January, 1677 - Captain James Crews is arrested and executed in Green
Spring upon order of governor William Berkeley. He is accused of having
supported Nathaniel Bacon and taken with his men reprisals against Indians
without prior order of the governor.
The government of Virginia had moved
to Green Spring, a few kilometers away from Jamestown, while waiting for the rebuilding
of the city.
January 14, 1677 - William Drummond, one of the main followers of
Nathaniel Bacon is arrested, judged for high treason and hanged immediately.
William Drummond (c. 1620-1677)
- this Scottish presbyterian reputed as a gentleman nevertheless arrived in
Virginia in 1637 as indentured servant. He was, however, not long to rebel against
ill-treatment imposed by the planters on cheap workforce. Sentenced after trying to run away,
he had been publicly whipped. After completing his service, he had successfully
started up in business and land speculation but it is especially trough the
marriage of his daughter Sarah with Samuel Swann, the son of an important
member of the Council of State that he had begun to accede to executive
positions in the colony. Appointed first governor of Albemarle County, North Carolina from 1664
to 1667 thanks to the support of William Berkeley, he had made the mistake to
criticize the policies of the letter towards the settlers, what had eventually
cost him his post. Back in Virginia, he had therefore been constantly opposing
to Berkeley’s methods, what had naturally led him to side with Nathaniel Bacon.
January 21, 1677 - John Foster publishes in Boston a book on smallpox
which is the first medical treatise printed in New England.
January 29, 1677 - the 10-vessel fleet that left London on December 3rd arrives in
Virginia. It carries 1000 soldiers placed under the command of colonel Herbert
Jeffreys, admiral Sir John Berry and colonel Francis Moryson, come to give
support against Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion.
William Berkeley had,
meanwhile, managed to defeat the uprising but his victory was not enough to hide
the extent of damage, including the destruction of Jamestown,. Jeffreys
certainly arrived a little late but he had also been mandated to inform
Berkeley that the latter was called back to London and that he should replace him
the time required.
When he saw landing this army,
Berkeley bred all the more bitterness that he didn’t ask for any help but
needed now to find what to supply to a thousand additional men in a devastated
colony. The soldiers settled their camp around Jamestown where they stayed until
late spring whereas colonel Jeffreys chose to take up residence at Middle
Plantation.
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| Sir John Berry (1636-1690) Royal commissioner and Admiral of the fleet |
February 1st, 1677 - Governor William Berkeley is invited to get aboard the
Bristol commanded by Sir John Berry to be aware of the actions taken by the
king about Virginia. He gives for his part a long letter entitled "
History of our miseries " intended for Secretary of State Henry Coventry
in which he draws up a report of his governorship.
February 17, 1677 - The troops sent to Maine by the Boston Council land
at Maquoit Bay, near Black Point.
These consisted of a 200-men company
including sixty Natick warriors, commanded by Major Richard Waldron and his
assistant captain Frost. Waldron was ordered to recover the captives but having
learned that a plot was hatched against him, he decided to fight a battle and
hunted the Pemaquid Indians, making several victims whose local sachem
Mattahando. He then returned to Arroswick where he left a small garrison before
returning to Boston where he arrived on March 11.
February 17, 1677 - Captain Thomas Walker, the sheriff of Somerset County,
Maryland relates that Indians were guilty of a " barbaric crime " by
murdering at their home all the members of David William’s family.
February, 1677 - Iroquois, Susquehannocks and Lenape conclude an
agreement in the village of Shackamaxon (present-day Philadelphia). It was agreed
that the Susquehannocks living in the Delaware valley will find refuge, if they
wish, within the Iroquois confederation.
English magistrates from Upland
(now Chester, PA) attended the meeting but it didn’t result in any written
document. Many calculations were afterward engaged about the nature of the
agreement between the Indian nations the effects of which were all the better
suitable to governor Andros since they angered Lord Baltimore and the
authorities of nearby Maryland.
March 15, 1677 – A party of Mohawk warriors is spotted on Pennacooks land
by the son of sachem Wanalancet. They prefer to turn back after a short
firefight.
April 6, 1677 - Despite the recent arrival of a garrison from
Massachusetts under the command of Lt Benjamin Swett, Indians attack the city of
Wells, Maine, causing three casualties among the inhabitants.
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| Sir Edmund Andros (1637-1714) Governor of New York |
April, 1677 - The United Colonies authorities send Major Pynchon from Springfield
and James Richard from Hartford to deal with Mohawks in the hope of securing
their help in the campaign that they plan against the hostile tribes of Maine.
This mission had received the
approval of the governor of New York, Sir Edmund Andros and Mohawks saw no
reason why they would not support the New England forces but preferred to give
up, considering the distance which would separate them from their lands.
The rumor of their involvement
was, however, enough to sow terror within the eastern tribes.
April, 1677 - William Leete is reelected governor of Connecticut.
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| Col. Herbert Jeffreys (? - 1678) Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia |
April 27, 1677 - Colonel Herbert Jeffreys officially takes office as Lieutenant
Governor of Virginia. He replaces William Berkeley, recalled to England by
order of king Charles II.
Jeffreys must be assisted in his new task by Sir John Berry and colonel
Francis Moryson.
Herbert Jeffreys (? - 1678) – A career
army officer probably a descendant of a Norman family come with William the
Conqueror and further settled in Wales, he had fought since 1642 alongside king
Charles 1 during the Civil war. Exiled to France with the Stuart family, he had
served under James, Duke of York, then Lieutenant General in the royal forces during
the Fronde rebellion. Back in England for the Restoration of Charles II, he had
been in charge of repressing the enemies of the Crown in Portsmouth, York and
London before being promoted colonel of the Royal Regiment sent to Virginia.
This appointment was no coincidence as far as his own brother John Alderman
Jeffreys ( 1614-1699 ) was for long the main court-connected tobacco merchant of
London and a landowner in Virginia.
May 10, 1677 - Penobscot Chief Mogg assisted by Symon (nicknamed the
"Yankee Killer"), one of the Indians involved in the murder of the
Kimball family, appear with their warriors before the fort of Blackpoint held
by the garrison commanded Lieutenant Bartholomew Tippen.
The Indians included Penobscot,
Kennebec and Ammoscoggin tribesmen, well trained and certainly equipped by the
French.
May 5, 1677 - After four months of intensive discussions, Governor of
Virginia William Berkeley agrees finally to give up his post and to go back on
the first boat to London.
He left behind a colony that, despite
the destructions caused by Bacon’s rebellion could, through its agricultural
production, display a real prosperity while on the contrary, a large part of
the population lived in poverty and despair. The " Navigation Act",
that he had vainly fought for years allowed the British Treasury to levy
substantial taxes on colonial exports at a time when tobacco sale prices were lowest,
leading many planters to ruin.
May 6, 1677 - Edward Randolph sends a damning report to the London
Committee of Foreign Affairs under the heading "Representation of ye
Affairs of New England".
The paper listed eight charges
against the authorities of Massachusetts Bay:
- They were usurpers not benefiting
from any royal charter.
- They had taken no oath of
allegiance to the king.
- They had protected the
regicide generals Goffe and Whalley.
- They minted their own money.
- They had executed Quakers
because of their religious beliefs.
- They opposed the
representatives of the king by occupying illegally New Hampshire and Maine.
- They had imposed their own
oath of loyalty to all the inhabitants of Massachusetts.
- They had violated the laws on
navigation and trade.
Edward Randolph led his mission
with obvious bias, to satisfy the royal claims. In his report, everything had
been exaggerated, the population figures, the estimates of wealth as well as abuses of the colonial
government. Feeling flouted, the authorities of Massachusetts were quick to
rebel against Randolph's assertions. John Leverett, the first one, was anxious
to remind that his colony had grown without any input from the Crown and that,
contrary to what some were leading everyone to believe, its people were
"poor".
May 13, 1677 - After a 3-day siege, Penobscot Chief Mogg is killed by Lieutenant Bartholomew Tippen, commanding the garrison of Blackpoint. His death
causes turmoil in the Indian ranks who, already lamenting the loss of ten of their men, hastily organize their withdrawing.
May, 1677 - Benedict Arnold is elected a president of the royal colony
of Rhode Island. He revokes the law exempting the Quakers from military
service.
May 19, 1677 - the New York City council decides to tax the construction
of port warehouses and bridges. It also prohibits attorneys from pleading in
the courts.
May 23, 1677 - John Leverett is reelected at the of 61 governor of Massachusetts for a further year.
May 28, 1677 - Merchant Wentworth Greenhalgh leaves Albany for an observation mission on Iroquois land. He travels on horseback to meet tribes that do not yet know this animal.
May 28, 1677 - Merchant Wentworth Greenhalgh leaves Albany for an observation mission on Iroquois land. He travels on horseback to meet tribes that do not yet know this animal.
May 29, 1677 - A treaty signed in Middle Plantation (Virginia) with the
Indians who had been victims of attacks last year foresees that they will have
to give up their lands in exchange for which they can live at their expenses in
small reserves.
They recognize themselves on the other hand as subjects of the king of
England who agrees to grant them his protection.
As new governor, Colonel
Herbert Jeffreys represented the king of England while the Pamunkey queen represented
the Indians.
Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion had
failed and most of his lieutenants had been hanged but the main victims of the
conflict were undoubtedly the Indians. By hoarding their last territories, the
rich planters hence became those in power.
June 12, 1677 - Stephanus Van Cortlandt is elected mayor of New York for
one year.
It is under his term that were introduced the first taxes on warehouses
and bridges building designed to meet the debts of the city, and that was
created a first insane asylum.
 |
| Stephanus Van Cortland (1643-1700) |
Stephanus Van Cortlandt
(1643-1700) - From a family of Dutch" patroons ", he was the first
mayor of New York born in the city. His father, Oloff, had arrived
in the colony in 1638 as an employee of the Dutch West India Company. He later
set up his own business, what had allowed to make his fortune in trading and to
purchase a large estate by the Hudson River. Oloff had married in 1642, Annette
Lookermans, the daughter of a famous merchant. His elder son Stephanus had to continue
developing the family estate, particularly through the construction of
remarkable Van Cortlandt Manor.
June 17, 1677 - Senecas living in current Lima (NY) area bring back
nearly fifty Indian prisoners from an expedition to the South.
June 19, 1677 - The Committee of the Lords of Trade and Plantations met
since June 12 summons William Randolph and both Massachusetts agents William
Stoughton and Peter Bulkley for an adversarial hearing. The latter strongly
dispute the rights claimed on New Hampshire by Robert Mason and on Maine by the
heirs of the late Sir Ferdinando Gorges.
 |
| The Five Iroquois Nations |
June 18, 1677 - After visiting the new Seneca site of Totiakton,
Wentworth Greenhalgh and his companions reach Gannagaro (now Broughton Hill,
NY), an important village built on a hilltop.
This had been built from 1672 with
the help of French Jesuits, very active within the tribe. It had about 150
houses. Greenhalgh found the Indian prisoners brought there a month earlier,
among whom nine were executed during his stay.
Senecas not being sedentary
people, their villages were actually occupied for only a few years.
Gleenhalgh collected during his
journey, valuable information on the Five Iroquois Nations .
 |
| An Iroquois village |
June 22nd, 1677 –
Maine, the governor and council of Massachusetts instructs Lt. Benjamin Swett to
head military reinforcements that must protect the Winter Harbor, York Harbor
and Wells areas.
Swett was, in circumstance,
promoted to captain and found himself commanding a 300-men army.
The end of King Philip's War
had moved the area of hostilities towards Maine, where the Indians of the
region who had maintained for decades peaceful relations with the English settlers,
suddenly seemed to no longer accept their neighborhood. Like what had happened
two years before in Massachusetts, highly mobile groups of Indians had come
bursting here and there into villages or remoted farms threatening the settlers
among whom some were taken captive, and plundering houses before setting them
on fire.
Benjamin Swett (Wymondham
Parish (Norfolk) on 1624 - Morre Brook, 1677) – A native of Norfolk, his family
settled in Massachusetts when he was still a child. He turned young to a
military career before, however, leaving Newbury where he lived with his wife
and his children, for Hampton, New Hampshire. He acquired notable's status and held
various public responsibilities before the events will lead him to join the
colonial army. He served during King Philip’s War in Captain Gardiner’s
regiment and took part in particular in the operations against Narragansetts, December,
1675.
June 28, 1677 -
Captain Swett casts anchor at Black Point, near Scarborough, after being
informed that a party of Indian warriors was spotted around. He decides to go
after them and forms a 90-men company, with Lieutenant James Richardson based
in Chelmsford and Lieutenant Bartholomew Tippen who commands Black Point.
Swett had been placed in command of a 3-warship small fleet. He landed
in a seemingly peaceful area but the desolation of the fields and charred ruins
of houses were the evidence of recent violence. He ignored however who were the
Indians who were hiding in the region and how many they could be. And if he(it)
knew the valor of his troops and their discipline, it was on the other hand
difficult to him to assess their ability to fight such an enemy.
Lt. James Richardson (Charlestown (MA), 1641 - Moore's Brooke, 1677)
- His parents were among the first settlers of Massachusetts. He chose like his
brother James, a military career and left to settle in Chelmsford where he was
given the responsibility to oversee the Christian Indians of the region. It is
from there that he could train a company of about forty scouts to serve alongside
colonial troops. Richardson stood out during King Philip’s War by the relevance
of his choices and his bravery earned him at the time the admiration and devotion
of the Indians working under his orders.
Swett made the fatal mistake, as before him a lot of officers of New
England, to throw himself blindly on the heels of a few fugitives unaware of
the ambush that awaited him. The Indians commanded by Sagamore Squando suddenly sprang in
the bend of a wood spreading panic within the small company. Captain Swett tried to keep his
men together but, trapped, some tried to run away whereas the others found themselves
encircled under enemy fire. Lieutenant Richardson was killed early in the
assault and Captain Swett eventually fell under the blows from the Indians. Forty
English soldiers died during the attack as well as a dozen Indian scouts who
accompanied them.
July 2nd, 1677 - The
survivors of the battle at Moore's Brooke arrive at Salem where they must be treated.
Early July, 1677 - Following their first talks in May, the representatives
of New York and New England meet the Iroquois chiefs in Albany with the aim of
signing with them a treaty of alliance.
They commended in the preamble
the peaceful relations the English maintained with the Iroquois hoping that are
buried in the future quarrels with Maryland. This required adjusting the
Suquehannock problem. Henry Coursey, the emissary of Maryland, had arrived in New York in May where
he could discuss the issue with the governor Andros. Arrived in Albany, Coursey
was anxious to talk only with Iroquois, refusing somehow to Susquehannocks the
right to be recognized among the Indian nations allied to the English, while
the Lenape of Delaware, invited as observers were to be requested to sign the
treaty.
July 9, 1677 – Barely back
from Virginia, William Berkeley dies in his home in London at the age of 71,
even before to meet the king.
He had just arrived in England after being relieved of his duties as
governor of Virginia on order of Charles II. Berkeley had bound his fate to
that of the colony for more than 35 years but despite his tireless efforts to
increase prosperity, he ended up losing the favors of Charles II by his
opposition to the Navigation Acts. Berkeley had tried hard to defend the
freedom of trade against abusive taxations, to diversify the economy of Virginia,
dangerously penalized according to him by the tobacco monoculture. But more and
more, planters of Virginia had come to criticize his autocratic and corrupt
government, as well as his cronyism to the Indians. The erosion of power
certainly justified the speed with which had extended Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion
as much as it had highlighted the significance of his unpopularity.
July 13, 1677 – Indian
Chief Popanooie is convicted of cruelty and outrage to the people of Dartmouth,
including the murder of several of children of Thomas Pope. He is sentenced
with his wife and his children to slavery for life and excluded from the
colony.
It seems that he was actually the only one of the family to be expelled from the country.
July 20, 1677 -
Thomas Culpeper, 2nd Baron Culpeper of Thoresway is appointed governor of
Virginia but chooses to rule the colony from England where he is living.
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| Thomas Culpeper, 2nd Baron Culpeper (1635-1689) Governor of Virginia |
July 21st, 1677 -
The representatives of Maryland, led by colonel Henry Coursey, sign with the
Iroquois Confederacy and the Susquehannocks the peace treaty prepared in spring
by the governor of New York Sir Edmund Andros.
Commonly called "Covenant Chain", this treaty considered as an example for the coexistence between peoples of various ethnic
origins, was claimed as a victory by both camps. The English saw the coming
supremacy of their language, their culture and their economy while Iroquois obtained,
by this way, an indisputable dominance within the Indian peoples. The French had,
in turn, to recognize that this alliance seriously compromised their North American
colonization plans.
Faced with the rise of of an Anglo-Iroquois alliance, Lenapes of the lower
Hudson Valley could only notice the loss of their influence and their
inevitable decline.
Edmund Andros had set ambition to make his province a haven for all displaced
Indian populations and to better control them. He enjoyed a territory, both
very large and scarcely populated which had already seen coming Susquehannocks
but could also receive Indians who had to flee New England or Mahicans stripped
of their lands. He had even been responsible for planting in Scaticook and
Albany welcome trees for them.
July 27, 1677 - The Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations summon the envoys of Massachusetts
to inform them about the creation of a commission to resolve the border
disputes and remind them to fully comply with the Navigation Act.
William Stoughton and Peter Bulkley were assured that the king did not
want to invalidate their charter but wished on the other hand to supplement it.
September 9, 1677 - Pennacook Sachem Wonalancet and his relatives
leave Namaoskeag to Wickasauke Island where they must acknowledge with disappointment that the land granted to them on October 14, 1665 by the General
Court of Massachusetts is now occupied by English settlers. They prefer to permanently
abandon the region and move to St-François-du-Lac, Canada.
October 10, 1677 -
The General Court of Massachusetts decides to make November 15 a Thanksgiving day.
It was on this day to thank God for having protected the population of
the spreading of an epidemic and for being by its side against London’s actions.
October 31, 1677 - Foundation
of East Greenwich, Rhode Island on a land taken back from the Atherton
Company.
He had gone to London to explain to the Lords Proprietors disarray in
which were most settlers, announcing upcoming unrest if the Plantation Duty Act
which required the payment of customs duties before departure of the goods, was
not abolished. Durant was not heard and had to leave quickly for Albemarle to get
there before governor Thomas Eastchurch, for his part responsible to immediately
apply the new customs provisions. The latter took, however, his time and made a
detour via Nevis in the West Indies, to marry a rich widow.
December 3rd, 1677 –
A group of about forty settlers of Albemarle led by
John Culpeper, Valentine
Bird and George Durant expel the Acting Governor Thomas Miller and seize power.
Miller is thrown in prison and his documents confiscated while Culpeper and his
partisans call for new elections.
 |
| Acting Governor Thomas Miller arrested |
It had been years that tensions were mounting between the long-time settlers,
generally of little standing and the representatives of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina,
beneficiaries of a charter that king Charles II had granted them in 1664. The
election, two years earlier, of Thomas Eastchurch, loyal to the Lords, as
governor of Albemarle had merely increased the tensions especially as he had appointed
Thomas Miller who, in addition to his tax collector’s position, had found a way
to grow rich by enforcing illegal seizures or imposing baseless fines. Eastchurch
had, meanwhile, gone to England, March, 1676, leaving his vacancy while Miller
had been arrested two months later, further to a complaint from former governor
John Jenkins. He had been put on trial before a court of Virginia for blasphemy
and attempted treason but charges were not held and he was finally acquitted.
He then traveled to London where the Lords expected from him to report on some
irregularities. These forgave him
his excesses and authorized him to sail back to Albemarle where he landed on
July 9 to take over the governor's position, in abeyance since the unexpected departure
of Thomas Eastchurch. He surrounded himself with a crew of armed men who
accompanied him everywhere he went but did not have to wait more than six
months to be overthrown by the uprising that has since been called Culpeper's Rebellion.
December 10, 1677 -
Samuel Gorton dies in his home in Warwick, (Rhode Island) at the age of 85.
He had retired from public life in 1670 after being repeatedly deputy governor
of Rhode Island. He left behind the memory of a man fiercely hostile to slavery
and committed to equal rights for individuals, Natives or women. Gorton was a
stiff defender of religious freedom of, and had spent a part of his life to
fight against the Puritan power, advocating the separation of church and state.
He was, as a result, banished from Massachusetts and went to London where he
had found his friend the Earl of Warwick by whom he was granted a Royal Charter
authorizing him to return and live peacefully in New England. He had then settled down with
his family in Rhode Island where he had founded his own religious movement
December 16, 1677 -
The envoys from Massachusetts William Stoughton and Peter Bulkley deliver to the
king a petition in which they seek to keep the administration of the cities of
Exeter, Dover, Portsmouth and Hampton, falling within New-Hampshire
jurisdiction.
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| Sir William Berkeley (1606-1677) Governor of Virginia (1641-1652, 1660-1667) |
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