From 1876 to 1900, New Bedford served as the initial home port for the Revenue Cutter School of Instruction, the precursor of the United States Coast Guard Academy.

Before the 17th century, the lands along the Acushnet River were inhabited by the Wampanoag Native Americans, who had settlements throughout southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

[citation needed] The rising European population and increasing demand for land led the colonists' relationship with the indigenous inhabitants of New England to deteriorate.

In the 1760s, between the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution, shipwrights, carpenters, mechanics, and blacksmiths, settled around New Bedford harbor, creating a skilled and comprehensive maritime community.

[18] After the War of 1812's embargo was lifted, New Bedford started amassing a number of colossal, sturdy, square-rigged whaling ships, many of them built at the shipyard of Mattapoisett.

The invention of on-board tryworks, a system of massive iron pots over a brick furnace, allowed the whalers to render high quality oil from the blubber.

[23] At the height of the whaling industry in 1857, the harbor hosted 329 vessels worth over $12 million, and New Bedford became the richest city per capita in North America.

[25] On the boats, at the docks, at the factories, or in the shops—British, Wampanoag, Cape Verdean, Azorean, Irish, and West African hands found work in New Bedford.

For example, Paul Cuffe—an Ashanti-Wampanoag Quaker and self-made tycoon[26]—among several other remarkable achievements earned black property owners in New Bedford the right to vote decades before Abraham Lincoln even signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

During the Civil War, the Confederacy engaged in commerce raiding with ships such as the Alabama, the Florida, and the Shenandoah, trying to attack the Yankee whaling industry and sabotage the US economy.

After considerable controversy control of the large-scale work stoppage passed from the Communist-led Textile Mill Committee (TMC) to sundry craft unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor who, agreeing to a five percent wage cut, ended the strike in October.

Three companies, OffshoreMW, Deepwater Wind, and DONG Energy, have leased portions of New Bedford's Marine Commerce Terminal for the staging of turbines and platforms.

[39] New Bedford is a coastal city, a seaport, bordered on the west by Dartmouth, on the north by Freetown, on the east by Acushnet and Fairhaven, and on the south by Buzzards Bay.

The highest point in the city is an unnamed hill crossed by Interstate 195 and Hathaway Road west of downtown, with an elevation greater than 180 feet (55 m) above sea level.

Just south of Palmer's Island, beginning near Fort Phoenix in Fairhaven, lies a two-mile-long hurricane barrier, constructed in the 1960s to protect the inner harbor where the fishing fleet anchors.

[52] In 2019 an advocacy group for the Maya people complained to the courts that the New Bedford School District was not providing adequate Kʼicheʼ language services.

Another factor was the increased draft of whaling ships, in part the result of greater use of steel in their construction, which made them too deep for Nantucket harbor.

The history of ferry service from New Bedford dates back to May 15, 1818, when a steamboat entitled The Eagle carried six hundred passengers across the Nantucket Sound.

As of 2020, New Bedford Regional Airport serves as the New England Fleet Base for Southern Airways Express, providing maintenance, storage, and offices for the airline.

[75] In addition, the airport provides a wide range of general aviation and corporate jet services, including aircraft maintenance, fuel, and part 61 flight instruction.

MA Route 18, the extension of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway (which travels through downtown), is a freeway for the short stretch connecting I-195 to US 6 and the port area.

The Bristol County Sheriff's Office operates the Ash Street Jail and Regional Lock-Up and the Juvenile Secure Alternative Lock Up Program (JALP) in New Bedford.

Located on Church Street in the north end of the city, it serves adult learners from the greater New Bedford region and the surrounding communities of Taunton, Wareham, and Fall River.

[109] Benjamin Russell, Clement Nye Swift, Clifford Warren Ashley, and Albert Pinkham Ryder are notable artists from New Bedford.

During the 1970s, Tavares, a Rhythm and blues group made up of five brothers from New Bedford, became a chart topping success with such songs as "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" and "More Than a Woman".

It was restored by the Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE (WHALE) in the early 1980s and converted into the house museum it is today, chronicling 150 years of economic, social, and domestic life in New Bedford.

They are: Paul Cuffee, a merchant and ship's captain of Native and African (Ashanti of Ghana) origin, was born in nearby Cuttyhunk and settled in Westport, Massachusetts.

The most famous of these soldiers was William Harvey Carney, who made sure that the American flag never touched the ground during the Union assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, near Charleston.

[128] Bishop "Sweet Daddy" Grace, native of Brava, Cape Verde, was a New Bedford resident who founded the United House of Prayer for All People, one of the largest African-American sects in America.

The film was written and directed by Brian Helgeland and starring Ben Foster, Toby Wallace, Jenna Ortega and Tommy Lee Jones.