| New Netherland series |
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| Exploration |
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| The Patroon System |
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| People of New Netherland |
| Flushing Remonstrance |
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The Eight Men was a group of eight residents chosen by the people of New Netherland in 1643 to advise its Director-General, Willem Kieft, on his governance of the colony. An early form of representational democracy in colonial North America, it replaced the similarly selected Twelve Men and was followed by the Nine Men.
In 1643 Abraham Pietersen Van Deusen, who had served on the council of the Twelve Men, was appointed to a new body of eight men. The group contacted the Estates-General of the Netherlands and blamed governor Willem Kieft for the declining economic condition of the nascent colony, and Kieft's War with the Native Americans. They requested that a new Director-General of New Netherland be appointed, and that the people be given more influence in the new government. Director-General Kieft was dismissed and replaced by Peter Stuyvesant. Kieft left for Holland in September 1647 to defend himself to the Estates-General, but the Princess Amelia was lost at sea and his body was never recovered. Stuyvesant remained in power until the colony was turned over to the British in 1664.
John Franklin Jameson (1859–1937) wrote of the Eight Men:
The commonalty were called together; they were sore distressed. They chose eight, instead of the previous twelve, persons to aid in consulting for the best; but the occupation every one had to take care of his own, prevented anything beneficial being adopted at that time. nevertheless it was resolved that as many Englishmen as were to be got in the country should be enlisted, who were indeed now proposing to depart; the third part of these were to be paid by the commonalty; this promise was made by the commonalty but was not followed by the pay.
The council members were: [1] [2]
Peter Stuyvesant was a Dutch colonial officer who 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, after which it was split into New York and New Jersey with lesser territory becoming parts of other colonies, and later, states. He was a major figure in the early history of New York City and his name has been given to various landmarks and points of interest throughout the city.
New Netherland was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod, while limited settlements were in parts of the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
Fort Amsterdam was a fortification on the southern tip of Manhattan Island at the confluence of the Hudson and East rivers. The fort and the island were the center of trade and the administrative headquarters for the Dutch and then British/Colonial rule of the colony, of New Netherland and thereafter the Province of New York. The fort was the nucleus of the settlement on the island which was named New Amsterdam and eventually renamed New York by the English, and was central to much of New York's early history.
Willem Kieft was a Dutch merchant and the Director of New Netherland from 1638 to 1647.
This is a list of Directors, appointed by the Dutch West India Company, of the 17th century Dutch province of New Netherland in North America. Only the last, Peter Stuyvesant, held the title of Director General. As the colony grew, citizens advisory boards – known as the Twelve Men, Eight Men, and Nine Men – exerted more influence on the director and thus affairs of province.
Abraham Pietersen van Deursen, aka Abraham Pietersen van Deusen, was an immigrant from Holland who settled in New Amsterdam and become one of the Council of 12 that was the first representative democracy in the Dutch colony. The Van Deursen, Van Deusen, Van Duser, Van Duzer, Van Duzor, Van Duzee, and Van Dusen families of the United States and Canada are all descended from Abraham Pietersen van Deusen, a miller and a native originating from Haarlem in the Netherlands.
The Twelve Men was a council of 12 citizens chosen by the residents of New Netherland to advise Director Willem Kieft, on relations with the Native Americans in the wake of the murder of Claes Swits. Elected on 29 August 1641, the temporary council was the first representational form of democracy in the Dutch colony. The next two such bodies were known as the Eight Men and the Nine Men.
Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck was a lawyer and landowner in New Netherland after whose honorific Jonkheer the city of Yonkers, New York, is named. Although he was not, as sometimes claimed, the first lawyer in the Dutch colony, Van der Donck was a leader in the political life of New Amsterdam, and an activist for Dutch-style republican government in the Dutch West India Company-run trading post.
Isaac Allerton, and his family, were passengers in 1620 on the historic voyage of the ship Mayflower. Allerton was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact. In Plymouth Colony he was active in colony governmental affairs and business and later in trans-Atlantic trading. Problems with the latter regarding colony expenditures caused him to be censured by the colony government and ousted from the colony. He later became a well-to-do businessman elsewhere and in his later years resided in Connecticut.
Kieft's War (1643–1645), also known as the Wappinger War, was a conflict between the colonial province of New Netherland and the Wappinger and Lenape Indians in what is now New York and New Jersey. It is named for Director-General of New Netherland Willem Kieft, who had ordered an attack without the approval of his advisory council and against the wishes of the colonists. Dutch colonists attacked Lenape camps and massacred the inhabitants, which encouraged unification among the regional Algonquian tribes against the Dutch and precipitated waves of attacks on both sides. This was one of the earliest conflicts between settlers and Indians in the region. The Dutch West India Company was displeased with Kieft and recalled him, but he died in a shipwreck while returning to the Netherlands; Peter Stuyvesant succeeded him in New Netherland. Numerous Dutch settlers returned to the Netherlands because of the continuing threat from the Algonquians, and growth slowed in the colony.
Pavonia was the first European settlement on the west bank of the North River that was part of the seventeenth-century province of New Netherland in what would become the present Hudson County, New Jersey.
David Pieterszoon de Vries was a Dutch navigator from Hoorn.
Cornelis Melyn was an early Dutch settler in New Netherland and Patroon of Staten Island. He was the chairman of the council of eight men, which was a part of early steps toward representative democracy in the Dutch colony.
New Netherlanders were residents of New Netherland, the seventeenth-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America, centered on the Hudson River and New York Bay, and in the Delaware Valley. Their descendants are the New York Dutch.
Jan Evertsz Bout, was an early and prominent Dutch settler in the 17th century colonial province of New Netherland.
Princess Amelia was a Dutch merchant ship of 38 guns and 600 tons (bm) built in 1634 and wrecked off Swansea, Bristol Channel, in 1647. She served the Dutch West India Company and was one of the largest merchant ships of her day with 38 guns.
Jochem Pietersen Kuyter was an early colonist to New Netherland, and one of the first settlers of what would become Harlem on the island of Manhattan. He became an influential member of the community and served on the citizen boards known as the Twelve Men, the Eight Men and the Nine Men.
The Pound Ridge massacre was a battle of Kieft's War that took place in March 1644 between the forces of New Netherland and members of the Wappinger Confederacy at a village of its members in the present-day town of Pound Ridge, New York. A mixed force of 130 New Netherland soldiers led by Captain John Underhill launched a night attack on the village and destroyed it with fire. 500 to 700 members of the Wappinger Confederacy were killed while the New Netherland force lost one man killed and fifteen wounded. More casualties were suffered in this attack than in any other single incident in the war. Shortly after the battle several local Wappinger Confederacy sachems sued for peace.
Abraham Isaacsen Verplanck (1606–1690), also known as Abraham Isaacse Ver Planck, was an early and prominent settler in New Netherlands. A land developer and speculator, he was the progenitor of an extensive Verplanck family in the United States. Immigrating circa 1633, he received a land grant at Paulus Hook in 1638.
Dorothy Creole was one of the first African women to arrive in New York. She arrived in 1627. That year, three enslaved African women set foot on the southern shore of Manhattan, arriving in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Property of the Dutch West India Company, these women were brought to the colony to become the wives of enslaved African men who had arrived in 1625. One of these women was named Dorothy Creole, a surname that she acquired in the New World.
Director-General William Kieft was an autocrat and ruled New Amsterdam in an arbitrary fashion, generating animosity throughout the colony. In 1643 a minor altercation with Indians evolved into a serious uprising followed by an ugly slaughter of Weckquaskeek Indians on Manhattan Island. Kieft feared a major Indian assault. Allerton was asked by Kieft to join a "group of 8 men" to help New Amsterdam. Because he was English and respected in New Haven, Kieft sent Allerton and another Englishman to New Haven in 1643 to ask for men and materials to help defend New Amsterdam. In addition, the "group of 8" was asked to propose measures to improve civility and law-and-order in New Amsterdam. New Haven refused to send men to support the Dutch but Kieft entered into an agreement with the Indians in 1645 that settled the dispute. Because of Kieft's dictatorial manner, several of the eight men petitioned the WIC directors to recall Kieft as Director-General. In time Kieft was replaced by Peter Stuyvesant, and the men initiating the recall petition were accused of insurrection and faced punishment. Allerton was the second signatory of the petition but was not the group's primary spokesman. In 1646, Allerton established a permanent residence in New Haven.
...replaced by Jan Evertz Bout....