Many Americans assume that the buildup to the War for Independence began with the Sugar Act in 1764 and continued to grow until the Intolerable Acts of 1774 finally pushed Americans to rebellion against England. While not entirely false, this narrative overlooks a critical, yet brief, time period from 1686 to 1689, wherein the sovereignty of the American colonies was not only threatened but was directly stripped away with the formation of the Dominion of New England. Created out of a desire to stop what King James II deemed to be “colonial lawlessness” and to enforce the Navigation Acts, the Dominion of New England created a kind of super colony that spanned from Connecticut and Massachusetts all the way down to New Jersey with an autocratic governor at the helm. This period, while brief, will lay the foundation for the American notion of liberty that will eventually compel many colonists to seek outright independence from Great Britain in the 1770s.
The process of creating the Dominion of New England truly began when King Charles II revoked the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1684 out of frustration with the colony for refusing to obey the commands of the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660 (Brooks). The Navigation Acts, which were passed by Parliament in an effort to make the British Empire more self-sufficient, severely restricted colonial trade and even went so far as to prohibit the trade of goods such as sugar, cotton, and tobacco to only England and other English provinces as well as prohibit the import of select non-English goods (Britannica). Many colonies, especially in New England, refused to follow these trade restrictions and instead continued to conduct much of the trade that they had been doing prior to the passage of these acts. The insubordination of the colonies over the Navigation Acts and because of the refusal of some New England colonies to abide by English civil law if they deemed it counter to their Puritan beliefs pushed King James II, who took the throne after the death of King Charles II in 1685, to revoke the charters of the New England colonies and to establish the dictatorial Dominion of New England in 1686 (Brooks).
This seemingly tyrannical action on the part of King James II came during a time of fierce competition between the monarchy and Parliament of England over who truly had sovereignty over the kingdom and the empire. Using the colonies of New England as an example for the rest of his overseas holdings and as an example to his opponents in Parliament, King James II would appoint his staunch ally Sir Edmund Andros as governor and protectorate of the Dominion.
"..wee do hereby join annex and unite the same to our said government and dominion of New England. Wee therefore reposing especiall trust and confidence in the prudence courage and loyalty of you the said Sir Edmund Andros, out of our especiall grace certain knowledge and meer motion, have thought fit to constitute and appoint as wee do by these presents constitute and appoint vou the said Sr Edmund Andros to be our Captain Generall and Governor in Cheif in and over our Colonies of the Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth, our Provinces of New Hampsllire and Main, the Narraganset country or King's Province, our Colonys of Road Island and Connecticutt our Province of New York and East and West Jersey, and of all that tract of land circuit continent precincts and limits in America lying and being in breadth from forty degrees of Northern latitude from the Equinoctiall Line to the River of St. Croix Eastward, and from thence directly Northward to the river of Canada, and in length and longitude by all the breadth aforesaid and throughout the main land from the Atlantick or Western Sea or Ocean on the East part, to the South Sea on the West part, with all the Islands, Seas, Rivers, waters, rights, members, and appurtenances, thereunto belonging (our province of Pensilvania and country of Delaware only excepted), to be called and known as formerly by the name and title of our territory and dominion of New England in America" (Commission of Sir Edmund Andros).
As governor of the Dominion of New England, Sir Edmund Andros had almost dictatorial power over a wide stretch of the American colonies, making the capital of his new dominion in the colonial hub of Boston. Almost immediately upon taking his commission, Andros severely restricted the ability for towns to meet to once per year, he disbanded the legislative assemblies of each New England colony, and he formed his own council that would assist him in the administration of the Dominion (Brooks). Because of the distance of Boston from where the council members lived, Andros would often create and pass legislation that the council had not seen nor had they voted on. And so more often than not Andros would rule as a de-facto king over the Dominion (Brooks).
Beginning in 1687 with a new tax on imports and increased estate and poll taxes (created and passed without a vote of the council), Andros focused much of his attention on raising revenue from the colonies (Brooks). Prior to the Dominion, the colonies were taxed very little by the British Empire and almost never had their internal affairs directly interfered with by the government in England, and so the creation of these new taxes by fiat by a leader they had not wanted nor chosen went against everything the colonists had valued and grown accustomed to. In the following year, Andros raised additional taxes on items such as rum, wine, and brandy, going directly against the express wishes of the council (Brooks).
Sir Edmund Andros
One of the implications of the revocation of prior New England charters was the titles that landowners had to their land. Upon the creation of the Dominion, all of these land titles were voided and so all the land of New England belonged to the king, which required these landowners to petition the government for new titles (Brooks). This would lead to the now former landowners to pay huge fees and often have to bribe government officials to obtain new titles. When it came to public land, Andros would seize those lands and disperse them to his friends and close associates (Brooks). If that was not enough, due to the Declaration of Indulgence by King James II Andros all but banned Puritan teachings, suspended congregationalist meetings, and forced the holding of Anglican church meetings in an area filled with people who by and large came to the New World to flee the persecution of the Anglican church (Brooks). Within two years, the way of life in New England that the colonists had spent well over a century creating was being wiped away in exchange for an autocracy.
The colonists of New England were vehemently opposed to this new regime. Many resented the disbanding of their legislatures, an action which trampled on traditions and ways of governance that had already been well established. The stripping away of their legislature, combined with the forced following of the Anglican church, pushed many New England colonists to advocate for change and a return to self-rule.
Luckily for the colonists of New England, this change would come swiftly in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 removed King James II from the monarchy and established the rule of King William of Orange and Queen Mary over England (History.com). This peaceful revolution would also lead to the establishment of the English Bill of Rights, which significantly restricted the powers of the monarchy, banned the monarch from being Catholic, and ensured freedom of speech for members of Parliament (among many other principles that will directly inform the creation of the American Bill of Rights almost a century later) (History.com). Upon receiving word of revolution in England, a mob of colonists in Boston gathered in revolt against Andros and overthrew him from office on April 18th of 1689, leading to the creation of the Council of Safety which governed New England until the official disbandment of the Dominion on May 22nd of 1689 and the reestablishment of the former charters of each of the colonies of New England (Brooks).
While short lived, the Dominion of New England had a profound effect on the psyche of the American people. Prior to the Dominion, colonists did have a sense of value attached to their self-rule as colonies, but after the fall of the Dominion that sense of value expanded into an intense desire to preserve the liberties they had grown accustomed to. In the short-term, colonists would be proud of the Glorious Revolution and thus proud of the liberty that came with being a citizen of the empire, but as time wore on and as England attempted to reassert their control over the colonies in the mid-1700s, the memories of the Dominion would come to the forefront of colonial thought as it seemed that an encroaching shroud of imperial tyranny was falling over the British Empire. And so, while actions like the Sugar Act and the Intolerable Acts absolutely led the way to American independence, that movement truly began almost a century earlier with the Dominion of New England.
Work Cited
Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. “What Was the Dominion of New England?” History of
Massachusetts Blog, 4 Apr. 2021, historyofmassachusetts.org/what-was-the-dominion-
of-new-england/.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Navigation Acts". Encyclopedia Britannica, 27
May. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/event/Navigation-Acts. Accessed 10 June 2022.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Sir Edmund Andros". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20
Feb. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edmund-Andros. Accessed 10 June
2022.
“Commission of Sir Edmund Andros for the Dominion of New England. April 7, 1688.” Avalon
Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, Yale Law School,
avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass06.asp.
History.com Editors. “Glorious Revolution.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 20 Feb.
2018, www.history.com/topics/british-history/glorious-revolution
Excellent.