STUYVESANT, PETER ( Dutch colonial gov ernor, was born in Scherpenzeel, in Southern Friesland, in 1592. He studied at Franeker, entered the military service in the West Indies about 1625, and was director of the West India Company's colony of Curacao 1634-44. In April, 1644 he attacked the Por tuguese island of Saint Martin and was wounded; he had to return to Holland, and there one of his legs was amputated. Thereafter he wore a wooden leg ornamented with silver bands. In May, he was selected by the West India Company to supersede William Kieft as director of New Netherland. He arrived in New Amster dam (later New York) on May 11, 1647, and was received with great enthusiasm. In response to the demand for self-government, in Sept., 1647, he and the council appointed—after the manner then followed in Holland—from 18 representatives chosen by the people a board of 9 to confer with him and the council whenever he thought it expedient to ask their advice.
The leading burghers were, however, soon alienated by his violent and despotic methods, by his defence of Kieft, and by his devotion to the interests of the company; the nine men became the centre of municipal discontent, and a bitter quarrel ensued. In 165o the states-general suggested a representative government to go into effect in 1653, but the company opposed it; in 1653, however, there was established the first municipal government for the city of New Amsterdam modelled after that of the cities of Holland. Stuyvesant also aroused opposition through his efforts to increase the revenues of the company, to improve the system of defence, and to prevent the sale of liquor and firearms to the Indians, and through his persecution of Lutherans and Quakers, to which the company finally put an end. In 165o, he came to an agreement with the commissioners of the united colonies of New England at Hartford upon the boundary between New Netherland and Connecticut, involving the sacrifice of a large amount of territory. On Long Island, during Stuyvesant's rule, Dutch in
fluence was gradually undermined by John Underhill. Stuyve sant's dealings with the Swedes were more successful. With a force of 700 men he sailed into the Delaware in 1655, captured Ft. Casimir (Newcastle)—which Stuyvesant had built in 1651 and which the Swedes had taken in 1654—and overthrew the Swedish authority in that region. He also vigorously suppressed Indian uprisings in 1655, 1658 and 1663.
In March, 1664, Charles II. granted to his brother, the duke of York, the territory between the Connecticut river and Delaware bay, and Col. Richard Nicolls with a fleet of 4 ships and about 300 or 400 men was sent out to take possession. Misled by in structions from Holland that the expedition was directed wholly against New England, Stuyvesant made no preparation for defence until just before the fleet arrived. As the burghers refused to sup port him, Stuyvesant was compelled to surrender the town and fort on Sept. 8. He returned to Holland in 1665 and was made a scapegoat by the West India Company for all its failings in New Amsterdam ; he went back to New York again after the treaty of Breda in 1667, having secured the right of free trade between Holland and New York. He spent the remainder of his life on his farm called the Bouwerie, from which the present "Bowery" in New York city takes its name. He died in Feb. 1672, and was buried in a chapel, on the site of which in 1799 was erected St. Mark's church.
See Bayard Tuckerman, Peter Stuyvesant (1893), in the "Makers of America" Series; and Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century (1909).