Peter Stuyvesant
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Image:Peter Stuyvesant.jpg Petrus Stuyvesant (born c. 1612, Peperga (Friesland), Netherlands; died February, 1672, in present-day New York City, USA [1]) 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 honor), 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 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.
As director-general, Stuyvesant and his council took several measures concerning religion in New Netherland. 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 with the sometimes rather harsh measures vis-à-vis the vociferously proselytizing, non-conformist Quakers, then considered anarchistic agitators and a threat to the public order.
It needs to be pointed out that permanent residency for both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews was legally attained on the basis of "reason and equity" in 1655 under Stuyvesant's rule. This was in spite of initially strong and personal objections of some of the members of the Dutch Reformed Church Council of which Stuyvesant was a member. This proved that cultural identity as a legal-political imperative in New Netherland was what mattered rather than the shifting views, prejudices or self-interest of an individual's fleeting authority obtained through the office of appointed power. In other words, in these matters Stuyvesant’s personal views where transformed in public actions which were self-serving and did reflect neither the cultural traditions and wishes of the population he served nor those of the Company Directors in patria. Perhaps to honor New Amsterdam's legal-cultural tradition of toleration under Stuyvesant, Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan was named after him, in spite of it being 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.
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A Dutch 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.
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