Before European settlement, the area between Boston Harbor and the Neponset River supported concentrated Indigenous settlement based on agriculture, fishing, and trade.
Puritan colonists established the Town of Dorchester in 1630; its original territory extended far beyond the present neighborhood.
Mather School was established in 1639 and is recognized by Boston Public Schools as North America's first public elementary school.
In March 1776, the fortification of Dorchester Heights forced British forces to evacuate Boston, although the Heights are now located within South Boston.
The Old Colony Railroad reached Dorchester in 1844, followed by street railways, accelerating its transition from farms and estates to a commuter suburb.
Boston annexed Dorchester on January 3, 1870; electric streetcars later supported dense construction of houses, three-deckers, apartment buildings, and neighborhood commercial centers.
During the late twentieth century, Black residents and immigrants from the Caribbean, Latin America, Cape Verde, Haiti, and Vietnam reshaped the neighborhood; Fields Corner became a major center of Vietnamese community life in the 1980s.
