Peter Stuyvesant

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Stuyvesant, Peter ˈstīvǝsǝnt (1610?-72) colonial founder. Stuyvesant was born in the Netherlands and worked for the Dutch West India Company as director general in Curaçao. He led Dutch troops in attacks on Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and lost his right leg in an attack on the Spanish fort on St. Martin. He returned to the Netherlands to recuperate and then was sent back to the New World, where he added the governorship of New Netherland to his responsibilities. He arrived there in 1647. Stuyvesant provided strong, if authoritarian, leadership for the poorly managed colony, defeated Swedish colonists who attempted to take over Dutch territory in the Delaware region, and negotiated a satisfactory border agreement with New England to the north. He also struggled to maintain peaceful relations with area Indian tribes, although he did not always succeed. In August 1664 he was forced to surrender the poorly defended colony to an English fleet.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Peter Stuyvesant (ca. 1610-1672), Dutch director general of the New Netherland colony in America, was compelled to surrender his colony to England.

The last and most efficient of Dutch proconsuls in the European struggle for control of North America, Peter Stuyvesant is remembered as the stubborn, somewhat choleric governor of the Dutch West India Company's base on the mainland. A zealous Calvinist, he brought a relatively effective government to the colony, absorbed the nearby rival Swedish settlements, and attempted to remold New Netherland in his own and the company's image. His efforts at reform were cut short with the seizure of New Amsterdam (later, New York) by a British force in 1664.

Born at Scherpenzeel, Friesland, Stuyvesant was the son of a Calvinist Dutch Reformed minister. He attended school in Friesland, where he heard much about New Netherland and about Holland's war with Spain. He became a student at the University of Franeker but was apparently expelled, for reasons unknown, about 1629.

Patriotic, and desiring adventure, Stuyvesant entered the service of the Dutch West India Company - first as a clerk and then, in 1635, as a supercargo to Brazil. By 1638 he had become chief commercial officer for Curaçao; in 1643 he returned there as governor. The following year he led an unsuccessful attack against the Portuguese colony of St. Martin in the Leeward Islands. During the siege he was wounded in the right leg, and the crude amputation required resulted in a lengthy convalescence and a trip to Holland to obtain an artificial limb. (Because of its adornments ments, he was thereafter often nicknamed "Silver Leg.") In Breda he married Judith Bayard, the sister of his brother-in-law.

On Oct. 5, 1645, Stuyvesant came before the chamber of the nearly bankrupt West India Company and volunteered his services for New Netherland. The next July he was appointed director general of that colony. On Christmas Day he sailed for America with four vessels carrying soldiers, servants, traders, and a new set of officials. Also on board were his widowed sister and her children, together with his wife. The ships, proceeding by way of Curaçao, arrived at New Amsterdam on May 11, 1647, to be greeted by cheering settlers.

The inhabitants soon learned, however, that their new governor was not so liberal as themselves. Stuyvesant's first domestic order restricted sale of intoxicants and compelled observance of the Sabbath. He became a church warden of the Reformed congregation and commenced rebuilding its edifice. Clerics and councilmen easily persuaded him (in a move aimed at Lutherans and Quakers) to forbid meetings not conforming to the Synod of Dort. Though Amsterdam reproved him on this point and counseled tolerance, under the narrowly religious Stuyvesant dissent was always frowned upon.

Though harsh and dictatorial, Stuyvesant introduced a number of needed reforms, particularly directed toward improving New Amsterdam's living conditions. He appointed fire wardens and ordered chimney inspections, instituted a weekly market and annual cattle fair, required bakers to use standard weights, somewhat controlled traffic and sanitation, repaired the fort, and licensed taverns. Stuyvesant concerned himself about all aspects of town life. He organized a night watch, had streets paved, encouraged local bakeries and breweries, and promoted the colony's commerce whenever possible.

Stuyvesant expected the people to obey his will and opposed the New Amsterdam citizen's desire for a separate municipal government for the city, but he early established the Board of Nine Men to advise him in promoting the public welfare. Citizens found onerous his diligent attempts to enforce Dutch trading restrictions and to collect taxes and tolls - though when their "Remonstrance" to Holland finally procured a distinct government for New Amsterdam (1653), they continued their delinquency about such obligations.

One of Stuyvesant's first official acts was to organize a naval expedition against the Spaniards operating within the limits of the West India Company's charter. A force sent against Ft. Christina in 1655 conquered Sweden's province on the Delaware River and absorbed the settlements into New Netherland. Peace was made with marauding Native Americans, and captive Dutch colonists were ransomed. Stuyvesant promoted trading relations with New England and succeeded in achieving a modus vivendi respecting the troublesome boundary with Connecticut. In 1657 he granted a system of "burgher rights, " providing (at a price) eligibility for trading and office holding; at first limited to New Amsterdam, this came to apply throughout the province.

The governor's salary plus allowances (approximately $1, 600, all told) enabled Stuyvesant to purchase a bouwerie, or farm, of 300 acres north of the city wall and a town lot for a house with gardens beside the fort. He lived comfortably in these, and his two sons were both born in New Amsterdam.

In 1664, while England and Holland were still at peace, Charles II decided to seize New Netherland for his brother James, Duke of York. When four British warships under Col. Richard Nicolls reached New Amsterdam, the colony was completely unprepared. Stuyvesant wanted to resist this aggression, but word of Nicolls's lenient terms eroded his already scanty support, and after lengthy negotiations he capitulated on September 7. He obtained provisional trading rights for the West India Company in the province and, to defend his official conduct, went to Amsterdam in 1665 - though his evidence as to the company's neglect of colonial defense did not endear him to its directors. Returning to New York in 1668, Stuyvesant retired to his farm until his death in February 1672.

Further Reading

Henry Kessler and Eugene Rachlis, Peter Stuyvesant and His New York (1959), is the most scholarly and readable study of Stuyvesant. Informative is John Franklin Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland (1909; new ed. 1952). Bayard Tuckerman, Peter Stuyvesant (1893), although outdated, is valuable. Hendrick Willem Van Loon, Life and Times of Pieter Stuyvesant (1918), provides a provocative character interpretation.

Additional Sources

Picard, Hymen Willem Johannes, Peter Stuyvesant, builder of New York, Cape Town: Hollandsch Afrikaansche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1975.

(c. 1610-1672), director general of New Netherland from 1647 to 1664. Stuyvesant was responsible for enacting the directives of the Dutch West India Company, which sought to exploit the commercial potential of the New World for the United Provinces. By 1664, his administration had resulted in a promising venture, with his surveyor able to report the existence of two cities (one, New Amsterdam, had 342 houses and 14 public buildings), thirteen villages, two forts, and three colonies. In addition, a strong influx of colonists had begun in 1657, and transatlantic trade, though favoring the home-country merchants, was bringing increased stability.

Stuyvesant, born in Friesland, was the son of a minister of the Reformed Church, whose piety may have influenced Peter's own inflexible religious nature. Young Stuyvesant began his career with the West India Company, where he learned the skills needed by its resident overseas directors: the ability to command its marines at sea and in fortified trading stations and the capacity to direct a small bureaucracy of accountants and clerks.

By 1639, Stuyvesant was serving as the company's commissary of stores on the island of Curaçao. When the director suddenly died, Stuyvesant was selected to replace him. Immediately, he committed himself to the island's careful governance but also pursued the aggressive policy of previous directors. In 1644, he attacked St. Martin, an island lost by the Dutch to the Spaniards in 1633, and sustained a severe wound, resulting in the amputation of his right leg below the knee. To recover his health, he returned to Rotterdam.

In 1646 Stuyvesant was commissioned director of New Netherland and arrived on Manhattan Island the next year. Under Willem Kieft, his predecessor, the colony had seriously deteriorated. Residents were factious and unconcerned for the settlement's prosperity. Although Stuyvesant attacked this disorder aggressively--placing himself above the factions, tightening trading regulations, and slowly restoring confidence in the company--enmities lingered until 1652.

The unrest exacerbated the long struggle during which the burghers contended with Stuyvesant for New Amsterdam's independence as a city. He yielded the most important of his rights in 1653, when the burghers won a court of inferior jurisdiction. After that time, Stuyvesant was forced to bargain with the city's officials on such issues as the collection of excise taxes and defenses. He was a tough negotiator but always understood how the delicately balanced decentralization of power fit into the republicanism of the Low Countries.

Stuyvesant also inherited unstable relations with nearby Indian tribes because of Kieft's brutal policies. His own was a pragmatic program of amicable relations. Although quick to use violence in 1655 against the Esopus Indians (near present-day Kingston), he usually promoted legislation to exploit the natives as a cheap work force--as hunters, for example, who could bring furs from distant tribes.

In 1655, Stuyvesant received orders to eliminate competition from the Swedes trading along the Delaware River. He subsequently captured New Sweden and incorporated its population into New Netherland. His insoluble problem, however, concerned the colony's English neighbors. Relations with those to the south (Virginia) were good, partly because of the mutual profits to be had in the exchange of tobacco for household wares. But colonists to the north--New Englanders and English-speaking Long Islanders--routinely pressed upon Dutch lands and disregarded intercolonial agreements. In 1664, a squadron sent by King Charles II of England forced Stuyvesant to surrender New Netherland to the British.

Stuyvesant returned home to defend his decision to surrender and then traveled back to New Netherland--now New York--where he lived quietly on his farm until his death.

Bibliography:

Henry H. Kessler and Eugene Rachlis, Peter Stuyvesant and His New York (1959); Hendrik Van Loon, Life and Times of Peter Stuyvesant (1928).

Author:

Donna Merwick

See also Middle Colonies.

A notoriously hot-tempered governor of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. In 1664, he surrendered it to the English, who renamed it New York.

Peter Stuyvesant
Painting of Petrus Stuyvesant, c. 1660
7th Director-General of New Netherland
In office 1647–1664
Preceded by	Willem Kieft
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Born	1592 Peperga, Dutch Republic
Died	August 1672 (aged 80) New York, Province of New York

New Netherland series
Exploration
Fortifications:
Fort Amsterdam Fort Nassau (North) Fort Orange Fort Nassau (South) Fort Goede Hoop De Wal	Fort Casimir Fort Altena Fort Wilhelmus Fort Beversreede Fort Nya Korsholm De Rondout
Settlements:
Noten Eylandt New Amsterdam Rensselaerswyck New Haarlem Noortwyck Beverwyck Wiltwyck Bergen Pavonia Vriessendael Achter Col Vlissingen Oude Dorpe	Colen Donck Greenwich Heemstede Rustdorp Gravesende Breuckelen New Amersfoort Midwout New Utrecht Boswyck Swaanendael New Amstel Nieuw Dorp
The Patroon System Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions
Directors of New Netherland: Cornelius Jacobsen Mey (1620-25) Willem Verhulst (1625-26) Peter Minuit (1626-32) Sebastiaen Jansen Krol(1632-33) Wouter van Twiller (1633-38) Willem Kieft (1638-47) Peter Stuyvesant (1647-64)
People of New Netherland New Netherlander Twelve Men Eight Men Nine Men
Flushing Remonstrance

Peter Stuyvesant (originally Pieter or Petrus; Peter is never mentioned in historical records) (c. 1612 – August 1672) served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland (New York) from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664. He was a major figure in the early history of New York City.

Stuyvesant's accomplishments as director-general included a great expansion for the settlement of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York) beyond the southern tip of Manhattan. Among the projects built by Stuyvesant's administration were the protective wall on Wall Street, the canal that became Broad Street, and Broadway.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Legacy 3 Popular uses of Stuyvesant's name 4 In musical theatre 5 Footnotes 6 References 7 External links

Biography

He was probably born in Peperga, Friesland in the Netherlands, to Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant, a minister, and Margaretha Hardenstein in 1612. He grew up in Scherpenzeel. He studied in Franeker, and joined the West India Company about 1635, and was director of the Dutch West India Company's colony of Curaçao from 1642 to 1644.

In April 1644, he attacked the Spanish-held island of Saint Martin and was wounded, the lower part of his right leg was struck by a cannon ball. He returned to the Netherlands, where his right leg was amputated and replaced with a wooden peg. Supposedly, Stuyvesant was given the nickname "Old Silver Leg" because he used a stick of wood driven full of silver bands as a prosthetic limb.^[1]

In May of 1645 he was selected by the Dutch West India Company to replace Willem Kieft. He arrived in New Amsterdam on May 11, 1647. In September 1647, he appointed an advisory council of Nine Men as representatives of the colonists.

He married Judith Bayard (c. 1610-1687) in 1645. She was born in Breda, the sister of Samuel Bayard of Amsterdam, who was married to Anna Stuyvesant, his sister. She nursed him back to health following the loss of his right lower leg at Saint Martin and subsequent return to the Netherlands to re-cuperate. Petrus and Judith had a son, Nicolaes Willem Stuyvesant (1648-1698), who married Maria Beeckman, the daughter of Willem Beeckman.

Stuyvesant became involved in a dispute with Theophilus Eaton, the governor of New Haven Colony, over the border of the two colonies. In 1648, a conflict started between him and Brant Aertzsz van Slechtenhorst, the commissary of the patroonship Rensselaerwijck. Stuyvesant claimed he had power over Rensselaerwijck despite special privileges granted to Kiliaen van Rensselaer in the patroonship regulations of 1629.

In 1649, Stuyvesant marched to Fort Orange with a military escort and ordered houses to be razed to permit a better defense of the fort in case of an attack from the Native Americans. When Van Slechtenhorst refused, Stuyvesant sent a group of soldiers to enforce his orders. The controversy that followed resulted in the founding of Beverwijck.

In September 1650, a meeting of the commissioners on boundaries took place in Hartford, Connecticut. The border was arranged to the dissatisfaction of the Nine Men, who declared that "the governor had ceded away enough territory to found fifty colonies each fifty miles square." Stuyvesant then threatened to dissolve the council. A new plan of municipal government was arranged in the Netherlands, and the name "New Amsterdam" was officially declared on 2 February 1653. Stuyvesant made a speech for the occasion, saying that his authority would remain undiminished.

Petrus was now ordered to the Netherlands, but the order was soon revoked under pressure from the States of Holland and the city of Amsterdam. Stuyvesant prepared against an attack by ordering the citizens to dig a ditch from the North River to the East River and to erect a fortification.

In 1653, a convention of two deputies from each village in New Netherland demanded reforms, and Stuyvesant commanded that assembly to disperse, saying: "We derive our authority from God and the company, not from a few ignorant subjects."

In 1655, he sailed into the Delaware River with a fleet of seven vessels and about 700 men and took possession of the colony of New Sweden, which was renamed "New Amstel." In his absence, New Amsterdam was attacked by Native Americans.

New York Governor Hamilton Fish was descended from Stuyvesant

On the Castello map, 1660, Whitehall stands out by its white roof and extensive garden

New Amsterdam in 1664

In 1657 Stuyvesant, who did not tolerate full religious freedom in the colony, and especially the presence of Quakers, ordered the public torture of Robert Hodgson, a 23-year-old Quaker convert who had become an influential preacher. Stuyvesant then made an ordinance, punishable by fine and imprisonment, against anyone found guilty of harboring Quakers. That action led to a protest from the citizens of Flushing, Queens, which came to be known as the Flushing Remonstrance, considered by some a precursor to the United States Constitution's provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights. Freedom of religion was also tested when Peter Stuyvesant refused to allow Jews from Northern Brazil to settle permanently in New Amsterdam (without passports) and join the existing community of Jews (with passports from Amsterdam). His decision was overturned in Amsterdam.

In 1664, Charles II of England ceded to his brother, James II of England, a large tract of land that included New Netherland. Four English ships bearing 450 men, commanded by Richard Nicolls, seized the Dutch colony. On 30 August 1664, George Cartwright sent the governor a letter demanding surrender. He promised "life, estate, and liberty to all who would submit to the king's authority." Stuyvesant signed a treaty at his Bouwerij house on 9 September 1664. Nicolls was declared governor, and the city was renamed New York City. Stuyvesant obtained civil rights and freedom of religion in the Articles of Capitulation. The Dutch settlers mainly belonged to the Dutch Reformed church, a strict Calvinist denomination. The English were Anglican, theologically closer to the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1665, Stuyvesant went to the Netherlands to report on his term as governor. On his return, he spent the remainder of his life on his farm of sixty-two acres outside the city, called the Great Bouwerie, beyond which stretched the woods and swamps of the village of Haarlem. A pear tree that he reputedly brought from the Netherlands in 1647 remained at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue until 1867, bearing fruit almost to the last. The house was destroyed by fire in 1777. He also built an executive mansion of stone called Whitehall. He died in August of 1672 and he was interred at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattan New York.

For reference, see Adriaen van der Donck

Legacy

• Freedom of religion was tested during his governorship and provided a lasting legacy.

• Stuyvesant was a great believer in education. In 1660 he was quoted as saying that “Nothing is of greater importance than the early instruction of youth”. In 1661, New Amsterdam had one grammar school, two free elementary schools, and had licensed 28 masters of school. To honor Stuyvesant's dedication to education and New Amsterdam's legal-cultural tradition of toleration under Stuyvesant, Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan was named after him, in spite of his initial objections to the arrival, in 1654, of a large group of Sephardim from Dutch Brazil without West India Company passports. Stuyvesant High School was a predominantly Jewish school for boys at the time of its founding in 1904.

• Stuyvesant and his family were large land owners in the northeastern portion of New Amsterdam, and the Stuyvesant name is currently associated with the Stuyvesant Town housing complex and Stuyvesant High School, among other locations. This farm, called the "Bouwerij" (the seventeenth-century Dutch word for farm, which was also used for other farms in New Netherland) was the source for the name of the Manhattan street Bowery, and the chapel facing Bouwerie's long approach road (now Stuyvesant Street) developed into St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. Stuyvesant's grand official residence at the very tip of Manhattan was renamed "Whitehall" by the English and survives in another New York street name, Whitehall Street.

• Stuyvesant founded the community of Stuyvesant Heights in 1640. The contemporary neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn includes Stuyvesant Heights and retains its name.

• More modestly, Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands is also named after Stuyvesant during the Dutch West India Company's administration of that Territory. Also named after him are the hamlets of Stuyvesant and Stuyvesant Falls in Columbia County, New York, where descendents of the early Dutch settlers still live and where the Dutch Reformed Church is still an important part of the community.

• Stuyvesant is credited with introducing tea to the American colonies.

• The last direct descendant of Pieter Stuyvesant to bear his surname was Augustus van Horne Stuyvesant, Jr., who died a bachelor in 1953 at the age of 83 in his mansion at 2 East 79th Street. Rutherford Stuyvesant, the 19th century New York developer, and his descendants are also descended from Pieter Stuyvesant. However, Rutherford Stuyvesant changed his name from Stuyvesant Rutherford in 1863 to satisfy the terms of a will.^[1]

• In Albany, New York there is a shopping center named Stuyvesant Plaza.

• The Stuyvesant Yacht Club is located on City Island, Bronx, New York.

Popular uses of Stuyvesant's name

• A cigarette brand by American Tobacco is named Peter Stuyvesant. These cigarettes are popular in Australia, Greece and South Africa.

• In Sid Meier's Colonization computer game, Stuyvesant can be elected to the Continental Congress, allowing the player to build Custom Houses which automate trade with the mother country.

• In Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization, Peter Stuyvesant is one of the leaders of the Dutch colonies. Adriaen van der Donck is the other possible Dutch leader.

• Stuyvesant was a key figure in the Belgium strip Suske en Wiske. This was episode 269, "De Stugge Stuyvesant"

• Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant is the name of a villain believed to exist by the schizophrenic protagonist of The Caveman's Valentine by George Dawes Green. Stuyvesant has no face, lives at the top of the Chrysler Building, and affects people by shooting down beams of Y- and Z-rays. The protagonist explicitly acknowledges the connection to Peter Stuyvesant.

In musical theatre

Peter Stuyvesant is a major character in the 1938 Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson musical Knickerbocker Holiday. He is the main villain of the piece. He sings the famous song September Song in the show. In the stage production he was portrayed by Walter Huston; in the much-altered 1944 film version he was portrayed by Charles Coburn in his only singing role.

Stuyvesant is mentioned in the song Kurious Orange by The Fall (band) . The song was featured in the ballet I Am Kurious, Oranj and on the album of the same name.

Footnotes

1. ^ "Peter Stuyvesant, 1646-1664". Jersey City: Past and Present Project. http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/S_Pages/Stuyvesant_Peter.htm. Retrieved 2006-11-01. 

References

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (1911). Peter Stuyvesant. http://21.1911encyclopedia.org/S/ST/STUYVESANT_PETER.htm. 
• Peabody, Michael D. (Nov/Dec 2005). "The Flushing Remonstrance". Liberty Magazine. http://www.libertymagazine.org/article/articleview/532/1/86/. 
• Abbott, John S. C. (2004) [1898]. Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13811. 
• Jaap Jacobs (2005), New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN90 04 12906 5.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Peter Stuyvesant

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Peter Stuyvesant

• Appleton's Biography edited by Stanley L. Klos

Government offices
Preceded by Willem Kieft	Director-General of New Netherland 1647–1664	Succeeded by Richard Nicolls as Governor of the Province of New York

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