What was Uncle Matthew's position in The Witch of Blackbird Pond?
Uncle Matthew is a Patriot, which, in the context of the story, is someone who believes that the Puritan settlers have a right to rebel against the British Crown should the king attempt to remove their charter. Though Patriots are outwardly loyal to the King, their loyalty has limits, and...
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if the king doesn't respect the settlers' laws and rights, then he'll find out exactly what those limits are.
However, Uncle Matthew's political stance doesn't always feed into his normal, everyday behavior. So, for instance, when William Ashby, the son of a self-proclaimed "king's man," expresses a wish to come and pay court to Kit, Matthew's makes the decision—without asking Kit, of course—that permission will be given to the young man to woo his niece.
On the face of it, this seems like a strange decision for a self-confessed Patriot to take. After all, if William and Kit develop feelings for each other, then they may well be married one day. Then we'd have the strange situation of two families with radically different political opinions being related by marriage.
On the other hand, perhaps Uncle Matthew is thinking strategically. If a Patriot family and a king's man family can come together, then perhaps that will insure them to some extent against any future conflict that may break out in the colonies.
What was the big news from Uncle Matthew in The Witch of Blackbird Pond?
At the end of chapter 14, Kit and Judith return home to find Rachel looking anxiously up and down the road. She tells them that Matthew had gone to Hartford with some men and that there is a big crowd forming around the blacksmith shop. She thinks it all has something to do with Governor Andros of Massachusetts, "the one who is determined to take the charter away."
She proves right. Later in the afternoon, Matthew returns looking ill and beaten. He says that Governor Andros is arriving in Hartford on Monday to take over as Royal Governor of Connecticut.
At the beginning of the next chapter, the reader hears the locals' real feelings on the matter in a meeting Matthew holds at his house. We only hear snippets of the angry conversation from the point of the women outside the meeting room, but we hear enough to know that the men are worried about their futures. One person says that it will be the end of all they've worked for. Another claims that the governor doesn't think that the contracts they made with the Indians over land mean anything. They will have to ask for new grants for the land they've already bought: "The fees alone will leave us paupers."