Leisler, Jacob (1640-1691)

American Eras

Jacob Leisler (1640-1691)

Merchant and militia officer

Source

Conventional Explanations. Jacob Leisler was a German merchant and militia soldier employed by the Dutch West India Company when he came to New York (then New Amsterdam) in 1660. His rebellion and subsequent seizure of New York’s government (1689-1691) is well known; what is less well known is why he did what he did. The standard explanations have focused on his inability to break into the higher echelons of New York’s political world. Some have also focused on his supposed bitter disposition toward the Dutch merchants who were becoming anglicized. Each of these points has validity, but none adequately explores a central motivating factor behind Leisler’s actions: religion.

Background. Jacob Leisler’s family, on both his mother’s and father’s side, was from a long line of magistri (magistrate or lawyer class). Because of the close dependance John Calvin (French Protestant reformer) had on the magistri to maintain civil order, especially to limit secular rulers who would counter Protestant initiatives, many from that class became strong Calvinist Christians. Calvinism stresses the absolute sovereignty of God and absolute sinfulness of man. Because of this infinite separation between the two, the unmerited grace of God is required for reconciliation. As a branch of Protestantism, Calvinism was naturally in conflict with Roman Catholicism, which focused on the necessity of good works as a means of salvation. Many magistri closely associated with the Reformation in Germany and France began to see their legal function in an energetic religious context. Leisler’s grandfather, Dr. Jacob Leisler, employed his Calvinistic zealotry as legal council to Prince Christian of Anhalt. Dr. Leisler sent his son Jacob Victorian Leisler to the University of Altdorf and later to Geneva University where he came under the powerful influence of Calvinist reformer Theodore Beza, author of the Right of Magistrates (1574). The younger Leisler became a reformed Calvinist pastor to many Huguenot exiles, a ministry that gained him considerable note. Since the 1560s the Huguenot role in French society had been in a constant state of flux, gaining and losing political, civil, and religious rights. The most recent event had taken place in 1629 when French Cardinal Richelieu rescinded the Huguenot’s political and military rights in the Peace of Alias (1629).

Promising Youth. In 1640 his son Jacob Leisler was born. One can imagine the zeal for a Calvinistic world-view this young man would be prone to adopt. With this view came a fear of Roman Catholicism’s potential secular dominance. Part of this fear resulted from the Catholic-Protestant conflicts associated with the Thirty Years War, a conflict that was in its most destructive stage in Germany at Jacob’s birth. Just three years before he was born his parents fled the Roman Catholic Inquisition. By the retelling of this difficult time Jacob’s parents instilled in him, as historian David Voorhees has described, “a lasting fear of Roman Catholics.” While in New York, Leisler often spoke of the “Implacable malice & Violence” he associated with Roman Catholicism. Eventually, Leisler’s father received a rather lucrative pastorate to a French congregation in Frankfurt. It was there that his father developed a wide reputation for strict Calvinistic orthodoxy. Jacob Leisler’s “growth... was shaped by his family’s social position, their Huguenot connections, his father’s rigid orthodoxy, and the religious fanaticism rife in the war-torn German states.” All this he brought to the colony of New York.

Radicalization. In 1683 New York’s Catholic governor Thomas Dongan believed that by appointing the now-successful merchant and militia leader Jacob Leisler as a Court of Admiralty commissioner that he could help to ease tensions between the very diverse Protestant groups in the colony. Leisler reluctantly served in this capacity. He did not like serving under “a profest Papist,” he later stated. His greater concern over Roman Catholic dominance intensified in 1685 when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, a decision that caused almost two hundred thousand Huguenots to flee France. Also in this year a Catholic king ascended the throne of England, James II, formerly the duke of York. From this time forward Jacob Leisler radicalized his position and began to act within his ancestral tradition as a magistrate for the glory of God. Leisler viewed political action as spiritual warfare. He saw the apathy of Anglicanism as willful submission to Catholic sentiments, especially after New York came under the Dominion of New England during the reign of James II. Government was under obligation, Leisler stated, “to enforce the true faith of the Scriptures.” The true faith to Leisler was Protestant Christianity. Many other Protestant groups, mostly German Pietists who would normally not have been in a close alliance with Leisler’s Calvinism, began to see him as their spokesman. A strong coalition of anti-Catholicism was developing in New York, with Leisler at the head.

Road to Rebellion. In 1688 New York Protestants were dismayed when news came that James II had had a son. Now the prospects of a long Catholic rule in England were a reality. But the Glorious Revolution changed all that. With the invasion of William III, Protestant husband to James II’s daughter Mary, the Protestant hopes in England and America revived. Dominion of New England lieutenant governor Francis Nicholson suppressed the news of William and Mary’s invasion. Eventually the word came to Leisler through his own European connections, and he publicized the news. When word reached Boston of the Revolution, the Dominion of New England’s governor Andros was overthrown and jailed. Once the rebellion had spread to New York, Nicholson appointed Leisler, because of his leadership position in the militia, to put a stop to the uprising. He accepted this position, because as a magisterial Calvinist he was committed to “legal structures.” Soon after this appointment Leisler reversed his support for Nicholson upon learning of the lieutenant governor’s support of James II and of a possible anti-Protestant plot between fallen Massachusetts governor Edmund Andros and Nicholson. At first reluctant to actively engage in confronting Nicholson’s “violent caridge” and “malicious designe,” Leisler eventually acted upon Calvin’s famous counsel that the magistri exist “to withstand the fierce licentiousness of kings in accordance with their duty.” It was in this context that Jacob Leisler took over New York City’s Fort James in the absence of Nicholson. Many hailed him as a defender of the Protestant faith. He soon received the lieutenant governorship of the colony. Leisler had successfully taken control of New York’s royal government in the name of God and the Protestant king, William III. His victory was short lived. The tables eventually turned when certain merchants harmed by Leisler’s economic policies convinced King William III that Jacob Leisler was a traitor to England. Leisler further distanced himself from the monarchy when in 1691 he refused to transfer the command of the fort into the hands of a newly arrived royal commander. Leisler, with no other recourse, surrendered the fort to the newly arrived royal governor Henry Sloughter. On 31 March 1691 he was found guilty of “traitorously levying war against our Sovereign Lord and Lady the King and Queen” and was summarily hanged (16 May) until “halfe dead,” then beheaded. Whatever else the rise and fall of Jacob Leisler may mean, especially its role in the subsequent emergence of a representative assembly in the colony, the religious context of his actions shows the extent to which Calvinists were willing to go “to obstruct what they saw as a threat by James II and Louis XIV to romanize the Atlantic world.”

Source

David Voorhees, “The ‘fervent Zeal’ of Jacob Leisler,” William and Mary Quarterly,51 (1994): 447–472.

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