43. The Northern Colonies, 1666-1675

By the mid-1660s the enormous impact of the Restoration crisis in the northern colonies was over, and the colonies began to settle down to their changed conditions. In New England, Connecticut, and Rhode Island not only self-governing remained, but confirmation of this role was won by royal charter. Rhode Island also retained its control over Narrangansett Country despite Connecticut’s attempted seizure. Connecticut succeeded in seizing and annexing the Colony of New Haven, thus eliminating the last major bastion of Calvinist ultraorthodoxy in New England. Massachusetts triumphed over the attempts of the royal commission to bring it to heel, and it remained defiant and self-governing. The Maine towns were organized into a separate government by the commissioners, but they were soon reannexed by Massachusetts Bay. But the rigid rule of the Massachusetts theocratic oligarchy was steadily weakening from within as the more liberal merchants rose to greater influence with the rise of Boston as a crucial trade center of New England. The Half-Way Covenant demonstrated the weakening of the Puritan zeal of the younger generation of the Bay Colony, and the persecution of the Quakers was virtually over.

In the Middle Colonies, the critical event was the almost bloodless seizure of New Netherland by the English, and its transformation into the proprietary colony of New York, owned by the Duke of York. The province included the district of New Castle (now Delaware) but the intermediary area of New Jersey was granted to two of the Duke’s favorites, who introduced a representative government far more liberal than that of New York in order to encourage rapid settlement. And the principle of religious liberty, Quakers included, spread through the colonies upon its triumph in New York and New Jersey.

The accession of English rule in New York touched off the second Anglo-Dutch War (1664–67), and the Treaty of Breda (July 1667) formally ceded New Netherland to England. Free trade between New York and Holland was also agreed upon for a seven-year period. Nicolls’ successor as governor, Col. Francis Lovelace, won the approval of the people in 1668 by abolishing New York City’s two social castes, created by Peter Stuyvesant a decade before. These were the “great burghers” (including government officials, officers of the militia, ministers, and others paying fifty guilders into the city treasury) and the “small burghers” (including all others in the city, and strangers paying a fee of twenty-five guilders). Only great burghers had been eligible for public office and had been exempt from certain penalties in criminal cases. The abolition of this caste system was applauded, but the conflict with the Long Island towns continued and intensified. New York was now the only colony imposing taxes without the consent of a representative assembly, and the New Englanders on Long Island were used to far better treatment. And as we have seen, the Long Islanders deeply resented the requirement of paying customs duties at the same rate as New York City. In addition, they protested bitterly a tax that was levied on them in 1670 by Governor Lovelace to pay for repairs to the fort on Manhattan— formerly Fort Amsterdam, now Fort James. The Long Island towns drew up a remonstrance at Huntington that declared their refusal to pay such a tax and that rested their case on the time-honored principle of English liberties and of “no taxation without representation.” We have seen that a similar tax protest had wrung representative government (albeit an oligarchic one) from Massachusetts in 1631; but now the resistance was dealing with royal authority. Lovelace denounced the protest as seditious, ordered the signers prosecuted, and had the petition publicly burned at the city hall. And the people, who had so recently been promised “English liberties” instead of arbitrary Dutch rule, were now told that their “liberty” should consist of thinking of nothing but “how to pay taxes.”

In 1673 the embittered eastern Long Island towns of Southampton, Southold, and East Hampton petitioned the king for separate English charters for themselves. These rejected, they asked the king, unsuccessfully, to be allowed to return to the jurisdiction of Connecticut. Their reasons: the lack of a representative assembly, the lower tax rates in Connecticut, and their natural trading ties with New England (including exchange of Long Island whale oil for New England goods).

Another cause of discontent lay in New York City. There the government organized the cartmen into a monopoly cartel or guild: the guild was granted the monopoly of the carting business in the city. In return, the carters were forced to work for the city one day a week. As guaranteed monopolists, the cartmen naturally felt that they no longer had to supply their customers with efficient or courteous service; and the courts of the city tried to correct the matter by threatening to allow nonguild carters to operate. But these threats did not overcome the unfortunate consequences of the government’s original intervention: the guild monopoly.

In New Jersey the new settlers from New England, used to democratic self-government, quickly began chafing at the rule of Governor Philip Carteret. Even though the regime was far more liberal than New York’s, this was the New Englanders’ first encounter with a proprietary governor and his appointed Council, able to veto their decisions. When New Jersey’s first Assembly opened in 1668, trouble began almost immediately as the people of Middletown repudiated the election of their deputies, asserting that it was invalid. Their basic complaint was that the deputies, John Bowne (not the same Bowne who had led the protest in Flushing) and James Grover, violated their liberties by voting for an onerous five-pound tax on townships. Middletown rested its legal case on a land grant that had been made to it by Governor Nicolls, before the proprietary grant of New Jersey to Berkeley and Carteret had become known. Middletown then chose two others as their successors, and the nearby townsmen of Shrewsbury selected still others to replace Bowne and Grover, who had also represented them. But Middletown and Shrewsbury insisted that their representatives add to their oath of allegiance the proviso that they could recognize the validity of no act impinging on the liberties of their original patent, which included a seven-year exemption from township taxes.

The Assembly, however, disqualified the proviso and the next delegates and the two towns refused to pay the five-pound township tax. And so Middletown prepared for rebellion. A town meeting in February 1669 ordered its citizens on pain of penalty to aid anyone resisting removal of their possessions, especially by agents of the Assembly. Middletown acknowledged its allegiance to the king, but disclaimed any interest in, or knowledge of, the proprietors. It also objected to paying any feudal quitrents to the proprietors. Middletown had already received the land from Nicolls and had purchased it from the Indians. What did Berkeley and Carteret have to do with it? Even before the Assembly had met, Governor Carteret had forbidden Middletown and Shrewsbury from electing any officials, and now they were warned against exercising any functions. But Middletown and Shrewsbury, undaunted in the face of being declared in contempt of “lawful authority,” remained in open defiance of the government and refused to pay the township tax or quitrent.

This was only one of the mounting troubles faced by the New Jersey authorities. The Assembly itself had broken up in disorder when the governor refused to allow his Council and the larger elected Assembly to meet in joint session, a meeting that could have meant surrender of his veto power. The former New Netherland’s first attempt at a representative assembly had collapsed.

With no continuing Assembly and Middletown in tax rebellion, the governor soon found Elizabethtown joining the fray. In the spring of 1670 Elizabethtown, maintaining that its land grant from Nicolls exempted it, refused to pay the quitrent. A further grievance of Elizabethtown was that Carteret, one of its residents, insisted on making town decisions without consulting the town meeting. For example, Carteret had revoked the militia commissions of two popular leaders of the town, Luke Watson and John Woodruff, because they had disobeyed him. The following year Elizabethtown engaged in more open defiance: Carteret, without consulting the town meeting, granted town land to Robert Michel, one of his indentured servants now at the end of his term. In protest, the town leaders pulled down Michel’s fence and part of his house. Carteret could do nothing in retaliation, and the son of one of the protesters was defiantly chosen as town constable. Finally, a court fined the town leaders for their part of the protest.

Thus, by 1670–71 many of the New Jersey settlements were in revolt against the payment of quitrent. The New England settlers, used to absolute private freehold landed property, were not about to yield supinely to an attempt to impose feudal land tenure upon them. It is characteristic, however, that New Ark, or Newark—the heir of New Haven’s absolute theocracy—did not join in the tax strike. Instead, Newark reaffirmed “the renewal of a solemn agreement to submit to law and authority....”

By the spring of 1672 a familiar situation in the history of rebellion had come about: the dynamics of a revolutionary situation had proceeded beyond its original founders. On May 14, deputies from all the towns, even Newark, met in a completely illegal and unrecognized assembly, and formed an openly revolutionary government. All towns were represented except the original rebels, Middletown and Shrewsbury, which decided to keep ignoring any assemblies. Of all the towns, only Woodbridge remained in support of the established government. The revolutionary assembly proceeded to elect Capt. James Carteret, the younger son of the proprietor, as “President of the Province.” The rallying around Carteret as the revolutionary leader was, of course, a master-stroke; his family connection was calculated to throw doubt and confusion into anyone loyal to the proprietary. On May 28, the governor and the Council issued an edict ordering the illegal deputies to submit to the governor’s authority in ten days or face arrest as mutineers. To insure the split of Middletown and Shrewsbury from the revolutionary towns, the governor confirmed their old rights and privileges, including full power to dispose of their granted lands, freedom from taxation to support any minister that might be established in the towns, and the privilege to try their own minor cases. But the governor could not end the rebellion, and the revolutionary leader, James Carteret, arrested several of the governor’s key aides. Finally, in July the governor fled to New England to seek support against the rebellion.

By the end of 1672 the tide had turned. Arriving from the Duke of York and from King Charles himself were stern and unmistakable orders that commanded the New Jersey rebels to submit. The proprietors completely disowned the old Nicolls land grants, restored the property taken from their aides, ordered the collection of quitrent arrears (for four years), and restored full governmental authority. Woodbridge was rewarded for its support, part of its quitrents were canceled. And finally, in December, the proprietors reinterpreted the Concessions so as to restrict many of the homerule rights of the colonists. The powers of the governor and Council were greatly increased at the expense of the Assembly and the towns.

The New Jersey rebellion was over. By June 1673 James Carteret, in disgrace, had sailed away. The restored government ordered all the rebels to offer their submissions personally, and confined voting in any elections strictly to those holding qualified land titles from the proprietors.

Neither was the west bank of the Delaware untroubled, although the little settlements were not as persistently rebellious as New Jersey. The majority of the residents of the New Castle district were Swedes, and in 1669 many of them rose in rebellion against oppressive English rule. The revolt was led by Henry Coleman and especially by Marcus Jacobsen, the “Long Finn” who, in the words of the governor’s indictment, went “up and down from one place to another, frequently raising speeches, very seditious and false, tending to the disturbance of His Majesty’s peace.” But the uprising proved abortive against overwhelming New York power. Jacobsen was taken to New York in irons, convicted, severely whipped, branded with an R for rebel, and sold into slavery in Barbados. All the other rebels were forced to surrender to the Crown one-half of their funds, and they suffered numerous other fines and levies. To prevent any repetition of this uprising, Governor Lovelace decided to impose very heavy taxes on the hapless people of New Castle, so as not to “give them liberty to entertain any other thoughts than how to discharge them.” In 1672 the governor took the precaution of building a fort at New Castle, to guard against any further rebellion by the citizenry or possible incursions from Maryland.

In the summer of 1673 the former provinces of New Netherland were unexpectedly reunited—and under their old auspices. The previous year the third Anglo-Dutch War had been launched with an attack on the Dutch by Charles II. The chief impact of the war on America was the almost bloodless conquest of New York—indeed of the whole former New Netherland—by the powerful Dutch fleet in August 1673. The conquest was made easy and virtually bloodless by the enthusiasm of the Dutch inhabitants of New York City for the return of their countrymen. The joyous citizens welcomed the Dutch ships, and the merchants welcomed trade with Holland once again.

Immediately, the Middle Colonies were again renamed: New York, New Jersey, and New Castle reverted to New Netherland; New York City was changed to New Orange; Kingston to Swanenburg; Albany to Willemstadt; and New Jersey became Achter Kull. The Dutch officers appointed Capt. Anthony Colve as governor of the reconstructed New Netherland. Colve also appointed Peter Alrichs to be the commander at New Castle. All English and French property in New Orange was confiscated, especially the speculative land properties of the former governor, Francis Lovelace.

Almost all the inhabitants submitted readily and gratefully to the new rule. The Dutch towns of Breukelen and Flatbush yielded with special enthusiasm, and even the English towns of western Long Island were docile. The major resistance came from the stubborn New England towns of the East Riding, on Long Island: Southhampton, East Hampton, Brookhaven, Southold, and Huntington. The eastern Long Island towns consistently repeated their basic demands: a popular assembly (and the corollary, no taxation without representation), freedom of trade, and confirmation of their land titles. Governor Colve was willing to grant such other demands as religious freedom and equal rights—rights that belonged also to the Dutch citizens—but concerning their three basic demands, the towns received no more satisfaction than under Lovelace.

Southhampton therefore sent a ringing declaration throughout New England that it was not going to submit voluntarily “to this foreign government.” Appealed to by the eastern towns, Governor Winthrop of Connecticut decided to guarantee their independence and sent troops into Long Island, even though Massachusetts refused to support him. Battles between Connecticut and Dutch shipping now ensued, and Governor Colve was warned by Connecticut in October 1673 to keep away from these towns. The reactivated New England Confederation also threatened attacks on New Netherland; less menacing, the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut pledged a mutual-defense alliance. The eastern Long Islanders also asked that Governor John Winthrop, Jr.’s son, Fitz, be named their commander.

With the help of Connecticut, the eastern Long Island towns were able to preserve their virtual independence, and join once again their Connecticut homeland. From October 1673 to April 1674 there was a series of battles between Connecticut and the towns on the one side and the Dutch on the other. At the turn of the year, the Dutch raided English shipping and threatened to plunder the Connecticut coastal towns. In retaliation, the eastern Long Islanders attacked the west end of the island, forcing the Dutch farmers again into Fort Amsterdam. Dutch ships were also driven off by Long Island and Connecticut resistance.

In the New Jersey towns, rule under the Dutch was exercised by the popular, or old revolutionary party. Two of its chief officials were John Ogden, chief Schout of the district of Kull, and Samuel Hopkins, its secretary. The former ruling oligarchy under Governor Carteret completely lost favor under the Dutch.

The new Dutch rule did not last long enough to have much direct impact. With the Treaty of Westminster, February 1674, the last of the Anglo-Dutch wars came to a close, and New Netherland was returned to England. From then on, Dutch rule was purely interim, until the new English governor, Major Edmund Andros, could arrive in November to resume English proprietary rule.

There were, however, important indirect consequences of the final war with Holland. The Crown lawyers decided that the old grant of the New Netherland area to the Duke of York was now invalid. Although King Charles regranted his brother the area in July, the confusion was enough to induce Lord Berkeley, who had little interest in New Jersey at best, to sell his half of the proprietorship in March 1674. Berkeley sold his interest for 1,000 pounds to two English Quakers, Major John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge. This was a landmark in the history of America. From a universally persecuted sect, the Quakers now became a free, sometimes even a dominant, group. For a while it seemed that Berkeley’s sale was prudent indeed. For the new tables meant new conditions. In August the Duke of York regranted New Jersey but not as a whole. He now gave northern New Jersey, north of a line due west of Barnegat Bay, to Sir George Carteret; while granting him the ownership, the new patent did not grant him the sovereign power. The sale of Berkeley’s share was still unrecognized, but the new buyers now laid claim to the southern portion of New Jersey.

Southern New Jersey was now in limbo. Edward Byllinge soon went into bankruptcy and his interest was taken over by three trustees, all Quakers, one of whom was William Penn. The trustees also persuaded the equally bankrupt Fenwick to sell them ninety percent of his share for 900 pounds.

The ambitious Fenwick promptly organized an expedition and founded a settlement of his own in southern New Jersey, at Salem, in late 1675. At this time, there were only a handful of people in southern New Jersey and virtually no Englishmen. Having organized the first English settlement, Fenwick forthwith proclaimed himself governor and sole landowner of the area. He then brazenly announced his terms for “selling” the land to settlers—one pound per one thousand acres. Those who bought more than one thousand acres were to be freeholders, with the right to vote for a council of twelve to help Fenwick rule. For having one’s passage paid by Fenwick, a person was to be an indentured servant for four years, and receive 100 acres at the end of the term. Every freeholder was to pay Fenwick an annual feudal quitrent of one penny per acre. All this was to be Fenwick’s as his supposed “tenth” share of the southern New Jersey proprietorship. In short order, Fenwick sold 148,000 acres to fifty purchasers, most of them Quakers.

Unsurprisingly, Fenwick came quickly into conflict with the handful of Dutch settlers in the area. Led by the Reverend Mr. Fabricius, these settlers refused to serve in the corvée—the compulsory labor force to work on the roads, a common practice in the colonies. To break this mass refusal, several arrests were made and Reverend Mr. Fabricius was forcibly suspended from his duties.

The trustees naturally denounced Fenwick’s assumption of power as illegal, and in July 1676 they were able to persuade Sir George Carteret to sign the Quintipartite Deed granting the trustees all the lands of New Jersey south and west of a new partition line, which ran from Barnegat Bay northwest to the Delaware River. For one thing, William Penn was a close friend of the Duke of York, and Carteret wished to cement his rather shaky title by coming to an agreement with Penn. The trustees now had a clear, official title to a larger (though uninhabited) area, called West New Jersey, while Carteret’s area was called East New Jersey. As part of the imminent crackdown on Fenwick, his ten percent was granted in the deed not to Fenwick himself, but to his mortgagors, John Eldridge and Edward Warner, who had financed his expedition. Fenwick was arrested in late 1676 for assuming governmental functions as “lord proprietor” and especially for divesting existing settlers of “his” lands in order to sell them for his own gain. Fenwick was convicted by the Court of Assizes in New York, but released on parole after paying a modest fine.