Dominion of New England

April 7, 1686

James II consolidated Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire into a single Dominion of New England under Governor Sir Edmund Andros, abolishing elected legislatures. The colonists, suddenly confronted with Stuart absolutism in their own forests, began plotting quietly. The Glorious Revolution would rescue them, and the memory of Andros's autocracy deepened colonial suspicion of royal overreach.