Dominion of New England

The Dominion of New England in America was a short-lived administrative union of English colonies created in 1686 and overthrown in 1689. It was established by James II to consolidate royal control over New England and the Mid-Atlantic, bringing together the Province of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, East Jersey and West Jersey under a single governor, Edmund Andros, with his seat at Boston. The dominion revoked colonial charters, restricted town meetings, imposed new taxes without local consent and forced the Church of England into Puritan Massachusetts. Its centralized model resembled the Spanish viceroyalties, and colonists resented the loss of their assemblies and accustomed liberties. When news arrived that James II had been deposed in the Glorious Revolution, Bostonians arrested Andros in April 1689 and the dominion collapsed. The colonies recovered their charters or received new ones, and the episode left a lasting suspicion of distant imperial authority in New England, though Boston remained the political centre of the region.