Mercantilism, Navigation Acts, and the Dominion of New England

Jun 29, 2010
James Rupp

: Seal of the Dominion of New England - Wiki

Edmund Andros, Mercantilism, the Navigation Acts, and taxation without representation made The Dominion of New England intolerable to the English colonies.

King James II imposed The Dominion of New England upon the British colonies in America in 1686, just after England revoked the Charter for Massachusetts Bay, which act disestablished the New England Confederation.

Puritan moderates as well as the merely nominal Puritans in Massachusetts and elsewhere were little bothered by the Dominion of New England, but the more staunch Puritans, who commanded the greatest political power, resented the Dominion of New England from inception. Although Connecticut’s distaste for the Dominion was strong, Massachusetts felt particularly oppressed. The Charter of Massachusetts Bay had permitted wide powers of self-rule; John Quincy Adams notes that the forward-looking New England Confederation was the “model and prototype of the Confederacy of 1774.” The colonists thought that the Dominion of New England robbed them of the autonomy they had enjoyed since first feeling American sand.

Distinctly different from prior unifying agreements, the Dominion of New England was a reactionary maneuver, an attempt by the King to rest the reins from his subjects. The King’s intent for the Dominion of New England was not, however, as sinister as suggested by Massachusetts’ more extreme Puritans. It provided military assistance for the colonies, something they needed following the dissolution of the New England Confederation. The New England colonies, as well as New York and New Jersey (which were part of the Dominion) remained vulnerable to attacks from the Native Americans and French.

The colonies appreciated the military assistance, but increasingly resented the yoke of Royal political and, perhaps more importantly, economic control.

Mercantilism, the Navigation Acts, and Taxation

British Mercantilism was in its prime. Mercantilism, in fact, justified the expense and very existence of distant colonies. If successful, the colonies would supply raw materials at low prices to England, where goods could be finished and profitably exported, often straight back to England’s favorite captive consumers, her colonies.

The Navigation Acts provided, from the British perspective, an enforceable legal structure to mercantilist theory. The Navigation Acts imposed restrictions on colonial merchandise and trading activity, dictating what could be sold, and to whom, and how much England could collect in fees and taxes on the transaction. Tobacco, sugar, and indigo, for instance, could only be sold within the British Empire. New England bristled at such restrictions but, at first, appeared to comply with the law. For a time, the colonists tolerated a compromised capitalism.

Increasingly, however, the colonies disregarded the Navigation Acts, finding better business opportunities in activities the Acts prohibited. Piracy and smuggling were widespread throughout New England ports, totally tax and duty-free. Although it would take quite some time before the issue ramped to its boiling point, even in the 1680s, the colonists' anger had begun to flare over their status as taxpayers without Parliamentary representation.

Establishing the Dominion

England needed to provide military protection for its mercantile interests in America and, simultaneously, police the upstart colonies’ disrespect for the Navigation Acts. Each time the colonies ignored the Navigation Acts, they took money from the King’s wallet. To solve these problems, King James II revoked the charters of the individual colonies and established the consolidated Dominion of New England, ruled by the King’s Lords and a colonial appointee, who would act as Governor in Chief. Sir Edmund Andros was in charge during most of the tenure of the Dominion.

In heavy-handed style, Edmund Andros enforced a system that revoked virtually all rights to self-rule the colonists had come to expect. With the aid of a small council, Edmund Andros meted justice by riding circuit throughout his jurisdiction, enforcing laws written for the colonies by the King's cabinet, or by Andros himself.

Edmund Andros was empowered by King James II to:

censor the press
restrict travel
repeal most voting rights
annul all titles to land
raise taxes and levy new tariffs

Edmund Andros, Governor in Chief

Although Joseph Dudley was the first Dominion governor, Edmund Andros was its most culpable leader. Apologists suggest that Andros was a straightforward man who took his job description seriously; the typical prominent Boston Puritan, however, saw Edmund Andros as an obnoxious, shortsighted, ham-fisted despot. Moore notes that Edmund Andros “held his first Council, and commenced with fair professions; but soon violated them, and proved himself a fit and willing instrument of tyranny.”

Nathanial Byfield’s 1689 pamphlet, "An Account of the Late Revolutions in New England," describes the Andros regime:

"Care was taken to load Preferment upon such Men as were strangers to, and haters of the People. Nor could a small Volume contain the Illegalities done by these Horse-Leeches in the two or three Years that they have been sucking of us; and what Laws they made it was as impossible for us to know, as dangerous for us to break.

“It was now plainly affirmed that the people in New England were all Slaves. Persons who did but peaceably object against the raising of Taxes without an Assembly, have been for it fined, without a Jury. Some have been kept in Imprisonment.

“Because these things could not make us miserable fast enough, there was a notable Discovery made of a flaw in all our Titles to our Lands, and besides what Wrong hath been done in our Civil Concerns, the Churches everywhere have seen our Sacred Concerns apace going after them.”

Cleary intolerable within the Puritan value system, the Dominion of New England was overthrown shortly after Boston heard of the Glorious Revolution in 1689. Officials arrested Edmund Andros. They shipped him back to England. Thereafter, England adopted a stance of “salutary neglect,” during which issues such as those that infuriated Massachusetts Puritans during the brief span of the Dominion of New England persistently simmered until they boiled over, steeping Boston tea.