Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New AmsterdamAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
New York (State) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Stuyvesant, Peter, 1592-1672
Thus the antagonistic parties separated. The Dutch sloop returned to
New Amsterdam. The next day a number of sachems came to New Amsterdam
and sold to Governor Stuyvesant the remainder of the lands on the
Raritan, which had not previously been transferred to the Dutch.
One John Scott, an Englishman of turbulent character, and a zealous
royalist, petitioned king Charles Second to bestow upon him the
government of Long Island. In his petition, which was referred to the
Council for Foreign Plantations, he said:
"The Dutch have of late years, unjustly obtruded upon and
possessed themselves of certain places on the mainland of
New England, and some islands adjacent, as in particular on
Manhattan and Long Island, being the true and undoubted
inheritance of his Majesty."
In reply to this petition, Scott with two others, was appointed a
committee to prepare
"a statement of the English title to those lands; with an
account of the Dutch intrusion, their deportment since and
management of that possession, their strength, trade and
government there, and of the means to make them acknowledge
and submit to his Majesty's government or by force to
expulse them."
Armed with this authority, Scott came to America, where he was very
cordially received by the authorities in New Haven. Connecticut
invested him with the powers of a magistrate throughout the whole of
Long Island, and Governor John Winthrop administered to him the oath
of office. Scott entered vigorously upon his work of wresting western
Long Island from the dominion of the Dutch, whom he denounced as
"cruel and rapacious neighbors who were enslaving the English
settlers."
He visited most of the villages, where large numbers of the English
resided, but found that there was strong opposition to being annexed
to Connecticut. Many of them, particularly the Baptists and the
Quakers, were very unwilling to come under the rule of the Puritan
government.
Consequently, six of the towns, Hempstead, Gravesend, Flushing,
Middlebury, Jamaica and Oyster Bay, formed a combination to govern
themselves independently of Connecticut, and empowered Scott to act as
their President, until the king of England should establish a
permanent government among them. Scott in his pride now unfurled an
almost imperial banner. Placing himself at the head of one hundred and
seventy armed men, horse and foot, he set out to compel the
neighboring Dutch villages to renounce their allegiance to Holland and
to subject themselves to his sway.
He first marched upon Brooklyn. Summoning the citizens, he told them
that the soil they occupied belonged to the king of England, and that
he now claimed it as his own, and that they were consequently absolved
from all further allegiance to the Dutch government and were required
to take the oath of submission to the new government, now about to be
established over them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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