Peter Stuyvesant
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Peter Stuyvesant circa 1660 |
Peter Stuyvesant (born about 1612,
Blesdijke (Friesland),
Netherlands; died February, 1672, in present-day
New York City,
USA[[1] (in Dutch). The birth year is often given as 1592, but recent research of primary sources suggest 1612 to be more probable.]) served as the last
Dutch Director-General of the
colony of
New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664. He was a major figure in the early
history of New York City.
Stuyvesant's accomplishment as director-general included a great expansion for the settlement of
New Amsterdam (later renamed
New York) beyond the southern tip of
Manhattan. Among the projects built by Stuyvesant's administration were the protective wall on
Wall Street, the canal which became Broad Street, and
Broadway.
Stuyvesant and his family were large land owners in the northeastern portion of New Amsterdam, and the Stuyvesant name is currently associated with the
Stuyvesant Town housing complex and
Stuyvesant High School (where he is fondly known as "Pegleg Pete" and the football team is called the Peglegs in his honour), among other locations. This farm, called the "Bouwerie" (the seventeenth-century Dutch word for
farm, which was also used for other farms in New Netherland) was the source for the name of the Manhattan street
Bowery, and the chapel facing Bouwerie's long approach road (now
Stuyvesant Street) developed into
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. Stuyvesant's grand official residence at the very tip of Manhattan was renamed "
Whitehall" by the English and survives in another New York
street name, Whitehall Street.
Convinced that rapid growth of non-Christian as well as non-reformed Christian churches would overrun the predominant church and endanger the stability of the young colonial society, director general and council sought to bolster the position of the
Dutch Reformed Church by trying to reduce religious competition from denominations, such as
Jews,
Lutherans,
Catholics and
Quakers. However, religious plurality was already a legal-cultural tradition in New Netherland as it was in the motherland. The directors of the West India Company of Amsterdam, Stuyvesant's superiors, overruled him in all matters of intolerance by reprimanding him and requiring him to revoke intolerant rulings which the director general and his council had taken, particularly the rather harsh measures against the Quakers, who were considered anarchistic agitators and a threat to the public order due to their non-conformist and vociferously proselytizing ways.
Jews were allowed to become legal residents on the basis of "reason and equity" in 1655 under Stuyvesant's rule, despite the initially objections some members of the Dutch Reformed Church Council of which Stuyvesant was a member.
Stuyvesant was a great believer in education. In 1660 he was quoted as saying that "Nothing is of greater importance than the early instruction of youth". In 1661, New Amsterdam had one grammar school and two free elementary schools and had licensed 28 masters of school. To honor Stuyvesant's dedication to education and New Amsterdam's legal-cultural tradition of toleration under Stuyvesant,
Stuyvesant High School in
Manhattan was named after him, in spite of his initial objections to the arrival, in 1654, of a large group of Sephardim from Dutch Brazil without West India Company passports. Stuyvesant High School was a predominantly
Jewish school for boys at the time of its founding in 1904.
Prior to his appointment as Director-General of
New Netherland, Stuyvesant was a
Dutch West India Company director in charge of the so-called 'abc islands' of
Aruba,
Bonaire and
Curaçao. For the latter he had been appointed as Governor. He lost one of his legs in a battle with the Spanish over the island of
Sint Maarten and wore a
pegleg for most of his adult life, leading the Native Americans to dub him "Father Wooden Leg".
Stuyvesant is credited with introducing
tea to the
United States.
The last direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant to bear his surname was
Augustus van Horne Stuyvesant, Jr., who died a bachelor in 1953 at the age of 83 in his
Cass Gilbert-designed mansion at 2 E. 79th St.
Rutherford Stuyvesant, the 19th century New York developer, and his descendants are also descended from Peter Stuyvesant. However, Rutherford Stuyvesant changed his name from Stuyvesant Rutherford in 1863 to satisfy the terms of a will. Other descendants of Stuyvesant include
Hamilton Fish and
Tom Kean, both
governors of
New Jersey and musician
Loudon Wainwright III.
Trivia
* A
German cigarette brand is named
Peter Stuyvesant after him. These are popular in
Australia and
South Africa, where they are known as 'Stuyvos' and 'Stuyvies' respectively.
*
