Hartford became which colony

When the English arrived, they found the Hartford area ruled by Saukiog chief Sequassen, who in sold them the land that became Hartford and West Hartford. Saquassen fought fiercely with both the Pequots and the Mohegans, who also lived to the southeast. The Saukiogs "suffered severe defeats," according to Albert Van Dusen, author of "Connecticut," the preeminent history of the state. When he lectured in his native England, Hooker drew large crowds - and unfriendly scrutiny from the state-supported Church of England.

The Puritans had been hoping to reform, or "purify," the church, but at that point the church was purging itself of Puritans, so Hooker was ordered to appear before the High Commission, also known as "the star chamber. From Holland, Hooker and a group of his parishioners made the trying and dangerous voyage across the Atlantic to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, settling in Cambridge, which was then known as Newtown.

But they disliked the decidedly undemocratic ways of the colony's government and decided to investigate for themselves reports of fertile land in the Connecticut River Valley. On May 31, , exactly two years after he had set out from Newtown, Hooker delivered a sermon containing his vision of how the recently named Hartford should govern itself. He went on to argue that the "choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance" and that "they who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and the place unto which they call them.

In , the governor of New England demanded that the Connecticut assembly disband. Two years later Connecticut returned to self-government. The colony of Connecticut was a producer of wheat, and livestock. It was a significant exporter of lumber and a major shipbuilder. Connecticut was an overwhelmingly Puritan state, with the Puritan Congregational church being the only official church in the colony.

University of Connecticut. Connecticut State Library Digital Collections. Government Printing Office. Yale Law School. State of Connecticut. Gardiner, Lion, and W. Cincinnati, OH: J. Harpel for W. Dodge, Van Dusen, Albert E. Atwater, Edward. New Haven: Edward E. Atwater,