864 by Confederate agents. A posse pursued the Confederate raiders into Canada and captured several, before having to turn them over to Canadian officials. Canada reimbursed the banks, released, and later re-arrested some of the perpetrators.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, Vermont industries attracted numerous Irish, Scottish, and Italian immigrants, adding to its residents of mostly English and some French Canadian ancestry. Many of the immigrants migrated to Barre, where many worked as stonecutters of granite, for which there was a national market. Vermont granite was used in major public buildings throughout the United States.
In this period, many Italian and Scottish women operated boarding houses to support their families. Such facilities helped absorb new residents and taught them the new culture; European immigrants peaked in number between 1890 and 1900. Typically immigrants boarded with people of their own language and ethnicity, but sometimes they boarded with others.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Vermont”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.