Benjamin Fletcher (14 May 1640 – 28 May 1703)
was colonial governor of New York from 1692 to 1697. Fletcher was known for the ''Ministry Act'' of 1693, which secured the place of
Anglicans
Anglicanism is a Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
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*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia ...
as the official religion in New York. He also built the first
Trinity Church in 1698.
Under Col. Fletcher, piracy was a leading economic development tool in the city’s competition with the ports of Boston and Philadelphia. New York City had become a safe place for pirates. Fletcher was eventually fired for his association with piracy.
Early life
![Pyle pirate tales](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Pyle_pirate_tales.jpg)
Fletcher was the son of William Fletcher and Abigail Vincent.
His father was killed in 1643 during the
Siege of Gloucester
The siege of Gloucester took place between 10 August and 5 September 1643 during the First English Civil War. It was part of a Royalist campaign led by King Charles I to take control of the Severn Valley from the Parliamentarians. Follow ...
in the
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. They include the Bishops' Wars, the Irish Confederate Wars, the Second English Civil War, the Anglo ...
.
Life in America
Since the 1680s, New York city had had to deal with a new, nearby, maritime rival,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, which had boomed since its founding. As added attractions, Philadelphia had "the purest bread and strongest beer in America." Despite such appeal, the pirates preferred the safe confines of New York city and brought considerable wealth into the port of New York, whose commerce had been endangered by the fighting of
King William's War
King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand All ...
. Because of these circumstances, New Yorkersfrom the governor on downturned a blind eye to the criminals. In fact most of New York city eagerly dealt with the various pirates who entered its harbor. The local merchants, along with Fletcher, saw the freebooters as men who carried real money into the colony.
[Philip Ranlet]
"A Safe Haven for Witches? Colonial New York's Politics and Relations with New England in the 1690s"
, ''New York History'' Winter–Spring 2009 (New York State Historical Association
The Fenimore Art Museum (formerly known as New York State Historical Association) is a museum located in Cooperstown, New York on the west side of Otsego Lake. Collection strengths include the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American India ...
) (13 Sep. 2012).
Many New Yorkers were cheating the revenue laws by smuggling, some of them sent out ships to trade with pirates for stolen goods, and some of them became pirates themselves.
One of the
privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...
s was Captain
William Kidd
William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd ( – 23 May 1701), was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and had experience as a pirate. He was tried and executed in London in 1701 for murder a ...
, later hanged in England after being convicted of piracy. Kidd used some of his wealth to build a fine home and helped establish the first Trinity Church. Other financiers of piracy were
Frederick Philipse
Frederick Philipse (born Frederick Flypsen;Appleton, W.S. ''The Heraldic Journal, Recording the Amorial Bearings and Genealogies of American Families'', Wiggen & Lunt, Boston, 1867 1626 in Bolsward, Netherlands – December 23, 1702), first Lor ...
,
Stephanus Van Cortlandt
Stephanus van Cortlandt (May 7, 1643 – November 25, 1700) was the first native-born mayor of New York City, a position which he held from 1677 to 1678 and from 1686 to 1688. He was the patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor and was on the governor' ...
,
Peter Schuyler
Pieter Schuyler (17 September 1657 – 19 February 1724) was the first mayor of Albany, New York. A long-serving member of the executive council of the Province of New York, he acted as governor of the Province of New York on three occasions ...
, and
Thomas Willet
Thomas Willett (~1607 – August 29, 1674) was a Plymouth Colony fur trader, merchant, land purchaser and developer, Captain of the Plymouth Colony militia, Magistrate of the colony, and was the 1st and 3rd Mayor of New York, prior to the ...
.
Though strict in religious observances he was fond of luxury, and of extravagant habits, and continually in want of money, both Fletcher and some of his council were in the habit of receiving valuable giftsamounting to blackmailfrom the different pirate ships.
Gov. Fletcher granted "trading licenses to ships which everybody knew were
interlopers engaged in "the
Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
trade," as trading with the pirates of
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
was politely called; privateering commissions were given to ships which everybody knew were going to sea as pirates; under his government smuggling was carried on by the leading merchants of the city and he granted the licenses and he permitted the smuggling because he was bribed".
[ Fletcher had gotten payments from piratesmostly small sums except when some grateful buccaneers gave the governor their ship, which netted him £800. Edward Randolph, the Crown's agent overseeing trade, amassed evidence that doomed Fletcher's tenure and helped anoint Lord Bellomont as the new governor of New York.][
Fletcher returned to England and retired to ]Boyle, County Roscommon
Boyle (; ) is a town in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is located at the foot of the Curlew Mountains near Lough Key in the north of the county. Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery, the Drumanone Dolmen and the lakes of Lough Arrow and Lough Gar ...
in Ireland where he died on 28 May 1703.
Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania
While serving as Governor of New York, King William III appointed Fletcher as Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, which he assumed in 1693. William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
was a friend of William’s predecessor, James II, and was in political trouble in England at the court. King William wanted to end the pacifism in the Pennsylvania and mold the northern colonies into a unified military force for opposing the French in Canada.
Fletcher was able to appoint provincial Council members and he pushed through a taxation bill (on lightly taxed Pennsylvania). However, in 1694, the Assembly reallocated a substantial portion of the tax revenue to Thomas Lloyd and William Markham (who Fletcher appointed as Deputy Governor in his absence). Fletcher then dissolved the Assembly.
Eventually Penn was able to persuade King William to return the status quo in the colony of Pennsylvania (by promising to keep Fletcher’s tax law and raising a militia) and Penn reassumed his role as Proprietor. Lloyd and Markham continued in their roles as Pennsylvania’s political leaders (and render ineffective Fletcher’s tax law) with Markham being appointed as Deputy Governor under Penn.
Legacy
Fletcher's first lieutenant in New York, and possible birth son, was Peter Mathews. Mathews was at a minimum a protégé, and Fletcher may have raised him. Mathews named one of his children Vincent (Fletcher's mother's maiden name). Multiple children in the Mathews family carried the name Fletcher and Vincent, including Fletcher Mathews, Tory supporter during the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
and brother of New York City Mayor David Mathews
David Mathews ( – July 28, 1800) was an American lawyer and politician from New York City. He was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War and was the 43rd and last Colonial Mayor of New York City from 1776 until 1783. As New York Cit ...
, and Vincent Mathews
Vincent Mathews (June 29, 1766 – August 23, 1846) was a United States representative from New York. He was born at "Matthew's Field," in Blooming Grove, New York in Orange County in the village founded by his grandfather of the same name. He h ...
.
Fletcher Street in Lower Manhattan is named after him.[Ulmann, Albert. A Landmark History of New York: Also the Origin of Street Names and a Bibliography, 1901, page 261]
See also
*List of colonial governors of New York
The territory which would later become the state of New York was settled by European colonists as part of the New Netherland colony (parts of present-day New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware) under the command of the Dutch West India C ...
*List of colonial governors of Pennsylvania
This is a list of colonial governors of Pennsylvania.
Proprietors
Three generations of Penns acted as proprietors of the Province of Pennsylvania and the Lower Counties (Delaware) from the founding of the colony until the American Revolution remov ...
References
External links
Colonial Governors of NY
(archived version at archive.org)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fletcher, Benjamin
1640 births
1703 deaths
Governors of the Province of New York
Piracy