62 Facts About Joseph Dudley

Joseph Dudley was a colonial administrator, a native of Roxbury in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the son of one of its founders.

Joseph Dudley had a leading role in the administration of the Dominion of New England, which was overthrown in the 1689 Boston revolt.

Joseph Dudley served briefly on the council of the Province of New York, from which he oversaw the trial which convicted Jacob Leisler, the ringleader of Leisler's Rebellion.

Joseph Dudley then spent eight years in England in the 1690s as Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Wight, including one year as a Member of Parliament for Newtown.

Joseph Dudley orchestrated an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Acadian capital of Port Royal in 1707, raised provincial militia forces for its successful capture in 1710, and directed an unsuccessful expedition against Quebec in 1711.

Joseph Dudley's mother was Katherine Dudley and his father was Thomas Dudley, one of the founders and leading magistrates of the colony.

Joseph Dudley's father was 70 when he was born and died in 1653.

Joseph Dudley graduated from Harvard College in 1665 and was admitted as a freeman in 1672.

Joseph Dudley became a member of the Massachusetts General Court representing Roxbury in 1673, and he was elected to the colony's council of assistants in 1676.

King Philip's War broke out in 1675, and Joseph Dudley was a commissioner who accompanied the colonial militia into the field against the Indians.

Joseph Dudley was present at the Great Swamp Fight in which the Narragansett people was decisively defeated.

In 1679, Joseph Dudley was recorded as owning an enslaved Native American girl.

Joseph Dudley served for several years as a commissioner to the New England Confederation, and was sent by the administration on diplomatic missions to neighboring Indian communities.

Joseph Dudley served on a committee that negotiated the boundary between Massachusetts and the Plymouth Colony.

Joseph Dudley was part of a moderate faction which supported accommodating the king's demands, along with his brother-in-law Simon Bradstreet and William Stoughton, and they were opposed by others who did not want the crown to interfere in the colony's business.

Joseph Dudley brought a letter of introduction from Plymouth Governor Thomas Hinckley to colonial secretary William Blathwayt, and the favorable relationship that he established with Blathwayt contributed to his future success as a colonial administrator, but it raised suspicions in the colony about his motives and ability to represent the colony's interests.

Joseph Dudley brought this news to Boston at the end of 1683, igniting a heated debate in the legislature, with the opposition party again prevailing.

Richards sided with the opposition, and Joseph Dudley was removed from the council of assistants in the 1684 election.

The episode led to accusations that Joseph Dudley had secretly schemed in London to have the charter vacated as a means of personal advancement.

Joseph Dudley did discuss the form of a replacement government with Edward Randolph, although this discussion did not take place until after the quo warranto writ was issued.

Joseph Dudley made a number of judicial appointments, generally favoring the political moderates who had supported accommodation of the king's wishes in the battle over the old charter.

Joseph Dudley was significantly hampered by the inability to raise revenues in the dominion.

Joseph Dudley's commission did not give him authority to introduce new revenue laws, and the Massachusetts government had repealed all such laws in 1683 in anticipation of losing their charter.

Joseph Dudley sat on his council and served as judge of the superior court and censor of the press.

Joseph Dudley sat on the committee that worked to harmonize legislation throughout the dominion.

Joseph Dudley was away from the city but was arrested upon his return.

Joseph Dudley stayed in jail for ten months, in part for his own safety, and was then sent back to England at the command of King William, along with Andros and other dominion leaders.

Joseph Dudley was stranded in London with limited connections, so he appealed to Blathwayt for assistance.

Joseph Dudley asked business associate Daniel Coxe for help in finding a new position.

The trial was controversial, and Joseph Dudley's role made him many enemies.

Cotton Mather claimed that Joseph Dudley was an influential force arguing for Leisler's execution, although this is disputed by testimony from anti-Leisler councillor Nicholas Bayard.

Joseph Dudley left New York for his home in Roxbury in 1692 and re-established connections with political friends such as William Stoughton, who had just been appointed lieutenant governor of the newly chartered Province of Massachusetts Bay under Sir William Phips.

Joseph Dudley returned to England in 1693 and embarked on a series of intrigues to regain an office in New England.

Joseph Dudley ingratiated himself to the religious elements of the London political establishment by formally joining the Church of England.

Joseph Dudley acquired a patron in Baron Cutts, who engineered his appointment as Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Wight where Cutts had been appointed Governor.

Joseph Dudley tried to assist Cutts with some financial difficulties, and he schemed with Cutts' father-in-law to gain permission to mint coins for use in New England.

Joseph Dudley caused Phips to be arrested shortly after his arrival, on the charge that Phips had withheld customs money from the crown.

The debate included a review of Leisler's trial, and Joseph Dudley was forced to appear and defend his role in it.

Joseph Dudley managed temporarily to mend political fences with Constantine Phips and Cotton Mather, and he began lobbying for the Massachusetts governorship after the death of Bellomont in 1701.

Joseph Dudley served as governor until 1715, and his administration was marked by regular conflict with the general court, particularly in the early years.

Joseph Dudley pressed his complaint in letters to London, in which he complained of men "who love not the Crown and Government of England to any manner of obedience".

Joseph Dudley angered the powerful Mather family when he awarded the presidency of Harvard to John Leverett instead of Cotton Mather.

Joseph Dudley consistently vetoed the election of councilors and speakers of the general court who had acted against him in 1689, further increasing his unpopularity in Massachusetts.

Joseph Dudley was active in managing colonial defenses during Queen Anne's War.

Joseph Dudley called out the militia and licensed privateers to raid French shipping, such as Thomas Larimore; he fortified the Massachusetts and New Hampshire frontiers from the Connecticut River to southern Maine.

Joseph Dudley engaged in protracted negotiations for the return of captives taken at Deerfield.

Boston merchants and the Mathers accused Joseph Dudley of being in league with smugglers and others who were illegally trading with the French, in part because he specifically refused permission for Church to attack the Acadian capital and commercial center of Port Royal.

Joseph Dudley sought to forestall these criticisms in 1707 when he sent the colonial militia on a fruitless expedition against Port Royal.

Joseph Dudley again rallied the provincial militias for a planned expedition against Quebec in 1709, but the supporting expedition from England was called off.

Joseph Dudley negotiated a separate peace with the Abenakis at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1713.

Joseph Dudley hoped to separate the western Kennebec tribe from French influence and consequently adopted a fairly hard line, threatening to withhold trade that was vital to their survival and reiterating claims of British sovereignty over them.

Joseph Dudley claimed that the French had ceded Abenaki lands as part of Acadia, and one sachem responded: "The French never said anything to us about it, and we wonder how they would give it away without asking us".

Nevertheless, Joseph Dudley and succeeding governors treated the Abenaki as British subjects, and friction persisted over British colonial expansion into Maine which flared into Dummer's War in the 1720s.

Joseph Dudley's commission expired in 1714, six months after the death of Queen Anne, as did that of Lieutenant Governor William Tailer.

Joseph Dudley acted as an informal advisor to Governor Shute upon his arrival, and made appearances at public and private functions.

In 1668, Joseph Dudley married Rebecca Tyng, who survived him by two years.

Governor William Dummer; another daughter Ann Joseph Dudley married John Winthrop, son of Wait Winthrop, grandson of John Winthrop the Younger and great-grandson of John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

John Winthrop and Ann Joseph Dudley were parents of Catherine [Winthrop] wife of Colonel Epes Sargent the parents of Paul Joseph Dudley Sargent.

Joseph Dudley owned large tracts of land in Massachusetts when he died, principally in Roxbury and Worcester County.

Joseph Dudley frequently used his position to ensure that his land titles were judicially cleared, especially when president of the dominion and governor of the province.

Historian John Palfrey wrote that Joseph Dudley "united rich intellectual attributes with a groveling soul", forging political connections and relationships in his early years for the purpose of his own advancement.

Joseph Dudley capitalized on his favorable family connections to the Puritan leadership of Massachusetts to establish connections in England, but then betrayed those Massachusetts connections when it became necessary to further his quest for power.