Glen
Moderator
Your AH challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to find a way for the Dominion of New England, founded on June 3rd, 1686, to survive to the present day.
Good luck, alternauts!
Good luck, alternauts!
Your AH challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to find a way for the Dominion of New England, founded on June 3rd, 1686, to survive to the present day.
Good luck, alternauts!
I could only see it if Charles II doesn't take Joseph Dudley's advice to annul the Massachusetts Charter, or Dudley does what he was sent to England to do in the first place and keep the charter from being annulled.
Would definitely need someone better than Edmund Andros as governor. Someone who would rile the people of New England too much.
Weird, I thought I started this thread....I am beginning to be unable to tell the difference between Thande and myself.
Anyway, I think there may be a chance if the first Governor of the Dominion of New England is Thomas Dongan. More later....
wikipedia said:James, Duke of York, who had served as a fellow officer of Dongan's in French army, arranged to have him granted a pension and high-ranking commission in the army and designated for service in Flanders. That same year, he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Tangiers. In 1682, James, who had become the Lord Proprietor of the Province of New York after it was acquired from the Dutch, appointed Dongan as provincial governor (1684-1688) and granted him an estate on Staten Island. The stone farmhouse was called Christopher House. The estate eventually became the town of Castleton; later, another section of the island was named Dongan Hills in honor of Dongan. He was replaced as Governor by Francis Nicholson.
At the time of his appointment, the province was bankrupt and in a state of rebellion caused by the mismanagement of the previous governor. Dongan was able to restore order and stability through tactful means. On October 14, 1683, he convened the first-ever representative assembly in New York history, which convened at Fort James.
The Duke of York signed and sealed the Charter 4 Oct., 1684; but never returned it, probably for reasons of prudence, for at the time Charles II had, by a quo warranto proceeding, abolished the Charters of New England, and the Charter of Pennsylvania granted in 1684 distinctly admits the right of Parliament to tax the colonies.
At the death of Charles II, 1685, James Duke of York was proclaimed king, and New York became a royal province.
The Board of Trade and Plantations, under whose supervision the province passed, vetoed the Charter of Liberties and James approved the veto. The colonists were disappointed, but such was the moral strength of Governor Dongan that we find no trace of popular resentment.
And from this site by Andrew CusackIn 1685 Dongan established a post office in New York for the better correspondence of the colonies in America.
It was in 1682 that James, Duke of York, as Lord Proprietor of New York, appointed Thomas Dongan to govern the bankrupt colony. “In this office,” the Catholic Encyclopedia says, “Dongan proved himself an able lawgiver, and left an indelible mark on political and constitutional history.” He convened the first representative assembly of the Province in 1683, which enacted the Charter of Liberties enunciating the form of government in New York. The Duke of York’s supreme legislative power as Lord Proprietor would reside in a governor, council, and general assembly. Members of the assembly were conferred rights and privileges making their august legislature coequal to and independent of Parliament. Courts of justice were established, liberty of conscience regarding religion was declared, and the principle of no taxation without representation was affirmed. Dongan signed the Charter of Liberties on 30 October 1683, and solemnly proclaimed it the next day at the Stadt Huys, New York’s city hall.
“Thus to Dongan’s term as governor,” quoth the Encyclopedia, “can be dated the Magna Charta of American constitutional liberties, for his system of government became the programme of continuous political agitation by the colonists of New York Province during the eighteenth century. It developed naturally into the present state government, and many of its principles passed into the framework of the Federal Government. Moreover, a rare tribute to his genius, the government imposed by him on New York Province, 1683, was adopted by England after the American War of Independence as the framework of her colonial policy, and constitutes the present [1909] form of government in Canada, Australia, and the Transvaal.”
The peace and harmony of the Province was furthered in 1684 when Dongan, in the presence of Lord Howard, the Governor of Virginia, received the voluntary submission of the Iroquois confederacy to “the Great Sachem Charles”. The following year saw the death of Charles II and the ascent of the Lord Proprietor, James, Duke of York, to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In that year of 1685, Dongan established a Post Office to strengthen communications within his colony and between all the English colonies in America. In the next year, 1686, the Governor granted civic charters to New York and Albany. Dongan’s charter for the City of New York lasted 135 years, while that of Albany was only replaced in 1870. Avid historians would have been bemused/irritated by Archdiocese’s celebration just a few years ago of the two-hundredth anniversary of Catholic education in New York. This would be because New York’s first Catholic school was not in the 1800’s during the republic’s early years but in the 1680’s when Governor Dongan established a college (in the secondary sense) under the guidance of three Jesuit priests, one of whom was his own private chaplain.
The tribute of history to his personal charm, his integrity, and character, is outspoken and universal. His public papers give evidence of a keen mind and a sense of humour. He was a man of courage, tact, and capacity, an able diplomat, and a statesman of prudence and remarkable foresight. In spite of the brief term of five years as Governor of New York Province, by virtue of the magnitude, of the enduring and far-reaching character of his achievements, he stands forth as one of the greatest constructive statesmen ever sent out by England for the government of any of her American colonial possessions.
I was wondering where this had gotten to....need to bring in my stuff from Thande's thread over here.