Province of New York

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The Province of New York (Dutch: Provincie Nieuw-Nederland or Provincie New York) was a British colony that existed roughly where the U.S. state of New York does now. The province originally claimed the current states of New Jersey and Vermont, along with coastal portions of Massachusetts and Maine. The province was likely named for the Duke of York.

In 1777, New York's colonial charter was replaced by the Constitution of New York, 1777 and the English province became the independent state of New York, which fought for its independence from Britain in cooperation with the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1788, New York State voted to ratify the new U.S. Constitution and join the United States of America.

A map of the Province of New York.
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A map of the Province of New York.

Contents

[edit] Government and politics

New York was conceived as a proprietary colony and named after James, Duke of York, its initial proprietor. When the Duke succeeded to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland as James II (and VII), in 1685, New York became a Crown Colony. In principle, the form of government was absolute rule by the Duke of York, or later the King. In practice, the Duke of York delegated his authority to a provincial governor whom he had appointed and instructed, and a provincial legislature elected by freeholders.

When the Duke of York succeeded to the throne, he disallowed the charter he had previously granted to the colony and melded it with the super-colony he called the Dominion of New England. This policy was unpopular in New York, as elsewhere. Jacob Leisler led a short-lived rebellion against the Dominion of New England. When William of Orange and his wife Mary, eldest daughter of James II, succeeded to the throne in the Glorious Revolution, they restored New York's charter and elected assembly.

In the decades following the Glorious Revolution, New York's royal governors often found themselves torn between the Crown's instructions and the political pressures exerted by the colony's elected assembly. Since the assembly held the purse strings, most royal governors chose to negotiate with it.

In the 1730s, New York City was the setting for the Zenger case, in which a young printer, John Peter Zenger was accused of libelling Governor Sir William Cosby. The Zenger case established the precedent that if an allegation is true, it cannot be libel, although it was decades before this principle was consistently applied in American courts.[1]

Although colonial New York had a reputation for political conservatism, it suggested the first intercolonial congress, the Albany Congress of 1754. New York also hosted the meeting, where delegates from seven colonies discussed measures to defend themselves from the French and improve colonists' relations with the Iroquois Confederacy.

[edit] List of provincial governors

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Michael Kammen, Colonial New York: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 206-207

[edit] Further reading

  • Bonomi, Patricia U. A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
  • Kammen, Michael. Colonial New York: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.

[edit] External links

The Thirteen Colonies of Colonial America
Connecticut Colony • Delaware Colony • Province of Georgia • Province of Maryland • Province of Massachusetts Bay • Province of New Hampshire • Province of New York • Province of New Jersey • Province of North Carolina • Province of Pennsylvania • Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations • Province of South Carolina • Colony and Dominion of Virginia
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