The Revolution before the Revolution: Boston, 1689

In 1686 the English crown dissolved local government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and put a royal favorite, Edmund Andros, in charge of a consolidated Dominion of New England. Reluctant to express disloyalty to the king, Bostonians endured ever-increasing taxes and insults from the new unelected regime.

But behind closed doors, colonists engaged in electrifying debates about whether good subjects—and good Christians—should patiently submit … or whether rulers who violated natural law and the people’s welfare forfeited their right to rule.

Ultimately, in the Puritan-Whig Revolution of 1689, people from Boston and nearby towns organized a widespread uprising, imprisoning Andros and resuming control of local institutions. Across towns north of Boston, people from town meetings led by the Rev. John Wise wrote petitions refusing to pay tax if they were not represented—and were imprisoned for their pains.

In these three years of defiance and revolt, New Englanders developed ideas and practices of resistance that would carry over to the American Revolution.