Joseph Dudley (September 23, 1647 – April 2, 1720) was a colonial administrator, a native of Roxbury in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the son of one of its founders. He had a leading role in the administration of the Dominion of New England (1686–1689), which was overthrown in the 1689 Boston revolt. He served briefly on the council of the Province of New York, from which he oversaw the trial which convicted Jacob Leisler, the ringleader of Leisler's Rebellion. He then spent eight years in England in the 1690s as Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Wight, including one year as a Member of Parliament for Newtown (Isle of Wight). In 1702, he returned to New England after being appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and Province of New Hampshire, posts that he held until 1715.
His rule of Massachusetts was characterized by hostility and tension, with political enemies opposing his attempts to gain a regular salary and regularly making complaints about his official and private actions. Most of his tenure was dominated by the French and Indian Wars, in which the two provinces were on the front lines with New France and suffered from a series of major and minor French and Indian raids. He orchestrated an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Acadian capital of Port Royal in 1707, raised provincial militia forces for its successful capture in 1710, and directed an unsuccessful expedition against Quebec in 1711.
Dudley's governorship initiated a hostility in Massachusetts toward royal governance, most frequently over the issue of the salaries of crown officials. The colonial legislature routinely challenged or disputed the prerogatives of the governor, and this hostility affected most of the governors of Massachusetts up to the American Revolutionary War and the end of British rule. Dudley's rule of New Hampshire, however, was comparatively uncontroversial.
Joseph Dudley was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on September 23, 1647. His mother was Katherine Dudley (née Dighton or Deighton; formerly Hackburne) and his father was Thomas Dudley, one of the founders and leading magistrates of the colony. His father was 70 when he was born and died in 1653. His mother then married Reverend John Allin, who raised the young Dudley at his home in Dedham, Massachusetts.
He graduated from Harvard College in 1665 and was admitted as a freeman in 1672. He became a member of the Massachusetts General Court representing Roxbury in 1673, and he was elected to the colony's council of assistants in 1676. King Philip's War broke out in 1675, and Dudley was a commissioner who accompanied the colonial militia into the field against the Indians. He was present at the Great Swamp Fight in which the Narragansett people was decisively defeated. In 1679, Dudley was recorded as owning an enslaved Native American girl. Dudley served for several years as a commissioner to the New England Confederation, and was sent by the administration on diplomatic missions to neighboring Indian communities. He served on a committee that negotiated the boundary between Massachusetts and the Plymouth Colony.
Revocation of the colonial charter
The colony's governance came under the scrutiny of King Charles II in the 1660s, and it faced a substantial threat in the late 1670s. Crown agent Edward Randolph was sent to New England in 1676 to collect customs duties and to enforce the Navigation Acts, and in the process he documented a list of issues and took his complaints to the Lords of Trade in London. The colonial leadership was divided on how to answer this threat. Dudley was part of a moderate faction which supported accommodating the king's demands, along with his brother-in-law Simon Bradstreet and William Stoughton, and they were opposed by others who did not want the crown to interfere in the colony's business. These factions were separated in part along class lines; the wealthier land owners and merchants who dominated the legislature's upper house (called the "court of assistants") favored accommodation, while the more representative lower house favored the opposition view.
In 1682, Massachusetts sent Dudley and John Richards to London as agents to represent its case to the Lords of Trade. Dudley brought a letter of introduction from Plymouth Governor Thomas Hinckley to colonial secretary William Blathwayt, and the favorable relationship that he established with Blathwayt contributed to his future success as a colonial administrator, but it also raised suspicions in the colony about his motives and ability to represent the colony's interests. The authority of the agents was limited, and the Lords of Trade insisted to the colonial administration that their agents be authorized to negotiate modifications to the colonial charter. The legislature refused this demand, which led to a quo warranto writ demanding the surrender of the colonial charter. Dudley brought this news to Boston at the end of 1683, igniting a heated debate in the legislature, with the opposition party again prevailing. The leadership of the opposition included Reverend Increase Mather, and they began to view the accommodationists as enemies of the colony, including Dudley and Bradstreet. Richards sided with the opposition, and Dudley was removed from the council of assistants in the 1684 election.
The episode also led to accusations that Dudley had secretly schemed in London to have the charter vacated as a means of personal advancement. He did discuss the form of a replacement government with Edward Randolph, although this discussion did not take place until after the quo warranto writ was issued. The opposition viewed this as evidence that he was hostile to the present order of the colony and was working against his commission as colonial agent. Randolph, in contrast, believed that Dudley's election loss meant that he would make a good crown servant. As a result, rumors began circulating in Boston in late 1684 that Dudley might be appointed governor, with Randolph as his deputy.
The charter was annulled in 1684, and the Lords of Trade began planning to combine the New England colonies into a single province called the Dominion of New England. This work was still in progress when King James II took the throne in 1685. However, there were difficulties in drafting a commission for intended governor Sir Edmund Andros, and this prompted Randolph to propose an interim appointment. Dudley was chosen for this post based on Randolph's recommendation, and a commission was issued to him on October 8, 1685, as President of the Council of New England. The territories covered by his commission included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Province of New Hampshire, the Province of Maine, and the "Narragansett Country", a territory at the heart of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (which both Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut Colony were trying to wrest away from Rhode Island). Randolph was appointed to a long list of subsidiary posts, including secretary of the colony, which gave him considerable power.
President of the Council of New England
Randolph arrived in Boston with Dudley's charter on May 14, 1686, and Dudley formally took charge of Massachusetts on May 25, but his rule did not begin auspiciously. A number of Massachusetts magistrates had been named to his council but they refused to serve, and he was unable to reconcile with Increase Mather, who refused to see him. According to Randolph, the Puritan magistrates "were of opinion that God would never suffer me to land again in this country, and thereupon began in a most arbitrary manner to assert their power higher than at any time before." Elections of colonial military officers were compromised when many of them also refused to serve. Dudley made a number of judicial appointments, generally favoring the political moderates who had supported accommodation of the king's wishes in the battle over the old charter. He renewed treaties with the Indians of northern New England, and traveled to the Narragansett Country in June to formally establish his authority there.