Leisler leaving the fort. Illustration by F. T. Merrill in Edwin Lasstter Bynner, The Begum’s Daughter (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1890), facing page 236. Jacob Leisler Institute.
On May 16, 1691, in a drizzling rain, two middle-aged men climbed gallows erected at present-day One Pace Plaza near the Manhattan entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. Before the largest crowd yet gathered in the small city of 5,000 inhabitants, Jacob Leisler and his newly wed son-in-law, Jacob Milborne, were hung until half-dead then beheaded. Their alleged crimes were “levying war” against King William and Queen Mary, counterfeiting their Majesties’ great seal, murdering one Josiah Browne, and “other high misdemeanors.” The executions traumatized the onlookers. The “shrieks of the people were dreadful, some were carried away lifeless, and some rushing forwards, almost ere the life of their beloved ruler was extinct.” The political repercussions reverberated throughout New York’s colonial period and still echo today. Historians focus on Jacob Leisler as the central figure of the turmoil. Yet, the events that came to be known as “Leisler’s Rebellion” were a result of broader international and local circumstances.
The Miller Plan of 1695 shows New York City close to the time of Leisler’s Rebellion. It was made by John Miller, the chaplain of the fort from 1692-1695. Although the legal boundary of the city was approximately at Chambers Street, much of the population still lived south of the wall (Wall Street). Lithograph by George Hayward for D.T. Valentine’s Manual of 1852. Courtesy the Jacob Leisler Institute.
Charter of Liberties and Privileges. Common Council minutes October 31, 1683. REC0081, vol 1. p. 175, NYC Municipal Archives.
The Municipal Archives opens a window into these events. Following England’s final acquisition of New Netherland in 1674, New York City underwent rapid economic development. Agricultural and tobacco exports replaced the fur trade as economic drivers as city merchants also expanded into transporting enslaved Africans and finished European goods into the West Indies and the Chesapeake in exchange for rum, salt, and sugar. Population growth increased social stratification. In 1683 a representative assembly passed the Charter of Liberties and Privileges, which established self-government, declared that no taxes could be levied without the consent of a general assembly, trial by jury of one’s peers, and tolerance for all who “professe ffaith in God by Jesus Christ” (see REC0081, vol 1, pp. 175-176, 265). On April 27, 1686, Governor Thomas Dongan issued a patent that incorporated New York City, granted control of surrounding underwater lands, and formally created municipal offices including mayor, recorder, sheriff, aldermen, and assistants (inserted in REC0081, vol 2, p.7).
A law restricting the slave trade to members of the Royal African Company. Common Council minutes August 5, 1685. REC0081, vol 1. p. 278, NYC Municipal Archives.
A law restricting trade in the East Indies to members of the East India Company. Common Council minutes August 5, 1685. REC0081, vol 1. p. 275, NYC Municipal Archives.
New York in 1689 remained very much a part of the European world. For a century and a half, religious wars had torn Europe apart. Theological disputes further divided congregations. In February 1685, the openly Roman Catholic James II replaced his brother Charles II on England’s throne. Particularly irksome to New Yorkers were James’s interference in New York’s economic development. In August 1685 the king banned New York City merchants from participating in the East Indies and slave trades by granting monopolies to the East India Company and Royal Africa Company (REC0081, pp. 275-282).
A Proclamation for dissolving the assembly by Governour Thomas Dongan. Common Council minutes August 13, 1685. REC0081, vol 1. p. 283, NYC Municipal Archives.
These acts were immediately followed by James’s disallowance of New York’s Charter of Liberties (REC 0081, pp. 284-285). In October 1685, James’s cousin King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes granting religious toleration and instituted a violent persecution of French Protestants, known as Huguenots, in his realms. French West Indian Protestants sought sanctuary in New York, accelerating fear of a Catholic French-Canadian invasion. In 1686, James incorporated New York into the megacolony of the Dominion of New England, with Boston as capital. Now, all official business was to be conducted there. The rapid competitive rise of the new city of Philadelphia added economic stress. As the council minutes relate, on August 11, 1688, Dominion Governor Sir Edmond Andros officially annexed New York to New England (REC0081, p. 329).
Annexation of New York to the Dominion of New England. Common Council minutes April 19, 1688. NYC Municipal Archives.
James’s actions created a fuse for an explosion. It was anticipated the king’s Protestant daughter Mary, wed to Dutch stadholder William III, prince of Orange, would be heir. On June 10, 1688, however, Queen Mary of Modena gave birth to a Roman Catholic male heir. Andros ordered August 24 as a day of thanksgiving in New York for the prince’s birth (REC0081, vol 1, pp.330-331). In England, Protestant notables, fearing a Roman Catholic dynasty, invited James’s daughter and son-in-law to seize the throne. In the wake of England’s Glorious Revolution, Boston revolted in April 1689 against James II’s government. The uprising rapidly spread across New England and into the east end of Long Island. The Suffolk County militia resolved to seize New York City’s fort. Militias of other towns joined them on their march toward the city. Alarmed by these events, New York Lieutenant Governor Francis Nicholson appointed the city’s militia captains to his expanded council (See, New-York Historical Society Collections (1868) 1: 272-290).
Governor Andros ordered August 24, 1688 as a day of thanksgiving for the birth of an heir to the Catholic King James II. Common Council minutes June 22, 1688. REC0081, p. 330-331, NYC Municipal Archives.
The city’s militia captains took turns guarding Fort James. But confrontations between local militiamen and English regulars resulted in the militia seizing the fort on behalf of the new king and queen, William and Mary. When militia Colonel Nicholas Bayard refused to assume control, the rebels turned to second in command, Jacob Leisler. The collapse of the Dominion of New England government with the Boston uprising and Francis Nicholson’s flight from New York on June 11 left the provincial government in a vacuum. Believing they did not have “a title to govern” without the “Peoples Resolutions,” the militia captains decided to follow Massachusetts’ precedent and call for a convention of the provincial towns. The New York militia captains sent a circular to the counties asking them to send two delegates to New York City on June 26 to consult “for the welfare of the country & the protestant religion.” The provincial Committee of Safety began deliberations on June 27. The following day, the convention reorganized the militia with Leisler as captain of the fort (PRO: CO5/1081, p. 69).
Nicholson’s councilors Philipse, Van Cortlandt and Bayard trying to quiet the rebellion. Art by Alfred Fredericks; Engraved by Albert Bobbett for History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise and Progress. NYC Municipal Library.
Leisler, a son of the Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, French Reformed church pastor Jacob Victorian Leisler, was among New York’s wealthiest inhabitants. His ancestors had served as chaplains to the House of Nassau, family of the Prince of Orange, and were active in the European Reformed movement. Following their example, Leisler was active in New York’s Reformed communities and, after 1685, in the settlement of Huguenot refugees. Appointed captain of the fort, Leisler managed militia correspondence, strengthened defenses, and took responsibility in administering to four-hundred men a loyalty oath to the “Prince of Orange and protestant interest.” Meanwhile, the Committee of Safety took immediate steps to coordinate provincial hegemony. On August 16, the committee appointed Leisler commander in chief of the province with full civil and military powers (NHi BV Sect. L “No. 7,” 1-3).
“The trainbands signing Leisler’s declaration.” Courtesy The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library.
To remove opposition, throughout late summer and fall of 1689 the Committee of Safety ordered elections by male “protestant freeholders.” Particularly irksome was that Andros’s common council continued to meet in New York City. On October 7, the Committee of Safety ordered the mayor, sheriff, clerk, and common council “be chosen By the Major vote of the freeholders.” (REC 0081, pp. 340). On October 14, Leisler, following the form of government as established by the 1686 Dongan patent, confirmed the new council with Peter Delanoy as mayor, Johannes Johnson as sheriff, and Abraham Gouverneur as clerk (REC0081, p. 344). Forty-year-old Delanoy, born in the Huguenot refugee community in Harlem, Netherlands, was a prominent figure in the city government, serving as alderman, bookkeeper of the port, and city treasurer (REC0081, p. 267 ff). In 1689 he became the first and only elected mayor of New York City prior to 1834.
Leisler’s confirmation of the new council with Peter Delanoy as mayor, Johannes Johnson as sheriff, and Abraham Gouverneur as clerk. Common Council minutes October 14, 1689. REC0081, p. 344, NYC Municipal Archives.
Confirmed in their offices, the new city government ordered the former magistrates to deliver up all city and county books and papers in their custody. While most complied, former Mayor Stephen van Cortlandt was nowhere to be found. When Van Cortlandt’s wife, Gertrude Schuyler, received the order, the council minutes state she threw it away and retorted, “take it with force in Caise they would have it” (REC0081, p. 347). In desperation to obtain the necessary records to operate the city, the council petitioned Leisler to invest them in their offices. Meanwhile, Van Cortlandt had fled to Albany, which had formed its own convention at the outbreak of the disorders. Dominated by the relations of Leisler’s wife’s stepsisters, who had battled Leisler in an acrimonious inheritance dispute for over a decade, the former New York City officials cast themselves as a government in exile and organized a campaign to subvert his government.
In mid-December, a royal letter arrived addressed to “whomever was taking care of the government.” The Committee of Safety voted Leisler the correct recipient and disbanded. Leisler, aware of the legal situation of his lacking personal royal designation, named himself “lieutenant governor.” Believing that James II had illegally revoked the 1686 Charter of Liberties, he reestablished the provincial government according to the Charter, including an elected provincial assembly. According to a 1683 “Act of Assembly entitled An Act to Settle Courts of Justice,” Leisler instituted a four-tier system: town courts for minor issues, county courts for civil and minor criminal cases, a court of oyer and terminer for treason and major criminal cases, and the Court of Chancery to oversee matters of equity (N. 36: 14265). Records were kept in separate books, of which fragments survive.
Extant pages of Leisler’s administration reveal that the city government and its courts continued to operate in 1690. For example, loose pages of council minutes for April 26 confirmed the court resolution of a dispute between Albert Bosch and Adolf Pieterse (NNMA); those of August 9 dealt with the nuisance of a tar pit and selling of liquors (NNMA); and those of October 11, address the repairing of the Bowery Road to Fresh Water Pond (NHi: NY Misc. Mss. Box 2, No. 25). City court records during Leisler’s administration are found scattered throughout numerous archives such as in the Municipal Archives, New York Historical, Pennsylvania Historical, and the State Archives.
“From hence begins what is acted in Governor Sloughters time March 1691.” Common Council minutes, REC0081, p. 352, NYC Municipal Archives.
Leisler’s administration created several firsts. His erection of a battery in front of the fort, known as “Leisler’s Half-Moon” or “Leisler’s Battery,” is the origin of greatly expanded Battery Park. In reaction to a French and Indian raid of the frontier community of Schenectady in February 1690, Leisler called for the first intercolonial conference independent of British authority. On May 1, 1690, representatives from New York, Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut met in New York City for the first inter-colonial congress in American history (Maryland representatives arrived late, while Pennsylvania and Virginia refused to send delegates). At this gathering, the first military action independent of European authority was organized against French Canada with a two-pronged attack by sea and land (N. 36: 42; RPAB. Ms. 4822; Ct. Colonial; M-SS. 36: 47).
Jacob Leisler funded much of his administration out of his own pocket. But economic stress and the failure of the Canadian campaign caused him to become increasingly paranoid and erratic. The arrival of Leisler’s opponents’ lobby in England before his case was heard— his initial packets captured by the French—resulted in the crown’s appointment of a governor favorable to the opposition. Unfortunately for Leisler, the governor departed just as the crown heard Leisler’s version. The arrival in January 1691 of royal troops without official papers caused Leisler to refuse to turn over the government. His supporters flocked to his defense, resulting in armed conflict between the parties. Leisler’s subsequent refusal to immediately turn over the government upon Governor Richard Sloughter’s arrival in March 1691 due to the military practice of waiting until daylight resulted in his government’s arrest.
Governor Sloughter signing Leisler’s Death Warrant, Howard Pyle, 1901. Harper’s Magazine.
Thirty-seven members of Leisler’s government were confined and brought to trial for treason. But it was Lesler’s in-laws who most actively urged for his execution. Only Leisler and Milborne were condemned to “be severall[y] hanged by the Neck and being Alive their bodys be Cutt Downe to the Earth that their Bowells be taken out and they being Alive burnt before their faces that their heads shall be struck off and their Bodys Cutt in four parts and which shall be Deposed of as their Majties’ Shall Assigne.” It is this verdict that elicits the most attention. Governor Sloughter, however, commuted the sentence to hanging and beheading. Eight months later the crown repealed the charges and in May 1695 the king and Parliament overturned the treason sentences against Leisler and Milborne and restored their properties to their heirs.
Leisler is best understood in the context of a Calvinist political ideology emanating from the Dutch Republic and applied to English law. An ideology that emphasized decentralized government as the “ultimate way to safeguard civic liberties and economic freedoms.” Leisler thus emerged as a proponent of a unique form of populism at a time when New York was undergoing rapid change. The contest between those favoring a strong centralized government versus Leisler’s decentralized popular form subsequently evolved into a sharp political difference that has remained a characteristic in America culture ever since.
David William Voorhees (Ph.D., New York University, 1988) is Director of both the Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History and of the Jacob Leisler Papers Project, and is also Managing Editor of de Halve Maen, a scholarly journal devoted to New Netherland studies published by The Holland Society of New York.
Sources:
Common Council records, circa 1670-1831; REC0081; vol. 1 & 2; Municipal Archives, City of New York.
Lamb, Martha J. History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise and Progress.
Jacob Leisler Papers Collection, Jacob Leisler Institute, Hudson, NY.
New York State Archives’ colonial records series, Albany.
The New York Historical, Manuscripts.
New-York Historical Society Collections (1868) 1: 272-290. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006664838
