Peter Stuyvesant
[ܒstīvǝsǝnt]
Stuyvesant, Peter
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Stuyvesant, Peter
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.
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.
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).
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 | |
|---|---|
Stuyvesant circa 1660 |
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| Born | circa 1612 |
| Died | August 1672 |
| Occupation | Director-General of New Netherland |
Pieter Stuyvesant (c. 1612 – August 1672) often Anglicized to Peter Stuyvesant, served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland 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.
He was born in Peperga, in southern Friesland in the Netherlands, to Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant, a minister, and Margaretha Hardenstein. The year of Pieter's birth is not known and is given as 1592,[1] 1602,[2] and 1612.[3] He was the son of a minister, and he studied in Franeker, and entered military service in the West Indies about 1625, and was director of the Dutch West India Company's colony of Curaçao from 1634 to 1644.
In April 1644, he attacked the Spanish-held island of Saint Martin and was wounded. 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 Nails" because he used a stick of wood driven full of silver nails as a prosthetic limb.[4]
In May of 1645 he was selected by the Dutch West India Company to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland. He arrived in New Amsterdam on May 11, 1647. In September 1647, he appointed a council of representatives.
He married Judith Bayard (c. 1610-1687) in 1645. She was born in Holland, the sister of Samuel Bayard of Amsterdam, who was married to Anna Stuyvesant. Pieter and Judith had a son, Nicholas William Stuyvesant (1648-1698), who married Maria Beckman, the daughter of William Beckman.
Stuyvesant became involved in a dispute with Theophilus Eaton, the Governor of Connecticut, over the border of the two colonies. In 1648, a conflict started between him and Brant Arent Van Slechtenhorst, the commissary of the fort of Rensselaerwyck. Stuyvesant claimed he had power over Rensselaerwyck despite special privileges granted to Van Slechtenhorst in the charter 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 of the Native Americans. When Van Slechtenhorst refused, Pieter sent a group of soldiers to enforce his orders. The controversy that followed resulted in the commissary's maintaining his rights and the director's losing popularity. Because of the controversy with Van Slechtenhorst, the States-General of the Netherlands commanded Stuyvesant to return to Holland; but Stuyvesant refused to obey, saying, "I shall do as I please."
In September 1650, a meeting of the commissioners on boundaries took place in Hartford, Connecticut. The border was arranged to the dissatisfaction of the council, 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 Holland, 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.
Pieter was now ordered to Holland a second time, but the order was soon revoked on the declaration of war with England. 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 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 he renamed "New Amstel". In his absence, New Amsterdam was attacked by Native Americans.
In 1653, a convention of two deputies from each village in New Netherland demanded reforms, and Stuyvesant commanded this assembly to disperse, saying: "We derive our authority from God and the company, not from a few ignorant subjects."
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.
In 1665, Stuyvesant went to Holland 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 brought from Holland 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.
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Convinced that rapid growth of non-Christian as well as non-reformed Christian churches would overrun the predominant church and endanger the stability of the young colonial society, director general and council sought to bolster the position of the Dutch Reformed Church by trying to reduce religious competition from denominations, such as Jews, Lutherans, Catholics and Quakers. However, religious plurality was already a legal-cultural tradition in New Netherland as it was in the motherland. The directors of the West India Company in Amsterdam, Stuyvesant's superiors, overruled him in all matters of intolerance by reprimanding him and requiring him to revoke intolerant rulings which the director general and his council had taken, particularly the rather harsh measures against the Quakers, who were considered anarchistic agitators and a threat to the public order due to their non-conformist and vociferously proselytizing ways.
Jews were allowed to become legal residents on the basis of "reason and equity" in 1655 under Stuyvesant's rule, despite the initial objections of some members of the Dutch Reformed Church Council of which Stuyvesant was a member.
| 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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