New Hampshire, English royal Province of

The Province of New Hampshire is a colony of England and later of Great Britain.

The name is first given in 1629 to the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America.

It is formally organized as an English royal colony on October 7, 1691, during the period of English colonization.

The charter is enacted May 14, 1692, by William and Mary, the joint monarchs of England and Scotland, at the same time that the Province of Massachusetts Bay is created.

The territory is now the U.S. state of New Hampshire, and is named after the county of Hampshire in southern England by Captain John Mason, its first named proprietor.

First settled in the 1620s, the province consists for many years of a small number of communities along the seacoast and the Piscataqua River.

In 1641 the communities come under the government of the neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony, until King Charles II issues a commission to John Cutt as President of New Hampshire in 1679.

After a brief period as a separate province, the territory is absorbed into the Dominion of New England in 1686.

The Dominion collapses in 1689, and the New Hampshire communities again come under Massachusetts rule until a provincial charter is issued in 1691 by William and Mary.

Between 1699 and 1741 the province's governors are also commissioned as governors of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

In 1741, Benning Wentworth is appointed governor solely of New Hampshire.

Wentworth lays claim on behalf of the province to the lands west of the Connecticut River, issuing controversial land grants that are disputed by the Province of New York, which also claims the territory.

These disputes result in the eventual formation of the state of Vermont.

The province's economy is dominated by timber and fishing.

The timber trade, although lucrative, is a subject of conflict with the crown, which seeks to reserve the best trees for use as ship masts.

Although the Puritan leaders of Massachusetts rule the province for many years, the New Hampshire population is more religiously diverse, originating in part in its early years with refugees from opposition to religious differences in Massachusetts.

From the 1680s until 1760, the province is often on the front lines of military conflicts with New France and the indigenous Abenaki people, seeing major attacks on its communities in King William's War, Dummer's War, and King George's War.

The province is at first not strongly in favor of independence, but, with the start of the American Revolutionary War, many of its inhabitants join the revolutionary cause.

After Governor John Wentworth flees the province in August 1775, the inhabitants adopt a constitution in early 1776.

Independence as part of the United States is confirmed with the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

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