Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

This haughty answer spread through New Amsterdam, and men and women rushed to the governor to beg him to surrender. Bombardment by the fleet would destroy all they owned, and doubtless kill many of them. Stuyvesant would have fought until his flag fell over a heap of ruins, but he knew that his people would not stand behind him. "I had rather," he told the men and women as they thronged about him, "be carried a corpse to my grave than to surrender the city!"

The people went to the City Hall, and drew up a paper of protest to their governor. The protest said that the people could only see misery, sorrow, and fire in resistance, the ruin of fifteen hundred innocent men, women and children, only two hundred and fifty of whom were capable of bearing arms.

The words of the protest were true. "You are aware," it said, "that four of the English king's frigates are now in the roadstead, with six hundred soldiers on board. They have also commissions to all the governors of New England, a populous and thickly inhabited country, to impress troops, in addition to the forces already on board, for the purpose of reducing New Netherland to His Majesty's obedience.

"These threats we would not have regarded, could we expect the smallest aid. But, God help us, where shall we turn for assistance, to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west? 'Tis all in vain. On all sides we are encompassed and hemmed in by our enemies." Ninety-four of the chief men of New Amsterdam signed this protest, one of them being Stuyvesant's own son. In front of the governor were the guns of the English fleet, behind him was the mutiny of his own people.

New Amsterdam, only a cluster of some three hundred houses at the southern end of Manhattan Island, was entirely open to attack from either the East or the North River. An old palisade, built to protect the houses from Indian attacks, stretched from river to river on the north, and in front of this palisade were the remains of an old breastwork, three feet high and two feet wide. These might be of use against the Indians, but hardly against well-trained white soldiers.

Fort Amsterdam itself had only been built to withstand Indians, not white men. An earthen rampart, ten feet high and four feet thick, surrounded it, but there were no ditches or palisades. At its back, where the crowds of Broadway now daily pass, were a number of low wooded hills, with Indian trails leading through them. These hills, if held by an enemy, could easily command the fort. The little Dutch garrison hadn't five hundred pounds of powder on hand. The store of provisions was equally small, and there was not a single well of water within the fortifications. To cap the climax, the garrison itself couldn't be trusted; it was largely made up of the lowest class of the settlers, unfit to do any other work than shoulder a gun.

So Peter Stuyvesant saw that he must yield. He chose six of his men to meet with six of the English at his own bouwery on the morning of August 27th. There was little for the Dutchmen to do but agree to the terms their enemies offered them. The terms were that the province of New Netherland should belong to the English. The Dutch settlers might keep their own property or might leave the country if they chose. They might have any form of religion they pleased. Their officers, to be chosen at the next election, would have to take the oath of allegiance to the king of England.

Peter Stuyvesant only yielded because he saw that he must. He pulled down his flag that was flying above the ramparts, and "the fort and town called New Amsterdam, upon the island of Manhatoes," as the treaty called it, passed from the ownership of the Dutch to that of the English. The officers and soldiers of the fort were allowed to march out with their arms, their drums beating and their colors flying. Most of the soldiers, many of the settlers, cared little what flag flew above their colony, so long as they were permitted a peaceful living, but at least one Dutchman, the governor, "Wooden-Legged Peter," cared much when he saw the flag of the Netherlands come fluttering down.

The English Colonel Nicholls and his men marched into the fort and took possession of the government. They changed the name of the little settlement from New Amsterdam to New York, in honor of the Duke of York, who was the brother of the king of England. The fort was christened Fort James, the name of the Duke of York. Then Colonel Nicholls sent troops up the Hudson to take possession of the Dutch settlement of Fort Orange, and other troops to the Delaware River to raise the English flag over the small Dutch colony of New Amstel. The name of Fort Orange was changed to Fort Albany, the second title of the king's brother, the Duke of York. The settlers there were well treated, and given the same liberty as was given the people on Manhattan Island. But those at New Amstel, on the Delaware, did not fare so well. Peter Stuyvesant indignantly reported that "At New Amstel, on the South River, notwithstanding they offered no resistance, but demanded good treatment, which however they did not obtain, they were invaded, stript bare, plundered, and many of them sold as slaves in Virginia."

The flag of England now flew where the flag of the Netherlands had waved for half a century. There was no excuse for this seizing of the Dutch colony by the English. The Dutch were peaceful neighbors, fair in their dealings with the other colonies. But while the Dutch had not greatly increased the number of their settlers in the New World, the English had. New England was growing fast, so was Virginia, and in between these two English settlements lay the small Dutch one, at the mouth of a great river, and with the finest harbor of the whole seacoast. The English had cast envious eyes upon Manhattan Island. They wanted to own the whole seacoast; and so, being strong enough, they took it. And the Dutch, like the Indians before them, had to bow to the stronger force.