Western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts, known colloquially as "Western Mass," is a region in Massachusetts, one of the six U.S. states that make up the New England region of the United States. Western Massachusetts has diverse topography; 22 colleges and universities including UMass in Amherst, MA, with approximately 100,000 students; and such institutions as Tanglewood, the Springfield Armory, and Jacob's Pillow.
The western part of western Massachusetts includes the Berkshire Mountains, where there are several vacation resorts. The eastern part of the region includes the Connecticut River Valley, which has a number of university towns, the major city Springfield, and numerous agricultural hamlets. In the eastern part of the area, the Quabbin region is a place of outdoor recreation.
History
Native inhabitants
Archeological efforts in the Connecticut River Valley have revealed traces of human life dating back at least 9,000 years. Pocumtuck tradition describes the creation of Lake Hitchcock in Deerfield by a giant beaver, possibly representing the action of a glacier that retracted at least 12,000 years ago. Western Massachusetts was originally settled by Native American societies, including the Pocomtuc, Nonotuck Mohawk, Nipmuck, and Mahican. Various sites indicate millennia of fishing, horticulture, beaver-hunting, and burials. The passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990 ordered museums across western Massachusetts and the country to repatriate these remains to Native peoples, an ongoing process.The region was inhabited by several Algonkian-speaking Native American communities, culturally connected but distinguished by the place names they assigned to their respective communities: Agawam, Woronco, Nonotuck, Pocumtuck, and Sokoki. The modern-day Springfield metropolitan area was inhabited by the Agawam people. The Agawam, as well as other groups, belong to the larger cultural category of Alongkian Indians.
In 1634, a plague, probably smallpox, reduced the Native American population of the Connecticut River Valley to a tiny percentage of its previous size. Governor Bradford of Massachusetts writes that in Windsor, notably the site of a trading post, where European diseases often spread to Native populations, "of 1,000 of 150 of them died." With so many dead, English colonists were emboldened to attempt significant settlement of the region.
Colonial and early Federal period
The first European explorers to reach western Massachusetts were English Puritans, who in 1635, at the request of William Pynchon, settled the land that they considered most advantageous for both agriculture and trading in modern-day Agawam, adjacent to modern Metro Center, Springfield. In 1636, a group of English colonists—lured by the promise of a "great river" and the northeast's most fertile farmland—ventured to Springfield, where they established a permanent colony. Originally, this settlement was called Agawam Plantation, and administered by the Connecticut Colony. In 1640, Springfield voted to separate from the Connecticut Colony following a series of contentious incidents and, after a brief period of independence, decided to align with the coastal Massachusetts Bay Colony, shaping the region's political boundaries. The Massachusetts Bay Colony settled at the Connecticut River Valley's most fertile land―stretching from Windsor, Connecticut, to Northampton, Massachusetts―from 1636 to 1654.For the next several decades, Native people experienced a complex relationship with European settlers. The fur trade stood at the heart of their economic interactions, a lucrative business that guided many other policy decisions. White settlers traded wampum, cloth and metal in exchange for furs, as well as horticultural produce. Because of the seasonal nature of goods provided by Native people compared with the constant availability of colonial goods, a credit system developed. Land, the natural resource whose availability did not fluctuate, served as collateral for mortgages in which Native people bought goods from the colonists in exchange for the future promise of beavers. However, trade with the colonists made pelts so lucrative that the beaver was rapidly overhunted. The volume of the trade fell, from a 1654 high of 3723 pelts to a mere 191 ten years later. With every mortgage, Native people lost more land, although their population recovered and expanded from the old plague.
In a process that historian Lisa Brooks calls "the deed game", colonists acquired an increasing amount of land from Indian tribes through debt, fraudulent purchases and a variety of other methods. Native people began to construct and gather in palisaded “forts”―structures that were not necessary beforehand. These sites were excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries by anthropologists who took cultural objects and human remains and displayed them for years in area museums. With the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990, a long process of repatriation began.
Tensions between the colonists and surrounding Indian tribes, which had already been poor for some time, continued to deteriorate in the years preceding the outbreak of King Philip's War. Colonial encroachment on Indian lands combined with the decimation of the native population with European diseases led to increasing Native resentment and hostility towards the colonists. Though some Indians became integrated into colonial society, with many being employed in white households, numerous pieces of legislation were passed which prevented Indians from marrying settlers and staying in colonial settlements after dark, while colonists were prevented from living among the Indians.
In 1662, the leader of the eastern Massachusetts Wampanoag Indian tribe, Wamsutta, died shortly after being questioned at gunpoint by Plymouth colonists. Wamsutta's brother, Chief Metacomet began a war against colonial expansion in New England which spread across the region. As the conflict grew in its initial months, colonists throughout western Massachusetts became deeply concerned with maintaining the loyalty of "their Indians." The Agawams cooperated, even providing valuable intelligence to the colonists.
In August 1675, a group of colonists in Hadley demanded the disarming of a “fort” of Nonotuck Indians. Unwilling to relinquish their weapons, they left on the night of August 25. A hundred colonists pursued them, catching up to them at the foot of Sugarloaf Hill, which was a sacred space for the Nonotucks called the Great Beaver. The colonists attacked, but the Nonotucks forced them to withdraw and were able to keep moving. The shedding of Native blood on sacred land was an attack on their entire kinship network, and caused Native peoples in western Massachusetts to join the ongoing conflict.
Following the war, the greater part of the Native American population left western Massachusetts behind. Many refugees of the war joined the Wabanaki in the north, where their descendants remain today. Native American influence remains evident in the land and culture of western Massachusetts, from the practice of tobacco farming to the names of cities and rivers
In 1777, George Washington and Henry Knox selected Springfield for the site of the fledgling United States' National Armory. Built atop a high bluff overlooking the Connecticut River, Washington and Knox agreed that Springfield provided an ideal location—beside a great river and at the confluence of major rivers and highways. For the following 200 years, the Springfield Armory would bring concentrated prosperity and innovation to Springfield and its surrounding towns.
After the American Revolution, a rebellion led by Daniel Shays culminated in a battle at the National Armory in Springfield.
Geography
Berkshire Mountains
The Berkshires have long been patronized by artists. Cultural institutions include Lenox's Tanglewood, Becket's Jacob's Pillow, and Stockbridge's Norman Rockwell Museum, as well the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. The city of Pittsfield is the largest community located in the Berkshires.Connecticut River Valley
New England's largest river, the Connecticut, flows through the center of its agricultural valley. Nearly bisected by the Holyoke Range and the Mount Tom Range, this relatively small area contains a number of college towns, urban environments, and rural hamlets. The portion of this valley in Massachusetts is also commonly referred to as the Pioneer Valley.At its southern tip, the Springfield-Hartford region is home to 29 colleges and universities and over 160,000 university students—the United States' second highest concentration of higher learning institutions after the Boston metropolitan area.
Innovations originating in the valley include the sports of basketball and volleyball ; the first American automobile ; the first motorcycle company ; the first use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing ; and the first commercial radio station,.
Significant Massachusetts towns and cities in the valley's so-called "Knowledge Corridor" include Northampton, Amherst, Easthampton, Holyoke, Chicopee, West Springfield, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, Ludlow, Agawam, and Westfield.
The Hilltowns
The Hilltowns include the areas of Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties west of and above the escarpment bordering the ancient rift valley through which the Connecticut River flows. Elevations increase from about to at least in the escarpment zone. On top, elevations rise gradually to the west. Williamsburg in Hampshire County and Becket in Berkshire County are prominent hilltowns. Generally, the hilltowns west of the Connecticut River Valley were less attractive for agricultural uses, which resulted in later migration there than, for example, the fertile Connecticut River Valley. Subsistence farming predominated in this area.The 1,000-foot elevation difference between uplands and the Connecticut River Valley produced streams and rivers with gradients around 40 feet/mile flowing through steep-sided valleys, notably the Westfield and Deerfield rivers and their larger tributaries. Mills were built to exploit the kinetic energy of falling water, and mill towns grew up around them, or company towns integrating production, residential and commercial activities.
The development of steam engines to free industrialization from reliance on water power brought about the so-called Second Industrial Revolution when railroads were built along the rivers to take advantage of relatively gentle grades over the Appalachians. And so as hilltop farming towns declined in importance, industrial towns in the river valleys rose to local prominence.