1666

Newark is founded on the Passaic River in the New Jersey colony by Connecticut Puritans who have arrived under the leadership of Robert Treat.

1674

English Quakers purchase the New Jersey colony interests of Lord John Berkeley .

1676

New Jersey’s western part is conveyed to English Quakers who have entered into an agreement with Philip Carteret

1677

Culpeper’s Rebellion in the 14-year-old Carolina colony protests enforcement of English trade laws by the colony’s proprietors. Rebellious colonists install surveyor John Culpeper as governor, but the proprietors will remove him in 1679.

1679

Scots-American Robert Livingston, 25, marries Alida Schuyler van Rensselaer, widow of the late Nicholas van Rensselaer, and extends his landholdings in the Albany, New York, area where he has made his home for the past 5 years

1680

Europe enters a 40-year period of economic troubles that will be accompanied by wild price fluctuations, revolts, famines, and disease epidemics.

1680

Maryland colonists complain that “their supply of provisions becoming exhausted, it was necessary for them, in order to keep from starvation, to eat the oysters taken from along their shores.” 

1682

The Mennonites (see 1682) will introduce Pennsylvania “Dutch” (Deutsch) cooking and will contribute dishes such as scrapple to the American cuisine.

1682

A Frame of Government drawn up by William Penn for the Pennsylvania colony contains an explicit clause permitting amendments, an innovation that makes it a self-adjusting constitution.

1683

England’s Charles II compels the City of London to surrender its charter under a writ of quo warranto, various aldermen and officers are ejected and replaced by royal nominees, municipal charters throughout England are revoked to give the Tories control over appointment of municipal officers, and some of the defeated Whigs conspire to assassinate the king. The Rye House plot is uncovered in June along with a similar conspiracy. Lord William Russell, 43, is sent to the Tower of London June 26 as are Arthur Capel, 51, first earl of Essex, and Algernon Sidney, 51. Russell is executed July 21 at Lincoln’s Inn Fields after trial and conviction on the testimony of a perjured witness, Essex is discovered in his chamber July 30 with his throat slit, probably by his own hand, and Sidney is beheaded December 7.

1683

The Great Treaty of Shackamaxon, signed by William Penn with the Delaware Indians, permits Penn to purchase territories that will become southeastern Pennsylvania.

1684

Charles II roasts oxen and feeds the poor at his own expense as bitter cold grips the country.

1684

Tea sells on the Continent for less than 1 shilling per pound, but an import duty of 5 shillings per pound makes tea too costly for most Englishmen and encourages widespread smuggling. The English consume more smuggled tea than is brought in by orthodox routes (

1684

Parliament annuls the Massachusetts Charter of 1629 following charges that colonists have usurped the rights of Mason and Gorges and their heirs in New Hampshire, evaded the Navigation Acts by sending tobacco and sugar directly to Europe, exercised power not warranted by the charter, and shown disrespect for the king’s authority.

1684

The word American appears for the first time in writings by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, 21, who entered Harvard College at age 12 and will become assistant next year to his father Increase Mather at Boston’s North Church

1685

Barbados has 46,000 slaves, up from 6,000 in 1645. Blacks on the island outnumber Europeans 2 to 1.

1685

England’s Charles II dies February 6 at age 54 saying, “Let not poor Nelly starve,” a reference to actress Nell Gwyn, now 34, who made her last stage appearance in 1682, has borne the king two sons, but will die in 2 years. Charles has made a profession of the Catholic faith on his deathbed, his Catholic brother James, 51, succeeds him to begin a brief reign as James II, but the new king’s nephew James, duke of Monmouth, claims “legitimate and legal” right to the throne.

1685

Monmouth (see 1685) is the acknowledged son of Charles, he has taken the surname Scott of his wife Anne, countess of Buccleuch, his mistress Henrietta Maria Wentworth, 28, baroness Wentworth, has supplied funds, he has the support of Archibald Campbell, 56, earl of Argyll, and he lands at Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire, with 82 supporters. English troops loyal to James II capture Argyll, and he is executed June 30. James’s troops easily defeat Monmouth July 6 at the Battle of Sedgemoor, last formal battle on English soil, and he is captured and beheaded.

1685

More than 50,000 French Huguenot families begin emigrating following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (see 1685). Half a million people will leave for England (Spitalfields), Holland, Denmark, Sweden, the Protestant German states, South Africa, and North America, many countries will attract the emigrants by offering tax exemptions and transportation subsidies, the emigrants will include so many seamen that French shipping will be hurt for generations to come, and the loss of so many craftsmen and intellectuals will leave France crippled.

1688

Lord Baltimore loses control of the Maryland colony as a result of the Glorious Revolution in England (see 1688; 1632; 1715).

1689

A smallpox epidemic in the Massachusetts colony kills more than a thousand in 12 months.

1689

Scotland’s Convention of Estates meets in April at the summoning of the prince of Orange, declares that James VII has forfeited the Scottish Crown, offers it to William and Mary, who accept, and is converted in June into a parliament. Scottish Episcopalians form a Jacobite party to prevent the threatened abolition of episcopacy and hold out at Edinburgh Castle until forced to surrender June 13. John Graham of Claverhouse, 40, Viscount Dundee, collects 3,000 men to oppose William and Mary, the Whig general Hugh Mackay is swept back into Killiecrankie Pass July 27 and loses nearly half his men, the Bonny Dundee gains a victory, but he is killed later in the day, ending the danger of a Jacobite restoration

1689

Bostonians revolt at news of James II’s flight from England and restore charter government after imprisoning Sir Edmund Andros, but New York proclaims William and Mary the rightful monarchs of England and her colonies.

1689

Connecticut’s Charter Oak gets its name as representatives of William III try to take back the colonial charter granted by Charles II in 1662. Colonists hide the charter at Hartford in a centuries-old oak that will have a circumference of 33 feet when it is blown down in 1856.

1690

A paper mill put up at Germantown in the Pennsylvania colony is the first in America. Mennonite clergyman William Rittenhouse, 46, has been in Pennsylvania for 2 years and organized a paper manufacturing company (see Robert, 1798).

1690

Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick begins publication September 25 at Boston, but British authorities have forbidden publication of anything without authority from the Crown and suppress printer Benjamin Harris’s newspaper after one day, destroying all undistributed copies

1690

The Battle of the Boyne July 1 completes the Protestant conquest of Ireland as England’s William III defeats the Catholic pretender James II and his French supporters. James flees back to France, Dublin and Waterford fall to the Protestant English, but Limerick resists, and the Irish Jacobite Patrick Sarsfield, earl of Lucan, forces William to lift his siege of Limerick.

1691

German immigrant farmers in the Pennsylvania colony choose heavily wooded lands with clay loams in preference to the light, sandy uplands favored by the English. While the English girdle trees to kill them and then farm among the stumps, the Germans clear their land completely and plow deeply. Instead of planting tobacco, the Germans will stick to wheat, and instead of letting their stock roam freely they will build barns before building houses as they populate Maryland, Virginia, and other colonies

1691

The Massachusetts colony (see 1691) extends religious liberty to all except Catholics.

1691

The Battle of Aughrim July 12 gives William and Mary’s Dutch-born general Godert de Ginkel, 47, a victory over Ireland’s earl of Lucan Patrick Sarsfield and his French allies. Gen. de Ginkel lays siege once again to Limerick, which surrenders October 3. The Treaty of Limerick which ends the Irish rebellion grants free transportation to France for all Irish officers and men who wish it (the Irish Brigade will play a prominent role in French military history) and promises religious freedom to Irish Catholics, a pledge that will be broken in 1695.

1692

Scots-American sea captain William Kidd, 38, marries New York widow Sara Oart and increases his holdings by £155 14s

1692

Accusations of witchcraft by English-American clergyman Samuel Parris, 39, result in dozens of alleged witches being brought to trial at Salem in the Massachusetts colony. Nineteen will be hanged and one pressed to death in the next 2 years, many of them on the testimony of 12-year-old Anne Putnam

1692

England’s William and Mary deprive William Penn of his proprietorship and commission New York Governor Benjamin Fletcher as governor of Pennsylvania.

1692

England’s two leading provincial towns of Bristol and Norwich have some 30,000 inhabitants each. York and Exeter are the only other towns with as many as 10,000, but London has close to 550,000 and rivals Paris as a center of population.

1692

England’s total population approaches 6 million, of which half are farm workers in a country that is still half fen, heath, and forest.

1693

William III initiates England’s national debt by borrowing £1 million on annuities at an interest rate of 10 percent (see Bank of England, 1694).

1693

The Massachusetts colony reduces maximum legal interest rates to 6 percent, down from 8 in 1641.

1693

The College of William and Mary is founded by royal charter in the Virginia colony at Middle Plantation, later to be called Williamsburg (see 1699). The college will award its first baccalaureates in 1770

1693

Swiss Protestant cantons agree to supply mercenary troops to the Dutch after Catholic cantons have supplied mercenaries for Louis XIV to throw against the Dutch. The Catholic cantons respond by supplying mercenaries to the Spanish, a move the Protestant cantons will counter by supplying mercenaries to the English as well as to the Dutch.

1693

Scotland’s clan Macgregor mourns the death of its chief Gregor Macgregor and acknowledges his son-in-law Rob Roy (so called because of his red hair) as the new chief. Rob Roy, 22, obtains control of lands from Loch Lomond to the Braes of Balquihidder

1694

Parliament doubles the English salt tax to raise money for the continuing war with France.

1695

England imposes a window tax that will influence residential architecture until 1851.

1696

The Navigation Act passed by Parliament April 10 forbids England’s American colonists to export directly to Scotland or Ireland

1696

Spain establishes a Florida colony at Pensacola as a defense against the French.

1698

Captain Kidd seizes the Armenian vessel Auedagh Merchant, captures other prizes, and sails for the West Indies where he will find that he has been proclaimed a pirate (see 1692). Commissioned in 1696 to head an expedition against pirates in the Indian Ocean, Kidd took his first prizes off Madagascar last year. He will surrender to New England authorities next year on the promise of a pardon

1698

Parliament opens the slave trade to British merchants, who will in some cases carry on a triangular trade from New England to Africa to the Caribbean islands to New England. The merchant vessels will carry New England rum to African slavers, African slaves on “the middle passage” to the West Indies, and West Indian sugar and molasses to New England for the rum distilleries.

1698

Two-thirds of the New York colony’s population remains on Long Island and near the mouth of the Hudson as the Iroquois and other hostile tribes block expansion to the north and west.

1699

The Woolens Act passed by Parliament under pressure from the English wool lobby forbids any American colony to export wool, wool yarn, or wool cloth “to any place whatsoever.” The act works a certain hardship on rural New Englanders, but while nearly every New England family keeps sheep and has a spinning wheel, few Americans are eager to enter the woolen manufacturing industry.

1699

Yellow fever epidemics kill 150 at Charleston and 220 at Philadelphia.

1699

The Massachusetts colony passes a law designed to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

1700

The Gregorian calendar of 1582 is adopted by the German Protestant states by order of the Diet of Regensburg, but England and her colonies continue to use the Old Style Julian calendar as do many other countries (see 1752).

1700

The Selling of Joseph by Boston jurist Samuel Sewall, 48, condemns the selling of slaves. Sewall 3 years ago made public confession of error and guilt for his part in condemning to execution 19 alleged witches at Salem in 1692.

1700

London’s population reaches 550,000, up from 450,000 in 1660. Despite the heavy losses to plague in 1665 and the destruction by fire of much of the city in 1666, London is the largest city in Europe.

1700

England’s American colonies have an estimated population of 262,000 with 12,000 each in Boston and Philadelphia, and 5,000 in New York