Connecticut History Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775

The Connecticut Colony, originally known as the Connecticut River Colony, was an English colony in New England which became the state of Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settlement for a Puritan congregation of settlers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony led by Thomas Hooker. The English secured their control of the region in the Pequot War. The colony eventually absorbed the neighboring New Haven and Saybrook colonies. It was part of the brief Dominion of New England. The colony's founding document was the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which has been called the first written constitution of a democratic government, earning Connecticut the nickname "The Constitution State".