New England is perhaps the most "obvious" region of the United States, and this is not surprising: it is located in the far north-eastern "corner" of the country, about 40% of its contour falls on the state border with Canada, about the same number - the sea coast, and from the rest of the country it is separated by almost straight administrative border with the state of New York, which with rare accuracy (except for the extreme south) coincides with the physical, geographical and cultural-historical boundaries of the area. The six states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
- American geographers have repeatedly noted that if the development of North America by immigrants came not from the east but the west, New England would probably not become so populated - it is so poor in natural resources. Cold climate, poor stony soils, and mineral poverty are only in Alaska and a few places in the Mountainous West, US nature is even less generous.
- However, it was here, on the shores of the Gulf of Massachusetts, that the Mayflower, with its settlers, arrived from England in 1620 and founded the first colony in the north of the future USA. Over the next century and a half, the colonists fully developed the area and then turned it into one of the most important centers of cultural and economic life in America.
- The reasons for the success of this colonization are manifold. Initially, the settlers had few fertile soils (especially on the coast and in the Connecticut Valley), and it was the lack of land that led them to look for other occupations and new sources of income. An important combination of the area's features, such as the abundance of bays on the rugged coastline, the abundance of fish in the adjacent seas, the resources of timberland, and finally the relative proximity to Europe, played an important role. All this allowed the inhabitants of New England to become first-class ships, sailors, and fishermen in the XVIII century. Seaports dotted the coast of the area from Bangor in Maine to New Haven in Connecticut. Merchants have made huge fortunes on the intermediary trade in molasses, rum, and slaves in the famous "triangle" of England - Africa - West Indies, and later - on trade with China.
- However, the key to success was the peculiarities of the people who settled in New England. They were puritans and religious outcasts who had moved here from Great Britain and Holland to escape the oppression of the Anglican church. The main thing they wanted was to live independently on a free land, and the area had plenty of "desert resources". Calvin's hard work, enterprise, thrift, and unpretentiousness in everyday life made puritans resilient colonists. Religious obsession led to cohesion and discipline, intolerance of dissent accelerated the settlement of the area, as it forced those who did not agree to go to its undeveloped parts (these were the "heretics" who founded Connecticut and Rhode Island). In the relentless struggle against the English crown, the colonists created unusual forms of political organization in the form of grassroots democracy, based on the joint participation of like-minded citizens in public affairs.
- This is how the Yankee ethnic group developed into a vibrant and distinctive one. It had a huge impact on the formation of American culture, clearly disproportionate to the modest share that New England occupies in the population and square of the country. It was of great importance that the reputation of the spiritual center of the country, which has been preserved to this day to a large extent, was established for a long time. New England gave the country its first major writers and thinkers - W. Irving, G. Toro, R. Emerson, later G. Longfellow, W. Whitman, G. Beecher Stowe, and others. For a long time, New England was not only the cultural legislator of the country but also the blacksmith of its teaching staff, who spread cultural stereotypes of the Yankees throughout the country.
- A special role in the U.S. economic history was played by the Yankee's desire for technological innovation. The Yankees were the first to learn the lessons of the industrial revolution. New England was the first place to start in industrialization, and it predetermined the most important advantages of its economic development for a long time.
The threat of the area becoming a kind of historical and cultural reserve, in which the population will be given the role of servants, is still hovering over New England. The alternative path of evolution, which has now emerged with the advent of knowledge-intensive industries, also does not look bright, because in a market economy it is fraught with the aggravation of social disparities, the waste of accumulated "human capital", the erosion of liberal traditions so valuable in the modern U.S. political life stubbornly slides to the right. One thing is clear: the role of New England as a pioneer of innovation, as a national testing ground, can be preserved, but its relative importance for the country will continue to decline, gradually lowering New England from the level of the macro-region to lower ranks.