STUYVESANT, strve-sant, PETER ( 1592 1672). A Dutch Governor of New York. He was born in Holland; early entered the military service of the Dutch in the West Indies, and in 1634 was made Director of the Colony of Cura cao. In 1646 the Dutch West India Company appointed him Direetor-General of their colony in North America. New Netherland• where he soon gained the confidence of the colonists by his efficient administration and public improvements. He reconciled the Indian tribes who had been made hostile by former unjust treatment, and succeeded in arranging with the New England commissioners, in 1650, the boundaries between the English and Dutch territories, but this was not entirely satisfactory to the Dutch colonists, who claimed that the Governor had ceded con siderable territory to which they were rightfully entitled. A convention of delegated colonists in 1653 demanded for the people, among other things. a share in the appointment of local officers. but Stuyvesant ordered them to disperse forthwith, claiming that his authority was not from the people, but from God and the Dutch West India Company. The protracted contentions of the Dutch and the Swedes dwelling near the Dela ware River about governmental jurisdiction became more critical in 1654, when the Swedish Governor seized the tort built by the Dutch where Newcastle now stands. end this
trouble, Stuyvesant in 1655 with 600 men sailed up the Delaware. recaptured the fort, and estab lished the Dutch authority over the entire terri tory. Aften nine years of undisturbed quiet, in 1664 a force of English :soldiers arrived under Colonel NiroIls, who demanded a surrender of the Government, on the ground that the whole territory had been given by royal charter to the Duke of York. The town at the time contained 1500 inhabitants and was defended by a stone fort and twenty cannon. Stuyvesant at first re fused. but finding the people anxious to exchange rulers, he yielded to the English demand. Stuy vesant. in 1665. reported personally to the au thorities in Holland. but soon returned to New York. where he spent the remainder of his life, cultivating an extensive farm called the Bon werij (Bowery). He was buried where Saint Mark's Church now stands, and the elaborately inscribed stone that covered his grave is built into the eastern wall of the church. Consult the brief biography by Tuckennan (New York, 1S93) : and O'Callaghan, The History of Neu, Netherland (ib., S48).