Conceived in Liberty (74 page)

Edward Randolph now moved quickly to prevent Mather from going to England, suing him on a trumped-up charge of defamation to keep him in the colony. Mather was acquitted at the trial, but Randolph soon fabricated another charge. Mather, however, hid from the subpoena server, was spirited out of Boston in disguise, and lay in a small boat to board a ship for London. Andros sent out two boats to stop Mather’s escape but the chase failed.

The meaning of the Dominion of New England must not be confined to the internal despotism imposed on Massachusetts Bay, for the main point of the Dominion was to impose the same central and absolute rule over
all
the northern colonies; under Andros, law was to be administered to the colonies as one unit. The colonies were to be centralized under one yoke—that of the Crown.

The Maine towns were already a part of Massachusetts, and the Andros tax, fee, and land policies were pursued with even more vigor in Maine, where resistance was so much weaker. New Hampshire had already been part of the Dominion during the Dudley regime, and after the Cranfield troubles, potential resistance to the Andros policy was exhausted. King’s Province had also been part of the Dudley domain, but, as noted, Andros ruled against the Atherton Company’s claim to that territory.

As soon as Andros arrived in Boston, he moved to seize Plymouth, Rhode Island, Cornwall (all of Maine east of the Kennebec), and Connecticut, and to place them alongside the other colonies under his Dominion rule. Rhode Island succumbed quickly and with surprising ease, and made no protest against the Andros rule. What had happened to Rhode Island individualism and its spirit of independence? Two major reasons can be pleaded for this change in Rhode Island’s spirit.
First, all the old greats of the colony, the founding fathers of the first generation—Williams, Gorton, Coddington, Easton et al.—had recently died, and inferior men had replaced them. Second, the colony was charmed by Andros’ siding with them and against the Atherton Company over the issue of the Narragansett lands.

Plymouth surrendered equally quickly, but with much greater opposition in the colony. The Judas who delivered Plymouth was Nathaniel Clarke, secretary of the colony. For his treachery he received an appointment on the Council of the Dominion, and from Andros a gift of the valuable Clarke’s Island in Plymouth harbor. Rich in salt, pasturage, and timber, the island had been set aside by the Plymouth town government for support of its minister and the poor. The Reverend Ichabod Wiswall of Duxbury and Deacon John Founce, town clerk of Plymouth, were so incensed at this gift that they began to raise funds to carry the matter into the courts. Andros immediately had them arrested on the charge of “levying taxes” without his consent, and forced them to stand trial in Boston. The sickly Wiswall almost died during the ordeal.

There was also considerable opposition in Plymouth to the arbitary increase in taxes by Andros. The town of Taunton refused to elect a commissioner, declaring that it “did not feel free to raise money for the inhabitants without their own assent by an assembly.” For daring to transmit this defiant resolution, the Taunton town clerk, Shadrach Wilbur, was imprisoned for three months by Andros and punished with a heavy fine. The town constables of Taunton were also arrested for neglect of duty, and one of the local justices was suspended for not arguing against the protest at the town meeting.

Also annexed to the new Dominion in early 1687 was eastern Maine, or Cornwall, transferred from New York. While under New York, Thomas Dongan had sent two commissioners, John West and John Palmer, to manage its affairs. West and Palmer there pioneered in the Andros technique of forcing the inhabitants to buy new confirmations for their land titles at exorbitant fees. Now Andros declared that the old Dongan-West-Palmer confirmations were invalid and that the matter must begin anew.

Connecticut, however, proved a far more difficult nut to crack. For one thing, Connecticut had bitter memories of Andros’ attempted aggression against it during King Philip’s War a dozen years before. It procrastinated for months. Its leaders, such as secretary John Allyn and Fitz-John Winthrop, were eager to sell out to Andros. Winthrop even praised the Dominion as containing “all things that will really conduce to the growth and prosperity of the people.” But the General Court stood firm, and refused to surrender to Dominion rule. Finally, at the end of October 1687, after nearly a year had elapsed, Andros went
to Hartford and simply seized the government. Fitz-John Winthrop was well rewarded by being made major general—the highest military office in New England—in charge of the militia of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and King’s Province. In return Winthrop played the sycophant to the uttermost, expressing his admiration for Andros’ loving care over New England and for “those designs your excellency lays to settle a lasting happiness to the prosperity of this country.” Andros also made certain to appoint new courts, militia, and customs officers in Connecticut.

It should not be thought that his expansion of the area of Dominion brought the incidental but important advantages of a unified trade area for New England. On the contrary, Andros soon outlawed all traveling merchants and peddlers, thus narrowly confining trade to each local town and area.

In the area of religion, however, the creation of the Dominion had, willy-nilly, a libertarian impact. The Crown could not move toward the establishment of Anglicanism without disestablishing the Puritan church and providing religious liberty for non-Puritans. This problem was acute in Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut. Despite the great decline in Puritan fervor over the years, the theocracy still held sway. Especially was this true in Massachusetts, though even here it was now favored by only a minority of population of the colony, and was increasingly challenged by merchants who were not church members.

The Council of the Dominion, making laws for all New England, now had to decide whether to extend the Puritan establishment to the rest of New England (Rhode Island and Cornwall) or to end it everywhere. The Council’s committee on codification urged the former course, but the Anglicans and Quakers on the Council fought this bitterly. Walter Clarke, a Quaker and former governor of Rhode Island, pointed out that since the Puritan ministers were just as much Dissenters from the Church of England as the Quakers or any other sect, they should therefore depend on voluntary contributions in the same way as all the others. Those citizens who would not voluntarily support a Puritan minister, said Clarke, should not be forced to pay against their will. The Council defeated the Puritan attempts at expansion, the Puritan establishment lapsed, and religious liberty and separation of church and state won the day. This result was aided by news of King James’ Declaration of Indulgence of April 4, 1687, which granted liberty of conscience to all Englishmen, including Dissenters. The Quakers of Scituate (in Plymouth) promptly tested the law by refusing to pay taxes for the Puritan ministry, standing on the Declaration of Indulgence. Andros and the Council granted the Quakers’ request for return of their property seized by the constables for nonpayment. Thus the Declaration
of Indulgence and the refusal of Council to continue coerced support for the Puritans jointly brought disestablishment to New England.

Since the network of government schools in Massachusetts was Puritan, the Council’s decision not to continue the Puritan establishment had the corollary libertarian effect of dissolving the government schools. Thrown back on voluntary or market support, many of the schools that had been artificially extended by relying on compulsion now had to close. Randolph would have liked to replace them with Anglican public schools, but was thwarted by lack of funds.

The crippling blow to the Puritan theocracy intensified the decline of Puritan zeal among the populace, and such ungodly customs as maypole dancing, stage plays, Sabbath breaking, and the drinking of alcohol spread more widely.

By the end of 1687 Sir Edmund Andros, as head of the Dominion of New England, was the sole and absolute ruler of all of New England from the towns of Maine to western Connecticut. But this was only the beginning of the expansion of the Dominion and of Andros’ power. In the spring of 1688 Andros received instructions from King James II to incorporate the colonies of New York and the two New Jerseys into the Dominion. The king named Andros governor of the enlarged Dominion, with his headquarters still at Boston. He was, in addition, to appoint a deputy governor at New York to administer that colony and the Jerseys. The Dominion institutions, including the new taxes, quitrents, and press and book censorship, were now to be imposed on the expanded territory.

During August Andros traveled throughout New York and the Jerseys incorporating these colonies into the giant Dominion of New England. Captain Francis Nicholson, of Andros’ footguard, was named deputy governor for New York and the Jerseys.

Governor Dongan of New York was, of course, unhappy at being replaced. For the citizens of that colony, the sudden loss of their home rule and their annexation by the Dominion of New England were additional important straws to add to their accumulating list of grievances. At first, some New Yorkers were mollified, as the Long Island towns were at long last reunited with New England, and the anti-Catholics were happy to see the departure of Dongan. But Andros’ tyrannical policy soon changed their attitudes, especially his action in seizing the bulk of New York’s public records and carrying them off to Boston. Francis Nicholson protested this seizure, and later was to note “how fatal it hath been to this city and the province of New York for to be annexed to that of Boston, which, if it had continued would have occasioned the total ruin of the inhabitants....” Furthermore, the Dutch in New York were unhappy at being joined to their old enemy, New England. Nicholson too aroused the suspicions of the frenetic and was believed by many New Yorkers to be a crypto-Catholic.

East Jersey and West Jersey were incorporated into the Dominion without much difficulty, although there was considerable protest in West New Jersey at Andros’ practice of reappointing existing public officials if they paid him a substantial fee. Some officials refused to pay for reappointment and launched public protests.

Governor Andros’ foreign policy for the expanded Dominion continued the Dongan course of aggressive pressure on New France. Andros repeated a Dongan ultimatum that the French withdraw from a fort in Seneca country. The French quickly complied. English-oriented historians like to speak of a “French menace” to the American colonies, in justifying the aggressive actions of England and the English colonies against New France. And yet, New England
alone
had a population in 1688 of over 100,000, as compared with 12,000 in all of New France. Furthermore, the English were firmly allied against the French with the most powerful, bloodthirsty, and aggressive of the Indian tribes—the Iroquois. The real menace was to the thinly populated French; the record of Anglo-American aggression against New France in the colonial era is ample witness to that fact.

As soon as he took over the government of New York and the Jerseys, Andros held a conference at Albany with the Iroquois, reminiscent of a similar conference a decade and a half earlier. There he cemented the long-standing Iroquois-English alliance. In eastern Maine Andros issued an order forbidding anyone to trade or settle in the territory without a license from his government. Andros then proceeded to break into the Penobscot River trading post of a French resident, the Baron de St. Castine, and to confiscate his arms, furniture, and other supplies.

While Andros was away from Boston, some Indian depredations occurred at Saco. Immediately, Captain Blackman seized twenty suspect Indians and shipped them to Boston. Their alarmed tribesmen seized a few whites at Casco Bay to hold for a prisoner exchange. The prisoner exchange was agreed upon, but, typically, the white captain refused to admit an Indian peace party and several whites were killed in the skirmish that followed. The embittered Indians now joined forces with the equally embittered Castine, who promised them aid for raids against the English. Andros quieted the situation down by sternly rebuking Colonel Tyng of Casco Bay for exceeding his instructions by making war on the Indians: “By your seizing and disturbing the Indians you have alarmed all your parts and put them in a posture of war.” Andros wisely ordered the release of all the Indians except the actual criminals. But the leaders on the spot, such as Tyng, John Hinckes, and William Stoughton, whipped up hysteria in Boston against the Indians and asked for supplies and troops. A draft of manpower ensued, and troops were sent north. The absurd hysteria over the Indians is seen in this account: “Upon receipt of news that two or three Indians had been seen skulking about along the frontier, orders were dispatched to the outlying towns... to
send eight or ten armed horsemen every day to scout in search of Indians and kill any who refused to submit themselves.”

The military commander of Cornwall went to the length of implicitly accusing Andros of excessive leniency to the Indians. As if to disprove the charge of softness in the face of the (nonexistent) threat, Andros sent two companies and several ships to the frontier and ordered the Indians to release all Englishmen and surrender all murderers of Englishmen. When the Indians retaliated by burning two towns, Andros mobilized a force of several hundred and garrisoned eleven forts along the frontier. Then, before any warfare occurred, Andros, in the venerable white tradition, launched a sneak attack on the Indians, destroying their homes, canoes, and supplies. In the traditional rationale of preventive war, this was done before the “least harm of mischief was done” by the Indians.

By the end of 1688 Sir Edmund Andros stood master of all he surveyed. Virtually the absolute ruler of all English America from the Delaware River to the St. Croix River in eastern Maine, the governor of the expanded Dominion of New England stood at the pinnacle of power. Indeed, with
quo warranto
action brewing against the remaining proprietary colonies, new peaks of power and expansion were on the horizon. But, as often happens, pride went before the fall; Andros was only a few more months at the pinnacle before he was tumbled, unceremoniously, into the trough.