Daniel Parke

Colonel Daniel Parke Jr. (1664 – December 7, 1710) was an American-born military officer, planter, politician and colonial administrator who served as the governor of the Leeward Islands from 1706 to 1710, when he was lynched by a mob in Antigua. Best known for his military service in Europe under the Duke of Marlborough during the War of the Spanish Succession, Parke was the only governor in Britain's American colonies to be murdered. Born in 1664 in the colony of Virginia into a prominent colonial family, Parke was sent to England at a young age before returning to English North America in 1674. In 1685, he married Jane Ludwell, the daughter of colonial official Philip Ludwell. Parke returned to Virginia after a second stay in England and pursued a career in politics, being elected to the House of Burgesses in 1693 and appointed to sit on the Governor's Council in 1695. In 1701, he moved to England for a second time and in the next year began serving as an aide-de-camp to Marlborough after the War of the Spanish Succession broke out. After the 1704 Battle of Blenheim, he personally delivered the duke's victory dispatch to Queen Anne. Parke did not receive the governorship of Virginia as he had hoped, and instead was subsequently appointed as the governor of the Leeward Islands in 1706. Parke travelled to Antigua in 1706, focusing his efforts on improving colonial fortifications and suppressing smuggling. Popular discontent against his administration resulted in two assassination attempts against him. In December 1710, tensions came to a head between Parke and the island's colonists as a mob of militiamen attacked his house, murdering him. After his death, Parke's estates and debts were passed onto his children.