William Phips

This article is about Governor William Phips. For other people, see William Phipps .

Sir William Phips.
Oil painting, attributed to Thomas Child , created around 1687–94.

Sir William Phips (also Phipps ; born February 2, 1651 near Nequasett (now Woolwich , Maine ); died February 18, 1695 in London ) was a New England adventurer, military man and politician.

Life

Phips, who came from a poor background, suddenly became rich and famous in 1686 when he recovered the gold of a Spanish galleon that sank off Hispaniola ; for this find he was also knighted by the English king and appointed the highest ranking sheriff of the newly formed Dominion of New England . In the First French and Indian War, he led various military expeditions against French fortresses in what is now Canada . In May 1690, as a military leader, he first succeeded in conquering Port Royal , the capital of Acadia ; in October of that year the French inflicted a heavy defeat on him at the Battle of Quebec . Nevertheless, in 1692 he was appointed the first royal governor of Massachusetts , which had now been converted into a crown colony . During his tenure, the Salem witch trials fall , for which he set up the special court in 1692, which passed more than 20 death sentences under the chairmanship of William Stoughton ; In the following year, however, he ended the ongoing trials by decree and ordered all the accused to be released. In other respects, too, his term of office was marked by a complex network of political and personal intrigues. Accused not only of incompetence but also of infidelity by Joseph Dudley and other political rivals, he was eventually summoned to London for questioning by the Board of Trade on these charges , where he was arrested on arrival in January 1695 and soon afterwards in the Detention passed away before the hearings began.

literature

Sources and representations of antiquarian interest

• Cotton Mather : Pietas in Patriam: The Life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. London, 1697.
• Ernest Myrand: 1690, Sir William Phips devant Québec, histoire d'un siège . L.-J. Demers et Frère, Québec 1893.

historical literature

• Emerson W. Baker and John G. Reid: The New England Knight: Sir William Phips, 1651-1695 . University of Toronto Press, Toronto and London 1998. ISBN 0-8020-0925-5
• Viola F. Barnes: The Rise of William Phips . In: The New England Quarterly 1: 3, 1928. pp. 271-94.
• Viola F. Barnes: Phippius Maximus . In: The New England Quarterly 1: 4, 1928. pp. 532-53.
• Philip F. Gura: Cotton Mather's Life of Phips: 'a vice with the vizard of vertue upon it' . In: The New England Quarterly 50: 3, 1977. pp. 271-94. ·

Encyclopedia Articles

• Barbara Ritter Dailey: Phips, Sir William (1651–1695) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004ff; online: < http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22193 > (restricted access)
• Jonathan M. Chu: Phips, Sir William . In: American National Biography Online , February 2000: < http://www.anb.org/articles/01/01-00728.html > (restricted access)
• CP Stacey: Phips, Sir William . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).