Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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reign. On August 16, the committee of safety appointed Leisler commander in chief
of the province and dispatched two agents to England to seek validation for the new
government. Meanwhile, two of the Dominion councilors, Nicholas Bayard and Ste-
phanus Van Cortlandt, fled to Albany, where they organized opposition to Leisler’s
government. Leisler dispatched troops to take the city by force, but the expedition
failed when Mohawks who were loyal to the opposition threatened to attack them
on the outskirts of Albany.
Leisler’s agents, particularly the uneducated publican Joo st Stoll, made a poor
impression at court, and Leisler grew impatient waiting for their return. In Decem-
ber 1689, Leisler received an Order in Council addressed to Francis Nicholson or
whomever was administering New York in Nicholson’s absence. Leisler inter-
preted thes e instructions as legi tim izing his gover nment. He claimed the title of
lieutenant governor, dissolved the committe e of safety, formed a new council,
and called for elections to a provincial assembly. This regularization of the rebels’
de facto government was accompanied by a purge of Leisler’s opposition and the
imprisonment of Nicholas Bayard.
By now, anti-Catholicism was fast becoming one of the distinguishing traits of
Leisler’s regime. In February 1690, an allied French and Iroquois force attacked
the frontier settlement of Schenectady, killing 60, taking 27 prisoners, and burning
the settlement to the ground. Leisler responded by imprisoning Catholics and
Catholic sympathizers. He also seized this opportunity to recover his authority over
the co wed residents of Albany by promising to protect them from French aggression.
To do so, he solicited other colonies’ military assistance. On May 1, 1690, delegates
from Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New York met to plan a military
expedition to Quebec; Maryland and Barbados participated by letter. This conven-
tion marked the colonies’ first attempt to plan coordinated military interaction on
their own initiative, rather than under the auspices of the Cro wn.
Leisler’s regime grew steadily mo re unpopular over time. In June 169 0, New
Yorkers learned that William had appointed Nicholson lieutenant governor of
Virginia. Dissidents rioted and attacked Leisler, who soon had to face the failure
of his military campaign to Quebec as well. Leisler responded by briefly imprison-
ing the commander, Fitz-John Winthrop, thereby alienating the English Puritan
settlers on Long Island. The anti-Leislerians were a diverse group, including
James II’s prote
´
ge
´
s (“the Duke’s men”), affluent Dutch merchants who had assimi-
lated to English rule, and commercially oriented English immigrants. All of these
men valued bro ad toleration and individual civil liberties, as outlined in the 1683
charter, and feared Leisler’s authoritarian tendencies. Although Leisler aimed to
establish legislative government in New York, he never made a coherent statement
of his constitutional philosophy and seemed to believe that military authority
trumped individual freedoms.
54 Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691)
Meanwhile, William III, unimpressed by Leisler’s agent s’ presentation of his
case, had appointed Henry Sloughter governor of New York and reinstated Nichol-
son’s council. The first detachment of troops representing Sloughter’s government
arrived in January 1691, under Captain Richard Ingoldesby. Leisler held Ingoldes-
by’s troops at bay for two months, refusing to surrender to anyone other than the
duly appointed governor. When he did at last surrender to the newly arrived
Sloughter on March 20, Sloughter—responding in part to the persuasions of Leis-
ler’s old rival Nicholas Bayard—had him arrested and tried for treason. Leisler
refused to plead; nevertheless, he was convicted, hanged, and beheaded on
May 16, 1691. Jacob Milborne, Leisler’s secretary, lieutenant, and son-in-law,
was also executed. Several other Leislerians suffered imprisonment and confisca-
tion of property.
The hasty executions of Leisler and Milborne garnered criticism for Sloughter’s
regime. The Dutch initiated an inquiry into the executions, and Dutch pressure on
the English government led Parliament, in 1695, to reverse both men’s convictions
and posthumously legitimize Leisler’s administration. In 1702, the New York
Assembly followed suit by voting an indemnity of £2,700 to Leisler’s heirs. In
the same year, Leisler’s old nemesis, Nicholas Bayard, was tried for treason by a
government sympathetic to Leisler’s rule. Though Bayard was acquitted, Leisler-
ian and anti-Leislerian factions remained discernible forces in provincial politics
until at least 1710.
Leisler’s Rebellion defies easy interpretation. Clearly, it was one manifestation
of the Glorious Revolution in America, a counterpart to similar uprisings in Mas-
sachusetts and Maryland. Some historians have envisioned Leisler’s Rebellion as
an expression of ethnic conflict, a last-ditch effort by Dutch nationalists to reestab-
lish Dutch hegemony in New York. Yet the Leislerians and the anti-Leislerians
were both Anglo-Dutch coalitions; Leisler’s bitterest enemies, Bayard and Van
Cortlandt, were themselves members of the Anglicizing Dutch merchant class. A
clas s model, pitting New York’s liberal Anglo-D utch mercantile elite against the
more traditional middling Dutch colonists whom Leisler mobilized, fits the facts
somewhat better. What can be said with some certainty is that Leisler’s Rebellion
was the last hurrah of Dutch power in New York; after 1691, Dutch c olonists,
Leislerians and anti-Leislerians alike, rapidly assimilated to a British colonial
identity.
In the aftermath of Leisler’s Rebellion, New York’s political scene stabilized
along lines that, though fractious and corrupt, w ere decidedly more liberal than
those that prevailed in the 17th century. From its founding until 1689, N ew York
was ruled by a series of regimes that privileged royal or proprietary prerogat ive.
Leisler, though an uncertain republican, set an important precedent by summoning
a provincial l egislature to legitimate his rule. When anti-Leislerians returned to
Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691) 55
power in 1691, they swiftly established a colonial assembly that would meet annu-
ally and pass laws that would be effective unless and until they were disallowed by
the Crown. Ironically, Leisler’s coup d’e
´
tat helped his colony attain its longed-for
representative government.
—Darcy R. Fryer
See also all entries under Ba c on’s R ebel lion (1675–1676); Regulat or Movement (1771);
Pine Tree Riot (1772); Shays’ Rebellion (1787); Whiskey Rebel lion (1794).
Further Reading
Archdeacon, Thoma s J. New York City, 1664–1710: Conquest and Change. Ithac a, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1976.
Kammen, Michael . Colonial New York: A History. New York: Oxford University Press,
1996.
Lovejoy, David S. The Glorious Revolution in America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Uni-
versity Press, 1987.
Murrin, John. “The Menacing Shadow of L ouis XIV and the Rage of Jacob Leisler: The
Constitutional Ordeal of Seventeenth-Century New York.” In Colonial America:
Essays in Politics and Social Development, ed. Stanley N. Katz, John M. Murrin, and
Douglas Greenberg. 5th ed., 380–418. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Ritchie, Robert C. The Duke’s Province: A Study of New York Politics and Society, 1664–
1691. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977.
56 Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691)
Calvinism
Calvinism, also known as the Reformed theological tradition, was a form of
Protestantism that sprang from the teachings of the S wiss pastor John Calvin
(1509–1564). It took root in New England as “Puritanism” and in New Netherland
under the aegis of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Calvin’s numerous writings, especially The Inst itutes of the Christian Religion
(1536–1560), laid the groundwork for Calvinist theology. The Synod of Dort (1618–
1619) identified five core tenets of Calvinism, including the total depravity of human
beings; God’s unconditional election of a few human beings for eternal life; Christ’ s
limited atonement for the sins of the elect, but not for the sins of others; and irresistible
grace, which those elected for salvation achieved not by works but solely by over-
whelming awe before the incomprehensible majesty of God and corresponding disgust
for the loathsome insignificance of human beings. The role of the Calvinist church was
to gather those who were predestined for salvation—the “visible saints”—and unite
them in a quest to reform society along godly lines. The Synod of Dort’s final tenet,
the perse verance of the saints, assured the elect that God would preserv e them in a state
of grace and prev ent them from falling permanently into a state of sin.
In practice, Calvinists emphasized an austere lifestyle and rigid community dis-
cipline. In Calvin’s model city, Geneva, the consistory strictly regulated residents’
behavior and excommunicated those who failed to abide by community standards.
57
During the 16th century, John Calvin
developed a strict moral brand of
Protestantism that would become known
as Calvinism, which would become the
primary religious influence of the Puritans
in New England. (Library of Congress)
Most Europe an Calvinists adopted a y
¨
resbyterian organizational model, in which
individual congregations sent representatives to regional presbyteries and synods.
Most New Englanders preferred Congregationalism, a form of Calvinism in which
individual congregations exercised complete autonomy. In either case, Christ was
considered the sole head of the Church; ministers and elders were called by their
congregations and answered to them, not to an ecclesiastical bureaucracy.
Swiss in origin, Calvinism took root in many parts of Europe, including France,
the Netherlands, Scotlan d, and England, by the end of the 16th century. French
Calvinists were known as Hugu enots, while the most influential group of English
Calvinists—those who sought to “purify” the established Church of England by purg-
ing it of latitudinarian practi ces—we re called Puritans. In 17th-centu ry North America,
Calvinists dominated the religious scene north of the Hudson River; the Puritans of
New England and the Dutch Reformed of New Netherland shared the same tenets of
faith. Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 brought a third wave
of Calvinists, approximately 2,000 Hugueno t refugees, to British North America,
where their arrival roused popular indignation at Catholic persecution of Protestants.
Calvinism was a religious movement with political implications. By t he late
17th century, Protestants on both sides of the Atlantic associated Calvinism with
representative government and opposition to tyrants and Catholicism with the cen-
tralizing tendencies of such absolutists as Louis XIV of France. Calvinists were
prominent among those who opposed James II’s scheme of centralization, and
Jacob Leisler’s ardent Calvinist faith was a major factor that propelled him to
assume leadership of the rebellion that bears his name.
—Darcy R. Fryer
Further Reading
Benedict, Philip. Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism.New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
McNeill, John T. The History and Character of Calvinism. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1954.
Dominion of New England (1686–1689)
The Dominion of New England was a short-lived conglomerate colony created by
James II in 1686 to streamline colonial administration and strengthen the m on-
arch’s authority over the American colonies. Unp opular from the start, the
Dominion was overthrown by Leisler’s Rebellion in 1689.
When the Duke of York—the patron for whom New York was named—came to
the throne as James II in 1685, one of his priorities was to exert greater royal
58 Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691)
control over England’s diverse and individualistic American colonies. James II
had spent several of his format ive years in France following the execution of his
father, Charles I, in 1649. As the son of a depos ed king, an d as a Catholic, he
admired the French absolutist model of monarchy. James II also believed that
wringing more revenue from the colonies would diminish the monarch’s financial
dependence on Parliament—one of the chief sources of his father’s political strug-
gles—and thus enhance his authority at home.
In 1686, James II consolid ated five colonies—Massachusetts, Plymou th, New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connectic ut—into a single super-colony called
the Dominion of New England. In 1688, he added New York and East and West
Jersey as well. James II dissolved the existing colonial assemblies and concen-
trated power in the hands of a governor-general, Sir Edmund Andros, a deputy
governor, Francis Nicholson, and an appointed council. Andros ruled from Boston,
while Nicholson was stationed in New York.
As governor of the Dominion, Andros introduced numerous innovations, all of
them unpopular. Many of his measures were specifically designed to yield reve-
nue: he rejected existing land titles to reap fees from the reissuance of land grants,
required landho lders to pay annual quitrents, substantially increased taxes, an d
strictly enforced the Navigation Acts. Andros also infringed on colonists’ political
rights, limiting New England town meetings to one per year and suspending the
colonial legislatures. He sought to undermine New England ’s Puritan churches
by forbidding ministers to draw their salaries from public funds. Andros raised
the specter of absolutism by articulating a radical new political theory that inhab-
itants of the British Empire, unlike Englishmen at home, were subject solely to the
arbitrary power of the monarch and were not entitled to representative government
or other English civil rights.
The Dominion of New England was unpopul ar from the start. American colo-
nists resented the loss of elected assemblies, rising taxes, and the Crown’s interfer-
ence with local religious, social, and legal traditions. When rumors of the Glorious
Revolution reached New England in the spring of 1689, the residents of Boston
promptly arrested Andros and reinstated the old, separate colonial governments
throughout New England. New York’s uprising, which began in late May of the
same year, was complicated by t he col onists’ tangled ethnic and religious loyal-
ties, but at root, it too was a popular effort to restore the colony’s government to
a form that better reflected the needs and values of the people who lived there.
—Darcy R. Fryer
Further Reading
Love jo y, D av id S. The Glorious Revolution in America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan
University Press, 1987.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies. New York: Viking, 2001.
Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691) 59
Leisler, Jacob (c. 1640–1691)
Jacob Leisler served as New York’s de fac to lieutenant governor fr om June 1689
until March 1691. He governed the colony with a mixture of pragmatism, militant
Calvinism, and tendentious autocracy.
Leisler was born in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, in a region roiled by the
vicissitudes of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–164 8). H is family was both highly
educated—his grandfather was a prominent jurist who championed subjects’
rights to oppose monarchs—and devoutly Calvinist—Leisler’s father, a Huguenot
minister, had fled the Inquisition in Spanish-occupied Frankenthal just a few years
before Jacob’s birth. After studying at a Protestant military academy, Leisler
immigrated to New Netherland in 1660 as second-in-command of the Dutch West
India Company’s troops.
Leisler prospered in America, trading in furs, tobacco, and slaves and investing
extensively in real estate. His marriage to Elsie Tymens van der Veen linked him to
the port’s emerging mercantile elite. By the 1680s, Leisler was one of the richest
men in N ew York and one of the city’s leading civic act ivists. At various times,
he served as a juror, court-appointed arbitrator, ju stice of the peace, tax assessor,
militia captain, and colonial agent. A founding member of New York’s French
Reformed Church, he became an activist o n behalf of Huguenot refugees . Aside
from his championship of the Calvinist faith, Leisler had few discernible political
convictions; he cooperated with both the Dutch and English regimes.
Soon after the Dominion of New England crumbled in the spring of 1689, Leisler
emerged as the leader of the dissident faction in New York. The exact sequence of
events that brought him to power remains obscure, but on August 16, 1689, Leisler
became the province’s commander in chief, and in December, he seized the title of
lieutenant governor.
Leisler’s leadership of New York was pragmatic and vigorous. He strengthened
the fortifications at Fort James and, after an initial defeat, succeeded in quelling a
rival regime based in Albany. He called for new elections to a provincial assembly,
symbolically restori ng legislative government. Following a French and Indian
attack on Schenectady on February 9, 16 90, Leisler lashed out against Catholics
and, in May, convened a meeting of delegates from four colonies (two others par-
ticipated by letter) to plan a military response to the perceived Catholic menace.
This meeting marked the American colonies’ first attempt at coordinated military
action independent of the British government.
Leisler’s fall came swiftly. Henry Sloughter, whom William III had appointed
to govern New York, finally arrived in the province in March 1691. Leisler, who
had been holding Sloughter’s deputy at bay, promptly surrendered to the new
60 Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691)
governor. Nevertheless, Sloughter, influenced by Leisler’s political opponents, had
his predecessor arrested. He was convicted of treason, hanged, and beheaded on
May 16, 1691. This was not, however, the final verdict on Leisler’s role in the
Glorious Revolution. In 1695, Parliament, under diplomatic pressure from the
Dutch, posthumously legitimized Leisler’s administration and reversed his convic-
tion for treason. The New York Assembly subsequently granted an indemnity of
£2,700 to Leisler’s heirs.
—Darcy R. Fryer
Further Reading
Archdeacon, Thomas J. New York City, 1664–1710: Conquest and Change. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1976.
Voorhees, David William. “The ‘Fervent Zeale’ of Jacob Leisler.” William and Mary
Quarterly, 3rd ser., 51 (1994): 447–472.
Religious Conflict in 17th-Century
New York
Religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, among different types of Prot-
estants, and within the Dutch Reformed Church played a prominent role in Leisler’s
Rebellion. The intermingling of religious and political conflict in Leisler’s Ne w York
echoed the situation in early modern Europe, where the fusion of religious and politi-
cal agendas had sparked the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598), the Thirty Years’
War (1618–1648), and the English Civil War (1642–1649).
Late-17th-century New York was characterized by exceptional ethnic and reli-
gious diversity. The Netherlands was an oasis of religious freedom, and the Dutch
settlements in America attracted every sort of Protestant, as well as some Catho-
lics and Jews. These immigrants were chagrined to find that New Netherland
granted them less latitude than Holland did; Peter Stuyvesant, in particular, vigo-
rously suppressed the worship of Lutherans, Quakers, Mennonites, Catholics,
and Jews. Some religious minorities welcomed the English conquest in 1664
because the English, unlike the Dutch, permitted them to worship publicly.
Dutch Calvinists felt threatened by the English government’s welcoming
attitude toward other Protestants, but they reserved their greatest animus for
Catholics. The Duke of York (later James II) appointed several Catholic adminis-
trators, including Thomas Dongan, who served as governor from 1683 to 1688.
The establishment of a Jesuit school in New York City also attracted Catholics to
Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691) 61
the province. Anti-Catholic prejudice was particularly stron g among poor and
middling Dutch c olonist s, and Jaco b Leisler—a devout Calvinist—effectively
mobilized this prejudice to secure popular support for his government.
Ironically, some of the bitterest religious conflict associated with Leisler’s
Rebellion took place within the Dutch Reformed Church. Churches were one of
the principal settings in which 17th-century colonists participated in civic life, and
conflicts evoked by Leisler’s Rebellion often played themselves out, at the local
level, as disputes over church affairs. The intermingling of political and religious
conflict cut both ways: sometimes attitudes toward Leisler determined parties within
the local church; sometimes, as in the scandal over the behavior of Reverend
Laurentius van den Bosch of Kingston, local issues took precedence over provincial
affairs, forging unlikely coalitions between Leislerians and anti-Leislerians.
The principal fault line within the Dutch Reformed Church lay between the
clergy and the laity, especially laymen of modest means. By the 1680s, the Dutch
Calvinist clergy had discovered that a quiet acquiescence to English rule was the
most effective means of securing doctrinal autonomy. Some found Leisler’s rabid
anti-Catholicism repugnant, and many feared that the collapse of English authority
would make it difficult to collect the taxes that supported the church. For all of
these reasons, the Dutch clergy hesitated to support Leisler’s regime. Many less
affluent congregants resented the clergy’s failure to embr ace Leisler. This resent-
ment played itself out in diminished attendance at services, disputes over church
finance, and ultimately, a shift in popular allegiance. In the early 18th century,
middling Dutch colonists drifted away from the established Dutch Reformed
Church to join congregations led by less learned, more pietistic preachers.
—Darcy R. Fryer
Further Reading
Balmer, Randall. A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the
Middle Colonies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Balmer, Randall. “Traitors and Papists: The Religious Dimensions of Leisler’s Rebellion.”
New York History 70 (1989): 341–372.
Haefeli, Evan. “A Scandalous Minister in a Divided Community: Ulster County in Leis-
ler’s Rebellion, 1689–1691.” New York History 88 (2007): 357–389.
Jacob Leisler’s Letter to the Governor and Committee
of Safety at Boston, June 4, 1689
This letter, written by Jacob Leisler near the beginning of the rebellion he led against the
government of the Dominion of New England , reflects the religious and politi cal strife taking
place at the time, both in the colonies and in England. In it, he asks for the help of the Committee
62 Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691)
of Safety in Boston and newly installed governor Simon Bradstreet, against those supporters of
James II (England’s new, Catholic king).
Honored Sirs—I make bold to acquaint you of the securing of the fort by the traine bonds
of New york. Here enclosed is the declaratione N: 1: In two dayes after the Governor & his
Counsell with severall of their creatures had gained so much upon the people that they
were afraied & halfe of myne company were they worked most upon had left me, but the
second of this instant being my watch in the fort I came with 49 men & entered in the fort,
without the word, nor to be questioned whereupon I resolved not to leave till I had
brought all the traine bound fully to joine with me, The 3d wee had newes of three ships
in sight upon which I tooke occasione to allarume the towne & gott five Captanes besides
me & 400 men to signe the enclosed paper N: 2: which discouraged the adverse party, and
since they have been indifferent still, The Lievt Governor Nicholls is departed last night
without taking leave, It is beleeved he intends to goe with Collo” dongane who has layen
in the bay this sixteen dayes. N: 3: is a copie of an evidence whereof we have three of the
same tenor, N: 4 is a copie of an address to his ma’ies sent to four merchants with Capt
Selock & one with Capt wathland who has faith fullie promised to deliver for to be pre-
sented to the King, and depose what they know more, then wee declare, I have ma de
one full Inventory of the fort with guns and ammunitione, and found of 33 great gunes
but fifteen fitt to use of 50 barrells pouder was but one that could goe 7 degrees the rest
&ct. 3. 4: & 5 some non at all, the most part of the country have invited the rest to appeare
as a counsell of safty two men out of one County, the 26th of this instant In the mean tyme
the fort is guarded by five companies two watches 1^ company per night, and the Capt
whose watch it is is for that tyme Capt of the fort, the Collector in the Custome house
is a rank papist, I cannot gett the other Captanes to resolve to tume him out but acts still
as before The Mayer medles with no civil 1 affaires & discourages constables to keep the
peace expecting some seditione for to make the Inhabitants odious, there is non acts
others then in quality of a single Capt, sir Edmond Andross & his wicked crew have carried
all the Records out of this country to Boston, I hope by the prudent care in the late expe-
ditione at Boston have taken care to preserve it, and I request you to take a speciall care for
it, till our Committee of safety may take some prudent care about it, the time will not per-
mitt me to enlarge onely I desire your advice in approbatione in our actione, If wee deserve
it and after myne respects I remain & c.
Jacob Leisler.
Source: E. B. O’Callaghan, Documentary History of the State of New York, vol. 2 (Albany, NY:
Weed, Parsons & Co., 1849), 3–4.
Jacob Leisler: “A Modest and Impartial Narrative” (1690)
Leisler’s Rebellion was a popular uprising that erupted in the colony of New York in May 1689.
Led by Jacob Leisler, the r ebellion was a Protestant reaction to the colonial adminis tration
Leisler’s Rebellion (1689–1691) 63