Duke of York's Proprietary

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DUKE OF YORK'S PROPRIETARY

DUKE OF YORK'S PROPRIETARY had its origin in the new nationalism of the Restoration period in England. King Charles II decided to conquer New Netherland and to bestow it on his brother, James Stuart, Duke of York. After purchasing the claims to Long Island and northern Maine, in March 1664—several months before the conquest of New Netherland—the king conveyed to the duke a proprietary stretching from the Connecticut River to the Delaware River and Delaware Bay, including the nearby islands of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Long Island, and the part of Maine north of Sir Ferdinando Gorges's grant situated between the St. Croix and the Pemaquid.

The duke's charter granted him unchecked authority to rule his province. Holding all legislative, executive, and judicial power subject only to appeal to the king, he delegated this authority to governors, whom he carefully instructed about policy. Regions preponderantly English, such as Long Island, were governed by laws of neighboring colonies. Liberty of conscience (the idea that a person's thoughts cannot be legislated) prevailed throughout the province. Two features, however, grated on the duke's subjects: his inordinate interest in revenue and the absence of a representative assembly. Although he at first denied petitions for representation, he later instructed his governor, Sir Edmund Andros, to call an assembly, which met for a few sessions in 1683–1685 and adopted the Charter of Liberties. However, it came to an abrupt end with the creation of the Dominion of New England.

Rival claims and limited vision resulted in periodic dismemberment of the duke's domain. Even before the conquest of New Netherland, he had leased the rich farmlands of the Jerseys. In 1664, another piece went to Connecticut, whose charter of 1662 overlapped the duke's grant. Long Island was also included in both grants, although a commission headed by Colonel Richard Nicolls, the governor of New York, settled the dispute in 1667 by assigning Long Island to New York, and land west of the Connecticut River to within twenty miles of the Hudson River, to Connecticut.

The duke granted his possessions on the west bank of Delaware Bay to William Penn in 1682, probably in deference to the duke's regard for Penn's father, Admiral William Penn. Penn was afraid his proprietary of Pennsylvania might be shut out from the ocean by the possessor of the territory to the south, along the west shore of the river and bay. In 1682, York executed two leases, although he had no strict legal title to these lands that he claimed only by right of conquest. The duke made an effort, perhaps at Penn's instigation, to obtain a royal grant, but its dubious validity prompted the duke, after his accession to the throne as James II in 1685, to plan to grant Penn a royal charter. His abdication in 1688, however, disrupted this plan.

The last sizable outlying section of the duke's proprietary to go was Pemaquid, which became part of the Dominion of New England in June 1686. James, having become king, apparently had no further interest in keeping the scattered pieces of his proprietary intact and turned his attention to experimenting with dominion rule throughout the English provinces. After the overthrow of the dominion in 1689 by revolutions in Boston and New York City, New York became a royal province with representative government.