WI: An Stronger New England Confederation

[Historico]

The New England Confederation, union for “mutual safety and welfare” formed in 1643 by representatives of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. They met in Boston and adopted a written constitution binding the colonies in a league as “The United Colonies of New England.” The chief purpose of the league was coordination of defense and the settlement of boundary disputes; the internal affairs of each colony were to be left to its own management. The first experiment in federation in America, the league was based upon compromise. Its chief weaknesses lay in the inability of the commissioners to do much more than advise and in the petty rivalries among the colonies. Massachusetts Bay, having by far the largest population, had to furnish more fighting men and taxes than any other colony and felt aggrieved at not having more power in the confederation. In 1653, Massachusetts Bay flatly refused to undertake the war against the Dutch that the confederation planned. Maine and the Narragansett Bay settlements (Rhode Island) sought admission to the union but were refused on political and religious grounds. Shortly before New Haven was annexed (1665) to Connecticut, the regulations were changed so that the commissioners would meet once every three years, but the confederation gradually declined. It revived between 1675 and 1676 to undertake its most important task, completely breaking the power of the Native Americans of S New England in King Philip's War. With the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684, the confederation was dissolved.

So What If...Massachusetts Bay did indeep help in the Anglo Dutch War...Would it be enough to turn the tide of the War. Or What If the Confederation annexed Main and Rhode Island? How could we get an Stronger Federallized Puritan State in New England to possible grow and unite the other British Colony against Britain?

[reformer]

Did this confederation have any anti-British policies?

[Othniel]

I wonder, if a New England Confederation included Nova Scotia, New Brunswich, and Upper Canada, and then a French/Indepdant Quebec... and maybe a Penn-Virgina, Carolina-Georgia..... hmmm, I think I need to see a map, but as I see it a NEC will be trade-based and will prefer to trade with anybody equally.... which means they won't like benfitting the Motherland directly... Could see them grow strong and attempt a post- French Indian War innsurrection themselves.

[Bill Cameron]

The N.E. Confederation gets a lot of good press, but in reality it was an abject failure. If you look at it close enough, it was even designed to fail.

The idea sprang from the need for a co-ordinated defense against the local Indian groups. A simple military assistance pact was one thing, but the negotiators tried to add other responsibilities and that's where the Confederation failed.

Among other things, it was hoped that the Confederation would settle boundary claims between the various colonies. That was an impossibility as Massachusetts Bay was the 800lb gorilla of the region; what the Bay wanted, the Bay would get. Massachusetts Bay would eventually swallow the Plymouth colony, would seize and hold onto Maine until 1820, make noise about land it 'owned' in the Old Northwestern Territories, and finally allow the US Supreme Court to settle a boundary dispute with Rhode Island in 1898. It's a stretch to call them a 'Puritan Prussia', but the Bay Colony did feel that New England actually belonged to them and that it would be just a matter of time before the other regional colonies were taken over.

You'll notice that the Confederation fell apart when the Connecticut colony followed Massachusetts Bay's lead and annexed New Haven. Do as we say and not as we do.

Another area where the Confederation failed was that it did not include both Rhode Island and Maine. This was in religious grounds; Rhode Island being a 'Rogue's Island' nest of free thinkers and Maine being Anglican. The Indian threat aside, the so-called 'New England' colonies did not bother to allow two regions of New England to enter their military pact on purely religious grounds. The idiocy behind this becomes apparent when you realize that many of the critical battles of the 1670s 'King Phillip's War' were fought along Narragansett Bay and in southern Rhode Island.

Leaving aside any objections that the Britain of the period may have had, your POD will have to deal with the attitude of the Massachusetts Bay colony. They were not entering into a pact with equals or near equals. They were simply arranging for military co-operation with outlying settlements that had not yet been absorbed into 'real' colony. This attitude is best illustrated by the fact that the few times the Confederation commissioners acted against Massachusett's interests, the colony simply ignored them.


Bill

[Melvin Loh]

Well, WI the threat posed by both the Dutch in New Netherland and the French in New France was more acute than OTL during the 1640s, esp with the latter's Black Robes and COUREURS DE BOIS having a greater impact in inciting the Algonquians to raid and pillage the hell out of both northern and southern NE ? Would these circs have compelled greater pol and mil co-op amongst the varying NE colonies ?