Colonial America
Page 31
During these critical weeks Andros was handicapped by lack of orders from London, for which Mather was to blame. The minister had persuaded William that Andros ought not to be entrusted with his command, even though non-Catholic officials were being confirmed in their posts. In this vacuum rumors abounded, including one that Andros was about to join the French and their Indian allies in an attack on the English! In this situation it needed only a trivial incident to bring Massachusetts and the other New England provinces to arms. When some militia seized the captain of the Rose man-of-war near Boston harbor on the morning of April 18, the city's whole population spontaneously came out onto the streets and went to the town house, where Randolph was seized and put in jail. Andros himself took refuge in Fort Hill, where he was surrounded and eventually persuaded to surrender without bloodshed. Most of his troops were in New Hampshire, and the rest were mutinous for want of pay.
In this crisis the old Puritan leadership came forward, led by Increase Mather's son, Cotton, and Simon Bradstreet, the last of the old governors. They quickly formed a “Council for the Safety and Conservation of the Peace,” similar to the former court of assistants, with Bradstreet as president. Though many wanted to resume the old charter immediately by holding elections for the house of deputies, others realized that such action would be illegal because the old frame of government was invalid. In the end it was agreed to convene an interim general court pending further directions from England. The council issued a public declaration supporting the new King William III and Queen Mary II and sent a denunciation of Andros, along with a plea that the old charter be restored, to be handled by Mather in London.
Elsewhere in New England events were similarly bloodless. In Rhode Island Dudley was seized while acting as a circuit court judge and sent to Boston. An impromptu assembly then acknowledged the new regime in England and reactivated the charter until more specific instructions arrived. Connecticut, too, sent early congratulations to William and Mary and a plea that its charter be reconfirmed, as it had technically never been surrendered. Later that May an unofficial meeting of the general court voted to “reestablish the government as it was before … until there shall be a legal establishment.”
The action of the New Englanders, especially in Massachusetts, was a calculated risk. There was no guarantee that William III would remain on the throne or that he would be sympathetic to the pleas now being put forward. He certainly had not come to dismantle the powers of the Crown; indeed he was surrounded by many of the men who had assisted James II in building them up. The liberties that William had been invited to protect were somewhat different from those to which the colonists aspired; their rebellions were unwelcome and even dangerous.
Mather nevertheless had some advantages as he walked the corridors of power in London. Massachusetts had promptly proclaimed William and Mary king and queen, and the coup had been bloodless. Since the dominion itself was no more, it would have to be replaced by something. Moreover, William was immersed in other, more urgent matters. By 1690 James had invaded Ireland, and William's presence was also required in Flanders to oppose the French. It would obviously be advantageous if the North American colonies could be pacified quickly. With considerable skill, Mather lobbied both the Whig and Tory factions to win their cooperation.
A compromise was arranged in October 1691 with the issue of a new charter, for there could be no going back to the original 1629 version. The Massachusetts government would now be subject to considerable oversight by the Crown. In the future there would be a royal governor, with the right to veto all legislation, which was also to be submitted to England for approval. Liberty of conscience was to be granted, except for Catholics. And the right to vote would now be based on property-holding instead of church membership.
Massachusetts leaders had meanwhile won several important concessions. The lower house regained control over taxation as well as the right to approve all spending by the governor. The lower house also gained the right to select the council, provided that its candidates were acceptable to the governor. The rights of the towns were to be restored. Land titles, too, were confirmed in freehold and no quitrents levied. And although the Congregational Church was no longer technically established, liberty of conscience would in practice amount to indulging the governor and his entourage. Outside Boston the towns could do as they pleased in levying tithes to support their churches, as long as they did not prevent other Protestants from holding services. And finally, Massachusetts was not only to keep Maine but also to incorporate Plymouth.
New Hampshire would also become a royal colony with a governor, nominated council, and elected assembly, just as before the Dominion. In fact, the settlement created by the Glorious Revolution in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire established a pattern of colonial government that would soon become the norm in most of English North America. In the future, colonies would be more integrated into the empire, with royal governors to assert the interests of the Crown. Meanwhile the settlers would continue to be represented by a locally elected assembly, which often had considerable control over taxation and spending, while the local elite would exercise significant influence over the governor as members of his council.
In New England, the only exceptions to this pattern of increased royal control were Rhode Island and Connecticut. Since neither province had Massachusetts' reputation for defying the English government, their charters were restored intact, and they were allowed to retain the autonomy they had enjoyed since their founding in the early seventeenth century.
3 New York: Leisler's Rebellion
While New England's settlers presented a generally unified opposition to the Andros regime, the population of New York was to go in a different direction. New York society in the seventeenth century was divided and unstable. This made it difficult to govern, but would also prove an obstacle to political action against any government which the people opposed.
The roots of New York's instability were complex. One was a structural problem: the province did not have a tradition of government by elective assembly. The original Dutch population had little interest in creating an assembly; as long as their government guaranteed religious toleration, they felt their liberties were secure. However, the English settlers in the colony were deeply aggrieved by their lack of representation. Though the towns on Long Island in 1683 had seemingly won their case for an assembly and secured a Charter of Liberties to guarantee it, James II had in 1686 revoked the assembly and disavowed the Charter.
Another challenge for New York was its ethnic diversity: English, Scots, Dutch, Germans, French Huguenots, and Africans were all present in substantial numbers. Despite their diverse origins the earliest settlers had mostly become assimilated to Dutch customs, but after 1664 this process of assimilation slowed. The various populations formed distinct ethnic communities, organized around their distinct languages and religions. Among the Dutch, who formed the largest share of the population, only a few wealthy families showed any enthusiasm for learning the English language or adopting English religions or customs. In addition there were geographic divisions. Long Island was separate from Manhattan and the Hudson Valley. Most important, however, was the rivalry between New York and Albany, especially over the control of the flour and fur trades. New York's disparate groups were united only by their hatred of Catholicism.
Governing New York was a challenge not only because of its disunity, but also because it was difficult to defend. New York was particularly exposed to attacks and invasion from the north via Lake Champlain and the Mohawk River by Algonquian allies of the French. Though for some years New York had been protected by the members of the Iroquois League, it was clear by the end of the 1680s that the French and their allies were regaining their ability to destabilize the region. In 1684 the Iroquois had humiliated a French invasion force under Governor Barre, after it had been devastated by sickness. The French had responded by reinforcing their colony under Governor Denonville, and encouraging their allies to be
come linked into a military alliance. The members of this alliance then launched a devastating attack on the Senecas (of the Iroquois Five Nations) in 1687. The inhabitants of New York were terrified that the French would use the Jesuits to stir up the native inhabitants even more, giving rise to the prospect of a quasi-religious war in which the divided New Yorkers would be pitted against a united foe using the Hudson River as an invasion route.
James II, though aware of these problems, continued to govern by imposing the same kinds of measures used in New England. The governor he had appointed in 1681, Thomas Dongan, was an Irish Catholic. After revoking the Charter of Liberties in 1686, James ordered Governor Dongan to raise additional revenue to shore up New York's defenses. Dongan's means, however, soon stirred up discontent, for by confirming New York as the sole port of entry in 1687, he inevitably aroused further protests from merchants in competing ports. Next, Dongan tried to levy quitrents on all land grants issued since the time of Andros, forcing most communities to seek new patents and therefore causing much unease, for those who failed to do so were prosecuted in a new court of exchequer. Lastly, he affirmed that he would continue the taxes voted by the ill-fated assembly, even though these had been part of the bargain for its right to meet. Further protest predictably ensued, this time from Staten Island and the town of Jamaica. A final blow, for the Dutch community at least, was the announcement in 1688 that New York was to be annexed to the Dominion of New England. A lieutenant governor and subcouncil would run New York separately, but this provision offered little consolation, since the officials would be answerable to Andros in Boston.
To bring the situation under control James chose Colonel Francis Nicholson as the colony's new lieutenant governor in 1688. Nicholson had the advantage of not being a Catholic, unlike Dongan, but the presence of several Catholics on his council, including the customs collector, Matthew Ploughman, made Nicholson suspect. When rumors began to arrive of James's abdication, Nicholson initially tried to conceal the news. Like Andros in New England, he faced a cruel dilemma. To announce William's invasion too soon would be tantamount to treason, while to do nothing would only increase tension among the population. All kinds of rumors were circulating, the most insidious being that Andros was plotting to help the French destroy the Five Nations. To calm popular fears, Nicholson agreed at the end of April 1689 to garrison the main fort with units of the militia.
Once news of the rising in Boston became widespread, however, an explosion was almost unavoidable. Resistance began, not surprisingly, among the inhabitants of Suffolk County on eastern Long Island who followed Boston's example early in May by ousting their royal officials. The predominantly Dutch population of Queens and Westchester counties then followed suit. They were especially eager for a declaration supporting William, since his arrival in England might presage a return to Dutch rule. In the middle of May many of them marched to Jamaica, not far from New York City. About the same time some of the merchants refused to pay the customs to a Catholic collector. In response Nicholson declared that all such levies would be devoted solely to defending the city from a possible invasion by France.
The final provocation came on May 30 when Nicholson, in an altercation concerning the placing of a sentry in Fort James, told a militia officer that he would rather burn New York than put up with any more insubordination. The next day the city militia repudiated the authority of its commander, Nicholas Bayard, and took over the fort, though without bloodshed.
Prominent among those participating in these events was Jacob Leisler, one of the militia captains, who had originally come to New York in 1660 as a soldier of the Dutch West India Company. He had subsequently prospered as a merchant and married a rich widow, ranking among the colony's seven richest men by 1676. Leisler, however, was not part of the anglicizing Dutch elite that had governed the colony, and unlike them was unwilling to compromise with Catholic officeholders. Leisler was the son of a Huguenot exile and deeply sympathized with the Huguenots who had been forced to flee from Louis XIV's France. He hated Catholics for their persecution of Protestants. Although no real violence had yet occurred, the council deemed it prudent for Nicholson to leave immediately for England to seek assistance. Leisler and the other militia captains quickly filled the vacuum by forming a committee of safety similar to that in Massachusetts, on which there were two representatives from each of New York's southern counties, as well as one from Ulster County. The committee proclaimed William and Mary king and queen on June 3, 1689.
As in Massachusetts, events had so far gone relatively smoothly, with no bloodshed or apparent support for the ousted council. Here the similarities ended. Nicholson had powerful connections to plead his cause in England. Leisler subsequently sent envoys to London, but they had no standing or experience. Ploughman, the customs collector, was dismissed and the revenues collected on the grounds that they had been authorized by the last assembly under the Charter of Liberties. This action caused dissension among some of the English settlers, who saw it as a violation of their right to elect a new assembly for the raising of taxes.
In December 1689 a letter from William III arrived addressed to Nicholson or “such as for the time being do take care for the preservation of their Majesties' Peace.” Leisler interpreted this message as giving him the authority to do as he pleased, even though it had been written before Nicholson got to England. He replaced the aldermen of the city and imprisoned his most implacable opponents, Nicholas Bayard and William Nichols. The committee of safety was then superseded by a mostly Dutch council with Leisler as lieutenant governor.
Leisler's lack of support among the non-Dutch groups was amply demonstrated in August 1689 when he tried to summon a representative meeting of the counties. No deputies arrived from Suffolk or Ulster counties. Even Albany, which did have a heavy concentration of Dutch people, sent none, its inhabitants being still fearful that the New Yorkers had designs on the fur trade.
Another element in the struggle now taking place was class conflict. The wealthy Anglo-Dutch families resented the intrusion of mere traders like Leisler and Milborne into the affairs of the colony. As a memorial of Nicholas Bayard later emphasized, the leaders of the uprising were “all men of mean birth, sordid Education, and desperate Fortunes,” who sought to consolidate their power “by inflaming the people.” In contrast, they were opposed by “all the men of best repute for Religion, Estates and Integrity of the Dutch nation.” Leisler's support was thus confined to the largely Dutch lesser tradesmen and farmers in the vicinity of New York, a limitation which proved a crucial handicap.5
Leisler did try to widen his support, especially in Ulster and Albany counties, dispatching a force to protect the exposed northern frontier. Unfortunately, this expedition arrived too late to save Schenectady, where some 60 inhabitants were killed on the night of February 9, 1690, by a combined French and Algonquian force. Leisler was blamed because he had not secured the cooperation of Albany's principal residents, Philip Schuyler and Robert Livingston, representatives of the Anglo-Dutch elite in the colony's northern counties.
In spring 1690 Leisler decided that the best means of protecting the northern frontier was to join Massachusetts and Connecticut in an invasion of Canada. The New Englanders were to attack by sea while the New Yorkers advanced overland via Lake Champlain. Reluctantly the burghers of Albany opened their gates after Livingston had retired to Connecticut. In the event both attacks proved abortive, whereupon Leisler tried to imprison the commander of the land force, Fitz-John Winthrop, a member of the Connecticut Provincial Council, thus antagonizing the leaders of that province.
Leisler made a second effort to widen his support by calling an assembly in April 1690, partly to defuse an earlier clash with the English inhabitants of Queens County, who had protested against the high taxes and oppression of the Leislerians. Also on the agenda was a bill to terminate New York City's flour-milling monopoly, which had so angered Albany. Not surprisingly, this proposal in turn further alienated the powerful An
glo-Dutch New York merchant families, who were already upset over Leisler's arbitrary proceedings.
Meanwhile England's response continued to be slow, for New York was no more a priority for William III than Massachusetts. Not until December 1689 was Colonel Henry Sloughter appointed governor of the province, Nicholson being sent to Virginia instead. Sloughter had other military duties and did not leave until the end of 1690, accompanied by Major Richard Ingoldsby and several hundred troops. Nothing in Sloughter's commission required him to treat Leisler harshly. New York was to be on the same footing as Virginia, with a governor and council appointed by the Crown and an assembly chosen by the freeholders “according to the usage of our other plantations in America.” The commission enjoined all civil and military personnel to be “obedient, aiding and assisting” unto Sloughter, but said nothing to suggest that Leisler be treated as a traitor.
Unfortunately Sloughter's vessel was separated in a storm, so that Ingoldsby and the troops arrived before him in February 1691. Leisler offered them accommodation but refused Ingoldsby's demand to be quartered in the fort, uncertain that the soldiers under his command really represented William, as claimed. Three times Ingoldsby issued his demand and three times Leisler refused. The confrontation proved fatal, resulting in some sporadic firing and several deaths which allowed Leisler to be branded as a traitor. Even when Sloughter finally appeared six weeks later, Leisler still delayed handing over the fort, attempting to conduct negotiations through emissaries. This behavior outraged Sloughter and convinced him that Leisler was a rebel who should stand trial for his crimes. Leisler, along with his chief lieutenant, Jacob Milborne, were accused of treason, tried, convicted, and hanged, much to the delight of the oligarchy.