PETER STUYVESANT was a tall, red-faced Dutchman who came out to the New
Netherlands in 1647, to take the place of Kieft as Governor of that
Province.
Governor Stuyvesant had fought in many battles, and in one of them had
lost a leg. When he came out to New Netherlands he had a wooden leg;
and as it was fastened together by rings of silver, it was often called
“the Governor’s silver leg.” Stuyvesant had also a very violent temper;
and, when he was angry, he stamped about with this leg as though it
were a club and he were beating the floor with it.
At this time, in 1647, the Swedes claimed all of Delaware as theirs,
and called it New Sweden. They had driven many of the Dutch away, had
torn down their buildings, and had kept them from trading with the
Indians. Every little while news of fresh wrongs to the Dutch was
brought from Delaware to Governor Stuyvesant; and every time a letter
or messenger arrived, the Governor had a fresh fit of rage. He believed
that the Dutch were the real owners of the river; and, if he could,
he would have gathered his soldiers together and sailed down to New
Sweden, and have done his best to drive every Swede out of the country.
This he could not do, however; for the Directors of the West India
Company, who had given him his position as Governor, had told him to
keep peace not only with the Indians, but with the Swedes as well.
This was a hard thing for a hot-tempered man like Stuyvesant to do.
Now the story would be that the Swedes had destroyed more of the Dutch
buildings along the Delaware; again, that the Swedes had incited the
Indians to try to surprise and massacre the Dutch; and Hudde, the
Dutch commissioner in New Sweden, wrote that a Swedish lieutenant and
twenty-four soldiers had come to his house one day and cut down all his
trees, even the fruit trees.
Stuyvesant stamped about louder than ever when he heard this. The
insult to the Dutch commissioner seemed the worst thing that had yet
happened; and he made up his mind to sail down to New Sweden and
remonstrate with the Swedish Governor Printz himself.
Governor Printz lived in a very handsome house called Printz Hall, on
Tinnicum Island. All about it were fine gardens and an orchard. There
was also a pleasure house, and indeed everything that could help to
make it comfortable and convenient. Governor Printz received Governor
Stuyvesant very politely in the great hall of the house, and presently
the two governors sat down and began to talk. Stuyvesant complained
bitterly of the treatment the Dutch had received in Delaware. He
repeated that by rights the Dutch really owned the land; they had
bought it years before from the Indians, and their right to it had been
sealed by the blood they had shed upon its soil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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