The fort and the governor

What happened

On Thursday 18 April 1689 Boston rose against Governor Sir Edmund Andros and the Dominion of New England. By eight in the morning rumor ran through the town that the North End was in arms, then that the South End was, boys ran the streets with clubs, and the drums beat. The militia seized Captain John George of the frigate Rose and the Dominion's officers one by one, and by two o'clock twenty companies stood in arms. Andros, with Randolph, Palmer and a few others, shut himself in the new works on Fort Hill. He started down once, but when the militia seized a boat sent from the Rose he went back inside. Then John Nelson, at the head of the soldiers, came to the foot of the hill and demanded the fort and the governor. Andros was loath to submit, Byfield wrote, but at length he came down, and the militia marched him to the Council House, where he was told he might thank himself (Byfield, 1689). Rothbard calls it a "speedy and virtually bloodless revolt," with two hundred armed militia under Nelson and English soldiers "reluctant to fire on the people of Boston" (CiL, p. 413). The Dominion's hold on Boston rested on about two dozen regulars in the fort and the obedience of the town, and when the town armed itself the government fell in an afternoon. Andros and twenty-four of his officials sat in jail for a year.