MASSACHUSETTS, FLAG OF

U.S. state flag consisting of a white field (background) with a coat of arms featuring an American Indian and a star. The seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1629 showed an Indian and pine trees, and both these symbols have continued to be used up to the present time. In 1686, for example, a pine tree was added to the Cross of St. George (English) flag to create a special local flag that was also used in other parts of New England. On April 29, 1776, the English symbols having been rejected, a white flag with a green pine tree and the motto Appeal to Heaven was made the Massachusetts naval ensign. The Indian figure from the 1629 seal was revived by Nathan Cushing when he designed the coat of arms of the new Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1780. The Indian appears in gold on a blue shield together with a silver star indicative of statehood. The arm and sword in the crest, together with the Latin motto on the surrounding ribbonEnse petit placidam sub libertate quietem (By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty)refer to lines written in the 17th century by the English politician Algernon Sidney. The coat of arms on a white field was used as regimental colours by many Massachusetts troops prior to 1908. The first official nonmilitary state flag, which was adopted by the legislature on March 18, 1908, featured on the obverse side the coat of arms; on the reverse side was a green pine tree on a blue shield. In 1971 the reverse-side design was eliminated from the state flag, but the maritime flag (a pine tree on a plain white field) was resurrected. Whitney Smith History Although the landing of the Pilgrims on Nov. 21, 1620, was important, Indians had found this corner of the country some 3,500 years earlier, and Leif Eriksson and his Norsemen may have landed somewhere in the Cape Cod region in 1003. European seafarers tapped the fertile fishing areas throughout the 1500s, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain mapped the area in 1605, and in 1614 Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony drafted a detailed map of the New England coast from Penobscot Bay in Maine to Cape Cod. European settlement Prior to 1685 there were two separate colonies within the boundaries of present-day Massachusetts. The area around Plymouth and Cape Cod, settled by the Pilgrims, was known as Plymouth colony, or the Old Colony. By the mid-1640s its population numbered about 3,000 people. The Pilgrims were never granted a royal charter; their government was based on the Mayflower Compact, a document signed by 41 male passengers on the Mayflower five weeks before their arrival in the New World. The compact was hardly democratic since it called for rule by the elite, but it established an elective system and a basis for limited consent of the governed as the source of authority. The Old Colony was rapidly overshadowed by its Puritan neighbour to the north, the Massachusetts Bay Company. Fueled by the Puritan migration of the 1630s, and an aggressive sense of authority, the Massachusetts Bay colony expanded rapidly. By the mid-1640s it numbered more than 20,000 people, and it began absorbing settlements in Maine and New Hampshire. The government of the colony was based on a providential interpretation of the royal charter granted by King Charles I, which was transferred to the new settlement by John Winthrop. The exhortation by Winthrop, For wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty uppon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us . . . , underlines the strength of conviction of the Puritan mission. The Puritan government often operated as an independent state, to the point of minting its own money and even conducting its own foreign affairs. King Charles II finally abrogated the colony's charter in 1684 for repeatedly overstepping its authority. In 1691 a new charter was granted to the Province of Massachusetts Bay after the Glorious Revolution brought William and Mary to the throne in England. The new province formally united Plymouth, Maine, and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard with Massachusettsa configuration that remained until 1820, when Maine was established as a separate state. Settlers had feared Massachusetts for its hostile Indians, but until 1675 relative peace prevailed because of a pact with Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag. This accord was ended by King Philip (Metacom), Massasoit's son. His open warfare, King Philip's War (167576), ended with his own death, but only after hundreds of settlers had been killed and some 50 towns raided in southeastern and central Massachusetts. Repeated expeditions against the Indians were common in the 18th century, as Massachusetts men joined with British troops to fight the French and their Indian allies. Commercial and industrial expansion marked 18th-century Massachusetts and resulted in the rapid settlement of new communities, many spurred by speculation. Between 1692 and 1765, 111 new towns and districts were incorporated, while the population increased to 222,563.