Separatists fleeing religious persecution in England arrived aboard the Mayflower at Plymouth Harbor in 1620. A year after the Pilgrims arrived, they celebrated their first successful harvest, now known as Thanksgiving, in an alliance with the local Wampanoag tribe. Another colony called the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a group of English Puritans, later arrived and eventually absorbed Plymouth to form one royal colony.
In 1770, the colonists began defying Great Britain’s rule, resulting in the Boston Massacre. In 1773, the resistance reached new heights when colonists dressed as Native Americans threw chests of tea into Boston Harbor, in an outcry against British taxation. This Boston Tea Party sparked the American Revolution, and Massachusetts’ John Hancock was the first founding father to sign the Declaration of Independence. Massachusetts, the second of the 13 original colonies, became the sixth state in the union in February 1788
Cost of Living
| 2021 Third Quarter 2021 Cost of Living (US Average 100) |
| Rank |
Index |
Grocery |
Housing |
Utilities |
Transportation
|
Health |
Misc. |
| 47 |
132.5 |
120.6 |
177.8 |
112.4 |
108.3 |
120 |
114.3 |