[ܒstīvǝsǝnt]

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.

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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.

For more information on Peter Stuyvesant, visit Britannica.com.

(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.

(stī'vəsənt) , c.1610–1672, Dutch director-general of New Netherland. He served as governor of Curaçao and lost a leg in an expedition against St. Martin before succeeding Willem Kieft in New Netherland. On his arrival (1647) in New Amsterdam (later New York City), he immediately informed the colonists of his autocratic intentions. He set up a board of nine men to advise him but dissolved it (1651) when they asked for redress of their grievances in a remonstrance to the Dutch government. As a result of this petition, however, Holland granted (1653) municipal government to New Amsterdam. Nevertheless, Stuyvesant continued his harsh rule and was intolerant of religious dissenters, especially Quakers. While he lost territory to Connecticut (1650), he expanded the colony by conquering New Sweden (1655). Overwhelmed by a surprise English attack, Stuyvesant surrendered New Netherland to England in 1664. He spent the rest of his life on his Manhattan farm and was buried there under his chapel, now the site of a church, St. Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie.

Bibliography

See E. L. Raesly, Portrait of New Netherland (1945, repr. 1965); H. H. Kessler and E. Rachlis, Peter Stuyvesant and His New York (1959).

(steye-vi-sent)

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.

Stuyvesant's most familiar feature was his artificial right leg, fitted with silver ornaments.

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