American Colonies: The Settling of North America

Charles II died in 1685, and the throne was assumed by his younger brother, the Catholic James II. James ruled the colonies with an iron fist (276). In 1648 he revoked the Massachusetts charter and combined the New England colonies, New York, and West and East Jersey into one super colony, the Dominion of New England. This arrangement functioned like a Spanish viceroyalty and “radically changed the previous trend toward greater colonial autonomy defended by powerful elected assemblies dominated by wealthy colonists” (276). James’s officials in the colonies began defunding Puritan clergy, challenging their land rights, and burdening the colonists with exorbitant taxes (277).

James’s favoritism for Catholics also landed him in trouble at home. In the Glorious Revolution, Protestant English aristocrats invited a coup by a Dutch rival for the Crown, William of Orange, and his wife Mary Stuart, James’s daughter. In 1688 William and Mary took power without a struggle, and James fled to the Catholic Louis XIV’s court in France. The shift caused chaos in the colonies, with many of James’s officials being overthrown by Protestant rebels like Jacob Leisler (278-80). With William in control, colonies in the hated Dominion largely reverted to their former arrangements, with William and Mary issuing a mix of royal and proprietary charters.