Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick, was a member of the Irish Parliament, Royalist military officer during the English Civil War, and Governor of the Province of New York. He is noted for having called the first representative legislature in New York, and for granting the province's Charter of Liberties. His negotiations and subsequent alliance with the Iroquois Indian Confederacy brought a lasting security from the French and their hostile Indian allies.

The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to 1783.