WEBVTT NOTE 52. New York, 1676-1686 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Volume 1, Chapter 52, New York, 1676, 1686. 2 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:14.000 Having failed to seize Connecticut in the midst of King Philip's War, 3 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:19.000 Governor Edmund Andros cemented an agreement with the Iroquois 4 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:24.000 to continue the old arrangement they had with the Dutch for the fur trade. 5 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.000 He did this particularly because French Jesuit missionaries from Canada 6 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:36.500 were beginning to dissolve some of the traditional enmity of the Iroquois toward the French. 7 00:00:36.500 --> 00:00:42.240 The furthest white outpost of New York was now Schenectady, a Dutch hamlet founded over 8 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:49.340 a decade earlier by an agent of Rensselaerwick, the only continuing patron ship which extended 9 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:53.460 over several counties' worth of area around Albany. 10 00:00:53.460 --> 00:01:02.180 To regularize Iroquois relations, Andros created a Board of Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 11 00:01:02.180 --> 00:01:09.220 stationed at Albany. Appointed secretary was a young Scotsman, Robert Livingston, son of 12 00:01:09.220 --> 00:01:15.420 an eminent Presbyterian minister and secretary of the manor of Rensselaerwick, as well as 13 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:22.300 of the town of Albany. Albany's vital importance for the fur trade stemmed from its locus at 14 00:01:22.300 --> 00:01:29.020 The junction of the Hudson and the Mohawk rivers. The Mohawk provided the opening to the west, 15 00:01:29.020 --> 00:01:35.660 along which the Iroquois could serve as middlemen by purchasing the furs of the Indian tribes 16 00:01:35.660 --> 00:01:41.980 of the middle west and reselling them to the Dutch or English who would transport them 17 00:01:41.980 --> 00:01:48.580 down the Hudson overseas. The most important citizens of Albany, even 18 00:01:48.580 --> 00:01:55.480 Even after the English reconquest continued to be the Dutch Handlers, the merchants engaged 19 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:57.540 in fur trading. 20 00:01:57.540 --> 00:02:03.480 The fur trade was crucial to the economy of the northern colonies in this era, and fur 21 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:09.420 traders were always attempting to opt out of the shifting winds of free competition 22 00:02:09.420 --> 00:02:15.700 by obtaining exclusive monopoly privileges for themselves from the government. 23 00:02:15.700 --> 00:02:22.540 Mr. Andros proved amenable to granting monopolies. In the summer of 1678, he granted a monopoly 24 00:02:22.540 --> 00:02:28.740 of the fur trade to the resident merchants of Albany, reserving the monopoly of the overseas 25 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:35.180 trade for the merchants of New York City. The privileged monopolist, or oligopolist, 26 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:42.060 of Albany were, of course, not happy about having to sell their furs to a similarly privileged 27 00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:49.160 set of oligopolists, here defined as several receivers of common grants of exclusive privilege. 28 00:02:49.160 --> 00:02:56.620 The twenty-odd Albany Handlers, however, did manage to get rid of Timothy Cooper, an Albany 29 00:02:56.620 --> 00:03:03.900 agent for the manorial ruler of Springfield, Massachusetts, John Pynchon. Cooper's private 30 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:09.160 mail was purloined by the Albany magistrates, and on the strength of critical statements 31 00:03:09.160 --> 00:03:16.160 In the same year, Andros took the highly significant step of establishing a monopoly of the important export commodity flour. 32 00:03:16.160 --> 00:03:27.160 By 1680, all bolting and packaging of flour was reserved exclusively to resident merchants of New York City, who also had to be freemen of that city. 33 00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:32.160 This flour monopoly brought about a great deal of money. 34 00:03:32.160 --> 00:04:02.160 This flower monopoly brought in much revenue to the crown. The monopolist paid for the privilege in the form of inspection fees, taxes, and so forth, but it rightly embittered the merchants outside the city who were grievously injured, and the wheat farmers of New York, who saw their prices fall sharply as their market was greatly narrowed to a few privileged people. 35 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:19.160 The result was the crushing of the successful flour mills already established at such spots as Rensselaerwick, Albany and Kingston, the last town barely escaping fines to punish the vigor of its protest. 36 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:30.160 The wheat and other grain farmers were further malted by an absolute prohibition on the export of grain in force since 1673. 37 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:36.640 1973. This ban greatly depressed the price of wheat earned by the farmer while privileging 38 00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:41.680 the New York merchants with an artificial cheap cost for the grain purchased. Grain 39 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:46.880 prices were further lowered artificially by prohibiting the distilling of liquor in New 40 00:04:46.880 --> 00:04:53.480 York, thus shutting off an important market for local grain. This prohibition privileged 41 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:59.720 the New York City merchants again by lowering the cost of grain and by choking off the effective 42 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:26.720 The Duke of York ordered Andros to set up a port monopoly for New York City. All ships bound for any port within the original territory of New Netherland were now compelled to enter their goods at the New York Customs House. 43 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:43.720 This provided the crown, with assured customs revenue, at a port it could easily watch, and furnished much extra income for the privileged merchants, but again at the expense of greatly crippling trade at such places as Long Island. 44 00:05:43.720 --> 00:06:07.720 The settlers of Suffolk County on eastern Long Island, long accustomed to exchanging their whale oil for the manufactured goods of New England, were now forced into the extra cost of transporting these goods via the long detour of New York City and of paying there the customs duties that they could have avoided at Long Island. 45 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:20.720 With all these monopolistic privileges granted to the New York City merchants by the government, it is not surprising that their profits often range from 100 to several hundred percent. 46 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:27.720 The network of monopoly privilege also tightened in all the several towns of New York province. 47 00:06:27.720 --> 00:06:36.720 Each town and village government laid down severe restrictions against competition from outside its locale or from non-resident visitors. 48 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:47.720 Only qualified freemen of each town enjoyed the freedom of the town, including the right to carry on a trade or craft without hindrance or harassment. 49 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:57.720 Thus, the bakers of Albany pushed through an ordinance forbidding any transients to bake in the city, and a special tax was levied on seasonal visitors. 50 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:08.720 and even the relatively liberal town of Huntington forbade any person of any other town upon this island to wail or fish within its jurisdiction. 51 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:17.720 A particularly important urban monopoly had been granted in the days of New Netherland to the carters of New York City. 52 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:26.720 Historians have erroneously termed the carters workers in the sense of modern employees, but they were not at all proletarians. 53 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:40.720 They were, rather, self-employed artisans who sold their wares to the public, therefore monopoly privileges made them, in effect, virtually medieval and mercantilistic guilds. 54 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:48.720 The very creation of the monopoly introduced a conflict of interest between the privileged carters and the rest of the colony. 55 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:55.320 The Carters exploited their monopoly fully by working less and charging more, whereas 56 00:07:55.320 --> 00:08:01.440 the colony balked at the obvious shortage of carting service created by the privilege. 57 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:06.440 During the Dutch Reoccupation, the Carters complained that non-licensed men and boys 58 00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:12.500 were engaged in trucking, that is, taking advantage of the attractive Monopoly 1 conditions, 59 00:08:12.500 --> 00:08:16.040 as well as of the shortage to enter the field. 60 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:21.200 The court obligingly ordered these boys not to ride a cart anymore. 61 00:08:21.200 --> 00:08:29.240 Negroes, free or slave, had long been prohibited from becoming carters, but in 1674, Governor 62 00:08:29.240 --> 00:08:35.280 Andros suspended the right to cart for one carter who refused to haul cobblestones for 63 00:08:35.280 --> 00:08:36.280 the governor. 64 00:08:36.280 --> 00:08:41.720 Two years later, the city decreed minimum loads that the licensed carters would be forced 65 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:42.720 to carry. 66 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:58.720 In 1677, twelve New York City carters were expelled from their occupation, and heavily fined, whereupon the carters submitted and promised not to disobey again. The carters thus found that a monopoly privilege could cut both ways. 67 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:10.720 In addition to imposing monopoly privileges and crippling Long Island trade, Andros also offended the Dutch citizens by partiality to Anglican practice. 68 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:27.720 In 1676, Reverend Nicholas van Rensselaer, a protege of King Charles and the Duke of York, came to New York to take up his holdings at Rensselaerwick, the only Dutch patron ship that had withstood the rigors of the year. 69 00:09:27.720 --> 00:09:47.720 Although Van Rensselaer had been ordained by an Anglican bishop and not by the ruling classes of Amsterdam of the Dutch Reformed Church, Governor Ambrose still had the effrontery to appoint Van Rensselaer to the pastoral ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church at Albany. 70 00:09:47.720 --> 00:10:04.720 The Reverend Mr. Van Nieuwenhuisen of New York City protested vigorously and was joined by the young Dutch reformed merchant who had emigrated from Germany, Jacob Leisler, whose wife was related to the leading Dutch families of the colony. 71 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:15.720 Leisler accused Van Rensselaer of false preaching, but the court found for the patron, and Leisler was forced to pay court costs and imprisoned for a time. 72 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:22.040 Soon, Andros moved in to compel the virtual separation of the Dutch Reformed Church in 73 00:10:22.040 --> 00:10:29.800 New York from its connection with the classes of Amsterdam. In 1678, the Dutch Church in 74 00:10:29.800 --> 00:10:35.920 Newcastle on the Delaware appointed a young minister and asked for his ordination without 75 00:10:35.920 --> 00:10:43.600 having to send him to Amsterdam. At this point, Andros saw his opportunity and ordered Van 76 00:10:43.600 --> 00:11:09.920 A corollary to the economic tyranny imposed by the Andros regime was the placing of political 77 00:11:09.920 --> 00:11:16.920 public office generally provides a two-fold economic privilege for its holder, the salary, directly attendant on the job, and the additional economic benefits from wielding the powers of office. Generally, both sets of powers are used to the full by the rulers. 78 00:11:39.920 --> 00:11:48.080 From 1664 to 1689, for example, only twenty-one men held office in the appointed governor's 79 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:54.440 council. Of these, ten were wealthy merchants of New York City, basking in the monopoly 80 00:11:54.440 --> 00:12:00.680 privileges they helped to award themselves. Two were wealthy lawyers of the city connected 81 00:12:00.680 --> 00:12:08.520 with the merchants, and four were high English officials in the bureaucracy. A major economic 82 00:12:08.520 --> 00:12:15.400 Grievance was Andros's imposition of a mass of higher taxes shortly after assuming power 83 00:12:15.400 --> 00:12:21.480 in New York. This included not only the quit rents, property and excise taxes mentioned 84 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:30.480 above, but also a 2% import duty on English goods, a 10% import duty on non-English goods, 85 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:39.840 A 3% duty on salt, specific import duties on fur, tobacco and liquor, and an added 3% 86 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:43.680 duty on goods traveling up the Hudson River. 87 00:12:43.680 --> 00:12:49.520 Added to the New York port monopoly, this was a formidable grievance indeed. 88 00:12:49.520 --> 00:12:58.680 The reimposition in 1679 of the excise tax on liquor, which was canceled in 1676, also 89 00:12:58.680 --> 00:13:05.400 added to opposition to the tax levies. The economic, political and religious grievances 90 00:13:05.400 --> 00:13:12.640 all intensified the New Yorkers' long-standing demand for representative assembly, and New 91 00:13:12.640 --> 00:13:17.800 Yorkers were painfully conscious of the fact that theirs was the only English colony in 92 00:13:17.800 --> 00:13:23.400 America lacking such an assembly. Now the demand had spread from Long Island to the 93 00:13:23.400 --> 00:13:53.400 In 1681 the grievances against the Andros administration came to a head. Numerous charges had piled up against the governor. Twice Andros had been brought into court for appropriating confiscated goods for his own personal use. The court freed him only for lack of jurisdiction. In January, therefore, Andros was recalled to England to answer the charges, which included favoritism, 94 00:13:53.400 --> 00:14:00.120 favoritism in enforcing the Navigation Acts, fraud, private speculation, taxing the people 95 00:14:00.120 --> 00:14:06.160 without their consent and sometimes without the consent of his own counsel, and denial 96 00:14:06.160 --> 00:14:09.280 of the right to jury trial. 97 00:14:09.280 --> 00:14:14.480 There were also charges of favoritism to leading Dutch merchants, particularly the two richest 98 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:20.480 men in the colony, Frederick Phillips and O.S. Van Cortland. 99 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:26.440 The Duke's agent sent to investigate the charges found them true, but Andros still managed 100 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:30.180 to convince the Duke of York of his innocence. 101 00:14:30.180 --> 00:14:34.880 In the meanwhile, however, Andros committed a very costly oversight. 102 00:14:34.880 --> 00:14:41.780 The hated customs duties imposed by Andros had expired in November 1680. 103 00:14:41.780 --> 00:14:48.080 The governor, in the press of preparing for his voyage home, neglected to order them renewed. 104 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:53.940 This was the only opening that the embittered merchants needed. As soon as Andros left, 105 00:14:53.940 --> 00:15:00.860 with Deputy Governor Anthony Brockles remaining in charge, one merchant after another refused 106 00:15:00.860 --> 00:15:06.420 to pay the duties, claiming rather speciously that Brockles had no power to continue them 107 00:15:06.420 --> 00:15:12.600 in force. Brockles himself was inclined to yield the point, even though Andros had told 108 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:18.960 William Dyer, the duke's collector of customs at New York, determined to collect the duties 109 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:24.960 nevertheless. After confiscating goods for non-payment, Dyer was sued by a merchant he 110 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:31.960 had victimized, and a grand jury indicted Dyer for high treason because he assumed regal 111 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:36.960 power over the state of New York. The court ruled that Dyer was not allowed to take the 112 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:41.880 and a grand jury indicted Dyer for high treason because he assumed 113 00:15:41.880 --> 00:15:46.300 regal power and authority by imposing taxes illegally. 114 00:15:46.300 --> 00:15:50.840 Even before Andros' departure, the mayor's court simply and illegally 115 00:15:50.840 --> 00:15:53.160 refused to try a smuggler 116 00:15:53.160 --> 00:15:57.120 and Andros had disciplined that body. 117 00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:01.840 When Dyer challenged the jurisdiction of the court of Assisi's, the court shipped him 118 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:04.480 to England to stand trial for treason, 119 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:10.680 where he was, of course, promptly freed. Dyer might be freed, but he was at least temporarily 120 00:16:10.680 --> 00:16:16.200 out of the country, and the citizens of New York for a while had successfully revolted 121 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:22.460 against payment of the oppressive duties. The revolutionary impetus now pressed on to 122 00:16:22.460 --> 00:16:30.100 a clamor for a representative assembly. The old principle of no taxation without representation 123 00:16:30.100 --> 00:16:35.520 was put forward again. A mass petition was sent to the Duke of York, declaring the lack 124 00:16:35.520 --> 00:16:42.520 of an assembly and intolerable grievance. All this pressure, loss of revenue, turmoil 125 00:16:43.060 --> 00:16:50.060 and virtual rebellion now had its impact. It began to weary the Duke. 126 00:16:50.540 --> 00:16:55.660 Advised by his Quaker friend William Penn to grant New York an assembly, just give itself 127 00:16:55.660 --> 00:17:11.660 The Duke at last agreed. The Duke retired Governor Andros and replaced him with Colonel Thomas Dongan, an Irish Catholic, with instructions to institute an assembly. 128 00:17:11.660 --> 00:17:22.660 Dongan promptly convened the first representative assembly in New York history in October 1683 to the jubilation of the New Yorkers. 129 00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:29.720 The Assembly had the power to levy taxes, though not to appropriate them, and its legislative 130 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:36.060 acts were subject to the veto of the Governor, Council and the ultimate veto of the Proprietor. 131 00:17:36.060 --> 00:17:41.660 Moreover, the power to convoke and dissolve the Assembly was strictly in the hands of 132 00:17:41.660 --> 00:17:43.200 the Governor. 133 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:49.680 The Assembly consisted of deputies from New York City, Long Island, Kings, Queens and 134 00:17:49.680 --> 00:18:19.680 The Assembly drew up a charter, which it eagerly sent to the Duke of York for approval, and which provided for regular meetings of the Assembly, trial by jury, due process of law, and the right of habeas 135 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:26.680 Corpus, Restriction of Martial Law and Religious Toleration of All Christians. 136 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:34.000 But the New Yorkers were to find, once again, that the parable of being chastised with whips 137 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:39.360 and then with scorpions could apply particularly well to them. 138 00:18:39.360 --> 00:18:46.080 For one thing, the assembly met only once more the following fall, with the exception 139 00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:53.080 The Excession of James II greatly changed New York's status. In the first place, with New York's proprietor, now the king, it automatically was transformed from a proprietor to an agent. 140 00:19:16.080 --> 00:19:46.080 and, second, the interest of James in the Colony was now revived with a vengeance. As King, he moved steadily toward imposing a highly centralized royal despotism on all the northern colonies. The separate charter for New York was now revoked, and Dongan ordered it voided in 1686. Furthermore, Dongan decreed that the taxing power was to be given to the rich. 141 00:19:46.080 --> 00:19:50.780 was from then on to be lodged in the Governor and Council. 142 00:19:50.780 --> 00:19:57.080 The most precious power of any assembly, taxing power, was now taken away. 143 00:19:57.080 --> 00:20:04.440 In January 1687, Dongan officially dissolved the assembly, which had not met in over a 144 00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:05.440 year. 145 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:12.040 In protest against this crushing of the stillborn assembly, the militia of Richmond revolted, 146 00:20:12.040 --> 00:20:14.680 and rioting occurred in Jamaica. 147 00:20:14.680 --> 00:20:18.160 Both protests were quickly suppressed. 148 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:24.680 Apart from the plans of James II and the abortiveness of the assembly, the Dongan administration 149 00:20:24.680 --> 00:20:29.120 proved no great improvement over that of Andros. 150 00:20:29.120 --> 00:20:34.100 In the first place, the various oppressive tendencies of the Andros' regime were continued 151 00:20:34.100 --> 00:20:35.240 in force. 152 00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:42.060 Dongan continued the embargoes on the export of grain in the various monopolies and tightened 153 00:20:42.060 --> 00:20:45.340 The Albany Monopoly of the Fur Trade 154 00:20:45.340 --> 00:20:50.860 Dongan severely tightened the New York City's flower monopoly as well. 155 00:20:50.860 --> 00:20:54.100 When flower makers sprang up outside New York City and 156 00:20:54.100 --> 00:20:56.380 evaded the legal prohibition, 157 00:20:56.380 --> 00:21:01.500 Dongan in 1683 instructed the sheriffs to seize and confiscate 158 00:21:01.500 --> 00:21:05.580 all flower bolted or packed outside the city. 159 00:21:05.580 --> 00:21:09.520 In addition, Dongan added to the exploitation of other groups for the 160 00:21:09.520 --> 00:21:16.080 the benefit of the city merchants by prohibiting tanneries in New York. This forced the cattle 161 00:21:16.080 --> 00:21:23.080 farmers to sell hides to the merchants for export to tanneries. This created extra business 162 00:21:24.300 --> 00:21:29.820 for the merchants at the expense of both the farmers who suffered from the restriction 163 00:21:29.820 --> 00:21:36.820 of their market and the shoemakers who now had to pay a higher price for imported leather. 164 00:21:36.820 --> 00:21:45.820 The result of the continuing governmental oppression of the grain farmers was a one third fall in the price of wheat. 165 00:21:45.820 --> 00:21:56.820 Priced at four shillings, six pence per bushel in 1673, wheat by 1688 had fallen to three shillings a bushel. 166 00:21:56.820 --> 00:22:01.820 This caused a corollary fall in land values in New York. 167 00:22:01.820 --> 00:22:12.820 of New York. Total value of property fell from £101,000 in 1673 to £78,000 in 1688. 168 00:22:12.820 --> 00:22:18.740 The struggle with the carting monopoly continued. Dongan forced the carters to carry over a 169 00:22:18.740 --> 00:22:24.620 hundred loads annually to the fort without compensation. When the carters refused to 170 00:22:24.620 --> 00:22:32.020 To work under Dongan's regulations in 1684, the authorities decided to allow anyone to 171 00:22:32.020 --> 00:22:39.740 enter the trade except the disobeying carters. This double-barreled blow quickly forced the 172 00:22:39.740 --> 00:22:46.580 carters to obey the government decrees. For a short while, Governor Dongan did lessen 173 00:22:46.580 --> 00:22:53.860 the New York City port monopoly a trifle. The Long Island towns were granted port privileges, 174 00:22:53.860 --> 00:23:01.180 but only with those ships posting a 100-pound bond against engaging in smuggling and with 175 00:23:01.180 --> 00:23:08.820 revenue officials stationed on Long Island to enforce the various trade and customs regulations. 176 00:23:08.820 --> 00:23:14.860 The Long Islanders complained, however, of the revenue officers and the high duties while 177 00:23:14.860 --> 00:23:20.860 Dongan chafed at continued smuggling in violation of the Navigation Acts. 178 00:23:20.860 --> 00:23:28.820 By 1688, Dongan had again closed the Long Island ports. One monopoly was relaxed, however, 179 00:23:28.820 --> 00:23:35.940 with the accession of Dongan. New York merchants, in contrast to the New York port, lost their 180 00:23:35.940 --> 00:23:41.700 monopoly of the overseas trade. In addition, New York was still prohibited from trading 181 00:23:41.700 --> 00:23:49.100 with Holland. Dutch discontent continued. The Albany Dutch Reformed Church became the 182 00:23:49.100 --> 00:23:53.100 The Center of Complaint Against Government Interference 183 00:23:53.100 --> 00:24:03.100 In 1684, this church petitioned for permission to select a few of its minor officials rather than have the civil government making the appointments. 184 00:24:03.100 --> 00:24:06.100 The request was refused. 185 00:24:06.100 --> 00:24:18.100 The following year, the Dutch minister of the Albany Church refused to be ousted from his post by a civil court on the grounds that this decision could only be made by the Amsterdam classes. 186 00:24:18.100 --> 00:24:23.880 But Governor Dongan did not simply follow in his predecessor's footsteps. He added more 187 00:24:23.880 --> 00:24:29.380 oppressions and grievances of his own. Most important was his determined drive for the 188 00:24:29.380 --> 00:24:36.020 imposition of quitterance. As soon as he arrived, Dongan decreed the compulsory reconfirmation 189 00:24:36.020 --> 00:24:42.260 of all land titles, including all confirmed previously by Andros, and the use of these 190 00:24:42.260 --> 00:24:50.660 Land Rolls to Exact Higher Quit Rents, out of which Dongan himself received a commission. 191 00:24:50.660 --> 00:24:56.460 Meeting with considerable resistance, Dongan threatened to buy from the Indians all land 192 00:24:56.460 --> 00:25:03.500 within existing townships not yet so purchased and to resell the lands to strangers. 193 00:25:03.500 --> 00:25:07.780 The towns surrendered to this threat, but only with bitterness. 194 00:25:07.780 --> 00:25:37.780 In East Hampton, a Puritan minister was moved to curse anyone, even the governor, who dared to injure settlers by removing their land markers. Dongan promptly arrested the minister and several of his congregation, and only a humble apology won their liberty. Huntington felt it necessary to assure renewal of his position. 195 00:25:37.780 --> 00:25:45.260 of its patents, so made Dongan a gift of land, which the governor cheerfully accepted. Dongan 196 00:25:45.260 --> 00:25:51.420 generally insisted on personal fees for the re-granting of land titles and town patents. 197 00:25:51.420 --> 00:25:56.900 For granting a town charter, the governor exacted 300 pounds from New York City and 198 00:25:56.900 --> 00:26:03.260 also mulched at Albany for a similar service. But even while granting a modicum of self-rule 199 00:26:03.260 --> 00:26:09.580 Also to New York City, Dongan's charter provided for a veto of municipal actions by the governor 200 00:26:09.580 --> 00:26:15.300 and the council, and for the appointment of the mayor by the governor. Dongan was also 201 00:26:15.300 --> 00:26:21.700 accused with some justification of aiding his friends in evading the navigation acts, 202 00:26:21.700 --> 00:26:27.060 of forcing merchants into giving him a share of their enterprises, and of selling land 203 00:26:27.060 --> 00:26:29.060 to his friends. 204 00:26:29.060 --> 00:26:36.180 Dongan not only raised quick rents, but added further injury to a declining economy by increasing 205 00:26:36.180 --> 00:26:43.920 taxation, even though he himself recognized taxation as one of the reasons for New York's 206 00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:46.260 economic decline. 207 00:26:46.260 --> 00:26:51.500 When I come to New York to impose another tax on the people, I am afraid they will desert 208 00:26:51.500 --> 00:26:53.500 the province. 209 00:26:53.500 --> 00:26:59.980 Dongan embarked on a program of tampering with the land that had a long-run impact far more 210 00:26:59.980 --> 00:27:06.520 severe than any of his other policies. The Dutch attempt to engross the land of New York 211 00:27:06.520 --> 00:27:13.500 under a feudal landholding aristocracy had failed. Of all the Patroonships, only the 212 00:27:13.500 --> 00:27:21.580 vast Rensselaerwick had survived. Now Governor Dongan revived the policy of feudal handouts 213 00:27:21.580 --> 00:27:29.980 of Unused Land to Privileged Grantees. Dongan literally created a privileged class of large 214 00:27:29.980 --> 00:27:37.820 quasi-feudal landholders by erecting numerous manors and by other large land grants. Here 215 00:27:37.820 --> 00:27:43.920 was the origin of the long alliance in New York between two privileged ruling castes, 216 00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:51.260 the Royal Bureaucracy and the Great Land Holding Oligarchy, which came to include such old merchant 217 00:27:51.260 --> 00:28:14.260 and here was the beginning of a policy that fastened feudal landholding onto New York for a far longer period than transpired in the other colonies where after a short time feudalistic landholding tended to dissolve into the hands of actual settlers. 218 00:28:14.260 --> 00:28:30.260 The million-acre Rensselaerwick surrounding Albany was reconfirmed as a manor by Dongan in 1685 with the Lord of the Manor obtaining virtually the full feudal powers of the Durham, the Latinate type. 219 00:28:30.260 --> 00:28:38.340 The Manor Lord could appoint manorial courts and impose military burdens. This grant could 220 00:28:38.340 --> 00:28:44.900 be made because the Duke of York decided not to apply the English anti-feudal statutes 221 00:28:44.900 --> 00:28:53.760 of 1660 to his province. The largest new manor created was Livingston Manor, given to the 222 00:28:53.760 --> 00:28:59.240 The ambitious young Scot, Robert Livingston, who had managed to marry into the leading 223 00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:06.400 Schuller, Van Rensselaer and Van Cortland families, Livingston based his claim upon 224 00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:12.840 a fraudulent Indian purchase. After the manner of the day, the location of the purchased 225 00:29:12.840 --> 00:29:20.880 land was kept deliberately vague in the contract, enabling the owner, aided by a friendly governor, 226 00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:27.600 to stretch his land enormously by suitably elastic interpretation of the land area. 227 00:29:27.600 --> 00:29:34.600 In this way, Livingston was able to inflate his manor from 26,000 acres to 160,000 acres, 228 00:29:38.440 --> 00:29:43.800 constituting the southern third of what is now Columbia County. Van Rensselaer was also 229 00:29:43.800 --> 00:29:50.800 able to add nearly 300,000 acres to his manor by similar fraudulent methods. 230 00:29:50.880 --> 00:29:57.880 An excellent extension of an Indian purchase, aided and abetted by the governor. 231 00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:05.880 Another new element of friction, largely introduced by the Dongan administration, was the Roman Catholic issue. 232 00:30:05.880 --> 00:30:14.880 James II was a Catholic king, and this in itself was sufficient to raise the hackles of the ardent English and Dutch Calvinist of New York. 233 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:19.880 At the same time, Roman Catholic influence was growing in the colony. 234 00:30:19.880 --> 00:30:28.880 The acting governor, Anthony Brockles, was a Catholic, as was Dongan, who brought with him several English Jesuits. 235 00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:37.880 The Jesuit order, the great order of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, had always been held in something akin to superstitious fear, 236 00:30:37.880 --> 00:30:46.880 but this was now enhanced in the minds of the colonists by mounting hysteria over the French Jesuit missionaries to the Iroquois. 237 00:30:46.880 --> 00:30:55.240 The emerging anti-Catholic hysteria over the proximity of French Canada, it should be noted, 238 00:30:55.240 --> 00:31:01.320 had also a hard economic basis, the danger of the Iroquois selling their precious furs 239 00:31:01.320 --> 00:31:05.960 to the French instead of to New Yorkers. 240 00:31:05.960 --> 00:31:11.240 There was also much carping over the new Jesuit Latin school in New York, which proved so 241 00:31:11.240 --> 00:31:17.080 So efficient that a great many children of influential New Yorkers were sent there. 242 00:31:17.080 --> 00:31:23.480 Here too a Catholic plot could be sensed, and rather easily in the area of the Titus 243 00:31:23.480 --> 00:31:30.160 Oats hoax and the resumption of French Catholic persecution of the Huguenots. 244 00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:35.840 And yet so far was Dongan from being involved in a vast Catholic plot that he took it upon 245 00:31:35.840 --> 00:32:05.840 Langen did his best to save the fur trade monopoly and to gain new crown territory by whipping up Indian hatred of, far less populous, New France to the north. Neither did the considerable relative weakness of New France prevent a spread of anti-catholicism, vague but intense fears of a French fifth column of subversive power. 246 00:32:05.840 --> 00:32:08.400 of French Agents, and so forth. 247 00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:15.040 Dungen's tactic in pursuing his designs against the French was to look on benignly while the 248 00:32:15.040 --> 00:32:23.440 Iroquois plundered and ravaged French settlements, and then warned that the Iroquois were British 249 00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:29.560 subjects and their land in New York territory under British protection. 250 00:32:29.560 --> 00:32:36.340 So far did Dongan's Catholicism not influence his behavior toward the French that he tried 251 00:32:36.340 --> 00:32:41.980 to send English and Irish priests to the Iroquois to counter the missionary efforts of French 252 00:32:41.980 --> 00:32:48.540 Jesuits, but to no avail, for the English and Irish priests refused to go into the wilderness 253 00:32:48.540 --> 00:32:51.240 to live with the Indians. 254 00:32:51.240 --> 00:32:58.500 In November 1686, France and England signed a Treaty of Neutrality in London. The treaty 255 00:32:58.500 --> 00:33:03.820 We provided for peace in America and each signatory agreed that neither country would 256 00:33:03.820 --> 00:33:10.180 violate the territories of the other, even if war should break out between them and Europe. 257 00:33:10.180 --> 00:33:15.340 Doubtless the French thought that this would put a stop to Dongan's antics in Iroquois 258 00:33:15.340 --> 00:33:22.140 country and New France proceeded to send an expedition against the Iroquois. But Dongan, 259 00:33:22.140 --> 00:33:27.700 careless of the treaty, countered this by supplying arms and ammunition to the Iroquois 260 00:33:27.700 --> 00:33:34.100 and stimulating them to attack the French. The Indians responded by ravaging and destroying 261 00:33:34.100 --> 00:33:40.940 French settlements in Canada. Louis XIV naturally complained to King James and asked him to 262 00:33:40.940 --> 00:33:47.340 stop Dongan's aggressions. James, however, was influenced by Dongan's pointed reference 263 00:33:47.340 --> 00:33:54.340 to the value of the Iroquois beaver trade and also claimed the Iroquois as English subjects.