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As Britain regained political stability at the end of the seventeenth century she tried to gain some control over her colonies. Following the Glorious Revolution (1688) Britain emerged stronger and more stable and confident that she could challenge France for world supremacy. What resulted was a series of Anglo-French wars (1689 to 1763) that drew the colonies into the empire. The Dominion of New England: When James II became King of England (1685) he took the opportunity to bring his own kind of discipline to the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. He revoked their charters and along with New Hampshire and Rhode Island combined them under the Dominion of New England under the governorship of Edmond Andros. The result of James’s actions was political and social chaos in New England, Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland. James’s attempts to tighten control of the colonies was a failure. For the colonies it was the last real period of political instability before the revolution. The Glorious Revolution -- in Britain and America: The result of the Glorious Revolution in England was the supremacy of Parliament over the monarchy and the establishment of the Anglican Church as the state church. This revolution came to be idealized in the minds of many English colonists and the writings of John Locke came to verbalize their beliefs. Locke’s theory of natural rights, with its assertions of human equality and universal rights, and his theory of the social contract in which people (not God or kings) created governments to protect and preserve their natural rights came to articulate the beliefs of a growing population in Europe and America. His boldest and most radical assertion was that since men created governments to protect and preserve their natural rights they could change or alter the government if it was not upholding its side of the contract. News of the revolution in the colonies was met with enthusiasm. Colonists in Massachusetts siezed Governor Andros and put him in jail. In Maryland and New York the colonists evicted their governors. A bloodless rebellion in Maryland, led by John Coode, is known as Coode’s Rebellion. For all of the colonies, the ruling elite managed to hold on to their power by acknowledging Britain’s authority while providing for opportunity and self government for their fellow colonists. The Rights of Englishmen: The Glorious Revolution left unanswered questions in the colonies and because no one at the time addressed them the differences of opinions grew in magnitude. Colonists looked at the Glorious Revolution this way: it gave them rights as English citizens. These rights fell into two categories: an array of civil rights (from trial by jury to unreasonable searches) and fundamental rights of self government (right to be taxed only by one’s elected representatives, to legislate for themselves, and civilian rather than military rule). The colonists believed their elected representative colonial councils were the equivalent of Parliament. Englishmen back home had a different set of assumptions that tended to put Parliament in a paternal role to the colonists’ childlike role. They believed that the good of the whole empire was more important than any one of its parts. The British government believed it had complete jurisdiction over all aspects of colonial life. Because no one in 1688 wanted to address these differences, the result was an increasingly bifurcated reality. Conflict in the Empire: Between 1689 and 1713 Britain fought two wars against France and her allies. These wars (King William’s War 1689-1697 and Queen Anne’s War 1702-1713) resulted in endemic conflict on the colonial frontiers as English and French forces contended with one another and each other’s Indian allies. Think About This
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