Edmund Andros
Sir Edmund Andros was an English army officer and colonial administrator. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served as governor of the provinces of New York, East and West Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.
Before and while serving in North America, he served as Bailiff of Guernsey. His tenure in New England was authoritarian and turbulent, as his views were decidedly pro-Anglican, a negative quality in a region home to many Puritans. His actions in New England resulted in his overthrow during the 1689 Boston revolt. He became governor of Virginia three years later.
Andros was considered a more effective governor in New York and Virginia. However, he became the enemy of prominent figures in both colonies, many of whom worked to remove him from office. Despite these enmities, he managed to negotiate several treaties of the Covenant Chain with the Iroquois, establishing a long-lived peace involving the colonies and other tribes that interacted with that confederacy. His actions and governance generally followed his instructions upon appointment to office, and he received approbation from the monarchs and governments that appointed him.
Andros was recalled to England from Virginia in 1698 and resumed the title of Bailiff of Guernsey. Although he no longer resided entirely on Guernsey, he was appointed lieutenant governor of the island and served in this position for four years. Andros died in 1714.
Early life
Andros was born in London on 6 December 1637. Amice Andros, his father, was Bailiff of Guernsey and a staunch supporter of Charles I. His mother was Elizabeth Stone, whose sister was a courtier to the king's sister, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia. Although it has been claimed that Andros was present at the surrender in 1651 of Guernsey's Castle Cornet, the last royalist stronghold to surrender in the English Civil War, there is no firm evidence to support this. It is possible that he fled Guernsey with his mother in 1645. In 1656, he was apprenticed to his uncle, Sir Robert Stone, captain of a cavalry company. Andros then served in two winter campaigns in Denmark, including the relief of Copenhagen in 1659. As a result of these experiences he gained fluency in French, Swedish, and Dutch.He remained a firm supporter of the Stuarts while they were in exile. Charles II, after his restoration to the throne, specifically commended the Andros family for its support.
File:Elizabeth of Bohemia, studio of Gerrit van Honthorst.jpg|125px|thumb|right|upright|Elizabeth of Bohemia, sister of Charles I of England and aunt of Charles II.
Andros served as a courtier to Elizabeth of Bohemia from 1660 until she died in 1662. During the 1660s he served in the English army against the Dutch. He was next commissioned a major in the regiment of Sir Tobias Bridge, which was sent to Barbados in 1666. He returned to England two years later, carrying despatches and letters.
In 1671, he married Mary Craven, the daughter of Thomas Craven of Burnsall in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of a cousin to the Earl of Craven, one of the queen's closest advisors, and a friend who served as his patron for many years. In 1672 he was commissioned major.
Governor of New York
After his father died in 1674, Edmund Andros acquired Sausmarez Manor which added to his family's already substantial landholdings in Guernsey that included the fief of Anneville and several other fiefs. He was then appointed as the Bailiff of Guernsey, succeeding his father. This appointment was for life and came with the authority to appoint a lieutenant bailiff, a position he filled with his uncle, Charles Andros, seigneur of the fief d'Anneville. This allowed Edmund Andros to travel to America. He was appointed by the James, Duke of York to be the first proprietary governor of the Province of New York. The province's territory included the former territories of New Netherland, ceded to England by the Treaty of Westminster, including all of present-day New Jersey, the Dutch holdings on the Hudson River from New Amsterdam to Albany, as well as Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.In 1664, Charles II granted James all of this territory, as well as all of the land in present-day Maine between the Kennebec and St. Croix Rivers, but with the intervening Dutch retaking of the territory, Charles issued a new patent to James. Andros arrived in New York harbor in late October and negotiated the handover of the Dutch territories with local representatives and Dutch Governor Anthony Colve, which took place on 10 November 1674. Andros agreed to confirm the existing property holdings and allow the territory's Dutch inhabitants to maintain their Protestant religion.
Connecticut boundary dispute
Andros was also involved in boundary disputes with the neighboring Connecticut Colony. Dutch claims had initially extended as far east as the Connecticut River, but these claims had been ceded in the 1650 Treaty of Hartford and reduced to a boundary line east of the Hudson in 1664. York's territorial claim did not acknowledge these, and Andros announced to Connecticut authorities his intentions to reclaim that territory in early 1675. Connecticut leaders pointed out the later revisions to Connecticut's boundaries, but Andros pressed his claim, arguing that York's grant had superseded those revisions. Andros used the outbreak of King Philip's War in July 1675 as an excuse to go by ship to Connecticut with a small military force to establish the duke's claim. When he arrived at Saybrook at the mouth of the river on 8 July, he found the fort there occupied by Connecticut militia, who were flying the English flag. Andros came ashore, had a brief conversation with the fort commander, read his commission, and returned to New York City. This was the full extent of Andros' attempt to claim the territory, but it would be remembered in Connecticut when later attempts were made to assert New York authority.King Philip's War
Following his Connecticut expedition, Andros traveled into Iroquois country to establish relations. He was well received and agreed to continue the Dutch practice of supplying firearms to the Iroquois. This action successfully blunted French diplomatic successes with the Iroquois. It also led to charges in New England that Andros provided arms to Indians allied to King Philip ; in fact, Andros provided gunpowder to Rhode Island that was used in the Great Swamp Fight against the Narragansetts in December 1675, and specifically outlawed the sale of munitions to tribes known to be allied to Philip. The charges poisoned the atmosphere between Andros and Massachusetts leaders, even though Andros' conduct met with approval in London.File:Philip King of Mount Hope by Paul Revere.jpeg|thumb|upright|A caricature of Metacomet drawn by Paul Revere.
In the meeting with the Iroquois, Andros was given the name Corlaer, a name historically used by the Iroquois to refer to the Dutch governor in New Netherland and continued when the English took over the colony and renamed it New York. One other consequence was the establishment at Albany of a colonial department for Indian affairs, with Robert Livingston as its first head.
Philip was known to be in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts that winter and New Englanders accused Andros of sheltering him. Historian John Fiske suggests that Philip's purpose was not to draw the Iroquois into the conflict but instead to draw the Mahicans into the conflict to attack Albany. An offer by Andros to send New York troops into Massachusetts to attack Philip was rebuffed based on the idea that it was a covert ploy to assert authority over the Connecticut River again. Instead, Mohawks from the Albany area did battle with Philip, driving him eastward. When Connecticut authorities later appealed to Andros for assistance, Andros replied that it was "strange" that they would do so, considering their previous behavior, and refused to help.
In July 1676, Andros established a haven for the Mahicans and other Indian war refugees at Schaghticoke. Although the conflict came to an end in southern New England in 1676, there continued to be friction between the Abenakis of northern New England and New England settlers. These prompted Andros to send a force to the duke's territory in Maine, where they established a fort at Pemaquid. Andros annoyed Massachusetts fishermen by restricting their use of the duke's land for drying fish.
In November 1677, Andros departed for England, where he would spend the following year. During this visit, he was knighted as a reward for his performance as governor, and he sat in on meetings of the Lords of Trade in which agents for Massachusetts Bay defended its charter, and gave detailed accounts of the state of his colony.
Southern border disputes
The southernmost territories of the duke, roughly encompassing northern Delaware, were desired by Charles Calvert, Baron Baltimore, who sought to extend the reach of his proprietary Province of Maryland into the area. At the same time, Calvert was seeking an end to a frontier war with the Iroquois to the north, having persuaded the intervening Susquehannocks to move to the Potomac River, well within Maryland territory. Furthermore, the Lenape, who dominated Delaware Bay, were unhappy with seizures of their lands by Virginia and Maryland settlers, and war between these groups had been imminent in 1673 when the Dutch retook New York.When Andros came to New York, he moved to stabilize the situation. He befriended the Lenape sachems, convincing them to act as mediators between the English and other tribes. Peace appeared to be imminent when Bacon's Rebellion broke out in Virginia, resulting in an attack on the Susquehannock fort on the Potomac. The surviving Susquehannocks sneaked out of the fort one night, some making their way east toward Delaware Bay. In June 1676, Andros offered, in exchange for their moving into his jurisdiction, to protect them from their enemies among the Virginian and Maryland settlers. He also extended an offer given by the Mohawk for the Susquehannocks to settle among them. These offers were well received, but Maryland authorities could not convince their Indian allies to accept Andros' offered peace terms, organizing them to march toward the Delaware to fulfill the goal of strengthening the Maryland claim to the area. Andros responded by urging the Susquehannocks to retreat into New York, where they would be beyond Maryland's reach, and delivering a strongly worded threat to Maryland, that it would either have to acknowledge his sovereignty over the Susquehannocks, or they would have to take them back peaceably. He also offered his services as a mediator, pointing out that the absence of the Susquehannocks now left Maryland settlements open to direct attack by the Iroquois.
In a council held at the Lenape village of Shackamaxon in February and March 1677, all of the major parties met; still, no final agreements were reached, and Andros ordered the Susquehannocks remaining with the Lenape to disperse to other parts of New York in April. Maryland sent Henry Coursey to New York to engage Andros and eventually the Iroquois in peace talks, while at the same time, they sent surveyors to lay out plots on land also claimed by New York on Delaware Bay. Coursey was instructed to offer Andros what was, in essence, a £100 bribe that an Indian peace might be reached in exchange for that land. Andros refused the bribe, and Coursey ended up being compelled to negotiate further through Andros and the Mohawk in Albany. The peace agreed upon in negotiations that followed in Albany in the summer of 1677 is considered one of the foundations of the set of alliances and treaties called the Covenant Chain.
Although Andros could not prevent Baltimore from granting some land on the Delaware, he successfully blunted the Maryland leader's attempt to control an even greater portion of land. The duke eventually deeded those lands to William Penn, and they became part of the state of Delaware.