Colonial America

by Richard Middleton, Anne Lombard

  The rebellion had been a divisive affair, reflecting tensions among the province's diverse political and religious groups. It bore some similarity to Bacon's Rebellion. Like Bacon, Leisler was supported mainly by the poorer sections of the population who opposed the ascension to power of an aristocratic elite. However Leisler seems to have overestimated the extent of his political support. Unwilling to compromise his anti-Catholic principles, he assumed without justification that a Dutch king would be generous to his own compatriots. In addition, ranged against him were the great Anglo-Dutch families of New York, who were able to plead their cause more effectively in England. They particularly emphasized Leisler's lack of gentlemanly accomplishments, especially his inability to speak or write proper English, which reinforced the impression that he and his followers were a dangerous rabble.

  Like the rebellion in Massachusetts, Leisler's Rebellion failed to accomplish its goals but forced a political compromise. The rebellion ended the Dominion of New England and ensured that New York could no longer be denied an assembly. From 1691 the colony's government conformed to the standard pattern of royal governor, appointed council, and elected assembly. Nevertheless, New York lacked the tradition of government by elective assembly, and its colonial leaders remained unable to effectively counter the power of royal governors, as their counterparts did in other colonies. Moreover, the rebellion and its aftermath had permanently embittered relationships between the Anglo-Dutch elite and the Leislerians. As a result, governors of New York for many years after 1691 were able to manipulate political divisions within the assembly to thereby consolidate their own power and strengthen royal influence over the colony's political affairs.

  4 Maryland

  The last colony to experience a serious uprising during the Glorious Revolution was Maryland. Just as in Massachusetts and New York, the seeds of the disturbance were to be found in the previous decades. And just as in those colonies, anti-Catholic fervor was a central factor – indeed it played an even larger role in the uprising in Maryland.

  By the 1680s, Protestants comprised four-fifths of Maryland's population but had few places on the council, a state of affairs which was especially disturbing since the governor and council made all land awards and inevitably favored Catholics. The Protestants also felt that the Act Concerning Religion discriminated against them. Although no church was officially established, a number of generous grants were made to Catholic chapels and their priests, while Protestant ministers, in contrast, had difficulty supporting themselves. A further point of conflict was the distribution of patronage. Since most offices went to Catholics, and in particular to relatives of the proprietor, ambitious Protestant newcomers had no chance of advancing themselves. The one institution in which rising planters could express themselves was the assembly.

  Adding to popular discontent in the years following the Restoration were depressed tobacco prices, as already noted in regard to Virginia. Despite the poor economic situation, the proprietor, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, still expected his duty on every hogshead of tobacco exported to England. Nor did he make any concessions after the 1673 Navigation Act imposed additional burdens on the colony's trade.

  The first serious confrontation between the proprietor and the lower house occurred in 1669, after a Protestant minister had urged the deputies to model themselves on the House of Commons. In response, the assembly drew up a document listing its “Grievances,” complaining that the proprietor disallowed acts of the assembly, levied taxes without consent, acted arbitrarily, and demanded exorbitant fees. The response of the proprietor was to charge the assembly with mutiny and sedition, and restrict the franchise to freeholders rather than allowing all free males to vote. Too many discontented persons seemed to be using the elections to disturb the peace, for by now Maryland, like Virginia, contained a large number of discontented servants and tenant farmers. Voters now had to have landed property worth £50 or a personal estate worth £40. Baltimore also reduced the number of representatives from each county, most likely to copy the Virginia House of Burgesses.

  Like Virginia, the colony had experienced conflicts during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. The issues were partly economic and political. Sixty armed men gathered in August 1676 in Calvert County to protest the high poll tax of 300 pounds of tobacco. Fortunately for Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, few others from the population of 15,000 joined them; the rebels were easily hunted down and the two ringleaders, William Davis and John Pate, were executed. For the settler population, political resentment often merged with religious tensions. During 1676 rumors spread of a conspiracy ostensibly involving Lord Baltimore, Virginia's Governor Berkeley, the Susquehannock Indians and a group of Catholic priests to take over England. Once again, anti-Indian and anti-Catholic hostility merged to fuel paranoid fears.

  When news arrived in 1680 that Whig leaders in Parliament were attempting to exclude James, duke of York from the succession, rumors flew that the Catholic proprietary government in Maryland too would fall. Baltimore responded by having two of his leading opponents, Josiah Fendall, the former governor, and John Coode, a militia officer, arrested on charges of mutiny and sedition. In the end Coode was acquitted, though Fendall was fined and banished, having offended once too often. The incident prompted the Lords of Trade to recommend that Baltimore appoint more Protestant officials, but to no avail.

  These events coincided with another slump in tobacco prices, causing plant-cutting riots in Virginia. Baltimore rightly feared these would spread to Maryland but refused to make any concessions when the assembly met in 1682. The representatives began by insisting on their rights as Englishmen, including the right to conduct their affairs as the House of Commons did. Baltimore replied by reaffirming his position as absolute proprietor, arguing that the colonists could enjoy only what he was graciously pleased to give them, for their status was that of inhabitants in a conquered territory. To demonstrate his authority, the following year he unilaterally abolished the headright system on the ground that it had been abused.

  Baltimore was soon to face not only political dissension at home but new challenges from the king's ministry in England. By 1684 he had to deal with a border dispute with Pennsylvania and was then accused of defrauding the royal customs. The situation was made worse when Baltimore's nephew, the acting governor, George Talbot, killed the chief revenue collector, Christopher Rousby. The incident gave James II, who was now king, every justification to begin quo warranto proceedings.

  Yet despite these setbacks, Baltimore continued to act as though his authority was unquestioned. His last choice of governor was William Joseph, an Irish Catholic who began by addressing the assembly on the doctrine of divine right: “The Power by which we are assembled here is undoubtedly derived from God to the King and from the King to his Excellency the Lord Proprietary.” A new oath of fidelity incorporating this doctrine was required. Worse, Joseph brought an order from the Crown that in the future only high-quality cask tobacco was to be exported, to exclude the inferior bulk product. This measure threatened the smaller producers with ruin, especially when Joseph also served notice that in the future the proprietor expected all dues to be paid in specie, not tobacco, since the depressed market price was diminishing his income.

  At this point news arrived of James II's warning about an invasion from Holland. The council responded by ordering all public arms to be brought in for inspection by the local gunsmiths, ostensibly to be put in order, but in reality to be distributed among the proprietor's own supporters. To the majority this appeared simply to be a device to disarm them as the prelude to a combined Catholic and Indian attack. During March 1689 wild rumors circulated of an impending assault by the Senecas, causing a panic among the militia of Calvert County.

  Because conditions in Maryland were so volatile, the proprietary government decided in April 1689 not to call an assembly. By now news had arrived that Virginia and the provinces to the north had declared for William and Mary. The response
of Coode and others was to organize “an Association in arms for the defense of the Protestant Religion.” Still Baltimore did nothing to declare William and Mary king and queen. When no action had been taken by mid-July, Coode and his association marched on St. Mary's.

  Little resistance was offered and no bloodshed. Some attempt was made to rally the proprietary forces at Baltimore's mansion on the Patuxent River, but to little effect. An assembly was summoned and a declaration issued which affirmed Maryland's commitment to William and Mary, as well as expressing the belief that the colonists' cause was the same as England's: to stop “Slavery and Popery.” Once the assembly met, Coode wisely surrendered the “supreme power” which he had momentarily exercised. A committee was appointed to investigate the Indian–Catholic conspiracy, after which the assembly was dissolved pending approval from England, leaving an interim council under Coode to protect what had been won.

  Later in 1690 a further meeting was held to draw up charges against Baltimore, which Coode and another deputy then took to London. The charges were a compilation of all the previous grievances: the monopoly that Catholics enjoyed in the council, the support enjoyed by their religious establishments, the disallowance of the assembly's acts, the excessive fees demanded by the proprietary officials, the conspiracy with the French and Indians, and the failure to declare for William III and Mary II.

  Coode's reception in London was generally favorable, since the charges against Baltimore confirmed the current prejudice against proprietary government. The decision was made in August 1691 to strip Baltimore of his governmental rights, leaving him only his property interests. In future there was to be a royal governor with similar powers and instructions as in New York. Thus the principal objectives of the Maryland majority had been obtained: proprietary government had been overthrown, the Protestant religion saved, and the place of the assembly assured.

  5 Aftermath

  Elsewhere in America the changes of 1689 were relatively peaceful. Pennsylvania and the Carolinas were too recently settled and remote for there to be much reaction.6 More surprising was the lack of violence in Virginia. One explanation may be that the colony remained cowed in the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion. The governor, Lord Effingham, a strong supporter of James II, was in England when William invaded and the acting governor, Nicholas Spencer, sensibly proclaimed the new order towards the end of April 1689. Some unrest occurred in the northern counties of Stafford and Rappahannock, but it was due mainly to fears of an attack by Indians rather than a rejection of the authorities in Jamestown.

  The disturbances in New England, New York, and Maryland have certain similarities. All were inspired by a fear of Catholicism and the dread of an Indian attack; all occurred in frontier societies which felt vulnerable to such attack; and everywhere was heard the demand for the rights of Englishmen, even in Massachusetts, where the charter was equated with that end.7

  The similarities are significant, for the three rebellions mark the beginning of a new political language or rhetoric which would provide a unifying vision in times of political crisis. One aspect of this rhetoric was the settlers' justification of their right as Englishmen to resist a tyrannical monarch. The invoked their rights as Englishmen, citing the English Bill of Rights in their support. The language of English rights would become increasingly important in colonial political life during the eighteenth century. An equally (or more) important aspect of this rhetoric, as several historians have recently argued, was its consistent invocation of Protestantism. In the past each of these colonies, except in New England, had seen themselves as acting in isolation from others. The Glorious Revolution was a different matter. This time the participants, whether they were Dutch or German or English, each imagined their rebellions as part of a larger struggle to defend Protestantism against popery. In other words, they articulated their grievances in terms of a shared religious vision. This shared vision had the potential for the first time to unify the diverse settler populations in the English colonies across ethnic lines.8

  As the colonists rejoiced in the overthrow of the Catholic James II and his replacement by the Protestant William II, they may have failed to appreciate that the events which had occurred represented less a declaration of individual rights than an expression of parliamentary authority. One form of absolute sovereignty, divine kingship, had been replaced by a new one, that of the king in Parliament, which institution was eventually to display as exalted an opinion of its authority as any Stuart monarch.

  All these developments lay in the future. For the moment, the overthrow of James II and the granting of new charters or governments were sufficient to satisfy colonial aspirations. Even Cotton Mather declared, “It is no little Blessing of God that we are part of the English nation.”

  The Revolution of 1689 was a crucial turning point in the political and constitutional life of the English North American colonies. After the Restoration but prior to 1689, it seemed they were subject to the whim of Stuart monarchs who believed themselves above the ordinary law, unlike their subjects, who must meekly submit. After 1689 this situation changed significantly. Just as William and Mary had to abide by the laws of England, so their agents in America increasingly had to observe a similar code of conduct. In 1700 Parliament passed an act permitting the prosecution of governors who “oppressed their provinces.” In 1703 the Privy Council ordered that, to prevent corruption, officials must not accept presents from their assemblies. More extensive instructions were formulated for them to follow; for example, all expenditure was to be monitored and the details sent to the Treasury.

  Document 13

  The Bill of Rights, 1689, The Statutes at Large, 1 William and Mary, Session 2, Chapter 2

  Unlike the 1683 New York Charter of Liberties or later American Bill of Rights, the English version was concerned mainly with the rights of Parliament rather than those of the individual. Only articles 5, 7, 10, 11, and 12 are aimed at protecting the ordinary person. Question to consider: Why do you think the right to bear arms (item 7) is limited to “subjects which are Protestants”?

  1. That the pretended power of suspending of laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal.

  2. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regal authority, as it has been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal.

  3. That the commission for erecting the late Court for Ecclesiastical Causes, and all other commissions and courts of like nature [i.e., prerogative courts], are illegal and pernicious.

  4. That levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative without grant of Parliament, for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal.

  5. That it is the right of the subjects to petition the King, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.

  6. That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against the law.

  7. That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.

  8. That the election of members of Parliament ought to be free [from interference by the Crown].

  9. That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.

  10. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

  11. That jurors ought to be duly empanelled and returned, and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders.

  12. That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons before conviction are illegal and void.

  13. And that for redress of all grievances and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently.

  Of course the scions of noble families still came t
o America to serve as royal governors so they could make money, but they could do so only in well-regulated ways. Those who stepped beyond the line were punished, as Lord Cornbury shortly discovered while governor of New York (see Chapter 18, section 3). Above all, the Glorious Revolution guaranteed the sanctity of property. In this respect the colonists benefited as much as their English compatriots. A new era of constitutionalism had arrived, in which the provincial assemblies were given a key role. Whatever the ultimate disagreements about colonial rights, the events of 1689 and the regranting of the charters gave the colonists lawful protection against the worst abuses of arbitrary government. For the colonists, that was a great step forward.

  1. Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha, or, The Natural Power of Kings (London, 1680).

  2. A writ of quo warranto required a person or entity to show proof of his authority to act. The Crown demanded the documents granting Massachusetts its governing authority so that it could rescind them or show them to be inadequate.

  3. A writ of scire facias required the defendant to produce documents or records. In this case the Crown sought to force Massachusetts to bring its original charter to England, where it could be rescinded.

  4. Historian Stephen Saunders Webb has argued that Andros's appointment was part of a plan to create a garrison or military style of government throughout the American colonies, in The Governors-General: The English Army and the Definition of Empire, 1569–1681 (Chapel Hill, 1979). Others argue that Andros was selected for the much more mundane reason that he had already served James II in New York 10 years earlier, was familiar with America, and had a claim on James II's patronage. In any case, Andros had no orders to impose martial law. For this view, see Richard R. Johnson, “The Imperial Webb: The Thesis of Garrison Government in Early America Reconsidered,” William and Mary Quarterly, 43 (1986), 408–30; and Ian Steele, “Governors or Generals? A Note on Martial Law and the Revolution of 1689,” William and Mary Quarterly, 46 (1989), 304–14.