1635 - Massachusetts Bay's Charter is revoked

January, 1635 - After abandoning his offices for two years to Edouard Winslow and Thomas Prence, William Bradford is reelected governor of Plymouth for a 11th one-year term.

February 13, 1635 - Founding of the Boston Latin School, considered the oldest American public institution.

April, 1635 - The settlers of Maryland and Virginia clash about land rights over Kent Island.  

William Claiborne, from Virginia, established a post there in 1631 from which he reaped substantial profits thanks to fur trade. The island would however be attributed next year to Maryland so that the governor of the new colony would claim payment of fees, what Claiborne will oppose arguing that he was the first to occupy the territory. 

In retaliation, Maryland settlers seized a pinnace owned by William Claiborne. A naval battle was engaged leaving 4 dead. Incidents of this kind would be repeated throughout the year.

April 22, 1635- King Charles 1 grants by letters patent Long Island to Sir William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling.

Renamed Stirling Island, it belonged at the time to the New Netherlands but the fact that the king of England gives it to one of his favorites could only have strong aftermath.

April 25, 1635 - The Council for New England revokes the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Thomas Morton, expelled from Plymouth in 1628 by the Puritans, holds his revenge.

After three years in exile and a brief turn in Essex prison, Thomas Morton was able to resume business. He was engaged in a series of lawsuits against the Massachusetts Bay Company that he considered responsible of his troubles. To the surprise of defenders of the separatist Church of Plymouth, Morton gained broad support for his cause and emerged as a champion of freedom. Sir Ferdinando Gorges offered to give him assistance as the lawyer of the Council for New England, a position he mostly owed to King Charles 1, peculiarly adverse to Puritans. The revocation of the Charter soon caused major political changes in that after rejecting the royal decision, the General Court of Massachusetts would find isolated by lack of supply with, consequently, new tensions between foreign settlers and Indians.

Edward Winslow, who had been sent to England to plead

Edward Winslow

the cause of the colony and its charter, was arrested from his arrival in London and kept several weeks in Fleet's prison. Feeling threatened, the leaders of Massachusetts decided to fortify their coast, collect weapons and training militia groups.

While their charter just expired, the leaders of the Plymouth colony hastened to distribute lands in batches.

Captain John Mason who took part in the foundation of Portsmouth in 1630 and was licensed for New Hampshire by the London Company, sees granted all its area.

April 25, 1635 - the Plymouth Council decides to close its trading post on the Kennebec River.

Its members had registered too important losses to continue to maintain a post become not only expensive but unsafe especially because of its proximity to the French. They returned actually an empty shell and gave up definitively their charter. As responsible for the colony, governor William Bradford became, subsequently, the only holder of the rights on Kennebec.

 April 28, 1635 - A protest meeting against Governor John Harvey takes place in Charles River County, Virginia.

Was it because of his temper, his personal conception of power or due to the strong opposition he had aroused by providing assistance to the competing colony of Maryland and its catholic governor, Lord Baltimore, it remains that John Harvey had managed to be hated by the whole colony. His autocratic ways had even earned him to get the Council’s back up. The meeting held in Charles River County caused his anger and he decided to take coercive action. He summoned the council but it opposed his decisions. Without taking the measure of his unpopularity, he wanted some Council members being jailed but Dr. John Pott had his house surrounded by fifty armed men. The Council ruled in favor of the governor’s removal and sent John Utie announcing his arrest. John West was chosen to replace him, the time the king was told. Harvey was sent to England to face treason charges against him.

John Utie (? - 1639) - This soldier by training, certainly fom Norfolk, had arrived in 1620 in Virginia and settled down with his wife and his son near Jamestown where he had purchased a plantation. He was from 1624 member of the House of Burgesses and a little later officer for the Southampton division. Elected to the Council from 1630, he took part in the construction of the fort at Point Comfort and was one of first settlers on the York River.

John Haynes

May, 1635 - John Haynes, who arrived in Massachusetts two years ago, is chosen as governor of the colony.

John Haynes (May 1, 1594-January,1653 or 1654)

He was born into a gentry family from Essex, one of the cradles of the Puritan movement. He he had managed to amass lands and wealth in England before deciding, in 1633, to leave everything and head with his family to the Massachusetts Bay colony. He made the journey aboard the Griffin with Thomas Hooker, John Cotton and Samuel Stone and settled on his arrival at Newtown, near Boston, where he acquired the status of  free man on May 4, 1634. Elected governor one year later, it was during his term that Massachusetts experienced a strong immigration, a situation which quickly became a serious problem not only for food supply but because of  tensions arising from deep political and religious differences between newcomers. It was under his governship that Roger Williams was banished from the colony, a decision he later admitted to regret.

May 25, 1635 - John Harvey leaves Jamestown for England after letting John West act as Governor of Virginia till King Charles appoints another one.

June 2, 1635 -  Jacob Walingen arrives at New Amsterdam aboard the Koning David. He comes from the village of Winkel, North Holland, the name of which he keeps to be called Van Winkle. 
Another distinguished passenger is aboard the same boat, Pietro Cesari Alberti who fled Venice while his city is devastated by bubonic plague. He is the first Italian to come to live in America.

Pietro Cesare Alberti (Venice, 1608 – New Amsterdam, 1655) 

He was the son of Andrea Alberti, secretary of the Ducal Treasury of Venice. His family was for more than a century one of the most influential of Italy and enjoyed a huge fortune. Bubonic plague brought to Venice by Dutch troops had seen dying one-third of its population, thereby reducing considerably its commercial and political power. Seeing darkening the future of his city, Pietro decided to go to a new life in New Netherlands.

June 2, 1635 - July, 1635 - Foundation of the town of Wethersfield, Connecticut, 10 miles south of Windsor, established for nearly two years by William Holmes and settlers from Plymouth. 
This site was occupied by a Wangunk village known as Pyquaug.

August 7, 1635 - The Globe captained by Master Blackman leaves London for Virginia with 156 passengers on board. 

For only 1635, they would not be less than 1178 migrants to travel from London to Boston.

Rev. Richard Mather

August 15, 1635 - a hurricane bears down Narragansett Bay and moves northwards to coastal Maine. The Angel Gabriel, a 250 ton- vessel armed with 18 cannons, sinks during the storm while moored at Pemaquid Harbor.

August 15, 1635 - Puritan preacher Richard Mather arrives at Boston during one of the strongest storms of the time. He is so responding to letters from John Cotton and Thomas Hooker urging him to join the pilgrims company.

September 1635 - The General Court of Massachusetts authorizes the founding of Concord. Several families, eager to get more area for pastures, settle there under the leadership of Reverend Peter Bulkley and Major Simon Willard (1605-1676),

Peter Bulkley (Odell,Bedfords. January 31, 1583 - Concord (MA) March 9, 1659) 

Rev. Peter Bulkley

Renowned descending from Plantagenet, he studied at St. John's College, Cambridge where he was graduated at the age 16. He therefore followed in the footsteps of his father, rector of Odell’s parish, but the bishop forbade him to preach because of his non-conformism to the rules of the Church of England. In 1634, he was temporarily excluded from his parish by Archbishop William Laud, what determined him to emigrate to New England. He arrived in 1635 aboard the Susan & Ellen and led the first group of colonists to settle in the woods of Musketaquid, the future city of Concord. Poet keen on Lain, respected by the Indians, he wrote a book of Puritan sermons entitled The Gospel Covenant, published in London in 1646, in which people to come to New England where "they could more than any other people work to make spring happiness "and spoke of the" City on the Hill "dear to John Winthrop.

Roger Williams after banishment

October 9, 1635 -  Dissident Roger Williams who defends the separation of church and state, is banished from the Massachusetts Bay colony.

The Puritans of Boston and its neighborhood no longer tolerated the sermons of a nonconformist like Roger Williams. He was imposed a 6 week-deadline to leave the colony and never return. His banishment meant the break-up of the "City on the Hill" as John Winthrop had imagined and contained the seeds of a latent conflict between the English settlers and the local Indian tribes, touched by Roger Williams’s proposals. Rev. John Cotton considered, however, this ouster as "right in the eyes of God."

October, 1635 - John Steel with 60 pioneers settle on the Connecticut River at a place they name Newtowne (Hartford).

They came from Newtown ( Cambridge) of which John Steel (1610? - 1665) was a representative since 1634. Magistrate native of Essex, Steel had arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and was part in the founding of Dorchester. The influx of immigrants made compelling searching new cropland to solve the food supply problem become critical in the Boston area. Considered a wise and capable man, John Steel had been chosen to lead a first group of settlers in the Connecticut Valley.

1635 - A census performed in Virginia enumerates 4914 people among whom 532 in the Warrosquyoake County.

November, 1635 - John Winthrop, Jr. lands in command of a detachment at Kievit Hoek, a post located in the mouth of the Connecticut River established in 1632 by the Dutch (kievit = lapwing). He makes remove the arms of the States General of the Netherlands and rename the place Saybrook in tribute to his sponsors William Fiennes, 1st Lord Saye and Sele and Robert Greville, Lord Brooke, both founding members of a company created, originally, to colonize the Island of Providence in the Caribbean.

The colony  of Connecticut will soon take shape further to the union of the towns of Windsor and Wethersfield with Hartford and Saybrook settlements.

John Winthrop, Jr. was back in Boston a month ago with his new wife Elizabeth Reade, after one year spent in England. 

1634 - Pequots seek Peace Treaty with New England

 January, 1634 - Thomas Prence is chosen governor of the Plymouth colony.

Former governor William Bradford no longer wished to bear the burden while Edward Winslow was preparing  to leave for England.

Thomas Prence (1599 - March 29, 1673) - Hailing from Gloucestershire, he had arrived in New England on November 9, 1621 aboard the Fortune. Known as one of the wealthiest settlers in Plymouth, he was a political leader of this colony and Massachusetts Bay. Later co-founder of the city of Eastham (MA), he would mainly be remembered for his religious rigor and stalking he engaged against heretics, especially the Quakers. He also fought ignorance and tried hard to raise funds to open schools.
He got married three times. His first wife Patience Brewster, whom he married May 5, 1624, was the daughter of William Brewster, the first spiritual leader of Plymouth.

January, 1634 - just banished from Boston, Captain John Stone and 7 members of his crew are killed by Western Niantics near the Connecticut River’s mouth.

John Stone was given a bad name in New England. A smuggler, privateer and slave trader known for his relationship with the Dutch, he was pursued by the government of Plymouth for the theft of a pinnace and had been kicked out of Boston for his loose behavior. Become a persona non grata after being caught in bed with the wife of a settler, rumor had even claimed that he had practiced cannibalism in the Caribbean. The reasons why he was killed by Niantics were never cleared up even if these justified afterward by pleading that they wanted to avenge the death of Totabem,  sachem of the Pequot tribe to which they paid tribute.

February 8, 1634 - Governor of Virginia, Sir John Harvey, makes his report for the past year. The colony has seen its population increase by 1200 newcomers and was able to ship 140 000 lbs of corn to  New England. It has cattle and pigs in abundance but lacks weapons and ammunitions.  The settlers hope confirmation of territories and privileges promised by the king when he has granted Maryland to Lord Baltimore.

March 3, 1634 – Samuel Cole opens the first tavern in Boston.

March 10, 1634 - The ships Francis and Elizabeth are preparing to set sail to New England with on board about 240 passengers each.

The Church authorities began to worry about this emigration, fearing it as an opportunity for people in debt or those who disagreed with them. They had already delayed, in February, the departure of several ships bound for New England just because their passengers were likely to add to the chaos prevailing in the colony. These had been able to leave only after having recognized the Book of Common Prayer used by the Church of England.

March 14, 1634 – Governor John Harvey and the Virginia Council confirm his rights to William Claiborne on Kent Island, while asking him to respect Lord Baltimore's charter.

March 25, 1634 - Leonard Calvert, promoted 1^st Proprietary Governor and lieutenant-general of Maryland lands with his brother George and about 300 settlers on St Clement’s Island, located on the north side of the Potomac (present day Blakiston). He founds

the first English catholic colony there.

The voyage had begun in December, 1633 after the two ships of Lord Baltimore left the Isle of Wight. They had made stopover in Barbados and reached in February Point Comfort, at the tip of Virginia. They had been welcomed by Governor John Harvey and left after getting fill of provisions.
They went up Chesapeake Bay and reached the Potomac River mouth where they decided to make a stop on an uninhabited island that they named in honor of pope St Clement 1st, patron of the sailors. It would serve as a first base to new settlers, the time to purchase land to Yoacomoco Indians. A first catholic mass was celebrated by Jesuit Father Andrew White.

Leonard Calvert

March 27, 1634 – Calvert brothers and their interpreter buy their village to Indians in exchange for axes, hatchets clothes and protection against enemies. They give it the name of St Mary’s City.

For forest people, tools have more value than some acres of land. The Yoacomocos gave up their huts, their fields and surrounding woods. They got on with the newcomers and taught them what they had to know about the area, especially neighboring tribes such as Susquehannocks and Iroquois, regarded as their enemies.

May 17, 1634 - Thomas Dudley is elected governor of Massachusetts Bay.
The Council of the colony was informed  that John Winthrop had deceived by hiding that the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony gave it the same rights and the same powers as free men in England. Winthrop had to renounce his post as governor.

Persecuted in England, Thomas Dudley became once in the New World more radical and narrow-minded than other oligarches. He found in Calvinism all the doctrines able to be applied to each aspect of the life. This proved true in regard to him. He stored, for example, corn to sell it to his neighbors according to conditions that Winthrop considered himself usurious. Dudley was an unflexible man, ready to require the exact weight of flesh, if he considered it as his due. He was actually not less rigid regarding religion, politics and economy.

Late April, 1634 - Captain John Cutting who commands the ship Francis sets sail from Ipswich, Suffolk with 80 passengers aboard, bound for New England.

 May 31, 1634 - The Massachusetts Bay colony annexes Maine.

The Plymouth colony had a trading post on the Kennebec River under its charter. It was under the direction of John Howland who had repeatedly reminded to his counterpart John Hocking, commanding  the post of Piscataqua for Massachusetts, that he did not have the right to attend its waters. This one ignored warnings and the situation escalated. Hocking killed one of the men of Howland before being killed in his turn. John Alden from Duxbury, who betrayed, at the same time goods, in the area, was arrested and taken to Boston while he was in no way involved in the dispute. Captain Myles Standish went in his turn to Boston with a letter from governor Thomas Prence calling for his release. The case eventually found its solution.

June, 1634 - A new system of government is set up in Virginia by order of Charles 1 with the creation of 8 counties originally called shires,  namely :

The Counties of Accomac (become Northampton in 1642), Charles City, Charles River, Elizabeth City (present day Hampton),  Henrico, James City, Warwick River and Warrosquyoake (today Isle of Wight). Virginia has at that time about 5000 inhabitants.

July, 1634 - At the request of Samuel Champlain who, on behalf of king of France, wishes the end of conflicts between the Ottawa and Winnebagos tribes aiming to develop fur trade, Jean Nicolet, accompanied with Huron guides and some other retailers, is the first one to engage in the exploration of the western lands towards a hypothetical China sea.

Jean Nicolet (1598-1642) discovered the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. In Green Bay (Baies des Puants), he met the Menominee tribe of which he became the friend, following his path across a wild and hostile nature, in search of the peaceful Winnebagos. He became the first " white man " to reach the future state of Wisconsin.

July 8, 1634 - Roger Williams tackles religious orthodoxy that prevails among the Puritans of Massachusetts. He is especially going after the punishments for those who do not attend worship.

Puritans who lived in Boston and the surrounding area would not long tolerate that nonconformist words come to blur minds.

July, 1634 - Captain Thomas Young and Lieutenant Robert Evelyn arrive at the Delaware River’s mouth. They represent the interests of Sir Edmund Plowden, granted for two years a royal charter allowing him to establish the colony of New Albion.

They went up the river and settled with fifteen men in a place they named Eriwomeck, located at the mouth of the Schuylkill River. In September, they took place on behalf of the Company of New Albion at Fort Nassau, deserted by the Dutch.

September 27, 1634 - Rev. John Lothrop (1584-1653) and a large group of English settlers coming from Kent move to Scituate, in the Plymouth colony. They find that the place is already occupied by a few houses among which that of Timothy Hatherly, arrived in 1623.

Boston, 1634

September 1634 -  Massachusetts Bay Colony officers receive in Boston a Pequot ambassador and his party. These seek an alliance with the English to face Narragansett threats but are in return shouted about John Stone’s killing.

The English had clearly nothing to do with the death of such undesirable person as John Stone but it was an argument in their favor, because given that it was an English subject, there was no question of letting this crime go unpunished.

The Pequots claimed that Stone had attacked them first and had to reply. They agreed however to hand over two men guilty of John Stone’s killing  and 400 fathom wampum in exchange for a peace treaty. The Boston government considered Pequots as good trade partners and had bought them lands along the Connecticut River but there was such an aura of mistrust that neither one would meet the terms of their agreement.

September 29, 1634 - Edward Kingswell comes to complain to the king of the failure of Samuel Vassall and  Peter Andrews who were in charge to transport him aboard the Mayflower to the Carolina plantation of which he was to be governor.

Kingswell had landed in Virginia in october 1633 but neither Vassall nor Andrews were able to carry him in Carolina due to to their inability to get supplies, he had returned to England to submit his request to the Privy Council.

October, 1634 – the Boston government is informed that 200 to 300 Narragansett warriors are about to attack the Pequot delegation and to kill their ambassador.

Further to this information, The Massachusetts Bay Colony sends its militia to protect the Pequot emissaries but it turned out that these had been a bit exaggerated because Narragansett warriors were actually no more than 20 left for hunting. This mistake did not for prevent the English to clinch an alliance with Pequot Indians.

October 8, 1634 – the king orders the governors of all the English colonies to assist planters on Kent Island so that they can enjoy peacefully benefits of their labour and prohibits Lord Baltimore and his agents to use violence to them.

English official treating with the Pequots

October 23, 1634 - the Pequot send a messenger carrying presents and tribute promises to Roger Ludlow, deputy governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In the same time, Indian tribes living in the Connecticut Valley are hard struck by a smallpox dramatic epidemic, most probably transmitted by Dutch traders. The populations are decimated to 95 %.

Indians were not immunized against this disease which made few victims among Europeans. This was a historical disaster for the native populations, a tragedy that brooks no comparison in the history of humanity. The Puritans however continued to believe that diseases passed on by Europeans were a plan of God, intended to help them the infidels to take up their lands.

November 7, 1634 – the Pequot send a second delegation to Boston. A treaty is concluded between Massachusetts and Indians. These accept in exchange to bring John Stone’s murderers, pay a a 250  £ allowance by wampum, give up lands in Connecticut, trade with the English and to use them as mediators in their rivalries with Narragansetts.

Being squeezed between Dutch on the West and Narragansetts in the East, the Pequot had every interest in avoiding a third enemy. This agreement was actually never confirmed, Indians objecting that the murderers of Stone were all dead or on the run.

December 16, 1634 - Governor John Harvey complains not to be able to get to Lord Baltimore desired services because of the deep hostility of the people of Virginia to Maryland. Captain Mathews is one of main leaders of this movement and the unrest caused.

King Charles had clearly ordered Virginia to assist the settlers of Maryland in their installation, thereby condemning thereby William Claiborne's illegal actions. On the hand, the people of Virginia resented that Lord Baltimore is granted so many privileges and had given their support to Claiborne. The king had tried to appeal for calm by recognizing the Kentish settlement but strong heads as captain Mathews had chosen to drive wedges.

1633 - Dutch and English battling for the Connecticut Valley

January, 1633 - Edward Winslow is chosen governor of Plymouth for a 1st one-year term and William Bradford Deputy Governor.

January, 1633 - former Indian chief of Nahant Poquanum (aka Black Will), is taken prisoner by mistake during a fishing trip and hanged on Richmond Island in Maine.

He had been recognized as the murderer of Walter Bagnall in October, 1631 while the real culprit was called Squidrayset.
Poquanum, the former sagamore of Nahant - small peninsula North of Boston had given up its lands in 1630 to a certain Thomas Dexter in exchange for clothes and for some cheap junk.

Dutch Settlements , 1633

January, 1633 – After seeing the destruction of the Zwaanendael colony in Delaware Bay, captain David Pietersz. De Vries reaches Fort Nassau.

This fort had been built by Cornelius Mey in 1623, when the Dutch West India Company divided the first settlers in several coastal places from Connecticut River’s mouth to New Jersey. Fort Nassau was build on the northern side of Delaware Bay, on the banks of river called Sassackon by the Indians. Abandoned since many years, the fort was occupied by the Lenapes.

February, 1633 - Virginia enacts laws to limit tobacco planting and reduce the dependence of the colony facing this production.

February 11, 1633 - Captain De Vries and his crew are on reconnaissance on the Delaware River near Fort Nassau when they are approached by fifty Indians. They stand as Minquas (name given to Susquehannocks by Lenapes) living among the " Englishmen of Virginia " and assert having come with 600 other warriors for a punitive expedition, but  consider themselves friends of the Dutch.

De Vries met the next day 3 Indians Armewamen who had reported to him that they fled Minquas, responsible of the death of several of them. According to them, they also had destroyed their crops and burned down their houses. The same Minquas had slain 90 people belonging to Sankhikans, before returning home.

March,1633 - smallpox strikes the tribes of the Connecticut Valley. According to William Bradford, population of 1000 passes under 100. 

Bradford saw through this epidemic a God's sign as the Indians were approached by the Dutch colonists who had just settled a rival trading post a few miles from the one already held by the English. According to his narrative " Indians that lived about (Dutch) trading house there fell sick of the small pox and died most miserably; for a sorer disease cannot befall them; they fear it more then the plague; for usually they that have this disease have them in abundance, and for want of bedding and lining and other helps, they fall into lamentable condition, as they lie on their hard mats, the pox breaking and mattering, and running one into another, their skin cleaving (by reason thereof) to the mats they lie on; when they turn them, a whole side will flee at once, (as it were) and they will be all of a gore blood, most fearful to behold; and then being very sore, what with cold and other distempers, they die like rotten sheep. The condition of this people was so lamentable, and they fell down so generally of this disease, as they were (in the end) not able to help one another; no, not to make a fire, not to fetch a little water to drink, now any to bury the dear; but would strive as long as they could, and when they could procure no other means to make fire, they would burn the wooden trays and dishes they are their meat in, and their very bows and arrows; and some would crawl out on all four to get a little water, and some times die by the way, and not be able to get in again. But those of the English house, (though at first they first they were afraid of the infection,) yet seeing their woeful and sad condition, and hearing their pitiful cries and lamentations, they had compassion of them, and daily fetched them wood and water, and made them fires, got them victuals whilst they lived, and buried them when they died. For very few of them escaped, notwithstanding they did what they could for them, to the hazard of themselves. The chief Sachem himself now died, and almost all his friends and kindred. But by the marvelous goodness and providence of God not one of the English was so much as sick, or in the least measure tainted with this disease, thought they daily did these offices for them for many weeks together."

New Amsterdam, 1633

March, 1633 - Wouter Van Twiller, new Director General of the colony of New Netherland, arrives in New Amsterdam aboard the Zoutburg, an imposing warship.

He is accompanied by more than hundred soldiers who make strong impression on landing in their immaculate uniforms.
He immediately orders to build a new fort and purchases several acres of land to plant tobacco where will be later Greenwich Village. He also buys Nutten Island (present day Governors Isl.).
Van Twiller also makes build the first Protestant church of which Reverend Everardus Bogardus becomes the minister and opens the same year the first school of New Amsterdam.[18/06/1633]

Wouter Van Twiller

Wouter Van Twiller (Nijkerk May 22, 1606 - Amsterdam 29 August 1654)

He first booked entries in a warehouse of the Dutch West India Company but owed to his marriage to the niece of great patroon Killian Van Rennsselaer to get a true career progress. He had first mission carrying livestock to the family estates located along the Hudson River before being chosen as Director General of the colony. He was however inexperienced in statescraft and subsequently soon disputed for his inability to make important decisions and his concern for details. Upon his arrival in New Amsterdam, he came into conflict with Rev. Bogardus and became involved in quarrels with the English for territorial issues

April, 1633 - captain Jacob Eelkens sails off New Amsterdam aboard an English vessel and lands on the island of Manhattan for bartering with Indians. Governor Van Twiller eventually reaches to pull him out.

May, 1633 - the Plymouth colony is infested by a swarm of insects.

June 2, 1633 - Captain John Stone arrives at Boston on a small ship carrying cows and some salt.

This man from Lancashire was actually charged of piracy by the Plymouth government. Actually, he traded regularly goods between Virginia and New England but was blamed especially for dealing with the Dutch and having a home base at New Amsterdam.

June 18, 1633 - Jacob Van Curler, envoy of the Dutch West India Company Governor Van Twiller, buys to Sequins, a clan from Connecticut Indians, a land on which will later be built the city of Hartford.

Pequot Indians Sachem Sequassen disputed at the time this region also coveted by the Dutch, eager to establish a trading post and build a fort, intending to prevent the English to disrupt furs transporting.
Van Curler met, for that purpose, the dreaded Pequot leader Tatobem (Wopigwooit), the new host who had just chased Sequassen. The deal concerned the purchase of a 400 acre-strip in exchange for tools (axes, knives, scissors), clothing and various trinkets. Sequassen was, on the other hand, allowed to return from exile and settle near the new Dutch colony.

At that time, the Pequots (meaning "destroyers") terrorized the neighboring peoples who feared especially their cruelty. They had already submitted most of the Indian tribes living on Long Island and the coastal regions of Connecticut.
Van Curler did fortify the new post called "Fort Hoop" (Fort Huys de Goede Hoop) and fitted out with two cannons. This new settlement was open to all the tribes of the area but the situation escalated when the Pequots slew Indians Mattabesics come sell their furs and viewed by them as competitors. The Dutch responded by abducting their leader Tatobem, demanding a large ransom for his release. The Pequots paid off but Tatobem was returned dead to them. They considered this act as a declaration of war and some of them sought to approach the English who had already expressed land claims. This tragic event resulted in dividing the Pequots into two camps, one remained favorable to the Dutch while the second would side the English. Such a situation was already sowing the seeds of a latent conflict between the two colonial powers whose Pequot nation could quickly suffer the aftermath. [October 4, 1633]

Summer, 1633 - The Plymouth colony is struck by disease, causing death of more than 20 people. Smallpox particularly affects the Indian tribes of New England, decimating the populations.

The Massachusetts were, once again, plunged into mourning and Squaw Sachem who still reigned over several tribes had to lose in particular three of her sons, including Sagamore John and Sagamore James. The only one, Wenepoykin, then 19-year-old, succeeded in escaping death. He inherited as a result the title of sagamore of Lynn.

Summer, 1633 - Dutch merchants reoccupy Fort Nassau and build a fortified shelter. About thirty colonists come to settle down there.

September 3, 1633 - Famous Puritan minister John Cotton comes to Boston. He will soon be known as The patriarch of the New England. Minister Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone are also on the trip.

Rev. John Cotton

John Cotton (December 4, 1585-December 23, 1652)

Born in Derby, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge where he was graduated in 1606. He joined then Emmanuel College, considered as a stronghold of Puritanism where he practiced as tutor for six years. In June, 1612, he was appointed vicar of St Botolph's parish in Boston, Lincolnshire where he began to gain a wide popularity. Having repeatedly asserted his puritanical conceptions, he decided to get out of some rituals prescribed by the official church, what was worth to him being pursued by regulatory authorities. He chose to flee to London where, after a few months spent in anonymity, he took, in July, 1633, the boat to New England. 

Just arrived in Massachusetts, he was chosen as "teacher" in the First Church of Boston alongside Minister John Wilson (1588-1667). He was to stay there until his death. Undoubtedly very popular in Boston, his influence in religious and civil concerns was certainly higher than that of any other minister of New England theocracy. This was generally beneficial although Cotton never went so far as to engage with the cause of religious freedom or democracy.

September 3, 1633 - Captain John Stone, a privateer who makes usually the crossing between Virginia and New England, known as a trouble maker, heavy drunker and blasphemer is accused by John Bancroft from Boston to have been found in bed with his wife.

Although John Stone had a bad reputation due to his provocative behavior, no charge of adultery could be brought against him because he had only been seen by one witness when they had to be at least two. His relationship with influential merchants of London was subsequently worth to him leaving free.

September, 1633 – Dr Samuel Fuller, one of the Pilgrims Fathers who has practiced medicine for years at the service of the settlers dies from smallpox in Plymouth.

Trading beaver pelts

September 26, 1633 – a party of settlers from Plymouth led by Captain William Holmes arrives at the confluence of the Farmington River and the west bank of the Connecticut River in a place called Matianuck by the Indians to found there a trading post (today Windsor).

It has been visited the previous year by Edward Winslow at the invitation of Podunks fugitives who were looking for an alliance with the English to defend against the Pequots who claimed this land and made them pay a tribute.

October, 1633 - the Massachusetts Bay Colony claims the river and territory of Connecticut with the agreement of the king of England.

Gov. John Winthrop

October 4, 1633 - Dutch Director General Wouter Van Twiller sends a polite letter to Governor John Winthrop, requesting the issue of the Connecticut colonization to be debated in Europe by English and Dutch regulators offering to wait for their decision before the Massachusett Bay colony comes to settle there.

A few days later, Capt. William Holmes and a party of determined men including in particular Indians, went down the river to Fort Hoop and defied the fire of the Dutch cannons. Van Twiller sent a company of 70 soldiers to dislodge the English just settled at Matianuck but turned back faced to their resistance.

October 8, 1633 - The community of Dorchester, in Massachusetts Bay, chooses its first City council.

December 5, 1633 – Massachusett leader Sagamore John dies from smallpox at the age of 26.

Samuel Maverick and his wife had taken care of him at Chelsea during his sickness. Sagamore John offered governor John Winthrop a big quantity of wampum to thank him and died persuaded to go " to find the god of the English". There were many settlers in the neighboring towns who took in Indian orphans whose parents had been struck by disease. The own son of Sagamore John was taken in by minister John Wilson from Boston.
The epidemics which followed one another for a little more than fifteen years had wreaked havoc in some Indian nations such as the Massachusetts. The dead numbered in the thousands while many survivors, wearing on their bodies traces of the disease, often had no choice but to submit to the conditions imposed on them by the British.

Leonard Calvert

November 22, 1633 - Leonard Calvert, the younger brother of Cecilius, Lord Baltimore and Governor of Maryland, leaves the port of Gravesend in England at the head of the first expedition to the new province. It consists of two boats, the 300-ton-Ark and the 50-ton-Dove, both carrying 140 would-be settlers. Seventeen passengers are Roman Catholic gentlemen, the rest being Protestant indentured servants.

While he was preparing the journey, Lord Baltimore had to defend himself against members of the former Virginia Company who were trying to reclaim their old charter, considering that it included originally the province of Maryland, taken in Virginia. They had, informally, tried during years to thwart unsuccessfully Baltimore’s efforts, but had to get a first support through a complaint lodged in July 1633 by the Lords of Foreign Plantations. The complaint alleged that contrary to what claimed Lord Baltimore’s charter, the area had already been colonized by William Claiborne, settled on Kent Island. It also stated that granting so many rights to a sole beneficiary violated settlers freedoms.