ANSWER TO THE REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND, 1650
Reference material and sources.
Cornelius Van Tienhoven, Answer to The Representation of New
Netherland, 1650. In J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives
of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original Narratives of Early
American History). NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.
INTRODUCTION
The origin and value of the following document have been sufficiently described in the introduction to that which precedes. Cornelis van Tienhoven, secretary of the province under Kieft and Stuyvesant, had been sent by the latter to Holland to counteract the efforts of the three emissaries whom the commonalty had sent thither to denounce the existing system of government. Working in close co-operation with the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company, he played a skilful game, and succeeded in delaying and in part averting hostile action on the part of the States General. The piece which follows is his chief defensive recital of the acts of the administration, and as such has much value.
Van Tienhoven had the reputation of a libertine, and conducted himself as such while in Holland, finally escaping to New Netherland in 1651 with a girl whom he had deceived, though he had a wife in the province. Yet Stuyvesant retained him in his favor, promoted him in 1652 to be schout-fiscaal of New Netherland, and used him as his chief assistant. After a disastrous outbreak, however, understood to have been caused by his advice, the Company ordered Stuyvesant to exclude him from office; and presently Van Tienhoven and his brother, a fraudulent receiver-general, absconded from the province.
The manuscript of Van Tienhoven's Answer was found by Brodhead in the archives of the Netherlands, and is still there. Two translations of it, differing but slightly, have been printed, the first in 1849 by Henry C. Murphy, in the Collections of the New York Historical Society, second series, II. 329-338, the other in the Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, I. 422-432. The former, revised by comparison with the original manuscript at the Hague by Professor William I. Hull, of Swarthmore College, appears in the following pages.
ANSWER TO THE REPRESENTATION OF NEW NETHERLAND, BY CORNELIS VAN TIENHOVEN, 1650
A Brief Statement or Answer to some Points embraced in the Written Deduction of Adrian van der Donk and his Associates, presented to the High and Mighty Lords States General. Prepared by Cornelis van Tienhoven, Secretary of the Director and Council of New Netherland.