Conceived in Liberty (68 page)

A corollary to the economic tyranny imposed by the Andros regime was the placing of political power into the hands of a tight-knit oligarchy, which filled all the public offices and used them for its own benefit. Public office generally provides a twofold economic privilege for its holder: the salary directly attendant on the job, and the additional economic benefits from wielding the powers of office. Generally both sets of powers are used to the full by the rulers. From 1664 to 1689, for example, only twenty-one men held office in the appointed governor’s Council. Of these, ten were wealthy merchants of New York City basking in the monopoly privileges they helped to award themselves, two were wealthy lawyers of the city connected with the merchants, and four were high English officials in the bureaucracy.

A major economic grievance was Andros’ imposition of a mass of higher taxes, shortly after assuming power in New York. This included not only the quitrents, property, and excise taxes mentioned above, but also: a two percent import duty on English goods; a ten percent import duty on non-English goods; a three percent duty on salt; specific import duties on fur, tobacco, and liquor; and an added three percent duty on goods traveling up the Hudson River. Added to the New York port monopoly, this was a formidable grievance indeed. The reimposition in 1679 of the excise tax on liquor (which was canceled in 1676) also added to opposition to the tax levies.

The economic, political, and religious grievances all intensified the New Yorkers’ long-standing demand for a representative assembly. And New Yorkers were painfully conscious of the fact that theirs was the only English colony in America lacking such an assembly. Now the demand had spread from Long Island to the rest of the colony.

In 1681 the grievances against the Andros administration came to a
head. Numerous charges had piled up against the governor. Twice Andros had been brought into court for appropriating confiscated goods for his own personal use—the court freed him only for lack of jurisdiction. In January, therefore, Andros was recalled to England to answer the charges, which included: favoritism in enforcing the Navigation Acts, fraud, private speculation, taxing the people without their consent and sometimes without the consent of his own Council, and denial of the right to jury trial. There were also charges of favoritism to leading Dutch merchants, particularly the two richest men in the colony: Frederick Philipse and O. S. Van Cortlandt. The duke’s agent sent to investigate the charges found them true, but Andros still managed to convince the Duke of York of his innocence.

In the meanwhile, however, Andros committed a very costly oversight. The hated customs duties imposed by Andros had expired in November 1680. The governor, in the press of preparing for his voyage home, neglected to order them renewed. This was the only opening that the embittered merchants needed. As soon as Andros left, with deputy governor Anthony Brockholls remaining in charge, one merchant after another refused to pay the duties, claiming rather speciously that Brockholls had no power to continue them in force. Brockholls himself was inclined to yield the point, even though Andros had told him to continue everything as before. Brockholls’ point was reinforced by the Council’s agreeing with the merchants that it had no authority to continue the taxes.

William Dyer, the duke’s collector of customs at New York, determined to collect the duties nevertheless. After confiscating goods for nonpayment, Dyer was sued by a merchant he had victimized, and a grand jury indicted Dyer for high treason because he assumed “regal power and authority” by imposing taxes illegally. Even before Andros’ departure, the mayor’s court simply and illegally refused to try a smuggler, and Andros had disciplined that body. When Dyer challenged the jurisdiction of the Court of Assizes, the court shipped him to England to stand trial for treason, where he was, of course, promptly freed.

Dyer might be freed, but he was at least temporarily out of the country and the citizens of New York for a while had successfully revolted against payment of the oppressive duties. The revolutionary impetus now pressed on to a clamor for a representative assembly. The old principle of no taxation without representation was put forward again. A mass petition was sent to the Duke of York, declaring the lack of an assembly an intolerable grievance.

All this pressure, loss of revenue, turmoil, and virtual rebellion now had its impact: it began to weary the duke. Advised by his Quaker friend William Penn to grant New York an assembly—“just give it self-government and there will be no more trouble”—the duke at last agreed. The duke retired Governor Andros, and replaced him with Col. Thomas Dongan, an Irish Catholic, with instructions to institute an assembly.

Dongan promptly convened the first representative assembly in New York history in October 1683 to the jubilation of the New Yorkers. The Assembly had the power to levy taxes, though not to appropriate them, and its legislative acts were subject to the veto of the governor, Council, and the ultimate veto of the proprietor. Moreover, the power to convoke and dissolve the Assembly was strictly in the hands of the governor. The Assembly consisted of deputies from New York City, Long Island (King’s, Queen’s, and Suffolk counties), Kingston (Esopus County), Albany, Schenectady, Staten Island (Richmond County), Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket (Duke’s County), and Cornwall (the Maine towns). The Assembly drew up a charter, which it eagerly sent to the Duke of York for approval, and which provided for regular meetings of the Assembly, trial by jury, due process of law, and the right of habeas corpus, restriction of martial law, and religious toleration of all Christians. But the New Yorkers were to find, once again, that the parable of being chastized with whips and then with scorpions could apply particularly well to them. For one thing, the Assembly met only once more, the following fall—with the exception of a brief session in the fall of 1685. And the charter didn’t last long, for in February 1685 King Charles II died and was replaced by the Duke of York, James II.

The accession of James II greatly changed New York’s status. In the first place, with New York’s proprietor now the king, it automatically was transformed from a proprietary into a royal colony. And second, the interest of James in the colony was now revived with a vengeance. As king he moved steadily toward imposing a highly centralized royal despotism on all the northern colonies. The separate charter for New York was now revoked, and Dongan ordered it voided in 1686. Furthermore, Dongan decreed that the taxing power was from then on to be lodged in the governor and Council. The most precious power of any assembly, taxing power, was now taken away. In January 1687 Dongan offically dissolved the Assembly, which had not met in over a year. In protest against this crushing of the stillborn Assembly, the militia of Richmond revolted, and rioting occurred in Jamaica. Both protests were quickly suppressed.

Apart from the plans of James II and the abortiveness of the Assembly, the Dongan administration proved no great improvement over that of Andros. In the first place, the various oppressive tendencies of the Andros’ regime were continued in force. Dongan continued the embargoes on the export of grain and the various monopolies, and tightened the Albany monopoly of the fur trade. Dongan severely tightened the New York City flour monopoly as well. When flourmakers sprang up outside New York City and evaded the legal prohibition, Dongan in 1683 instructed the sheriffs to seize and confiscate all flour bolted or packed outside the city. In addition, Dongan added to the exploitation of other groups for the benefit of the city merchants by prohibiting tanneries in New York. This forced the cattle farmers to sell hides to the merchants for export to tanneries. This created extra business for the merchants
at the expense of both the farmers, who suffered from the restriction of their market, and the shoemakers, who now had to pay a higher price for imported leather.

The result of the continuing governmental oppression of the grain farmers was a one-third fall in the price of wheat. Priced at four shillings, sixpence per bushel in 1673, wheat by 1688 had fallen to three shillings a bushel. This caused a corollary fall in land values in New York; total value of property fell from 101,000 pounds in 1673 to 78,000 pounds in 1688.

The struggle with the carting monopoly continued. Dongan forced the carters to carry over a hundred loads annually to the fort without compensation. When the carters refused to work under Dongan’s regulations in 1684, the authorities decided to allow anyone to enter the trade
except
the disobeying carters. This double-barreled blow quickly forced the carters to obey the government decrees.

For a short while, Governor Dongan did lessen the New York City port monopoly a trifle. The Long Island towns were granted port privileges, but only with those ships posting a 100-pound bond against engaging in smuggling, and with revenue officials stationed on Long Island to enforce the various trade and customs regulations. The Long Islanders complained, however, of the revenue officers and the high duties, while Dongan chafed at continued smuggling in violation of the Navigation Acts. By 1688 Dongan had again closed the Long Island ports.

One monopoly was relaxed, however, with the accession of Dongan: New York
merchants
(in contrast to the New York
port
) lost their monopoly of the overseas trade. In addition, New York was still prohibited from trading with Holland.

Dutch discontent continued. The Albany Dutch Reformed church became the center of complaint against government interference. In 1684 this church petitioned for permission to select a few of its minor officials rather than have the civil government making the appointments. The request was refused. The following year, the Dutch minister of the Albany church refused to be ousted from his post by a civil court on the grounds that this decision could only be made by the Amsterdam classis.

But Governor Dongan did not simply follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. He added more oppressions and grievances of his own. Most important was his determined drive for the imposition of quitrents. As soon as he arrived, Dongan decreed the compulsory reconfirmation of all land titles, including all confirmed previously by Andros, and the use of these land rolls to exact higher quitrents, out of which Dongan himself received a commission. Meeting with considerable resistance, Dongan threatened to “buy” from the Indians all land within existing townships not yet so purchased, and to resell the lands to strangers. The towns surrendered to this threat but only with bitterness. Kingston and the Hudson River towns suffered from the decree, but the most aggrieved were, again, the Long Island towns. In East Hampton, a Puritan
minister was moved to curse anyone, even the governor, who dared to injure settlers by removing their landmarkers. Dongan promptly arrested the minister and several of his congregation, and only a humble apology won their liberty. Huntington felt it necessary to assure renewal of its patents, so made Dongan a gift of land, which the governor cheerfully accepted. Dongan generally insisted on personal fees for the regranting of land titles and town patents. For granting a town charter, the governor exacted 300 pounds from New York City and also mulcted Albany for a similar service. But even while granting a modicum of self-rule to New York City, Dongan’s charter provided for a veto of municipal actions by the governor and the Council, and for the appointment of the mayor by the governor. Dongan was also accused, with some justification, of aiding his friends in evading the Navigation Acts, of forcing merchants into giving him a share of their enterprises, and of selling land to his friends.

Dongan not only raised quitrents, but added further injury to a declining economy by increasing taxation, even though he himself recognized taxation as one of the reasons for New York’s economic decline: “When I come to New York to impose another tax on the people, I am afraid they will desert the province.”

Dongan embarked on a program of tampering with the land that had a long-run impact far more severe than any of his other policies. The Dutch attempt to engross the land of New York under a feudal landholding aristocracy had failed; of all the patroonships, only the vast Rensselaerswyck had survived. Now Governor Dongan revived the policy of feudal handouts of unused land to privileged grantees. Dongan literally
created
a privileged class of large quasi-feudal landholders by erecting numerous manors and by other large land grants. Here was the origin of the long alliance in New York between two privileged ruling castes: the royal bureaucracy, and the great land-holding oligarchy, which came to include such old merchant families as Philipse, Bayard, and Van Cortlandt. And here was the beginning of a policy that fastened feudal landholding onto New York, for a far longer period than transpired in the other colonies, where after a short time feudalistic landholding tended to dissolve into the hands of actual settlers.

The million-acre Rensselaerswyck, surrounding Albany, was reconfirmed as a manor by Dongan in 1685, with the “Lord of the Manor” obtaining virtually the full feudal powers of the Durham Palatinate type. The manor lord could appoint manorial courts and impose military burdens. This grant could be made because the Duke of York decided not to apply the English antifeudal statutes of 1660 to his province.

The largest new manor created was Livingston Manor, given to the ambitious young Scot, Robert Livingston, who had managed to marry into the leading Schuyler-Van Rensselaer and Van Cortlandt families. Livingston based his claim upon a fraudulent Indian purchase. After the manner of the day, the location of the “purchased” land was kept deliberately vague in the contract,
enabling the owner, aided by a friendly governor, to stretch his land enormously by suitably elastic interpretation of the land area. In this way, Livingston was able to inflate his manor from 26,000 acres to 160,000 acres, constituting the southern third of what is now Columbia County. Van Rensselaer was also able to add nearly 300,000 acres to his manor by similar fraudulent extension of an Indian purchase, aided and abetted by the governor.