By What Authority - The Duke's Colony

American Political History · Apr 30, 2022 · 15m

In 1681, the king's own customs collector stood trial for treason in New York — charged by the colony's merchants with levying war on free Englishmen, for the crime of collecting the duties his sealed commission ordered him to collect. The richest harbor in English America belonged outright to the Duke of York, brother and heir to the king. He had a governor, a fort, a garrison, and a collector on the dock. And he could not get his money off the wharf.

This is the story of how a colony with no charter, no assembly, and no vote brought the future king of England to the edge of an empty…