Van Twiller succeeded Minuit as governor of the New Netherlands. He proved incompetent and was replaced by Kieft, who by cruelty and injustice provoked the Indians to war. Kieft so mismanaged affairs that in three years the population of the New Netherlands was reduced from three thousand to one thousand.
In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant was appointed governor. He was the son of a Dutch clergyman, but, being fond of fighting and adventure, he had chosen war as his profession. He took part in several of the battles by which the Dutch gained mastery over the Spaniards at sea. At one time he undertook to conquer the Spanish island of St. Martin and lost a leg in the fight. He was called “Old Silver Leg,” because his lost limb had been replaced by a wooden stump, ornamented with bands of silver. He was also called “Headstrong Peter,” a title which he well deserved.
PETER STUYVESANT
The Dutch West India Company thought that this brave, fearless soldier would be the very man to control their troublesome colony on the Hudson. So he was appointed and came to the colony in May, 1647, with a fleet of four vessels. He told the people, “I shall be in my government as a father over his children”—a very severe and stern parent he proved.
A strong man was needed to save the colony from ruin. Enemies threatened it on all sides.
In the first place, there were the Indians whom Kieft had provoked to war. Stuyvesant stopped the sale of intoxicating liquors to them; while stern, he was so just and honest and fearless that he won their respect and they made and kept peace with him.
In the second place, the encroachments of the New Englanders were a constant source of annoyance. The Dutch claimed all the land between the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers by right of Hudson’s discoveries, and valued it as a field for fur trade. “The land is too good to stand idle,” said the English, and occupied it with their farms and villages. The Dutch protested and asserted their claims, but in vain. The English farmers continued to occupy the land, and more and more came in conflict with the Dutch.
Stuyvesant decided that a fixed line—even one which yielded some territory claimed by the Dutch—was better than an unfixed one constantly advanced by the English. In 1650, therefore, he made an agreement, surrendering the land already held by the English—which the Dutch could not have regained—and establishing a fixed line beyond which the English agreed not to advance. Stuyvesant acted wisely in the matter, but the West India Company was dissatisfied, thinking that he ought not to have surrendered the Dutch claims.
In 1652 New Amsterdam was granted a charter as a city. It had then about three hundred houses and fifteen hundred inhabitants. The city was to have a council, but, instead of allowing the people to elect the members, Stuyvesant appointed them and he presided at all meetings of importance. The sturdy Dutchman was resolved that his will should be the law of the colony. The people assembled in convention and asked, among other things, that they might appoint local officers. Stuyvesant ordered them to disperse, informing them “his authority was from the West India Company and from God and not from ignorant subjects.”