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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Peter Stuyvesant Biography STUYVESANT,
Peter (1592-1672). A Dutch Governor of New Netherland. He was born in
Holland; early entered the military service of the Dutch in the West Indies, and
in 1635 was made Director of the Colony of Curaçao. In 1646 the Dutch West
India Company appointed him Director General of their colony in North America,
New Netherland, where he soon gained the confidence of the colonists by his
efficient administration and public improvements. He reconciled the Indians,
made hostile by former unjust treatment, and arranged with the New England
commissioners, in 1650, the boundaries between English and Dutch territories,
but this was not entirely satisfactory to the Dutch colonists, who claimed he
had ceded considerable territory rightfully theirs. A convention of delegates in
1653 demanded for the people a share in the appointment of local officers, but
Stuyvesant ordered them to disperse, claiming his authority was not from the
people, but from God and the Dutch West India Company. The protracted
contentions of the Dutch and the Swedes near the Delaware River became more
critical in 1654, when the Swedish Governor seized the fort built by the Dutch
where Newcastle now stands. To end this trouble, Stuyvesant in 1655 with 600 men
sailed up the Delaware, recaptured the fort, and established the Dutch authority
over the entire territory. After nine years of comparative quiet, in 1664 a
force of English soldiers arrived under Colonel Nicolls, who demanded a
surrender of the government, on the ground that the whole territory had been
given by royal charter to the Duke of York. The town at the time contained 1500
inhabitants and was defended by a stone fort and 20 cannon. Stuyvesant at first
refused, but finding the people anxious to exchange rulers, he yielded to the
English demand. Stuyvesant, in 1665, reported personally to the authorities in
Holland, but soon returned to New York, where he spent the remainder of his
life, cultivating an extensive farm called the Bouwerij (Bowery). He was buried
where St. Mark's Church now stands, and the elaborately inscribed stone that
covered his grave is built into the eastern wall of the church. Consult: E. B.
O'Callahan, The History of New Netherland
(New York, 1848) ; Bayard Tuckerman, Peter
Stuyvesant (ib., 1893) ; J. S. C. Abbott, Peter Stuyvesant (ib., 1898). |