PETER STUYVESANT sat. The town elders stood. He kept his hat on. They took theirs off. It was a long time before he even condescended to notice them. This ominous scene took place on May 27, 1647, when Stuyvesant was inaugurated as the new director general of New Netherland.
At last, in a room tight with tension, he spoke: “I shall govern you as a father his children, for the advantage of the chartered West India Company, and these burghers, and this land.” Everyone noted the sequence of values. When Stuyvesant added that “every man should have justice done him,” the tension broke, and the people clapped until their palms reddened. Nonetheless, one observer reflected sourly that the new governor was behaving like the czar of Russia. Some in the group analyzed the name Stuyvesant, a compound of the Dutch word stuyven, meaning to stir up, and the English sand. Would their new overlord stir up the sand, kick up dust?
Curious eyes scanned the face and figure of Peter Stuyvesant. Long locks of hair dangled on both sides of his swarthy cheeks. Frown lines cut deep into the bridge of his hawklike nose. He was clean-shaven and stubborn-chinned. For a fifty-five-year-old man he was well preserved. His sturdy soldier’s body, a little above medium height, had weathered many a campaign. Faultlessly dressed in the height of Dutch fashion, Peter Stuyvesant wore a wide collar that spread over his velvet jacket like a white water lily. Ornamental slits in his jacket sleeves revealed full puffed shirtsleeves underneath. His copious breeches were fastened to his hose at the knees by handsome scarves, tied into knots. A cloth rose decorated his shoe.
His left shoe. His only shoe. Peter Stuyvesant had lost his right leg. The people of New Amsterdam sneaked glances at that wooden leg bound in silver bands. In time to come they were to hear the rat-a-tat-tat of his artificial limb when Peg Leg Peter became angry. A few even learned how he had lost his leg.
Born in Holland and the son of a minister, Stuyvesant had gone through college and then hired himself out as a soldier for the militant Dutch West India Company. His quick mind, strong character, and personal magnetism lifted him to the governorship of the island of Curaçao. During a raid against the Portuguese of nearby St. Martin Island he was wounded so badly that he was invalided back to Holland, where his right leg was amputated. He was complimented for his courage but censured for his misjudgment in launching the attack.
While convalescing, Stuyvesant was nursed by his sister, Annake, of whom he was extremely fond. Eleven years older than Peter, she was tall, rather unattractive, but as determined in her own quiet way as her stormy brother. Peter and Annake married a brother and sister. He took to wife the lovely Judith Bayard, by whom he had two sons. Annake wed Samuel Bayard. The Bayards were descended from eminent Huguenots, who had fled from France to Holland to escape persecution.
Mrs. Stuyvesant was a beautiful blonde, with a voice as sweet as her husband’s was harsh. She enjoyed music and dressed herself in the height of French fashion. Besides speaking French and Dutch fluently, she acquired a good command of the English language after her arrival here. Peter was a master of Latin but spoke English haltingly.
Soon after the Stuyvesants had landed in New Amsterdam, Annake’s husband died in Holland. Deciding to join her brother, she sailed from the homeland with her three sons and their tutor. This scholar proved to be so unscholarly that the widow took over the education of her children. In the New World she met and married one of the colony’s officials, Nicholas Verlett.
Peter Stuyvesant had been ordered to put New Netherland on a paying basis. Conditions were troubled: trade faltering, smuggling widespread, money lacking, morals murky, and reforms needed. To help him govern the colony, Stuyvesant appointed a five-man council, but this was a mere gesture. He ran the whole show. One of his first problems was how to impose taxes—not to levy tribute on the Indians, as the foolish Kieft had tried to do. No, Stuyvesant would have to tax the white colonists themselves, even though for two centuries Dutchmen had declared that taxation without representation was tyranny.
With company approval, Stuyvesant decided to grant the colonists the appearance of representation and then tap their tills. He ordered the people to elect eighteen of their “most notable, reasonable, honest and respectable” men. When this was done, he himself chose half of the eighteen to serve as an advisory board. The function of these Nine Men was to assist, when called on, in providing for the general welfare. The history of Stuyvesant’s seventeen-year rule is that of a struggle between him and the people, who wanted a truly popular government.
Taxes were imposed, but it was difficult to collect them. Kieft’s blunders and greed left the colonists with little respect for any representative of the company. Kieft had not departed immediately on his ill-starred voyage to Holland after his dismissal as director general. In fact, during Stuyvesant’s inauguration the deposed governor stood beside his successor and even insisted on saying a few words. Kieft thanked the people for their fidelity, wished them happiness, and bade them farewell. From the audience there arose murmurs: “We’re glad your reign is over,” and “Good riddance!”
Then someone suggested that Kieft should be voted the conventional thanks for his official conduct. Two men said bluntly that they had no reason to thank him and would not do so. One of them was named Kuyter. The other was Melyn. Both had lost much in the Indian war provoked by Kieft. By this time everyone knew the gruesome details of the Pavonia Massacre. Dutch soldiers had snatched Indian children from their mothers’ breasts and hacked the infants to death. Other sucklings had been bound to boards, tortured, and then murdered. Still other Indian children had been thrown into the river by the cruel Dutchmen.
During the confrontation between Kieft on the one hand and Kuyter and Melyn on the other, these gory matters were not mentioned. Nevertheless, as Stuyvesant heard his predecessor defied and humiliated, the scowl lines deepened in his stern face. But Kuyter and Melyn were not content to let it go at that. After Stuyvesant’s inauguration, after he had begun his work of reconstruction and reform, these two stubborn Dutchmen urged that an investigation be held to determine the cause of the late Indian war. They suggested that colonists should testify, evidence be compiled, and a report about Kieft’s conduct be sent to Holland.
Stuyvesant now appointed a commission to pass on the propriety of such an inquiry. However, the moment it assembled, he blasted Kuyter and Melyn, calling them “two malignant fellows” and “disturbers of the peace.” A company man to the core, Stuyvesant sided with Kieft from the very start. Trumped-up charges were brought against Kuyter and Melyn. They were accused of slandering and threatening the former governor. Then they were arrested on charges of rebellion and sedition and brought to trial almost immediately.
The trial, which lasted several days, stirred up wild excitement throughout the town. Taking no chances, Stuyvesant himself mounted the bench to sit as judge. No one was surprised at the verdict: guilty. Melyn was banished from New Netherland for 7 years and fined 300 guilders. Kuyter was exiled for 3 years and fined 150 guilders. Glaring at Melyn, Peg Leg Peter roared, “If I thought there were any danger of your trying an appeal, I would hang you this minute to the tallest tree on the island!”
Soon afterward, Kieft sailed for Holland with his fortune, which his enemies estimated to be 400,000 guilders. He took Kuyter and Melyn with him as prisoners. As has been noted, the ship never reached its destination, being wrecked on a rock off the coast of Wales. When it appeared that all aboard would perish, the conscience-stricken Kieft went to his prisoners and stammered, “Friends, I—I—have done you wrong! Can you—forgive me?” Kieft and 80 passengers were drowned. Kuyter, Melyn, and 18 other persons were saved.
After many adventures Kuyter and Melyn made their way to Holland, to the capital at The Hague, and there they appealed to the Dutch government despite Stuyvesant’s threats. The States General usually showed more concern for the welfare of Dutch colonists than did the Dutch West India Company. The Dutch government suspended sentence on Kuyter and Melyn and granted them the right to return to New Netherland under safe-conduct passes. Kuyter tarried in Holland, probably to manage the case should Stuyvesant press it, while Melyn sailed again for New Amsterdam, where he was welcomed as a hero. All this was a blow to Peter Stuyvesant.
His reforms and other changes resulted in many firsts in the city’s history, including the following:
In 1648 the first pier was built on the East River.
In 1652 the first Latin school was established, and the first law against fast driving was passed.
In 1653 the first prison was built inside the fort; the first poorhouse was erected at 21-23 Beaver Street; the City Tavern became the first City Hall; a night watch was created; and the first price-fixing occurred.
In 1654 the canal on Broad Street was rebuilt.
In 1655 the first lottery was held.
In 1656 the first city survey showed 120 houses and 1,000 inhabitants; the first broker went into business; and the first market was established at Whitehall and Pearl streets.
In 1657 Jacques Cortelyou became the first commuter by traveling daily between his Long Island home and Manhattan.
In 1658 the first coroner’s inquest was held.
In 1659 the first hospital was erected on Bridge Street.
In 1660 the first post office was opened, and the first city directory was published.
In 1661 the first unemployment relief went into effect, and the first law against loan sharks was passed.
In 1663 the city experienced its first recorded earthquake.
Laws were hard to enforce and taxes difficult to collect because many colonists had become lawless. It was obvious to the people that the company preferred its profits to their prosperity. Racially, culturally, and religiously, the inhabitants of New Netherland were a mixed breed, taking pleasure where they found it, unlike the homogeneous and Puritanical New Englanders. Although Dutchmen were most numerous and Dutch influences generally prevailed, the influx of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and other nationals brought several cultures into jostling and creative juxtaposition.
Most people realized that Peter Stuyvesant was doing his energetic best to maintain order and develop the province, but they resented his high-handed methods and denial of democracy. In their minds suspicion grew like a cancer, They had a right to be suspicious, for without the knowledge of Stuyvesant his secretary was pocketing part of the tax revenues. Besides, the people asked themselves, why should they pay a tariff in New Netherland when no tariff was imposed in New England? What was wrong with smuggling goods back and forth among the colonies? So even though Stuyvesant used two Dutch men-of-war as revenue cutters, he still was unable to stamp out all illicit trade. At last the public learned of the graft taken by Stuyvesant’s secretary; he committed suicide rather than stand trial.
Peg Leg Peter, who liked his glass of schnapps now and then, agonized over the general drunkenness and constant knife fighting in the streets. Beer was the preferred drink, but other favorites included brandy, gin, and rum. In summertime wine was cooled with ice, while in winter it was served mulled—heated, sweetened, and spiced. There were too many taverns for so small a town. These places were packed with roistering men, who drank heavily, enjoyed companionship, played chess, shot dice, stroked billiard cues, dealt cards, and doted on games of chance.
A favorite outdoor sport was called pulling the goose or riding the goose. A bird’s head was greased, the fowl was hung by its feet from a rope stretched over a road, and then the contestants rode underneath at a gallop and tried to grab it. Stuyvesant forbade servants to ride the goose, but this only increased the game’s popularity. The goose continued to hang high.
The Dutch introduced bowling into America. They rolled balls at nine pins set up on the lawn of Bowling Green. Autumn brought turkey shooting, and in Stuyvesant’s time partridges were brought down from the air over the fort itself. In winter everyone skated and went sleighing. When the weather was warm, pantalooned Dutch youths rowed apple-cheeked maidens to picnic on Oyster Island, known today as Ellis Island.
Then too, the Dutch colonists were more addicted to holidays and festivals than the thin-lipped Puritans of New England were. On New Year’s Day courtesy calls were made from home to home, Dutch girls in manifold petticoats and other finery awaiting the arrival of eligible young men. Twelfth Night, which fell a few days after New Year’s, was always gay. Housewives baked Twelfth Night cakes with a gilded bean hidden inside, and the lucky person who found the bean became King of Misrule for the evening. Children jumped over lighted candles. Singing, bedecked in costumes, all would be led about the room by three men disguised as the Three Wise Men, while a fourth carried a light suggesting the star of Bethlehem.
On St. Valentine’s Day, which the Dutch called Vrouwen-dagh, maidens frolicked about the streets, striking young men with knotted cords. At Easter time the children painted Easter eggs. The seventh Sunday after Easter was called Whitsuntide, or White Sunday. Houses were decorated festively, games were played, and servants were allowed to act up a bit. On May Day houses bloomed with garlands of flowers, and people danced on the green around a Maypole. Ardent swains pulled blushing girls onto “kissing bridges,” while thoughtless young men placed scarecrows on the roofs of houses inhabited by unmarried girls.
Like the Pilgrims, the Dutch set aside a certain day for Thanksgiving, but it did not fall on the same date each year and was not celebrated annually. For example, on August 12, 1654, Stuyvesant ordered a Thanksgiving because peace had been reached between Holland and England. Men and women danced around a huge bonfire and guzzled free beer provided by the city fathers. The beer bill that day came to fifty-eight guilders, or enough for everyone to get tipsy.
November 10 marked St. Martin’s Eve, and that night and the following day the Dutch staged parties all over town. Dinner always featured roast goose. After the flesh had been devoured, the fowl’s breastbone was examined. If it was hard, this foretold a severe winter; if soft, a mild one.
St. Nicholas’ Eve was celebrated on December 5. This minor saint from the fourth century A.D. was the secular deity of the Dutch. Supposedly he came down the chimney on the eve of his birthday, which fell on December 6. Excited children piled up hay for his horses. The walls were hung with three oranges symbolizing the three gold dowries St. Nicholas had allegedly given to three poor but deserving sisters. It was said, too, that the saint had once saved a sailor from drowning, so salt-soaked rough-weather gear dangled in the room. Another display consisted of birch rods meant for boys and girls who had been naughty. Christmas itself was observed quietly.
When times were good, the Dutch feasted on venison, turkey, partridge, quail, tripe, fish, oysters, mussels, crabs, corn mush and milk, headcheese, sausage, bologna, peas, cole slaw, waffles, and oily cakes something like our modern doughnut. They drank from small teacups, nibbling a lump of sugar after each sip.
This high living ended temporarily in 1650-51, when a harsh winter sent food prices soaring. The cruel cold inflicted much suffering on the colonists. Householders kept logs blazing in fireplaces lined with picture tiles, but in other rooms ink froze in pens. Most afflicted were the slaves called humble men, who carried buckets of filth from backyard privies and dumped them into the rivers. Despite the scarcity of food and rising prices, Stuyvesant provisioned company ships bound for Curaçao. This aroused the indignation of the Nine Men, who accused the governor of “wanton imprudence.”
Streets were few, crooked, muddy, and overrun with livestock and fowl. During all the time the Dutch occupied New Amsterdam, the city never extended farther north than Wall Street, 550 yards from the tip of lower Manhattan. Men drove wagons so fast that Stuyvesant ordered them to walk beside their vehicles and hold the horses’ reins. The first street to be paved was Brouwer, or Brewer, Street, named for its many breweries. Today it is known as Stone Street. It runs in a northeasterly direction from Whitehall Street to Hanover Square. In 1657 the first half, from Whitehall Street to Broad Street, was laid with cobblestones. These formed more sidewalk than pavement, for an open gutter was left in the center of the street. Benjamin Franklin, a resident of more sophisticated Philadelphia, later said that he could identify a New Yorker by his awkward gait when he walked on Philadelphia’s smooth paving—“like a parrot upon a mahogany table.”
Pearl Street, the oldest street in town, was lined with dwellings. Battery Place, bounding Battery Park on the north, was a much wider street than it is today and took the name of Marcktveldt because of cattle fairs held there. Outside town, four blocks north of Wall Street, Maagde Paatje, or Maidens’ Path, began at Broadway and twisted to the southeast along the curve of a stream. Dutch girls who couldn’t afford to send their clothes to a laundry washed their linen in the stream. Today the path is called Maiden Lane.
The Dutch never built log cabins, which were introduced into America by the Swedes in the Delaware Valley. The first houses erected in New Amsterdam were one-story wood structures containing two rooms. In Stuyvesant’s time some houses were made of brick and stone. In 1628 kilns had been established here. They produced small yellow and black bricks, called Holland bricks to distinguish them from the larger English variety. The northern part of Manhattan provided an abundance of stone. Slowly the colonists began putting up two-story houses, whose second floors overhung the first floors.
A distinctive feature of Dutch architecture—one that lasted well into the brownstone era—was the high stoop at the front of the house. In Holland the first floors were raised high above the street, for in that nether land a hole in a dike could flood the land around a man’s house. In America the Dutch built a steep flight of steps to the front doors. In warm weather the stoop served as the family gathering place, pipe-smoking men keeping their eyes on their neighbors’ weathercocks, mothers shelling peas, and children shouting across the narrow streets.
Most front doors were ornamented with huge brass knockers shaped like a dog’s or lion’s head, and these had to be polished every day. Doors were large, and windows were small. Window glass was imported from Holland. Doors had an upper and a lower half. The lower half was usually kept shut so that a housewife could lean on it to gossip with a neighbor, yet keep pigs and hens out of her kitchen.
The houses had comfortable, if narrow, interiors, the low ceilings pierced by exposed wooden beams, alcoves, and window seats set into the whitewashed walls. Bare floors were scrubbed rigorously and then sprinkled with fine sand, which was broom-stroked into fantastic patterns. Furniture was plain and heavy and was made mostly of oak, maple, or nutwood. The Dutch lacked sofas, couches, or lounges. Their best chairs were made of Russian leather studded with brass nails.
Dutch matrons prided themselves on their recessed slaap-bancks, huge Holland beds, and massive sideboards and cupboards. Pewter mugs and copper vessels were set around racks holding a generous supply of long-stemmed pipes. China was rare. Most spoons and forks were carved from wood, although the well-to-do had silverware used only for parties. Glassware was almost completely unknown, punch being drunk in turns by guests from a huge bowl, and beer from a tankard of silver. The rich possessed mirrors; one wealthy man owned seventy. Pictures were plentiful but wretched—mostly engravings of Dutch cities and naval engagements. Window curtains were made of flowered chintz.
Clocks were scarce, time being kept mainly by sundials and hourglasses. Hardworking men arose with the first crow of the cock, breakfasted at dawn, labored through the morning, dined heartily at noon, resumed work, and then quit early in the afternoon to play. Every house contained spinning wheels, and looms became common. Behind most houses flower gardens were laid out in symmetrical designs, together with a vegetable garden and an orchard. Weather permitting, the Dutch liked to eat outdoors in summerhouses.
Houses cost from $200 to $1,000 and rented for $14 a year. From 1658 through 1661 living costs and wages were as follows: Beer sold at $4 a barrel, a sailor earned $8 a month, a horse was worth $112, the city bell ringer was paid $20 a year, the first Latin teacher earned $100 annually, lots near Hanover Square sold for $50 each, an ox brought $48, herrings sold at $3.60 per keg, and one beaverskin was worth $2.40.
A seafaring people, the Dutch enjoyed the water. Along Pearl Street small shipyards produced 1-masted sloops and 2-masted ketches. A 28-foot canoe cost $11, while a North River sloop or yacht was worth $560 or more.
Yacht, by the way, is a Dutch word. So are sloop, skipper, cookie, and cruller. A Dutch dozen or baker’s dozen, meaning thirteen cookies or cakes, originated at a Dutch bakery in Albany, the term spreading to New Amsterdam. To the English a Dutch bargain meant a one-sided deal. Dutch comfort meant that conditions could be worse. Dutch courage signified booze bravery. To talk like a Dutch uncle meant to speak the truth gently but plainly.
Slaves were brought here from the West Indies and South America, but no New Netherland ship ever sailed on a slave-trading expedition to Africa. In 1654 the price of one slave was about $280. A law of 1658 forbade the whipping of Negro slaves without permission of the city magistrates; they enjoyed fairly humane treatment and were granted certain personal rights. Some were freed after long and faithful service and allowed to buy land in their own names. Peter Stuyvesant himself kept thirty to fifty slaves, his favorite being Old Mingo, who entertained him by playing the fiddle.
Despite the relative leniency with which slaves were treated, white lawbreakers suffered severely. They were branded, lashed, tortured on the rack, and dipped into water while strapped in a ducking stool. However, the Dutch never put witches to death, as was done in New England, and householders who erected wood chimneys, instead of the brick ones ordered by the governor, were merely fined.
Money obtained from the fines was sent to Holland to buy fire ladders and leather buckets for the town’s eight-man fire department. Local craftsmen later produced leather buckets, whose sides were decorated by Evert Duyckinck, an artist who founded a dynasty of New Netherland painters. At last the city owned 250 leather buckets, which had to be kept filled. In winter, though, the water in them froze solidly. So did well water. The first fireman arriving on the scene had to jump down into the nearest well to chop away the surface ice with an ax. At night the community was more or less protected by a rattle watch, or rotating roster of policemen who called out the hour and shook rattles to warn thieves that they were approaching.
Manhattan abounded in rock springs that gushed pure water. The water supply did not become a problem until after the end of Dutch rule, when the population greatly increased. Burghers obtained water from springs and private wells until 1658; then the first public well was dug.
At first Peter Stuyvesant lived at 1 State Street. Later he bought land from the Dutch West India Company for a country estate, where he could spend the summer months. This consisted of an area roughly bounded by Sixth to Sixteenth Streets, the East River, and Third Avenue. Stuyvesant had brought fruit trees from Holland, and he planted an orchard with his own hands. On what is now the northeast corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street he set out a peach tree that flourished for a century, after which the branches decayed and fell off. Everyone thought the old pere-bloome had died. Then, all by itself, it revived, greened again, and put out new shoots. Poems and articles were written about Peter Stuyvesant’s doughty pear tree. When it was 220 years old, it was destroyed in 1867, after two vehicles had collided at the corner.
Stuyvesant’s farm stood in the center of Bowery Village. The east-west streets were named for male members of his family, together with his title—Peter, Nicholas, William, Stuyvesant, and Governor. The north-south streets were styled after the family’s female members—Judith, Eliza, and Margaret. The only surviving street is the short reach of Stuyvesant Street, preserved to keep open the approach to St. Marks-in-the-Bouwerie, a church begun in 1660 as a Dutch chapel on Stuyvesant’s farm.
He obtained downtown property on the East River at the foot of Whitehall Street, where he put up a handsome stone mansion. Gardens flanked the mansion on three sides, and a velvety lawn extended to the water’s edge. There the governor’s private barge was docked at a landing reached by cut stone steps. This imposing residence was called White Hall, and Whitehall Street was later named for it.
The first dwelling on Manhattan north of Wall Street was erected before Stuyvesant’s time in Greenwich Village. Governor Peter Minuit had set aside in perpetuity four farms for the company. Minuit’s greedy successor, Wouter Van Twiller, grabbed the property for himself and founded a tobacco plantation. Then he put up a farmhouse that became the nucleus of a hamlet, known as Bossen Bouwerie, or the Farm in the Woods.
Still farther north on the island, along the Hudson River from about 14th to 135th streets, there stretched an area called Bloemen-dael, or Vale of the Flowers. At 125th Street a ravine, called the Widow David’s Meadow sloped westward to the Hudson. Blooming-dale Village developed in the vicinity of 100th Street and the Hudson River.
About 1637 a Dutchman, named Hendrick De Forest, became the first white man to settle in what is now known as Harlem. Other colonists soon built there, but Indians ravaged the area so repeatedly that by the time Stuyvesant arrived here, all had deserted their farms. In 1658 Stuyvesant decided to improve this northeastern end of Manhattan “for the promotion of agriculture and as a place of amusement for the citizens of New Amsterdam.” He promised that when twenty-five families settled there, he would provide them with a ferry to Long Island and a minister of their own.
Taking his word for it, the first settlers broke ground on August 14, 1658, near the foot of 125th Street and the Harlem River. Apparently Stuyvesant named the community New Haarlem for the town of Haarlem in Holland. The new hamlet lay eleven miles from New Amsterdam, the exact distance between Amsterdam and Haarlem in the old country. Along an old Indian path the governor carved a road connecting the two Manhattan communities. By horseback the trip each way took three hours. Dutchmen, French Protestants (Huguenots), Danes, Swedes, and Germans later developed rich farms in Haarlem, which ultimately dropped one a from its name.
The present five boroughs of New York City resulted from the coalescence of many individual hamlets, villages, towns, and cities. On Long Island the Dutch settled the western part, while the English gathered in communities farther east. The present boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens are located on the western end of Long Island.
Brooklyn got its start in 1634, when the Dutch founded Midwout, or Middle Woods, in the ’t Vlacke Bos, or Wooded Plain. Later ’t Vlacke Bos was anglicized to Flatbush. Today it lies in central Brooklyn. By 1652 this hamlet had received a patent of township from Stuyvesant, and two years afterward the original Flatbush Reformed Protestant Church was erected at Flatbush and Church avenues under the governor’s direction. He raised a stockade around it as protection from Indians.
In 1636 William Adriaense Bennett and Jacques Bentyn bought 930 acres of land from a Mohawk chief, named Gouwane, in the southeastern part of Brooklyn now called Gowanus. The purchase included the area known today as Red Hook. There are two theories on why the Dutch called it Roode Hoeck: Either it described the color of the soil, or the area was covered with ripe cranberries.
In 1637 a Walloon, named Joris De Rapelje, purchased 335 acres near an East River inlet, later the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Because of him the Dutch called it Waelenbogt, or Walloon Bay. This term later was corrupted to Wallabout Bay. In 1638 the Dutch West India Company bought land east of the bay and founded a hamlet called Boswijck, or Bushwick. The Greenpoint section of Brooklyn was part of the original purchase of Bushwick.
Gowanus and Wallabout Bay were absorbed in 1646 by the village of Breuckelen, or Broken Land, named for a village in Holland of similar topography. This village had been started about four years earlier at the present intersection of Fulton and Smith streets. Breuckelen was granted a municipal form of government on November 26, 1646, or four years earlier than New Amsterdam itself. The name evolved from Breuckelen to Brockland to Brocklin to Brookline and finally to Brooklyn.
South of Flatbush another place, called Gravesend, was established in 1643 by Lady Deborah Moody, a cultured and tough-fibered Englishwoman. With the consent of the Dutch she bought the property from the Canarsie Indians for one blanket, one kettle, some wampum, three guns, and three pounds of gunpowder. Her colony included Coney Island, which the Indians called Narrioch. Born in England, Lady Moody had left her homeland because she had been denied freedom of conscience, had removed to New England, where she had encountered further intolerance, and had then made her way to the more liberal New Netherland. Until her death in 1659 she was an active leader in her community. Even the testy Stuyvesant sought her opinion from time to time.
In 1652 Cornelis Van Werckhoven of the Dutch West India Company heard that the English were claiming some Dutch possessions on Long Island. He went there, inspected land in what is now west Brooklyn, decided to establish a colony, and went back to Holland to recruit settlers. Upon returning to Long Island, he bought property from the Indians between Bay Ridge and Gravesend, paying them in shirts, shoes, stockings, knives, combs and scissors. Then he erected a house and mill. In 1657 his town took the name of New Utrecht, for his native city in Holland.
The borough of Queens was first settled by the Dutch in about 1635. Colonization began at Flushing Bay, a shallow inlet of the East River in the northern section of Queens. Mespat, now Maspeth, was founded in 1642 at the head of Newtown Creek. The next year brought the establishment of Vlissingen, or Flushing, located in northern Queens and named for a town in Holland. It received its formal charter in 1645.
Between Maspeth and Flushing the town of Middleburg was created in 1652 by English Puritans under Dutch auspices, but after conflict between the Dutch and English the name was changed to New Town or, as we know it, Newtown. It embraced the southwestern half of present-day Queens County.
Shortly after the founding of New Amsterdam a Dutchman, named Jorissen, bought property at Hunter’s Point in middle Queens near the mouth of Newtown Creek in present-day Long Island City. Many fine farms soon sprang up in the area.
About 1645 other Hollanders paid the Matinecock Indians an ax for every 50 acres of land in the northern section of Queens now called Whitestone. It took its name from a big white rock at an East River landing. Another part of northern Queens, Astoria, was settled in 1654 by William Hallett, who obtained a patent of 1,500 acres from the Dutch West India Company and the Indians. For the next 150 years this property belonged to his family.
English settlers, in 1650, founded a settlement, called Rustdorp, in middle Queens and were given a charter the same year by Stuyvesant. Soon the name was changed to Jamaica, for the Jameco Indians who first lived there. About two years later another section of middle Queens was bought from the Indians. At first the region was known as Whitepot, from the legend that the land had been bought with three white pots. Today it is called Forest Hills.
The Bronx was known to the Indians as Keskeskeck. In 1639 it was bought by the Dutch West India Company, but at first no one settled there. Then, as we have seen, a Danish immigrant, named Jonas Bronck, became the first white colonist when he purchased fifty acres between the Harlem and Aquahung Rivers. The latter stream became known as Bronck’s River and now, of course, is the Bronx River.
Religious dissenters trickled into the Bronx from New England. In 1643 John Throgmorton settled on the skinny peninsula we call Throgs Neck. The next year Anne Hutchinson, exiled from Massachusetts, took up residence on the banks of the stream now known as the Hutchinson River. Her family was wiped out by an Indian massacre. In 1654 Thomas Pell bought a large tract of land near Pelham Bay Park.
The upper reach of the Bronx constituting Van Cortlandt Park was originally a hunting ground for Mohican Indians. In 1646 it was included in a patroonship granted by the company to Adriaen Cornelissen Van der Donck. He was New Netherland’s first lawyer and historian and served as one of Stuyvesant’s Nine Men. Because of his wealth and social position, he was popularly known as jonkheer, meaning his young lordship. In time the name of the area was corrupted to Yonkers.
The story of Staten Island, lying south of Manhattan, started in 1630, when Michael Paauw was granted a patroonship that included the isle. At least three attempts were made to colonize the island, but each time the settlements were wiped out by Indians. The Dutch bought Staten Island a total of five times. In 1661 nineteen Dutch and French settlers established the first permanent colony on the island near the present site of Fort Wadsworth. They called it Oude Dorp, or Old Town.
The city of New Amsterdam and the colony of New Netherland had one and the same government until 1653, when the city got its own separate government. This happened because of a chain of circumstances forged in the year 1649.
The Nine Men had been emboldened by Kuyter’s and Melyn’s victory over Peter Stuyvesant. Disgruntled by his treatment of them and disheartened because his reforms had failed, they decided to go over his head, bypass the company, and appeal directly to the Dutch government at The Hague. Despite the governor’s angry protests, the Nine Men drew up and sent to the homeland the famous Petition and Remonstrance of New Netherland.
Both papers were written by Van der Donck and were signed in July, 1649. The petition was a short report on the condition of the colony, with suggested remedies. The remonstrance was a lengthy explanation of the detailed history of the facts on which the petitioners based their appeal for changes. It spelled out the autocratic behavior and cross-grained personality of both Stuyvesant and his predecessor, Kieft. It posed questions about the expenditure of public funds. It criticized the administration of justice. It asked for trading concessions. It said that more farmers were needed in the colony.
Most important, the Petition and Remonstrance asked for: (1) administration of the colony by the Dutch government instead of by the company; (2) municipal rule for New Amsterdam instead of arbitrary rule by the director general; and (3) establishment of a firm boundary between New Netherland and New England by treaty between the Dutch and English governments. What did the Nine Men get? Point 1 was rejected: The Dutch government declined to take over the administration of the colony because it could not withstand the pressures brought to bear on it by the company. Point 2 was granted: The government agreed to give New Amsterdam the kind of municipal government enjoyed by cities in Holland. Point 3 was approved in theory: Although the government itself made no effort to settle boundary disputes, it did not object to the establishment of a commission to consider the issues.
Company directors were outraged by the effrontery of the Nine Men in appealing to the government. They sneered at the petitioners, denied the need for reforms in the colony, and upheld Peter Stuyvesant in everything he had done. This was all the ammunition he needed. Seeking revenge on the upstart members of his advisory board, Stuyvesant began by insulting them. He forbade them to use their reserved pews in the Dutch Reformed Church and branded them publicly as promoters of “schisms, factions and intestine commotions.” Whenever a board member died or resigned, Stuyvesant refused to let his position be filled and so almost extinguished the board. But before the Nine Men vanished, they again appealed to the States General.
This time the Dutch government cracked down on the company. Its directors realized now that they had better concede a few points or risk losing the colony. Therefore, in 1652 the firm ordered Stuyvesant to grant New Amsterdam a burgher system of government modeled after that of the free cities of Holland.
The crisp evening of February 2, 1653, the birth of a new city was proclaimed. The ceremonies began with a parade down Broadway to the church within the fort. Old Peg Leg marched at the head of the procession, resplendent in his regimental coat studded with brass buttons from chin to waist. His coat skirts were turned back and separated to display his sulfur-hued breeches. His right hand held a long gold-headed cane, and his left hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
The bell ringer carried rich pew cushions for the dignitaries to use in the church. These grave-faced gentlemen wore long-waisted coats with skirts reaching almost to the ankles, vests with large flaps, and multicolored breeches. Their coats and vests were trimmed with big silver buttons and decorated with lace. On nearby pews they placed their low-crowned beaver hats. When all were assembled and the coughs had been stifled, Stuyvesant rose to speak. With his proclamation that the city was being granted municipal government, the town elders nodded at one another and preened.
Then Stuyvesant announced that he would appoint one schout, or sheriff; two burgomasters, or city magistrates; and five schepens, or aldermen. Appoint? Faces fell. In Holland these officials were elected by the people themselves. Slowly the townspeople realized that they had little cause for rejoicing. The governor went on to state that even after he had appointed these officials, his authority would not be diminished one whit. Often he would preside at their meetings, and always he would counsel them about matters of importance. Before Stuyvesant finished speaking, the congregation understood that the officials would function in name only. The people had begged for a loaf and been thrown a few crumbs.
Four days later the newly appointed city fathers met for the first time. Eighteen days after this, City Tavern was officially proclaimed the first City Hall. Not until the spring of 1657, however, were burghers registered. Thus, for the first time in the city’s history, citizenship became an accomplished, legal fact.
Although Stuyvesant felt that he had local matters firmly in hand, he worried about external affairs. New Netherland thrust like a wedge between New England, to the northeast, and the English colonies of Maryland and Virginia, to the southwest. This Dutch-held gap along the Atlantic seaboard made it difficult for the English government to enforce its commercial regulations in America. A few Englishmen from Maryland and Virginia filtered into Dutch territory, but it was mainly New Englanders who encroached on the land claimed by the Hollanders. English and Dutch traders vied for the fur trade. New Amsterdam’s tariffs were a source of irritation. For the Dutch West India Company, Stuyvesant claimed all the coast between the Delaware River and Cape Cod. The Dutch and English quarreled over ownership of the Connecticut Valley.
Matters worsened. At last Stuyvesant offered to confer in Hartford, Connecticut, with commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, consisting of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. Stuyvesant agreed to negotiate because he realized that the New Englanders outnumbered the New Netherlanders. Indeed he thought them fifty times more numerous, whereas the odds were actually sixteen to one. This margin still prevented Stuyvesant from engaging in power politics. Setting forth with attendants, he made the four-day trip from New Amsterdam to Hartford, where he was received courteously.
Stuyvesant proposed that negotiations be conducted in writing since he didn’t speak English fluently and this procedure would ensure greater accuracy. His very first paper, though, raised a storm because it was datelined New Netherland. The New England delegates insisted that the name Connecticut be substituted. Peg Leg Peter apologized. He said that the paper had been drafted before he left New Amsterdam and then translated and copied by his English secretary en route to Hartford.
The week-long conference ended in a stalemate. Finally, all agreed to submit the issues to four arbitrators, two for the English and two for the Dutch. Stuyvesant, who seems to have relied on his English subjects living on Long Island, appointed two of them—Thomas Willett and George Baxter. The four arbitrators came to a decision that was accepted by both parties to the dispute—the Treaty of Hartford of 1650. Six years later the Dutch government ratified the agreement. The English government never did. Although the treaty did not become legally binding, it served awhile as a method for both sides to get along.
Long Island was divided between the Dutch and English, but not evenly. Stuyvesant sacrificed a great deal of real estate by allowing the English to win the larger eastern end of the island. When terms of the treaty were revealed to the Nine Men, they angrily declared he “had ceded away territory enough to found 50 colonies each four miles square.” They kept harping on this subject; whereupon Stuyvesant threatened to dissolve the body, then and there. Actually, he had been powerless against the English. The treaty, however, didn’t end all trouble with other colonies.
Rhode Island, which did not belong to the New England confederation, started a little war of its own against the Dutch. Its soldiers were led by Captain John Underhill, the very Englishman who years earlier had saved New Amsterdam during the Indian war. Subsequently he had bought property at the site of Locust Valley, Long Island. Annoyed by Dutch discrimination against English settlers and provoked by Stuyvesant’s tyranny, Underhill had incited riots, for which he had twice been arrested by the Dutch. Seething with rage, he now set out with twenty men and took an unoccupied Dutch fort on the Connecticut River, thus ending Dutch sovereignty in New England.
Besides intercolonial quarrels, Stuyvesant had to contend with overseas affairs that impinged on New Netherland. Oliver Cromwell seized England, and in 1651 the first British Navigation Act was passed. This forbade the importation of goods into England except in British ships or those of the country producing the merchandise. It was intended to prevent rival sea powers—especially Holland—from carrying goods to the American colonies. British sea captains searched and seized Dutch merchant ships. As a result, in 1652 war broke out between England and Holland. The next year the United Colonies of New England girded for war on New Netherland, charging that the Dutch had conspired with the Indians against the Connecticut colonies.
Stuyvesant ordered his people to build a fortified wall in New Amsterdam along what is now Wall Street. This stretched 2,340 feet from the East River to the Hudson River. Along this line, stakes were hammered 3 feet into the ground, their exposed 9-foot lengths ending in sharp tips. Earth was packed along the inside of the wall for Dutch soldiers to stand on when they fired at an approaching enemy. A land gate was cut in the wall opposite the present Trinity Church, while a water gate toward the east gave access to the Brooklyn ferry. Cattle were driven out the land gate mornings and back in again at night.
But no assault came. This was the result of a quarrel that developed among the United Colonies of New England. Massachusetts, with a larger population than the other three members combined, was called on to contribute the most men and money. It refused, for it lay at a greater distance from the Dutch than its colleagues. Besides, it didn’t really believe that the Dutch were inciting the Indians. Nevertheless, Oliver Cromwell dispatched a fleet from England to conquer what is now New York City. The expedition was supposed to be aided by the New Englanders. Before an attack could be mounted, however, peace between England and Holland was declared.
New Netherland enjoyed comparatively greater religious freedom than church-ruled New England. Stuyvesant, however, was a religious bigot. From the time the first Dutch minister arrived to the very end of the Dutch occupation, not a single religious group other than the Dutch Reformed Church was allowed to put up a house of worship. Even so, in 1655 a Dutch pastor complained: “We have here Papists, Mennonites and Lutherans among the Dutch. Also many Puritans or Independents, and many atheists and various other servants of Baal among the English under this government, who conceal themselves under the name of Christians.”
The first Catholic priest visited Manhattan in 1643. A French Jesuit, named Father Isaac Jogues, he did missionary work among the Indians of Canada and upper New York State. The first Irish Catholic layman who settled here was Hugh O’Neal. He married a Dutch widow the very year that Father Jogues paid the city a short visit. Apparently the Jesuit heard O’Neal’s confession. In 1646 Father Jogues was killed by Indians, and in 1930 he was canonized as a saint. It was, however, a long time before Catholics came to New York in large numbers.
The first Jew to settle here was Jacob Barsimon; he arrived from Holland on July 8, 1654. The next month twenty-seven Jews landed after a long and exhausting voyage from Brazil. They were the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The original refugees had found a haven in Holland and then, after the Dutch took part of Brazil, had gone there to live. But in 1654 Recife, the last Dutch stronghold in Brazil, was captured by the Portuguese. Faced with persecution from the Inquisition, the twenty-seven remaining Jews fled to New Amsterdam. They left Brazil in such haste that they didn’t even collect debts due them, for on their arrival here the skipper of their ship auctioned off all their goods to pay for their passage.
Soon more Jews arrived from Curaçao. Annoyed by their presence, Stuyvesant wrote the Dutch West India Company to beg that “none of the Jewish nation be permitted to infest New Netherland.” Company directors wrote him that the Jews had sustained a loss in the capture of Brazil, held shares in the company, and must therefore be allowed to settle in New Netherland, provided they took care of their own poor.
Stuyvesant fumed but was powerless because no Jew became a welfare case. At first the only trade open to the Jews was that of slaughtering. Despite this, they prospered and began to play an active part in civic affairs. Before the end of Stuyvesant’s reign they were permitted to own property, engage in foreign and domestic trade on a wholesale basis, and enjoy burgher rights. They were barred from public office, however.
The first Rosh Hashanah service in North America was held on September 12, 1654, when a group of Jewish men met secretly in New York City, probably in an attic or in a room behind a shop. This was the beginning of Congregation Shearith Israel (the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue), the oldest existing Jewish congregation in North America. New York Jews held their first public service in 1673 on Beaver Street, in a rented room. By 1695 the Jews had their first synagogue, a house on Mill Street (now South William Street).
In 1656 they acquired a plot for their first cemetery. No trace remains of this earliest Jewish burial ground in North America, but it may have been located a little north of Wall Street. In 1682 members of Congregation Shearith Israel established their second cemetery, a plot fifty-two feet long and fifty feet wide. Located south of Chatham Square, this burial ground is today a small triangle on St. James Place between James and Oliver streets.
All in all, but in spite of Peter Stuyvesant, the Jews were treated better in New Amsterdam than in most American colonies. The prevailing attitude toward the Quakers was different—different and worse. A group of Quakers expelled from Boston arrived here by ship in August, 1657. Two of the women began preaching in the streets; whereupon Stuyvesant had them locked up inside the fort prison. After an examination they were ordered out of the city and colony and were placed on a ship bound for Rhode Island.
Another Quaker, Robert Hodgson, made his way to Heemstede, or Hempstead, Long Island, where he intended to spread the word about the new Society of Friends. While strolling in an orchard, he was seized and led before a local magistrate, who took away his Bible and imprisoned him. For twenty-four hours he was tied in a painful position. The Hempstead magistrate also arrested two women who had sheltered Hodgson. One of them was nursing an infant. Word was sent to Stuyvesant that other Quakers had been captured. He ordered them brought to New Amsterdam.
Hodgson was lashed facedown in a cart. The women were roped to the cart’s tail. In this fashion the three prisoners were conveyed over rough roads to the city and thrown into separate dungeons. After Hodgson had endured vermin and filth, and near starvation for several days, he was brought before Stuyvesant. The governor and council tried him, but the prisoner was not allowed to speak in his own defense. He was sentenced to be chained to a wheelbarrow and suffer hard labor for two years, unless he paid a $240 fine.
The destitute Quaker was unable to pay. Stubbornly he declared that he had done no wrong, had broken no law, was unused to manual labor, and so would do no work. After he had finished speaking, he was stripped to the waist and beaten with a tarred rope until he sagged to the ground. Strong men stood him up again. Once more he was beaten. Blow after stinging blow rained on his back. Then, his flesh waffled with welts, he was left, still chained to the wheelbarrow, to lie under an autumn sun until he fainted.
That night Hodgson was thrown back into his filthy dungeon. The second day he was flogged—and the third day. At last he was brought again before Stuyvesant, who commanded him to work or be lashed every day until he did. Boldly looking at his tormentor, Hodgson asked what law he had broken. The governor didn’t bother to answer. The Quaker cried that he never would submit to Stuyvesant’s will, so back to the dungeon he went, and for the next two or three days he was kept there without even bread or water. Still he refused to give in.
Now began new torture. Hodgson was dragged to a room, where his mutilated skin was bared once again. He was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, with a heavy log tied to his feet. In this taut position he was lashed again and again and again. Two days later the torture was repeated. Sobbing, Hodgson begged to see a fellow Englishman, and at last a poor Englishwoman was allowed to visit him. She bathed his wounds and wept in pity. Later she told her husband that she didn’t think the wretched fellow could live until morning. The husband went to the sheriff to offer him a fat ox to allow the prisoner to be removed to his own house until he recovered. This couldn’t be done, the sheriff said.
By now, this torture having become common knowledge, people began muttering about their governor. Hodgson wasn’t the only Quaker persecuted in the colony just then, although he suffered the most. Dutch ministers, unlike most burghers, sided with Stuyvesant and wrote the Dutch West India Company of their alarm at the spread of sectarianism in New Netherland.
Meanwhile, the governor’s sister, Mrs. Verlett, caught the note of public discontent, and her gentle soul winced at what he had done. She marched into Peter’s presence, tongue-lashed him for his cruelty, and denounced and upbraided him until at last Stuyvesant agreed to let the man go. Hodgson was freed, but he was banished from the colony.
Other Quakers met secretly at Flushing, Long Island, in the homes of Henry Townsend and John Bowne. Both men were arrested. Stuyvesant’s action infuriated and saddened all the people of Flushing and nearby towns. After all, Flushing’s charter of 1645 declared the settlers were “to have and enjoy liberty of conscience, according to the custom and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance.” Obviously, the governor himself was the lawbreaker. On December 27, 1657, thirty-one Dutchmen and Englishmen drew up a protest addressed to Stuyvesant. Six of the thirty-one, being illiterate, merely made their mark on the document; they were courageous men, willing to face the fiery governor along with the others.
This Flushing Remonstrance has been called the first American Declaration of Independence. Among other things, it said:
The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered the sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward states of Holland, so love, peace and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war and bondage. And because our Saviour saith it is impossible but that offenses will come, but woe unto him by whom they cometh, our desire is not to offend one of his little ones in whatsoever form, name or title. . . .
The Flushing sheriff traveled to New Amsterdam and handed the protest to Stuyvesant, who angrily banged his wooden leg and ordered the sheriff arrested. Then the governor cracked down on other Flushing officials. The town clerk was jailed for three weeks. Two justices of the peace were suspended from office. For a long time afterward no Long Island resident dared to shelter Quakers openly, but the sectarians continued to hold secret meetings in the Flushing woods. They managed to get news of their persecution to the Dutch West India Company in Holland, whose directors then ordered Stuyvesant to keep hands off the Quakers.
As we have seen, the Treaty of Hartford took away from Stuyvesant much of Connecticut, which he originally claimed for the company. Now, except for New Amsterdam, only the part of the Atlantic coastline between the Delaware and Hudson rivers came under his rule. Because the Delaware River emptied into the Atlantic to the south of the Hudson, the Dutch called the Delaware the South River and spoke of the Hudson as the North River. Even today the first leg of the Hudson just north of the Battery is sometimes called the North River.
Stuyvesant was irked by the existence, proximity, and rivalry of New Sweden. This colony on the Delaware River included parts of the present states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. About half the colonists were Finns, since Finland was then part of Sweden. The population of New Sweden never rose to much more than about 300 inhabitants, but Stuyvesant would not leave them alone.
In 1651 he built Fort Casimir on the site of New Castle, Delaware. Three years later the Swedes captured it, thus gaining control of the entire Delaware Valley. In 1655 Stuyvesant led an expedition of hundreds of soldiers, on seven men-of-war, back to the Delaware River and recaptured Fort Casimir. He and his men also took Fort Christina, about thirty-five miles below the present site of Philadelphia. Then New Sweden disappeared from the map.
For ten years—from 1645 to 1655—the Dutch in and around Manhattan had not been troubled by Indians. Of course, a few minor incidents did occur, and the Dutch discriminated against the Indians by charging them double fare for the East River ferry ride, but nothing serious happened. Then, while Stuyvesant and most of the town’s able-bodied men were subduing the Swedes on the Delaware River, open conflict broke out here.
A former sheriff, named Hendrick Van Dyck, had a farm on Broadway just south of the present Exchange Alley, or perhaps a block and a half below the site of Trinity Church. As twilight thickened one September day in 1655, he saw somebody moving stealthily among his heavy-laden peach trees. Tiptoeing closer, Van Dyck realized that an Indian woman was stealing his fruit. He pulled out a pistol and fired. The woman gently slumped to earth, and in that tragic moment Van Dyck triggered the historic Peach War.
When news of the murder reached the dead woman’s relatives and friends and spread to neighboring tribes, the Indians suffered shock. Then they exploded with the cry “Death to the woman killer!” They were well aware that Stuyvesant had left the town almost defenseless by sailing away with most of his soldiers.
At daybreak on September 15 the prows of 64 canoes sliced through the morning mist along the high banks of the Hudson. A little below the stockade at Wall Street the craft glided to the shore. About 500 braves, armed with bows, arrows, and tomahawks and daubed with war paint, leaped out, made fast their canoes, and then raced into the city. Soon they were joined by others until 2,000 marauders fanned through the streets.
The Indians didn’t instantly massacre the inhabitants. They began with psychological warfare by breaking into houses under the pretext that they were searching for their ancient enemies, the Iroquois. This transparent deceit heightened the menace. Alarmed Dutchmen struggled into pantaloons as their wives stared, wide-eyed with terror. Children screamed at the sight of dusky strangers in the kitchens. Council members assembled quickly and held a hurried conference. Realizing that the townspeople were outnumbered, these officials decided to put up a brave front. They strolled out into the open to the midst of the sullen intruders and asked to see their chiefs.
When the sachems advanced and identified themselves, the Dutch invited them to a parley inside the fort. There the white men tried to pacify the red men. At last the chiefs agreed to withdraw their warriors to Governors Island, but after filing out of the fort, the Indians did not leave as promised. Instead, all the rest of the day they loitered about the southern end of Manhattan, muttering menacingly.
At dusk they gathered and broke toward Broadway, screaming and surging directly toward Van Dyck’s home. He stood uncertainly at his garden gate. An arrow flashed through the evening sky and gashed into his side, wounding him gravely, but not mortally. A neighbor who tried to help had his scalp sliced with a war hatchet.
Frantically, the town elders tried once again to locate the chiefs to avert more bloodshed. Then the Indians slew a Dutchman. Now the colonists opened fire on the invaders, driving them back to the shore, back into their canoes. Even as they paddled out into the Hudson, the Indians twanged a volley of arrows into the counterattacking Dutchmen, killing one and wounding several others. Swift-stroking across the river, the Indians landed at Hoboken, set fire to every dwelling there, turned to Jersey City to reduce it to ashes, and then proceeded to Staten Island, where they wreaked havoc.
The Peach War lasted only three days, three terrifying days, but by the time it ended, the entire countryside had been put to the torch. About 100 white persons were killed, about 150 others were dragged into captivity, and 7 men and 1 woman were tortured to death. In addition, 28 plantations were destroyed, 500 head of cattle were slain or driven away, and huge quantities of grain were burned. All for a few peaches!
During the brief outbreak Mrs. Stuyvesant, her sons, and the rest of the family were guarded at the Stuyvesant farm by ten French mercenaries hired for the emergency. News of the attack was sped to the governor in Delaware, but he was unable to return until October 12.
Panic still prevailed when he arrived. Stuyvesant, who had always adopted a reasonable Indian policy, was careful to give the natives no cause to maraud again. His sturdy leadership, zeal, resourcefulness, and military know-how finally gave the people a sense of security. Soldiers were posted at outlying farms. Ship passengers ready to flee the colony were ordered ashore to join the troops “until it should please God to change the aspect of affairs.” Funds were raised to strengthen the vulnerable city wall.
But now the Indians were ready to negotiate. Their fury was spent. They grumbled about the portions of food consumed by their prisoners. One Dutchman wanted to continue the war to get revenge, but the governor flatly disagreed. “The recent war,” he rasped, “is to be attributed to the rashness of a few hotheaded individuals. It becomes us to reform ourselves, to abstain from all wrong, and to guard against a recurrence of the late unhappy affair by building blockhouses wherever they are needed, and not permitting any armed Indians to come into our settlements.”
Stuyvesant’s cool judgment prevailed. Still, he was able to negotiate the release of only forty-two white persons. Twenty-eight of them were ransomed by paying the Indians seventy-eight pounds of gunpowder and forty bars of lead. At last peace was concluded with the red men—or at least some of them. White prisoners held at Esopus were not released. This community, now known as Kingston, New York, perched on the west bank of the Hudson River eighty-seven miles north of New Amsterdam.
The Dutch West India Company suffered so many reverses in various parts of the world that it wound up a commercial failure. By 1661 New Amsterdam was bankrupt. That year, in a frantic effort to protect its investment, the company tried to lure discontented Englishmen to New Netherland from their native country. The Dutch government helped by seeding Great Britain with glowing descriptions of the Dutch colony “only six weeks’ sail from Holland . . . land fertile . . . climate the best in the world.”
This practice irritated English authorities. As we have seen, they objected to the very existence of New Netherland. It blocked their westward expansion, denied them the continuous belt of English colonies along the coast necessary for protection from the French, and interfered with enforcement of the Navigation Acts.
Because of bitter rivalry with Holland for control of the seas and business profits, the English Parliament, as has been noted, passed several acts of trade and navigation. But Dutch smugglers in the New World loosened England’s grip on trading among the English colonies. Although the Treaty of Hartford had reduced the Dutch holdings, the British weren’t satisfied. They encouraged the rebellion of restless English towns on Long Island. Peter Stuyvesant thrice convened delegates from towns adjacent to New Amsterdam but never could satisfy all their demands.
Charles II became the king of England for the second time in 1660. Two years later he granted a charter to the English colonists of Connecticut. Because this area included settlements which the Treaty of Hartford said belonged to New Netherland, tension mounted between Dutch and English colonists.
On March 22, 1664, Charles gave a present to his brother, James Stuart, the Duke of York, later to become King James II. Upon the duke Charles conferred all Long Island, its neighboring islands, and all the territory lying between the west side of the Connecticut River and the east side of Delaware Bay. This, of course, embraced the Dutch colony of New Netherland. By now the English had launched an undeclared war on the Hollanders, the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
Even British historians admit that the English acted like pirates. The king and duke knew that the war would be popular with the trading classes at home, for they intended to break Dutch control of slave-trading ports on the African coast and to seize land in the New World. The duke ordered Colonel Richard Nicolls to lead an expedition against the Dutch in America. This was kept a secret lest the Dutch government dispatch a fleet to protect Dutch interests. The English didn’t issue a formal declaration of war until 1665. Meanwhile, the king lent his brother 4 men-of-war and 450 soldiers.
News of this small armada was brought to Peter Stuyvesant by an Englishman in New Netherland. He, in turn, had heard about it from a British merchant whose ships sailed from England to this city. Stuyvesant reacted quickly. He confined to port some Dutch ships ready to sail to Curaçao, sent agents to New Haven to buy provisions, stationed lookouts along the coast to watch for the British fleet, borrowed money, and ordered gunpowder rushed from Delaware to New Amsterdam.
Then word arrived from the Dutch West India Company that the English ships were not headed for New Amsterdam. Instead, according to this rumor, they were en route to Boston, where the king’s men were to insist that Church of England rites be observed.
Everyone relaxed. Stuyvesant let the Dutch vessels sail for the Caribbean, and he departed for upstate New York to pacify Indians. So for the second time the governor was absent from New Amsterdam during an emergency. Fortunately, a messenger caught up with him to report that the English squadron was indeed bearing down on the city. Stuyvesant got back to town just three days before enemy masts loomed against the horizon.
The English ships anchored off Coney Island below the Narrows. Two days later Colonel Nicolls demanded the surrender of New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant’s courage cannot be questioned, although his judgment, as in the 1644 attack on St. Martin Island, is open to debate. He resolved to fight.
This was a foolhardy decision. Stuyvesant admitted as much indirectly, for shortly before the enemy arrived, he told the Dutch West India Company that the English in America outnumbered the Dutch “and are able to deprive us of the country when they please.” In 1664 there were 50,000 English colonists in Maryland and Virginia, plus an equal number in New England. New Netherland’s 3 cities and 30 villages had a total population of only about 10,000 persons. New Amsterdam itself boasted only 1,500 inhabitants, and Stuyvesant could muster no more than 200 militia and 160 regular soldiers.
Dutch colonists had been lax about throwing up their defenses, arguing that the company or the Dutch government should pay for all fortifications. Now, partly because of their own folly, they were helpless. The Wall Street palisade was falling apart. The city was open along the banks of both rivers. Food was scarce. Despite the gunpowder sent from Delaware, there still wasn’t enough on hand. The fort, which didn’t even contain a spring or well, couldn’t withstand a siege. If an invader landed on either shore, he could stand on the hills of Broadway at pistol-shot range and look down into the fort’s interior.
English negotiators rowed to a wharf under a white flag of truce. Stuyvesant received them with starchy courtesy, pointing out that England and Holland were not formally at war. The British then produced a letter from Nicolls stating his terms. These were liberal, considering that all the power was on his side. He promised to grant Dutch citizens freedom of conscience and religion. He declared that he would not interfere with their private property, inheritance rights, or customs. They would be permitted to trade directly with Holland. Public buildings and records would be respected. City officials could remain in office awhile; later, elections would be held. When the English diplomats had been rowed back to their men-of-war, the burgomasters urged Stuyvesant to accept these conditions “in the speediest, best and most reputable manner.” He refused. They argued. In a fit of temper he tore Nicolls’ letter to shreds. A crowd gathered. Some people cursed stiff-necked Peter, while others cursed the company. By this time they knew about Nicolls’ letter, although they were unaware of its contents. “The letter!” they cried. “The letter!”
After Stuyvesant stamped out to take up a position on the fort, his secretary gathered the scraps of paper, pasted them together, and handed the mended document to the burgomasters. They quickly announced the terms, and almost everyone wanted to give up.
As the enemy fleet sailed into the Upper Bay and closed in on the Battery, the governor stood on a rampart near a gunner who was holding a burning match near a cannon. Stuyvesant growled, “I must act in obedience to orders!” Near him stood a minister, who cried, “It’s madness!” Laying a hand on Stuyvesant’s shoulder, the pastor pleaded, “Do you not see that there is no help for us either to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west? What will our twenty guns do in the face of the sixty-two which are pointed toward us on yonder frigates? Pray, do not be the first to shed blood!”
At that moment a messenger brought Stuyvesant a document signed by ninety-three of the principal citizens—including one of his own sons. They begged him not to do anything that would result in the slaughter of the innocent and reduce the city to ruins. The gunner still held the match at the ready as the governor read the paper. His eyes were sad; his lips, white. At last he signaled to the gunner to put out his flame. Then, more to himself than anyone else, Peter Stuyvesant muttered, “I had rather be carried to my grave.” Five minutes later a white flag waved above the fort.