Chapter 2.0. Royal Authority in the Colonies, ca. 1660-1730, Introduction
Royal Authority in the Early Colonies
From the founding of the first lasting English colonies in Jamestown (1607) and Plymouth (1620), the royal government had of course considered the settlers as being subject to their authority. Similarly, the settlers thought of themselves as English people living overseas and readily acknowledged their loyalty to the English kings. Links to England were vital for the settlers’ overseas trade and also, at least in theory, offered some hopes for military protection against potentially hostile Native Americans and such rival colonial powers as France and Spain.
Seventeenth-Century Neglect of the Colonies
In fact, however, the early colonies had to see to their own defense. English naval forces were spread far too thin to allow for any significant, ongoing presence along North America’s vast eastern seaboard. Nor did English or British governments maintain any significant numbers of troops in North America (at least, not until much later, after 1763). Even at home England usually kept only a small “standing,” or permanent army, and it was used primarily against foes within Europe.
English naval and land forces became even less available for trans-Atlantic use when England descended into its bloody Civil War and the long period of unrest that followed under Puritan rule (1642-59). Thus almost as soon as the first colonies had begun to grow, they were left largely on their own.
The Restoration (1660) and the Navigation Acts
But with the Restoration of the Stuart kings in 1660, the royal government made new efforts to control the colonies–and especially their growing trade. Although the first of the “Navigation Acts” was passed as early as 1650 under the “protectorate” government of Oliver Cromwell, the royal government first began to pay sustained attention to the regulation of colonial trade in 1660 (see below).
To supervise these efforts to better control colonial trade, in 1675 the royal government created a new committee called the Lords of Trade. This became the first royal office that specialized in colonial affairs. In practice, however, the Lords of Trade consisted of only a small group of high-ranking officials, and by itself this represented only a modest change. Expertise concerning the colonies continued to be scattered across several departments of the royal government, including the Admiralty (in charge of the navy), the Treasury, the Secretary of State, and others. Moreover, the Lords of Trade were essentially just an advisory body that reported to the king’s Privy Council.
The Dominion of New England, 1686-89
For a brief period under King James II (1685-88), the Lords of Trade were able to attempt a much more serious centralization of colonial governance. The Lords of Trade felt that the southern colonies were at least serving their economic function as parts of England’s dominions, by exporting such agricultural goods as tobacco, indigo (a dye plant), and rice. But the northern colonies, lacking such export crops, focused more on their small but growing craft production and maritime trade–thus competing with England’s own manufacturing and trade.
James II, a monarch who believed strongly in his prerogatives, endorsed the plans of the Lords of Trade to reorient the northern colonies’ economy and to begin an overhaul of colonial administration. To do so, royal officials revoked the charters of several northern colonies, dissolved their assemblies, and united them under a single, royally appointed military governor. But this new colonial government, known as the Dominion of New England, was widely resisted by the settlers and lasted only about two and half years. It took time to install new authorities, and in 1686 a first set of administrators tried to compromise with local leaders. These leaders strongly objected to the new royal directives, and at first there was little change.
Royal officials then switched tactics and began to enforce more actively the planned reforms under Edmund Andros, who became governor of the Dominion at the end of 1686 (Dec. 20). For the approximately two years of Governor Andros’s rule (1687 to early 1689), royal officials banned many of the town meetings and colonial assemblies that had served as the main institutions of local government, tried to improve the enforcement of the Navigation Acts, and attempted to thoroughly revise the colonial system of taxation. For example, officials demanded that the settlers’ land titles be re-confirmed, in return for agreeing to pay a “quit-rent,” a type of tax to the royal government that was customary in England itself but that had fallen out of use in the colonies.
In May, 1688, the Dominion was expanded from the New England colonies to also include New York and New Jersey.
All of the policies enacted under the Dominion provoked strong resistance. For example, many local leaders continued to meet despite the official bans on doing so. The imposition of the new taxes on land was particularly unsuccessful: often tied up in court battles, ultimately very few landowners ever had to pay the new quit-rents.
Then, in March and April of 1689 news reached America that James had been forced to abdicate the throne during the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. Almost immediately local leaders organized rebellions and removed from office the Dominion’s officials. In many cases these officials, including governor Andros, were arrested and sent back to England. Until the eve of the American Revolution no further attempts were made to rule the colonies without regular input from the colonial assemblies.
The Board of Trade, Colonial Charters, and Colonial Export Laws
Although in England the Glorious Revolution of 1689 marked the rise of Parliament’s power over that of the king, in governing its colonies the English government changed only its tactics, not its overall goal of controlling colonial trade. From 1696 these efforts were overseen by the new Board of Trade, a re-organized version of the Lords of Trade.
After the failure of the Dominion of New England attempts to permanently do away with the colonial assembles were dropped. But the royal government launched a new campaign to make the colonies more directly dependent on the crown by revoking corporate and proprietorial charters, altering or replacing them in order to increase the number of royal colonies, i.e., those with a royally-appointed governor.
This process proved to be difficult and time-consuming, but in the long run it met with some success. By the middle years of the eighteenth century most colonies had royal governors, leaving only four that were still “private” (Maryland and Pennsylvania) or which had elected governors (Connecticut and Rhode Island). It should be noted, however, that the mere presence of a royal governor scarcely assured royal control over a colony. In most colonies by the early or mid-eighteenth century, if not before, the locally-elected assemblies had gained considerable power, usually more than enough to resist the royal governor.
The Board of Trade also cooperated with spokesmen in Parliament for English commercial interests in order to pass a new series of export laws that attempted to control the colonial manufacturing sector. Most of these laws were designed to limit competition with English or (after 1707) British manufacturing, but, much like the Navigation Acts, they had only very limited success. The Naval Stores Act of 1705 had a greater impact because it sought to encourage, rather than suppress, an economic activity.
Questions: For both sets of laws presented below, a key question to consider is, how would they have been enforced? What evidence do these texts provide about enforcement?