(+ the rest of new england)

get ready because i'm about to be a giant history nerd for a few minutes-

so- where do i start.

it's a common misconception that maine was part of the original 13 colonies, which isn't true. (bc if you counted them up it would be 14 lol) however, the land that would soon become maine did in fact have colonists living there during colonial times, and these people identified as massachusettsans (yes, that's what people from massachusetts are called)

from around the time the massachusetts bay colony came about in 1620 (when the pilgrims came) up until maine was granted statehood in 1820, maine was a district of massachusetts. maine originally wasn't its own colony because it wasn't granted a royal charter from the british. massachusetts also had control of new hampshire from 1641-1741. (not to mention rhode island also became its own colony in escape of massachusetts lol)

how this would correlate to statehumans is this:

since maine wasn't its own colony, i don't think it would have a personification, at least not right away. however, maine was very different from massachusetts, and the people would often skirmish over land and settlements (leading them to want to secede from the bay state) so i think the personification would have came about in the early-mid 1700s. from then up until 1820, maine looked up to massachusetts as a big sister/parental figure. (as did new hampshire, and possibly rhode island ? (i'd have to do more research lol))

this same situation occurred with new york and vermont (except it was less of a hassle) (and vermont was granted statehood in 1791)

up until vermont was a state, the new york colony had control over their land.

what i find really funny about this is i headcanon new york and massachusetts to be extreme frenemies, and the roots of their rivalries stemmed from colonial times.

new york and massachusetts were arguably the two biggest (in terms of economy and commerce) colonies out of the 13, so they became increasingly competitive with each other. one day, a small dispute over the land in the middle of both colonies occurred. this resulted in new york and massachusetts to formally establish a dislike towards one another, and also resulted in splitting the land. (vermont's land going to new york and new hampshire to massachusetts) (y'know, up until independence and statehood and such)