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There once was a time when New York City was known as New Amsterdam; Albany was known as Fort Orange; and part of New York State as New Netherland. The colony that was first there was not ruled by the King of England, but a company based in Amsterdam. The colony of New Netherland was led by only a small handful of leaders, the last of whom was Peter Stuyvesant. A Netherlands native, born in 1610 in Friesland, Netherlands, Stuyvesant studied at the university in Frankeker, and then came into the service of the Dutch West India Company (Gehring 27-31). After holding a variety of positions, he became the director-general of the New Netherland colony. When the colony ended, Stuyvesant sailed back to the Netherlands to defend the actions he had taken while running the colony (Gehring 27-31). In 1668, he returned to the new world, living on land he had bought in 1651, and that he had built a private chapel on in 1660 (St. Mark’s Church), in an area now known as the Bouwery. Stuyvesant died in February of 1672 and was laid to rest nearby (“Stuyvesant”). Peter Stuyvesant effectively led the colony of New Netherland until its British take over by using his background as a military leader and establishing representative governing bodies with limited power. Stuyvesant began his career in the Dutch West India Company as a clerk in their Amsterdam office. A few years later, he was assigned to Fernando de Noronha, an island 300 miles northeast of Brazil and served as a business agent. He was later transferred to Curacao (the most important Dutch holding in the Caribbean) as chief commercial officer. Four years after being transferred to Curacao, Stuyvesant was named director-general (governor). While in Curacao, he devised a plan to capture the island of Saint Martin’s, 500 miles away (“Stuyvesant”). Stuyvesant left for St. Martin’s on March 16, 1644. When the battle began, Stuyvesant “in his zeal,” grabbed a Dutch flag and leapt onto the Spanish defensive wall. He was too close to the battle, and was hit in his right leg by a cannonball (Shorto 147). He had to have his leg amputated below the knee, but still remained at the siege for 28 more days until returning to Curacao and then to the Netherlands, to be fitted for a peg leg. Then in May of 1645, Stuyvesant was named director-general of New Netherland. Arriving in Manhattan on May 11, 1647, he replaced William Kieft (“Stuyvesant”). New Netherland stretched from the Connecticut River to the Delaware Bay, covering part of what is now Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut (Gehring 27-31). When Stuyvesant arrived in New Netherlands, he described the colony as “more a molehill than a fortress,” and said the people had “grown very wild and loose in their morals.” He told the colonists “I shall govern you as a father his children” (Shenitz E.2:35). Soon after his arrival, Joachim Pieterson Kuyter and Cornelis Melyn presented Stuyvesant with a document formally charging Kieft with dereliction of duty while serving as director-general. When Stuyvesant refused to take action, Kuyter and Melyn decided to take their case to the government in the Netherlands (“Stuyvesant”). Kuyter and Melyn charged that Kieft was corrupt, “peremptory and the instigator of a war with the local Indians,” killing more than a thousand of them (Shepard 14.3). Kieft countered Kuyter and Melyn by charging them with being “pestilent and seditious persons,” and asked that they be banished from the colony. Stuyvesant, unwilling to undermine his own authority by siding with Kuyter and Melyn, sided with Kieft and banished the two men from the colony. Kuyter and Melyn, however, appealed the sentence in the Netherlands and it was overturned (“Stuyvesant”). Stuyvesant was also tough on crime and kept order. He created laws in the colony similar to laws one might see today on a military base, laws designed to keep order. Two weeks after arriving in New Netherland he set rules for liquor. Liquor could not be sold before 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, except to travelers, and liquor could not be served after the town bell had struck nine in the evening. Selling liquor to the Indians was strictly prohibited. Stuyvesant also tried to curb fighting between the colonists. Any person who drew a knife was fined 100 guilders , and if a person got hurt the person wielding the knife was fined 300 guilders (Shepard 14.3). Stuyvesant also used governing bodies with limited power to run the colony, though his militaristic ideas of rule still showed. In August of 1646, Stuyvesant created the first of three governing bodies. This first group was known as the Board of Nine, which served as an advisory group to Stuyvesant. The people would nominate eighteen people, and from that eighteen Stuyvesant would choose nine. Each year, six would retire, and the people would nominate twelve. From those twelve, Stuyvesant would choose six, and the process would repeat itself from then on each year. In December of 1648 Adriaen Van der Donck became a member of the Board of Nine. The nine men, with Van der Donck leading, sought independence from the Dutch West India Company. Van der Donck began to draft a petition, but Stuyvesant went to the home where Van der Donck was working on the petition. After seizing the document, Stuyvesant had Van der Donck arrested. Van der Donck was released from jail, but was removed from the Board of Nine. Continuing to advise those still on the board, Van der Donck continued writing his petition, suggesting eight significant reasons for the “very and low condition” of the colony (“Stuyvesant”). He also continued to push the idea that the colony would be better served if the Dutch West India Company no longer had control (“Stuyvesant”). Van der Donck’s petition essentially called for three changes that needed to be made to the colony: first, that the government of the Netherlands take control of the governing of the colony; second, that a better government be established in New Amsterdam; third and final, that the borders of New Netherlands be clearly defined (Goodwin 72-73). Von der Donck knew Dutch law from studying at the university in Leiden, Netherlands and being the lawman in Kiliaen Van Rensselaer’s Rensselaerswyck. When he finished his petition and was ready to present his case in the Netherlands, Van der Donck issued summons to councilors and officers of the colony, requesting that they appear at The Hague. Most refused to go, but Von der Donck kept paper copies of all these occurrences (Shorto 204-205). Then on May 8, 1649, Stuyvesant issued a new ordinance nullifying all of Von der Donck’s papers: Whereas it is daily observed that … great abuses are committed in the writing and procuring of depositions by private person who are neither pledged thereto by oath nor qualified thereto by official authority, whereby frequently many things are written to the advantage of those who have the papers drawn up interspersed with sinister, obscure and dubious words … to the great prejudice and damage of the parties; therefore, in order to prevent this result, dangerous in a republic … we annul and declare invalid … all affidavits, interrogations, or other instruments serving as evidence, which are written by private individuals … (Shorto 205)
In addition to this ordinance, Stuyvesant charged Van der Donck with “crimen lasesae majestatis,” high treason (Shorto 200). Stuyvesant claimed that Van der Donck’s documents “grossly slandered” him and caused “great calumnies” against the government in the Netherlands (200). Van der Donck and Cornelis Van Tienhoven (representing Stuyvesant and the Dutch West India Company) sailed together to the Netherlands to present their cases to the government at The Hague (208). The government sided with Van der Donck, and agreed that a municipal government in New Amsterdam be established (243-245). The first request on Van der Donck’s however, that the government of the Netherlands take over control of the colony, was not granted (Goodwin 73). The second of the three governing bodies subsequently created on February 2, 1653. A charter for a municipal government for New Amsterdam was created, and allowed for five “schepens” or aldermen and two “burgomasters” or mayors. Stuyvesant, in keeping with his militaristic style of rule, limited the power of this government by choosing who would fill these positions. Stuyvesant also appointed Van Tienhoven as sheriff and prosecuting attorney of New Amserdam (Goodwin 73, “Stuyvesant”). City hall (“Stadt-Huys”) and meetings were set at The Stone Tavern, which was built by Kieft (73). The third representative body represented all of New Netherland, and convened for the first time on December 10, 1653. Eight towns in the New Netherland colony were represented by nineteen delegates: ten Dutchmen and nine Englishmen. This body had similar views to Kieft, in that the Dutch West India Company should have less control over the colonists. The representative body of New Netherland created a document titled “Humble Remonstrance and a Petition of the Colonies and Villages in this New Netherland Province” (“Stuyvesant”). This document established that Stuyvesant was their ruler, but they weren’t happy with him. They also said they should have the same privileges that Dutch citizens in the homeland have and that the colonists were not “a conquered nor subjugated population” (“Stuyvesant”). Stuyvesant was not only in conflict with some of the colonists, but also surrounding colonies. To the south, Stuyvesant faced New Sweden, established in 1638 under the direction of Peter Minuit, who was coincidently quite familiar with the area, since he had been the first governor of New Netherland (“Stuyvesant”). In 1651, near the Swedes’ Fort Christina, Stuyvesant built Fort Casimir. The Swedes, displeased with the encroachment of Stuyvesant on their own colony, captured Fort Casimir and renamed it Fort Trininy in 1654. In retaliation, Stuyvesant sailed his fleet into the Delaware River in 1655, retaking Fort Casimir/Trinity, along with all Swedish forts, and ending the Swedish colony, now ruled by Governor Rysing (Goodwin 130). By utilizing his military background, Stuyvesant had beaten the Swedes. To the north, Stuyvesant faced New England. In 1650, Stuyvesant went to Hartford, Connecticut and negotiated the Treaty of Hartford. The Treaty divided Long Island between New England and New Netherland, so that the area west of a line running from Oyster Bay directly south to the ocean went to the Dutch, and everything east went to the British. The Treaty also drew the line between Connecticut and New Netherland, giving Greenwich to the Dutch and Stanford to the British (“Stuyvesant”). While the colonies had reached a mutual existence, the “mother countries” had not. In 1653 Britain and the Netherlands were at war. The defenses of New Amsterdam were strengthened by building a fortified wall. This wall ran where the aptly named Wall Street now runs. In 1654 the Treaty of Westminster ended the conflict between the Dutch and British. Oliver Cromwell, the then leader of England, sent word that there was to be no attack on New Netherland (“Stuyvesant”). After Cromwell’s death, King Charles the II reclaimed the throne for the Stuart family. In march of 1664, he gave his brother, James II, Duke of York, all of Long Island and the “Hudson’s River and all the land from the west side of the Connectecutte River to the east side of De la Ware Bay ” (“Stuyvesant”). The land that had been given to York was essentially all of New Netherland (“Stuyvesant”). York organized an expedition of four warships under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls. Stuyvesant tried to rally his defense but few did anything. There were two main reasons for this unwillingness to defend. The first being that Nicolls offered 50 acres of land to any Dutch defender who wished to become a farmer after he surrendered (“Stuyvesant”). The second reason was that by 1664, the English numbered about one-half of New Netherland’s ten-thousand person population (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey 58). The English had flocked to New Netherland, some trying to escape the Puritans in New England, and others seeking wealth (Shepard 14.3). The people of New Netherland also wanted Stuyvesant to surrender to the British to avoid “useless bloodshed” (Goodwin 81-82). One colonist remarked, “resistance is not soldiership. It is sheer madness,” (Goodwin 81-82). Of the take over, Stuyvesant said, “I would much rather be carried to my grave.” Under pressure from both Britain and the colonists, Stuyvesant signed the document of surrender on September 8, 1664, and English troops occupied New Amsterdam. When English officials sent word to Massachusetts, New Amsterdam was gone and the letter read, “frome New Yorke upon the Island of Manhatoes,” (“Stuyvesant”). The colony of New Netherland had ended without a single shot being fired (Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey 58). Stuyvesant had led the colony of New Netherland for almost eighteen years, governing, as he had said he would, “…as a father his children” (Shenitz E.2:35). He had brought order to the colony and defended it from other foreign powers. Stuyvesant had been an effective leader for the colony until the British take over, by creating governing bodies and utilizing his military experience.
As governor Stuyvesant, an anti-semite, took measures to make New Amsterdam a city of white people. He restricted and opressed the Jewish, African-American, and Native American populations in the colony. It is with great irony that in 1902 Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, which was at the time of its founding a predominantly Jewish school for boys, was named after him.
A Dutch cigarette brand is named Peter Stuyvesant after him. These are popular in Australia, where they are known as 'Stuyvos'.
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