Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 and established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. This event marked the beginning of permanent European colonization in New England following earlier explorations by French, Dutch, and English traders who had been exchanging metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts since at least 1600 CE.
Prominent tribes included the Abenakis, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, Pequots, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Nipmucs, Pocumtucks, and Wampanoags. The Western Abenakis lived in what is now New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, while the Penobscots resided along the Penobscot River in Maine, and the Narragansetts occupied Rhode Island west of Narragansett Bay.
On the 19th of May 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut joined in a loose compact called the New England Confederation to coordinate mutual defense. This alliance gained importance during King Philip's War which pitted colonists against a widespread Indian uprising from June 1675 through April 1678.
In 1787, the first cotton mill in America was founded in the North Shore seaport of Beverly, Massachusetts as the Beverly Cotton Manufactory. Technological developments led to more advanced mills like Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, making towns such as Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Lewiston, Maine centers of the textile industry.
The states of New England have a combined area including water surfaces that makes the region slightly larger than Washington state and slightly smaller than Great Britain. Maine alone constitutes nearly one-half of the total area yet is only the 39th-largest state.
In 2020, New England had a population of 15,116,205 representing growth of 4.6% from 2010. Massachusetts is the most populous state with 7,029,917 residents while Vermont is the least populous with 643,077 residents.