Joseph Dudley

Who was Joseph Dudley?

Joseph Dudley was an English colonial administrator. A native of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and the son of one of its founders, Dudley had a leading role in the administration of the Dominion of New England, overthrown in the 1689 Boston revolt, and served briefly on the council of the Province of New York. In New York, he oversaw the trial that convicted Jacob Leisler, the ringleader of Leisler's Rebellion. He spent eight years in the 1690s as lieutenant governor of the Isle of Wight, including one year as a Member of Parliament. In 1702 he was appointed governor of the provinces of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, posts he held until 1715.

His rule of Massachusetts was characterized by hostility and tension, with political enemies opposing his attempts to gain a regular salary, and regularly making complaints about his official and private actions. Most of his tenure was dominated by Queen Anne's War, in which the two provinces were on the front lines with New France and suffered from a series of major and minor French and Indian raids.