Dominion of New England - Background

Background

In the first half of the 17th century a number of English colonies were established in North America and in the West Indies, with varying attributes. Some, like the Virginia Colony, originated as commercial ventures, while others, like Maryland and Massachusetts Bay were created for religious reasons. The governance of the colonies also varied. Virginia, despite its corporate beginning, became a crown colony, while Massachusetts, along with other New England colonies, had a corporate charter and a great deal of administrative freedom. Other areas, like Maryland and Carolina, were proprietary colonies, owned and operated by one or a few individuals.

Following the English Restoration in 1660, King Charles II sought to streamline the administration of these colonial territories. Charles and his government began a process that brought a number of the colonies under direct crown control. One reason for these actions was the cost of administration of individual colonies; another significant reason was the regulation of trade. Throughout the 1660s the English Parliament passed a number of laws, collectively called the Navigation Acts, to regulate the trade of the colonies. These laws were resisted, particularly in Massachusetts and the other New England colonies. These provinces had established significant trading networks not only with other English colonies, but with other European countries and their own colonies. The laws made some existing New England practices illegal (effectively turning merchants into smugglers), and the payment of additional duties would have significantly increased their shipping costs.

Some of the New England colonies presented specific problems for the king, and combining those colonies into a single administrative entity was seen as a way to resolve those problems. The Plymouth Colony had never been formally chartered, and the New Haven Colony had sheltered two of the regicides of Charles I, the monarch's father. The territory of Maine was disputed by competing grantees and by Massachusetts, and New Hampshire was a very small, recently-established crown colony. In addition to its widespread resistance to the Navigation Acts, Massachusetts had a long history of virtually theocratic rule, and famously exhibited little tolerance for non-Puritans, including (most importantly for the king) supporters of the Church of England. Charles II repeatedly sought to change the behavior of the Massachusetts governing elite, but it proved recalcitrant, resisting all substantive attempts at reform. In 1683 legal proceedings began to vacate the Massachusetts charter; it was formally annulled in June 1684.