Peter Stuyvesant

Stuyvesant had to wait for his appointment to be confirmed by the Dutch States-General. During that time he married Judith Bayard, who was the daughter of a Huguenot minister, and hailed from Breda. Together, they left Amsterdam in December 1646, and, after stopping at Curaçao, arrived in New Amsterdam by May 1647.

Kieft's administration of the colony had left the colony in terrible condition. Only a small number of villages remained after Kieft's wars, and many of their inhabitants had been driven away and returned home, leaving only 250 to 300 men able to carry arms. Kieft himself had accumulated a fortune of over 4,000 guilders during his term in office, and become an alcoholic.[14]

Certain that righting New Netherland was the work which God had saved him for, Stuyvesant told its people "I shall govern you as a father his children," and began the task of rebuilding the physical and moral state of the colony.[15]

In September 1647 he appointed the Nine Men, an advisory council composed of representatives of the colonists,[16] to help rebuild relationships with them, temper his rule with their guidance, and restore New Netherland to the kind of well-run place that the Dutch preferred.[15]

In 1648 a conflict began between him and Brant Aertzsz van Slechtenhorst, the commissary of the patroonship Rensselaerwijck, which surrounded Fort Orange (present-day Albany). Stuyvesant claimed he had power over Rensselaerwijck, despite special privileges granted to Kiliaen van Rensselaer in the patroonship regulations of 1629. When Van Slechtenhorst refused, Stuyvesant sent a group of soldiers to enforce his orders. The controversy that followed resulted in the founding of the new settlement, Beverwijck.[17]

The colony of New Netherland had severe external problems. The population was too small and contentious, and the Company provided little military support. Stuyvesant was usually the loser. The most serious was the economic rivalry with England regarding trade. Secondarily there were small scale military conflicts with neighboring Indian tribes, involving fights between mobile bands on the one hand, and scattered small Dutch outposts on the other. With a large area and limited population, defense was a major challenge. Stuyvesant's greatest success came in dealing with nearby Swedish colonies, which he defeated and annexed in 1655. Relations with the English colony of Connecticut were strained, with disputes over ownership of land in the Connecticut valley, and in eastern Long island. The treaty of Hartford of 1650 was advantageous to the English, as Stuyvesant gave up claims to the Connecticut Valley while gaining only a small portion of Long island. In any case Connecticut settlers ignored the treaty and steadily poured into the Hudson Valley, where they agitated against Stuyvesant. In 1664, England moved to take over New Netherland. The Dutch colonists refused to fight, forcing Stuyvesant's surrender, demonstrating the dilemma of domestic dissatisfaction, small size, and overwhelming external pressures with inadequate military support from the Company that was fixated on profits.[18]

Stuyvesant became involved in a dispute with Theophilus Eaton, the governor of English New Haven Colony, over the border of the two colonies. In September 1650, a meeting of the commissioners on boundaries took place in Hartford, Connecticut, called the Treaty of Hartford, to settle the border between New Amsterdam and the English colonies to the north and east. 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.[19]

Stuyvesant was then 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 the summer of 1655, he sailed down to 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, Pavonia and Staten Island were attacked by Native Americans on September 15, 1655 in what became known as the Peach War.[20]

In 1657, the directors of the Dutch West India Company wrote to Stuyvesant to tell him that they were not going to be able to send him all the tradesmen that he requested and that he would have to purchase slaves in addition to the tradesmen he would receive.[21]

During the colonial era, New York City became both a site from which fugitives fled bondage and a destination for runaways. The colonies closest to New Netherland, Connecticut and Maryland, encouraged Dutch slaves to escape and refused to return them. In 1650, Governor Petrus Stuyvesant threatened to offer freedom to Maryland slaves unless that colony stopped sheltering runaways from the Dutch outpost.[22] However, he is also noted as having trafficked minority settlers at auction.[23]

In 1660, Stuyvesant 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 schoolmasters.

The Castello Plan of 1660 is the only Dutch-era map of the settlement on Manhattan

New Amsterdam in 1664, the year it was taken over by the British

Stuyvesant did not tolerate full religious freedom in the colony, and was strongly committed to the supremacy of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1657 he refused to allow Lutherans the right to organize a church. When he also issued an ordinance forbidding them from worshiping in their own homes, the directors of the Dutch West India Company, three of whom were Lutherans, told him to rescind the order and allow private gatherings of Lutherans.[24] The Company position was that more tolerance led to more trade and benefited everyone..[25]

Freedom of religion was further tested when Stuyvesant refused to allow the permanent settlement of Jewish refugees from Dutch Brazil in New Amsterdam (without passports), and join the handful of existing Jewish traders (with passports from Amsterdam). Stuyvesant attempted to have Jews "in a friendly way to depart" the colony. As he wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company in 1654, he hoped that "the deceitful race, — such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, — be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony."[26] He referred to Jews as a "repugnant race" and "usurers", and was concerned that "Jewish settlers should not be granted the same liberties enjoyed by Jews in Holland, lest members of other persecuted minority groups, such as Roman Catholics, be attracted to the colony."[27]

Stuyvesant's decision was again rescinded after pressure from the directors of the company. As a result, Jewish immigrants were allowed to stay in the colony as long as their community was self-supporting, however, Stuyvesant and the company would not allow them to build a synagogue, forcing them to worship instead in a private house.[28]

In 1657, the Quakers, who were newly arrived in the colony, drew his attention. He ordered the public torture of Robert Hodgson, a 23-year-old Quaker convert who had become an influential preacher.[29] Stuyvesant then made an ordinance, punishable by fine and imprisonment, against anyone found guilty of harboring Quakers.[30] That action led to a protest from the citizens of Flushing, which came to be known as the Flushing Remonstrance, considered by some historians a precursor to the United States Constitution's provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights.

In 1664, King Charles II of England ceded to his brother, the Duke of York, later King James II, a large tract of land that included all of New Netherland. This came at a period of considerable conflict between England and the Netherlands in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. 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."

Pear tree planted by Peter Stuyvesant

On 6 September 1664, Stuyvesant sent Johannes de Decker, a lawyer for the West India Company, and five others to sign the Articles of Capitulation.[31] Nicolls was declared governor, and the city was renamed New York. Stuyvesant obtained civil rights and freedom of religion in the Articles of Capitulation.[32] The Dutch settlers mainly belonged to the Dutch Reformed church, a Calvinist denomination, holding to the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dordt). The English were Anglicans, holding to the 39 Articles, a Protestant confession, with bishops.

In 1665, Stuyvesant went to the Netherlands to report on his term as governor. On his return to the colony, he spent the remainder of his life on his farm, Stuyvesant Farm, of sixty-two acres outside the city, called the Great Bouwerie, beyond which stretched the woods and swamps of the village of Nieuw 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 when it was destroyed by a storm,[33] bearing fruit almost to the last. The house was destroyed by fire in 1777. He also built an executive mansion of stone called Whitehall.[34]

Hamilton Fish, a Governor of New York, was descended from Stuyvesant.

Coat of arms of Peter Stuyvesant

The last acknowledged descendant of Peter 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. Rutherfurd Stuyvesant, the 19th-century New York developer, and his descendants are also descended from Peter Stuyvesant; however, Rutherford Stuyvesant's name was changed from Stuyvesant Rutherford in 1863 to satisfy the terms of the 1847 will of Peter Gerard Stuyvesant.[36][37][38]

His descendants include:

• Hamilton Fish (1808–1893), the 16th Governor of New York, a United States senator and United States Secretary of State[39]
• John Winthrop Chanler (1826–1877), a lawyer and a U.S. Representative from New York[40]
• Stuyvesant Fish Morris (1843–1928), a prominent physician.[41]
• Stuyvesant Fish (1851–1923), a President of the Illinois Central Railroad who was prominent in the U.S. Gilded Age[42]
• Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler (1869–1942), a Lieutenant Governor of New York[43]
• Edith Stuyvesant Gerry (1873–1958), an American philanthropist who was married to George Washington Vanderbilt II and Peter Goelet Gerry[44]
• Loudon Wainwright Jr. (1924–1988), an American writer[45]
• John Smith (1931–1995), the American actor who starred in two NBC western television series Cimarron City, is a descendant.[46]
• Loudon Wainwright III (b. 1946), the American singer-songwriter is a descendant through his great-great-grandfather John Howard Wainwright, who married Margaret Stuyvesant.[47][45]
• Peter Robinson (Robin) Fish (b. 1969), Deputy Head at Robert Gordon's College[48]
• Chase Coleman III (b.1975), Hedge fund manager, Tiger Global Management

• O'Callaghan, Edmund B. ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1854), 3:387; Elizabeth Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (Washington, DC : Carnegie Institution, 1930), 3:429.