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.
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 and greater area, which was named New Amsterdam by the first Dutch settlers, and eventually renamed New York by the English, and was central to much of New York's early history.
Willem Kieft, also Wilhelm Kieft, was a Dutch merchant and the Director of New Netherland from 1638 to 1647.
Jonas Bronck was an immigrant to the Dutch colony of New Netherland after whom the Bronx River, and by extension, the county and New York City borough of the Bronx are named.
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 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.
The Eight Men was a group of eight residents chosen by the people of New Netherland in 1643 to advise Director 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.
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.
Cornelis van Tienhoven was an official of New Amsterdam from 1638 to 1656, and one of the more prominent people in New Netherland. He served in the administrations of three governors: Wouter van Twiller, Willem Kieft, and Peter Stuyvesant. As provincial secretary and schout-fiscal, he was deeply involved in the administrative, legal, and financial activities of New Amsterdam. He was widely disliked, and contemporary descriptions of his character and behavior are unflattering.
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 outpost 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.
The Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church is a Dutch Reformed congregation in Manhattan, New York City, which has had a variety of church buildings and now exists in the form of four component bodies: the Marble, Middle, West End and Fort Washington Collegiate Church, all part of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Churches of New York. The original congregation was established in 1628.
Everardus Bogardus was the dominie of the New Netherlands, and was the second minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest established church in present-day New York, which was then located on Pearl Street at its first location built in 1633, the year of his arrival. Bogardus was, in fact, the second clergyman in all of the New Netherlands.
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.
The Nine Men was a council of citizens elected by the residents of New Netherland to advise its Director General Peter Stuyvesant on the governance of the colony. It replaced the previous body, the Eight Men, which itself had superseded the Twelve Men. Members of this early form of representational democracy in North America were elected in 1647, 1649, 1650 and 1652.
Maryn Adriansen was an early settler to New Netherland. Originally emigrating under an Indenture agreement he later became a prominent member of society. His conflict with the governor led to accusations and, eventually, acquittal. He owned property in New Amsterdam and a large plantation at Awiehaken.
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.
Stuyvesant Farm, also known as the Great Bowery, was the estate of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland, as well as his predecessors and later his familial descendants. The land was at first designated Bowery No. 1, the largest and northernmost of six initial estates of the Dutch West India Company north of New Amsterdam, used as the official residence and economic support for Willem Verhulst and all subsequent directors of the colony.
