Sir Edmund Andros

The King's Man

Sir Edmund Andros (pronounced Andrews) was a tough, take-charge kind of man.  When he arrived in Boston in 1686, he was determined to make big changes.

At that time, Massachusetts was one of 6 separate colonies in the region of New England.  The other five were Maine, New Hampshire, Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Andros's boss, King James II, believed that these colonies were far too independent of the king's control.  Both Andros and James wanted New England colonists to pay more attention to the king's laws.  They also worried that unless the six colonies were united under one government, they would not be able to defend themselves if an enemy attacked them.

Andros had orders from James II to get rid of the 6 different governments and replace them with one new government called the "Dominion of New England."  To do that, he had to take away each colony's individual charter, the legal document that gave each colony its borders and specified how it would be governed. 

King James revoked, or took back, the charters of Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Hampshire, and Maine before Andros left England.  James gave the new governor authority to set up a united government.  Connecticut and Rhode Island still held their charters, but Andros and one of his officials, Edward Randolph, tried to carry out the king's orders by demanding that the colonies hand them over.  Both colonies eventually joined the Dominion of New England, but Connecticut managed to do so without giving up its charter.

Andros took harsh measures to carry out King James's new laws.  He imposed new taxes.  He tried to take away from property owners the documents called titles that gave them a right to their land.  Those who turned over their titles could not receive new ones unless they promised to pay a fee called a quitrent to King James each year.  Andros refused to allow leaders of towns to meet more than once a year to take care of important business.  He arrested  and fined many leaders who tried to oppose him.

Colonists all over New England hated Sir Edmund Andros.  They looked for an opportunity to get rid of him.  In 1689, they finally got their chance.  News came from England that leaders in Parliament had forced Andros's boss, James II, to leave the throne.  They invited James's Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William to become rulers in James's place.

Andros tried to prevent colonists from spreading the news and rising up against him.  He failed.  On April 18, 1689, colonists in Boston grabbed their guns and took to the streets to demand Andros's resignation.  A prominent preacher, Cotton Mather, read the crowd a statement that called Andros a tyrant, or oppressive ruler.  Mather also said that Andros was a traitor to the new rulers,  William and Mary, and warned that he might try to get French colonists from Canada to attack Massachusetts.

Andros had no intention to betray New England to the French.  He planned to serve William and Mary as faithfully as he believed he had served James II.  In fact, Andros had been a boyhood companion of King William.  He believed that the changes he had made were good for the new rulers and for New England.  William and Mary even intended to send letters ordering the colonists to accept Andros's government, but those orders were delayed.

Still, Andros knew that the angry mob would not listen to him.  He had little choice but to wait in Boston's fort while rebellious colonial leaders went about the city arresting the officials he had appointed.  An old legend says that he eventually disguised himself as a woman and tried sneak out of town, but was arrested when a colonist spotted the heavy boots he was wearing.  In fact, Andros acted much more bravely.  On the afternoon of the April 18 he left the fort and walked through streets lined with armed colonists to Boston's Town Hall, where colonial leaders arrested him.

The New England colonists soon shipped Andros back to England.  There he tried to convince William and Mary and the English authorities that he had done nothing wrong.  He only partly succeeded.  William and Mary gave Massachusetts a new charter that restored many of the colonists' rights.  But the king and queen continued to insist on appointing governors for the colony. 

Andros did persuade the rulers that he was a loyal subject.  King William eventually rewarded his old boyhood playmate by sending him back to America as governor of Virginia.