Background
Stuyvesant was born in 1610 in Peperga, Friesland, in the Netherlands, to Balthasar Stuyvesant, a minister, and Margaretha Hardenstein. He grew up in Peperga, Scherpenzeel, and Berlikum.
Stuyvesant was born in 1610 in Peperga, Friesland, in the Netherlands, to Balthasar Stuyvesant, a minister, and Margaretha Hardenstein. He grew up in Peperga, Scherpenzeel, and Berlikum.
Stuyvesant attended school in Friesland, where he heard much about New Netherland and about Holland's war with Spain. He became a student at the University of Franeker but was apparently expelled, for reasons unknown, about 1629.
The last and most efficient of Dutch proconsuls in the European struggle for control of North America, Peter Stuyvesant is remembered as the stubborn, somewhat choleric governor of the Dutch West India Company's base on the mainland.
A zealous Calvinist, he brought a relatively effective government to the colony, absorbed the nearby rival Swedish settlements, and attempted to remold New Netherland in his own and the company's image. His efforts at reform were cut short with the seizure of New Amsterdam (later, New York) by a British force in 1664.
Patriotic, and desiring adventure, Stuyvesant entered the service of the Dutch West India Company - first as a clerk and then, in 1635, as a supercargo to Brazil. The following year he led an unsuccessful attack against the Portuguese colony of St. Martin in the Leeward Islands. During the siege he was wounded in the right leg, and the crude amputation required resulted in a lengthy convalescence and a trip to Holland to obtain an artificial limb. Because of its adornmentsments, he was thereafter often nicknamed "Silver Leg. " On October 5, 1645, Stuyvesant came before the chamber of the nearly bankrupt West India Company and volunteered his services for New Netherland. On Christmas Day he sailed for America with four vessels carrying soldiers, servants, traders, and a new set of officials. Stuyvesant's first domestic order restricted sale of intoxicants and compelled observance of the Sabbath. Clerics and councilmen easily persuaded him (in a move aimed at Lutherans and Quakers) to forbid meetings not conforming to the Synod of Dort. He appointed fire wardens and ordered chimney inspections, instituted a weekly market and annual cattle fair, required bakers to usestandard weights, somewhat controlled traffic and sanitation, repaired the fort, and licensed taverns.
Stuyvesant concerned himself about all aspects of town life. A force sent against Ft. Christina in 1655 conquered Sweden's province on the Delaware River and absorbed the settlements into New Netherland. Peace was made with marauding Native Americans, and captive Dutch colonists were ransomed. When four British warships under Col. Richard Nicolls reached New Amsterdam, the colony was completely unprepared. Stuyvesant wanted to resist this aggression, but word of Nicolls's lenient terms eroded his already scanty support, and after lengthy negotiations he capitulated on September 7.
Stuyvesant was a Dutch colonial governor who tried to resist the English seizure of New York.
Stuyvesant, himself a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, opposed religious pluralism and came into conflict with Lutherans, Jews, Roman Catholics and Quakers as they attempted to build places of worship in the city and practice their faiths.
Director of the West India Company's colony of Curacao (1634-1644)
In 1645, Stuyvesant married Judith Bayard (c. 1610-1687) of the Bayard family. Her brother, Samuel Bayard, was the husband of Stuyvesant's sister, Anna Stuyvesant. Together, Petrus and Judith had two sons.
