WEBVTT NOTE 39. Governors and Government 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.320 Volume 1, Chapter 39, Governors and Government 2 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:13.060 The Dutch West India Company began operations in 1623, and in the same year the first party 3 00:00:13.060 --> 00:00:19.360 of permanent Dutch settlers landed in the New World, apart from a settlement near Cape 4 00:00:19.360 --> 00:00:27.720 May on the Delaware Bay in 1614. The new colonists landed in Manhattan. Others in the party settled 5 00:00:27.720 --> 00:00:35.940 Built in Fort Orange, the settlers significantly were a party of Walloon emigres. 6 00:00:35.940 --> 00:00:42.880 Appointed Governor or Director General of New Netherland was Captain Cornelius May. 7 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:49.760 Under May's aegis, the Dutch quickly began to expand over the vast Virgin Territory. 8 00:00:49.760 --> 00:00:55.080 Fort Nassau was built on the east bank of the Delaware River, now Gloucester, New Jersey, 9 00:00:55.080 --> 00:01:01.880 opposite Philadelphia. Another Dutch party built Fort Good Hope on the Connecticut River, 10 00:01:01.880 --> 00:01:07.400 and we have seen the fate meted out to it by the English planters of Connecticut. Still 11 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:12.980 other Dutchmen settled on what is now the coast of Brooklyn and on Staten Island. Why 12 00:01:12.980 --> 00:01:18.760 didn't the English, who had laid claim to the whole coast, seriously molest the Dutch 13 00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:41.760 For the first decade the English were busy fighting with Spain and France. After that came the troubles and distractions of the Puritan Revolution. It was only the advent of the restoration period that enabled England to turn serious attention to exerting its power over New Netherland as well as over Massachusetts. 14 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:49.700 In the spring of 1626, Peter Minuit took over as director general, and it was he who, in 15 00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:56.720 a series of fateful decisions, laid the pattern of social structure for New Netherland. 16 00:01:56.720 --> 00:02:02.520 In the English colonies, the chartered companies and proprietors tried to gain immediate profits 17 00:02:02.520 --> 00:02:06.200 by inducing rapid settlement. 18 00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:12.240 The need for these inducements led to the inevitable dissolution of original attempts 19 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:19.960 to maintain feudal land tenure, as lands were divided up and sold, and half-hearted attempts 20 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:26.000 to collect feudal quit-grants from the settlers were abandoned in the face of their stubborn 21 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:32.860 evasion and resistance. Moreover, the need for inducing settlement also led the companies 22 00:02:32.860 --> 00:02:38.340 Royal Colonies or Proprietors to grant, from the beginning, substantial rights of democracy 23 00:02:38.340 --> 00:02:41.140 and self-government to the colonist. 24 00:02:41.140 --> 00:02:46.940 Happily, none of the English settlements began as royal colonies. 25 00:02:46.940 --> 00:02:53.140 Either they were settled by individuals for individual temporal or spiritual gain, or 26 00:02:53.140 --> 00:02:58.860 they were governed by profit-seeking companies or proprietors who were induced by hopes of 27 00:02:58.860 --> 00:03:05.460 of Profit to grant substantial or even controlling rights of property and self-government to 28 00:03:05.460 --> 00:03:12.460 the settlers. North Carolina, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut began 29 00:03:13.220 --> 00:03:19.980 as individual self-governing settlements, Virginia and Massachusetts as chartered companies, 30 00:03:19.980 --> 00:03:26.980 Maryland and South Carolina as proprietorships. But the Dutch West India Company and Minuet 31 00:03:26.980 --> 00:03:38.980 decided quite differently. As profit seekers, they first concentrated on their monopoly of the lucrative fur trade, and for this trade, extensive settlements were not needed. 32 00:03:38.980 --> 00:03:53.980 Whether by design or not, the effect of Dutch policy was to discourage settlement greatly, and to hamper the development of the vast area over which the Dutch West India Company had been assigned its monopoly. 33 00:03:53.980 --> 00:04:01.820 For example, one of Minuit's first actions was to order the colonists back, to concentrate 34 00:04:01.820 --> 00:04:07.440 them around the fort in New Amsterdam on the tip of Manhattan, which had been purchased 35 00:04:07.440 --> 00:04:13.900 from the Indians. This arbitrary policy left only a few traders at Fort Orange and only 36 00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:20.860 one vessel on the Delaware, Fort Nassau being completely abandoned. This action stemmed from 37 00:04:20.860 --> 00:04:27.000 from the company's high-handed decision to retain its exclusive monopoly of trade. 38 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:33.300 To leave too many individuals on the interior would foster illegal competitive trading. 39 00:04:33.300 --> 00:04:40.420 Second, the Dutch perpetuated a feudal type of land tenure by insisting on leasing rather 40 00:04:40.420 --> 00:04:43.780 than selling land to the settlers. 41 00:04:43.780 --> 00:04:49.660 It is no wonder that with no settler permitted to own his land and thus help to dissolve 42 00:04:49.660 --> 00:05:19.660 Feudalism and Land Monopoly and with no one permitted to trade on his own account, the pace of settlement was very slow. Furthermore, the form of government was by far the most despotic in the colonies. There was no self-government or democracy, no limitation whatever on the arbitrary rule of the company and its director general. The director, along with a council of five, appointed by the Amsterdam Chamber, ran the 43 00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:25.660 The entire government, its legislative, executive and judicial functions. 44 00:05:25.660 --> 00:05:36.660 They were joined by two other officials appointed by the company, the scout fiscal, who made arrest and collected revenue, and the coup men, the secretary of the colony. 45 00:05:36.660 --> 00:05:40.660 There were no legislatures or town meetings of any sort. 46 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:46.660 By 1629 it was evident that the colony was growing very slowly. 47 00:05:46.660 --> 00:05:51.660 Only 300 persons, for example, lived in New Amsterdam. 48 00:05:51.660 --> 00:05:55.660 The company, therefore, decided to spur settlement. 49 00:05:55.660 --> 00:06:02.660 But instead of dissolving its land monopoly into a system of true private property for landed settlers, 50 00:06:02.660 --> 00:06:07.660 it decided to make the monopoly into a more elaborate feudal structure, 51 00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:13.660 subland monopolists placed over large particular areas in New Netherland. 52 00:06:13.660 --> 00:06:27.660 In the Charter of Privileges and Exemptions of 1629, the Company decided to grant extensive tracks of land to any of its members who would bring over and settle fifty or more families on the tract. 53 00:06:27.660 --> 00:06:42.660 The tracks were required to lie along the banks of the Hudson or other navigable rivers, and were granted in huge lots of sixteen miles along one shore of the Hudson, or eight miles on both shores. 54 00:06:42.660 --> 00:06:50.180 The depth on either side of the Hudson was indefinite. The grantee was termed a Patroon, 55 00:06:50.180 --> 00:06:56.660 or Lord of the Manor. In imitation of the feudal lord, the Patroon was to possess civil 56 00:06:56.660 --> 00:07:02.500 and criminal jurisdiction over his tenants, or peasants. The tenants had the formal right 57 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:08.900 of appeal from the Patroon's manorial courts to the feudal overlord, the company's government, 58 00:07:08.900 --> 00:07:14.420 But in practice the tenants were forced to forgo this right. The property of any tenant 59 00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:21.620 dying in testate reverted to the patron, and the tenant was forced to grind his grain at 60 00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:28.060 the patron's mill. The tenants were exempted from colonial taxation for ten years, but 61 00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:34.120 in return they were compelled to stay on the original estate for the entire period. To 62 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:39.240 To leave was illegal, an approximation of medieval serfdom. 63 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:44.440 Aside from being a temporary serf and having no hope of owning the land he tilled, the 64 00:07:44.440 --> 00:07:52.000 tenant was also prohibited from weaving any kind of woolen, linen or cotton cloth. 65 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:57.280 Even the patroons were prohibited from weaving in order to keep the monopoly of the trade 66 00:07:57.280 --> 00:08:02.320 in the hands of the company government and to maintain a monopoly of the colonial market 67 00:08:02.320 --> 00:08:09.120 for Dutch Textiles. This provision, however, was continually evaded and led to numerous 68 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:15.560 conflicts. Neither tenant nor patron could engage in the fur trade, which was still reserved 69 00:08:15.560 --> 00:08:21.960 to the company and its agents. Apart from these commodities, the patrons were at liberty 70 00:08:21.960 --> 00:08:29.320 to trade, but were required to pay a 5% duty to the government at New Amsterdam for exporting 71 00:08:29.320 --> 00:08:36.840 The use of slaves in domestic service or in tilling the soil was also sanctioned. 72 00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:44.000 The patrons were required, however, to purchase the granted land from the local Indians. 73 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:50.160 It should be noted that Manhattan Island was exempted from the granting of patron ships. 74 00:08:50.160 --> 00:08:56.120 The land of that valuable island was to be reserved for the direct monopoly of the company 75 00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:59.440 government of the province. 76 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:04.840 While the incentive to become a tenant remained minimal, the incentive to become a Patroon 77 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:06.680 was now considerable. 78 00:09:06.680 --> 00:09:12.440 It should not be surprising that the receivers of these handsome grants of this special privilege 79 00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:15.800 were leaders or favorites of the company itself. 80 00:09:15.800 --> 00:09:22.160 Thus, the first Patroonship was granted by the company to two members of its own board 81 00:09:22.160 --> 00:09:28.360 Board of Directors, Samuel Godden, President of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Company, and 82 00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:35.200 Samuel Blumert, who granted themselves a large chunk of what is now the state of Delaware, 83 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:40.360 as well as 16 square miles on Cape May across the Delaware Bay. 84 00:09:40.360 --> 00:09:46.720 Godden and Blumert took five other company directors into partnership to expand the capital 85 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:53.440 of the Patroonship, and one of the partners, Captain David De Vries, was sent with a group 86 00:09:53.440 --> 00:10:03.960 of settlers to found the Patroonship of Swannendal, now Luz, near Cape Henlopen in Delaware. 87 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:10.880 The Swannendal Manor was settled in 1631, but the settlement soon ran into difficulties. 88 00:10:10.880 --> 00:10:16.320 For one thing, it was chiefly designed as a whaling station, but de Vries soon found 89 00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:22.880 out that whales were scarce along the Delaware coast. Furthermore, the Swannendorf settlers 90 00:10:22.880 --> 00:10:28.960 managed to provoke the Indians into attacking and massacring them. The settlers had emptied 91 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:34.740 a pillow, leaving the remains as waste which happened to contain a piece of tin embossed 92 00:10:34.740 --> 00:10:39.960 with the emblem of the States General of New Netherland. An Indian chief found the abandoned 93 00:10:39.960 --> 00:10:47.760 in 2010 and used it for his tobacco pipe, whereupon the settlers, in an act unexcelled 94 00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:54.460 for stupidity, even in the sordid history of white treatment of Indians, executed the 95 00:10:54.460 --> 00:11:00.960 hapless chief for treason to the Netherlands. It is hardly puzzling that the Indians proceeded 96 00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:06.600 to attack and wipe out the settlement. In addition to these calamities, the Patroons 97 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:21.600 The Mises then quarreled and dissolved their partnership. They sold the land back to the company government in 1634 for a handsome 15,000 guilders. The first Patroonship in New Netherland had proved to be a failure. 98 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:37.600 The second Patroonship was also a failure. Michael Pugh, another of the grasping company directors, managed to obtain a grant for himself of the area that now includes Hoboken, Jersey City, and the whole of Staten Island. 99 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:44.840 Pugh called his colony Pavonia, which he organized on the side of Jersey City for a few years. 100 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:50.440 The Indians, however, proved troublesome, and the Patroonship was losing money, and 101 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:59.200 so in 1637, Pugh sold the land back to the obliging company for 26,000 guilders, land 102 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:05.080 of course that the company had originally granted Pugh as a gift. 103 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:09.920 The first successful Patroonship, and the only one that continued past the demise of 104 00:12:09.920 --> 00:12:16.480 New Netherland and through the 18th century, was the grant to yet another Amsterdam Chamber 105 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:24.520 Director, the wealthy jeweler Killian van Rensselaer. Van Rensselaer's domain, Rensselaer 106 00:12:24.520 --> 00:12:31.720 Wick, prospered because of its superior management and because its area was strategically located 107 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:38.840 for Fur Trade with the Iroquois. It included virtually the entire area around Albany, now 108 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:44.680 Albany and Rensselaer counties, except Fort Orange itself, which remained the property 109 00:12:44.680 --> 00:12:50.800 of the company government. Immediately there began conflicts between the Hudson River Patroons 110 00:12:50.800 --> 00:12:56.040 and the government, for the Patroons began to ignore the Dutch West India Company's 111 00:12:56.040 --> 00:13:01.600 Legal monopoly of the highly lucrative fur trade, and the company began to tighten its 112 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:05.520 regulation to enforce this monopoly. 113 00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:11.160 The Patroons' illegal fur trade not only endangered the company monopoly, it also led them to 114 00:13:11.160 --> 00:13:17.000 concentrate on furs rather than encourage a large agricultural population, which the 115 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:20.560 company government was now trying to foster. 116 00:13:20.560 --> 00:13:27.240 As a consequence, Peter Minuit was fired as director general by the company in 1632 on 117 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:31.600 charges of being too soft on the patroons. 118 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:37.400 Succeeding Minuit was Wouter von Twiller, a clerk in the company's Amsterdam warehouse 119 00:13:37.400 --> 00:13:43.440 chosen because he had married into the powerful Van Rensselaer family. 120 00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:48.400 Conflicts with the patroons over fur trading continued in the Van Twiller regime. 121 00:13:48.400 --> 00:13:54.400 Externally, New England began the process of overrunning Fort Good Hope on the Connecticut River. 122 00:13:54.400 --> 00:14:06.400 However, the English occupation of the abandoned Fort Nassau on the east bank of the Delaware was ended as Van Twiller reoccupied the fort and drove out the settlers. 123 00:14:06.400 --> 00:14:11.400 Further Dutch expansion took place during the Van Twiller administration. 124 00:14:11.400 --> 00:14:19.400 Art Corson erected Beaver Road Fort on what is now the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware. 125 00:14:19.400 --> 00:14:25.400 A good part of the expansion of land was accomplished for the benefit of Governor Van Twiller himself. 126 00:14:25.400 --> 00:14:33.400 He and his friends were given land grants and purchased at large speculative tracts of land from the Indians. 127 00:14:33.400 --> 00:14:40.400 The tracts were concentrated on western Long Island, notably in the present flatlands of Brooklyn. 128 00:14:40.400 --> 00:14:58.400 Van Twiller himself purchased Governor's Island. None of these purchases was approved, as was legally required, by the Amsterdam Chamber of the Company. What is more, the director saw to it that his own farms received the best services from the government. 129 00:14:58.400 --> 00:15:07.400 In addition to the conflicts over land irregularities and fur trading, the Scout Fiscal opposed the director's methods. 130 00:15:07.400 --> 00:15:15.400 When Van Twiller fired the Scout Fiscal, Lubertus van Dinklagen, the latter complained to the State's General. 131 00:15:15.400 --> 00:15:26.400 Furthermore, although some tobacco was now growing on Manhattan Island, the emphasis on the fur trade was helping to discourage agriculture and permanent settlement. 132 00:15:26.400 --> 00:15:38.400 The States General, perturbed that emphasis on fur was discouraging permanent settlement in New-Netherland, ordered the dismissal of Wouter von Twiller in 1637. 133 00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:46.400 But if the Dutch colonists had been chastised with whips, they were now to be chastised with scorpions. 134 00:15:46.400 --> 00:15:57.400 Arriving in 1638, the new director, Amsterdam merchant Willem Kieft, proceeded to impose an absolute despotism upon the colony. 135 00:15:57.400 --> 00:16:07.400 First, he reduced his council of advisors from five to one, and on this rump council of his advisor and himself, he had two votes. 136 00:16:07.400 --> 00:16:11.400 To appeal his decisions to the Netherlands was now made a high crime. 137 00:16:11.400 --> 00:16:18.400 time. Assured of absolute power to issue his decrees, Kieft outlawed virtually everything 138 00:16:18.400 --> 00:16:26.280 in sight. All trade of any commodity whatsoever was outlawed, except by special license issued 139 00:16:26.280 --> 00:16:32.000 by Kieft. Any trade or doing business without a license had his goods confiscated and was 140 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:38.880 subject to further punishment. To guard against possible trade, all sailors were prohibited 141 00:16:38.880 --> 00:16:45.160 from being on shore at night, under penalty of forfeit of wages and of instant dismissal 142 00:16:45.160 --> 00:16:51.400 on second offense. All sales of guns or ammunition to the Indians were prohibited on pain of 143 00:16:51.400 --> 00:16:58.000 death. All sorts of immoralities were prohibited. Heavy restrictions were placed on the sale 144 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:04.040 of liquor. Any tavern keeper selling liquor to tipsy customers was subject to a heavy 145 00:17:04.040 --> 00:17:07.840 to be fine and to confiscation of his stock. 146 00:17:07.840 --> 00:17:10.480 A tax was placed on tobacco. 147 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:15.840 It is no wonder that de Vries, who had strongly opposed the tyranny of Van Dweller, had far 148 00:17:15.840 --> 00:17:18.500 more to resent now. 149 00:17:18.500 --> 00:17:23.960 At the very time that Kieft was imposing his despotism on New Netherland, however, overall 150 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:29.760 company policy for the colony was changing drastically for the better. 151 00:17:29.760 --> 00:17:34.940 It was becoming increasingly evident to all that something needed to be done to obtain 152 00:17:34.940 --> 00:17:39.760 permanent settlers for this very thinly peopled territory. 153 00:17:39.760 --> 00:17:45.120 Characteristically, the Patroons suggested a stronger dose of the medicine on which they 154 00:17:45.120 --> 00:17:48.360 were prospering, feudalism. 155 00:17:48.360 --> 00:17:54.000 The Patroons, in their proposed new project, suggested that the Netherlands take the path 156 00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:00.340 by which England was ensuring the profitability of Virginia's large plantations, furnishing 157 00:18:00.340 --> 00:18:07.520 them with white indentured servants, paupers, convicts and vagabonds. Instead, the West 158 00:18:07.520 --> 00:18:14.020 India Company made the vital decision in the fall of 1638 to liquidate and abolish all 159 00:18:14.020 --> 00:18:21.020 of its monopolies in the New World, including fur, manufacturing and the right to own land. 160 00:18:21.020 --> 00:18:26.860 Even foreigners were to have the same liberties as Dutchmen. The only monopoly retained by 161 00:18:26.860 --> 00:18:32.740 the company was that of transporting the migrating settlers to America. Furthermore, the new 162 00:18:32.740 --> 00:18:38.420 freedom to own land was made effective by granting every new farmer the right to a farm 163 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:44.180 he could cultivate, although the company did insist that the farmer pay it rent for a half 164 00:18:44.180 --> 00:18:50.540 dozen years, as well as the more reasonable provision that the farmer repay it the capital 165 00:18:50.540 --> 00:19:00.540 and in 1640 the company liberalized the Patroon system further in a new Charter of Privileges and Exemptions. 166 00:19:00.540 --> 00:19:12.540 The size of the Patroon grants was greatly reduced, 200 acres being awarded to anyone bringing over five settlers and freedom of commerce was strengthened. 167 00:19:12.540 --> 00:19:19.540 This liberalization led to an immediate and pronounced influx of settlers into New Netherland. 168 00:19:19.540 --> 00:19:25.540 In one year, the number of farms on Manhattan Island more than quadrupled. 169 00:19:25.540 --> 00:19:31.540 De Vries arrived with organized parties of settlers who went to Staten Island. 170 00:19:31.540 --> 00:19:35.540 Jonas Bronk made a settlement on the Bronx River. 171 00:19:35.540 --> 00:19:42.540 Englishmen, taking advantage of the full rights for foreigners, also poured in to settle on the vast land available. 172 00:19:42.540 --> 00:19:48.540 Some came from Virginia and raised tobacco. Others fled from Massachusetts Bay. 173 00:19:48.540 --> 00:19:54.540 The only requirement was that they take an oath of allegiance to the Dutch Netherlands. 174 00:19:54.540 --> 00:20:01.540 But while relations between individual settlers of the two countries were harmonious and naturally so, 175 00:20:01.540 --> 00:20:12.540 the relations between the two governments, each rapaciously claiming sovereignty, were equally, naturally, quite troublesome. 176 00:20:12.540 --> 00:20:19.580 An individual settler of whatever nationality can clearly and evidently demarcate for himself 177 00:20:19.580 --> 00:20:27.580 a tract of land by transforming it by his labor. But there is no such clear-cut criterion for imposing 178 00:20:27.580 --> 00:20:32.940 governmental sovereignty. Therefore, while individuals of different nationalities can 179 00:20:32.940 --> 00:20:39.900 peacefully coexist within any given geographic area, governmental territorial conflicts are 180 00:20:39.900 --> 00:20:47.900 are perpetual. Thus, Director Kieft, alarmed at the growth of Connecticut, seized the English 181 00:20:47.900 --> 00:20:55.120 town of Greenwich and forced the citizens to acknowledge Dutch jurisdiction. Angered 182 00:20:55.120 --> 00:21:01.380 also by New Haven and Connecticut settlements on eastern Long Island, Kieft laid claim to 183 00:21:01.380 --> 00:21:09.620 all of what now are King's and Queen's counties in another convenient purchase from the Indians. 184 00:21:09.620 --> 00:21:18.020 In 1639, a group of settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts landed in Cal Bay, Queens. They tore down 185 00:21:18.020 --> 00:21:23.900 the arms of the Dutch States General from a tree and carved on it a fool's head. But 186 00:21:23.900 --> 00:21:28.940 Kieft drove the New England settlers away, and they went east to found the town of South 187 00:21:28.940 --> 00:21:36.220 Hampton. Long Island was particularly important as a source of wampum, beets from seashells 188 00:21:36.220 --> 00:21:43.220 Wampum was particularly important to the white man as the best commodity to trade with the Indians for furs. 189 00:21:43.220 --> 00:21:52.220 Until the advent of the Kieft administration, relations with the Indians had been cordial, but now they began to deteriorate. 190 00:21:52.220 --> 00:22:00.220 For one thing, oft times the cattle of the many new agricultural settlers strayed onto Indian property 191 00:22:00.220 --> 00:22:08.560 Many new agricultural settlers strayed onto Indian property and ruined Indian corn fields. 192 00:22:08.560 --> 00:22:15.260 When the Indians very properly protected their corn by killing the white man's invading cattle, 193 00:22:15.260 --> 00:22:22.160 the white settlers, instead of curbing their cows, exacted reprisals upon the Indians. 194 00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:27.580 Moreover, the Indians of the Lower Hudson, Connecticut, and what is now New Jersey, were 195 00:22:27.580 --> 00:22:33.660 For all members of the Algonquin Confederacy, the Algonquin's traditional enemies were the 196 00:22:33.660 --> 00:22:40.600 powerful and aggressive Iroquois of upstate New York. Now the new kieft ruling that no 197 00:22:40.600 --> 00:22:46.620 arms may be sold to any Indians on pain of death was vigorously enforced in the neighborhood 198 00:22:46.620 --> 00:22:53.900 of Manhattan, but not against the valuable fur supplying Iroquois to the north. The Algonquins 199 00:22:53.900 --> 00:22:58.300 The Algonquins were naturally embittered to find the Dutch eagerly supplying their worst 200 00:22:58.300 --> 00:23:05.460 enemies with arms while they were rudely cut off. To meet the Algonquin's problems, Director 201 00:23:05.460 --> 00:23:10.620 Kieft did not take the sensible course of repealing the prohibition against selling 202 00:23:10.620 --> 00:23:18.020 them arms. Instead, he had what seemed to him a brilliant idea. Fort Amsterdam was really 203 00:23:18.020 --> 00:23:27.020 for the Algonquins as much as for the Dutch. Therefore, they should also be taxed to pay for its upkeep. 204 00:23:27.020 --> 00:23:37.020 Therewith, Keefe's despotism reached out to the Indians as well, except that they were not so helpless to resist, as were his hapless Dutch subjects. 205 00:23:37.020 --> 00:23:46.020 For sheer gall, Keefe's demand upon the Indians for taxes in corn, furs and wampum was hard to surpass. 206 00:23:46.020 --> 00:23:54.020 The Tappan tribe of Algonquins was properly sarcastic and denied that the fort was any protection to it. 207 00:23:54.020 --> 00:24:01.020 The Tappans had never asked the Dutch to build their fort, and they were therefore not obliged to help maintain it. 208 00:24:01.020 --> 00:24:06.020 At this point of growing tension, some employees of the West India Company, 209 00:24:06.020 --> 00:24:13.220 India Company, re-travelling to the Delaware River in 1641, landed on Staten Island and 210 00:24:13.220 --> 00:24:20.060 stole some pigs belonging to David de Vries. As often happened in the colonies, the hapless 211 00:24:20.060 --> 00:24:26.980 Indians were blamed a priori for the theft. In this case, Kieft, without bothering to 212 00:24:26.980 --> 00:24:34.260 investigate, decided that the Raritan Algonquins were to blame. He promptly sent out an armed 213 00:24:34.260 --> 00:24:41.020 A troupe that murdered several raritans and burned their crops. The raritans, having 214 00:24:41.020 --> 00:24:48.380 no recourse in Dutch courts, had only one means of redress, violence. In reprisal they 215 00:24:48.380 --> 00:24:55.320 destroyed De Vries' plantation and massacred his settlers. Kieft, always ready to escalate 216 00:24:55.320 --> 00:25:02.340 a conflict, proclaimed a bounty of ten fathoms of wampum for anyone who brought in the head 217 00:25:02.340 --> 00:25:05.460 of a Raritan Indian. 218 00:25:05.460 --> 00:25:10.940 At this juncture, an Indian from Yonkers, who as a little boy had seen his uncle murdered 219 00:25:10.940 --> 00:25:17.940 in Manhattan by a gang of white servants of Peter Minuet, now murdered a Dutch tradesman 220 00:25:17.940 --> 00:25:19.720 in revenge. 221 00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:25.100 When Kief demanded the murderer, the Indian Sakem refused to surrender him, reasoning 222 00:25:25.100 --> 00:25:29.500 that the balances of justice were now even. 223 00:25:29.500 --> 00:25:34.860 Kieft was now building up to an Indian war on two fronts, but the people were refusing 224 00:25:34.860 --> 00:25:41.380 to bear arms or to pay for looming dangers in costly conflict. To raise funds and support 225 00:25:41.380 --> 00:25:47.460 for a war, Kieft in 1641 called together the first representative group of any kind in 226 00:25:47.460 --> 00:25:53.800 New Netherland, an assembly of heads of families, who chose a board of twelve men, headed by 227 00:25:53.800 --> 00:26:00.400 by De Vries to speak for them. Although De Vries had more personal reasons to be anti-Indian 228 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:06.280 than the director, he advised caution. The surrender of the murderer must be insisted 229 00:26:06.280 --> 00:26:13.140 upon, but the colony was not ready for war. Moreover, De Vries adopted the great English 230 00:26:13.140 --> 00:26:19.640 tradition of redress of grievances before supply. When a despotic king was finally forced 231 00:26:19.640 --> 00:26:25.520 To call an assembly in order to raise expenses for a foreign war, the assembly would drive 232 00:26:25.520 --> 00:26:32.260 a hard bargain and insist first on liberalization of the tyranny. This is what the twelve men 233 00:26:32.260 --> 00:26:38.500 did before consending to war in 1642. They demanded that Kieft restore the council to 234 00:26:38.500 --> 00:26:44.200 five members, of whom four would be chosen by popular vote. They also demanded popular 235 00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:51.200 the representation in the courts, no taxes to be levied without their consent, and greater freedom of trade. 236 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:59.200 One of their demands, however, was the reverse of liberal, that importation of English cattle be excluded, 237 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:04.200 clearly a desire for further privilege by the patroons. 238 00:27:04.200 --> 00:27:09.200 Kieft finally responded in characteristic fashion by dissolving the twelve men 239 00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:15.800 and proclaiming that no further public meetings might be held in New Amsterdam without his 240 00:27:15.800 --> 00:27:22.960 express permission. Although the Dutch had failed to obtain the murderer from the Westchester 241 00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:31.280 Indians, a year's truce had been arranged by Jonas Brunk. Then in 1643 an Indian was 242 00:27:31.280 --> 00:27:39.280 made drunk and robbed by some Dutch at the Hackensack settlement. In revenge, the Indian 243 00:27:39.280 --> 00:27:47.420 killed a Hackensack settler. The chiefs of the Indian's tribe hastily told de Vries, 244 00:27:47.420 --> 00:27:53.580 the patron of Hackensack, that they would pay 200 fathoms of wampum to the victim's 245 00:27:53.580 --> 00:28:01.240 widow, which they felt was reasonable compensation. De Vries advised acceptance of the offer, 246 00:28:01.240 --> 00:28:06.080 But Kieft insisted on surrender of the murderer. 247 00:28:06.080 --> 00:28:10.600 The murderer, however, had fled upriver to the Haverstraw Indians. 248 00:28:10.600 --> 00:28:16.260 Kieft immediately demanded that the Haverstraws surrender him. 249 00:28:16.260 --> 00:28:19.200 At this point, a new factor intervened. 250 00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:26.020 A force of aggressive Mohawks of the Iroquois Confederacy, each armed with Dutch muskets, 251 00:28:26.020 --> 00:28:31.460 was sent upon the Hudson River tribes to terrorize an exact tribute. 252 00:28:31.460 --> 00:28:36.740 Although the Dutch would not break their treaty with the Iroquois by fighting them, De Vries 253 00:28:36.740 --> 00:28:43.820 did agree to give shelter to the Algonquin refugees at his main Patroonship of Riesendal 254 00:28:43.820 --> 00:28:50.940 at Tappan, and other refugees took shelter at Pavonia and on Manhattan Island. 255 00:28:50.940 --> 00:28:58.420 was now divided among the Dutch. De Vries, backed by Councilman Dr. Law Montagu and Reverend 256 00:28:58.420 --> 00:29:05.740 Everardus Bogardus, advised peaceful mediation in the Indian conflict. But Kieft, over their 257 00:29:05.740 --> 00:29:13.660 passionate protest, saw only a heaven-sent chance to pursue his grand design of liquidating 258 00:29:13.660 --> 00:29:21.620 the Indians. In this, he was supported by Van Ten Hoeven, the secretary of the colony, 259 00:29:21.620 --> 00:29:27.860 and especially by Marin Adriensen, a member of the Twelfth Men and a former freebooter 260 00:29:27.860 --> 00:29:35.460 in the West Indies. In an extraordinarily vicious sneak attack, Dutch soldiers at midnight 261 00:29:35.460 --> 00:29:44.540 of February 25, 1643, rushed into the camps of sleeping refugees at Povonia and Corleers 262 00:29:44.540 --> 00:29:52.260 Hook on Manhattan Island and slaughtered them all. In all, well over a hundred Indians were 263 00:29:52.260 --> 00:30:00.060 massacred, including the hacking to pieces of Indian babies. Led by Adrianson, the soldiers 264 00:30:00.060 --> 00:30:05.140 exultantly marched back to Fort Amsterdam in the morning, bringing back many Indian 265 00:30:05.140 --> 00:30:12.220 heads. Director Kieft rather aptly called it a truly Roman achievement. Taking their 266 00:30:12.220 --> 00:30:18.340 cue from this treacherous official massacre of peaceful and friendly Indians, some settlers 267 00:30:18.340 --> 00:30:26.660 at flatlands fell suddenly on a group of completely friendly Marek Kawiak Indians, murdered several, 268 00:30:26.660 --> 00:30:56.660 The Algonquians could give but one answer to this outrage. All out war on the Dutch. The entire Algonquin peoples, led by the Haverstraws, rose up against their tormentors. It was during this total conflict that poor Anne Hutchinson was killed by Indian raiders. The English settlements of Westchester were all wiped out. Even Riesendahl was attacked, but notably. 269 00:30:56.660 --> 00:31:03.660 The long island settlements were also destroyed as well as those on the west bank of the Hudson. The only long island settlement spared was Gravesend, a colony organized by Lady Deborah Moody, a Baptist refugee from Massachusetts. Only a half-dozen farms on Manhattan Island remained in the area. 270 00:31:26.660 --> 00:31:33.120 and in tact. By 1644, almost all the Dutch settlers were forced to abandon their homes 271 00:31:33.120 --> 00:31:40.420 and fields to destruction and to retreat behind the wall of Fort Amsterdam, now Wall Street, 272 00:31:40.420 --> 00:31:45.760 at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, around which fort the village of New Amsterdam had 273 00:31:45.760 --> 00:31:55.040 grown. Fort Orange and Rensselaerwijk in friendly Iroquois County around Albany remained unmolested. 274 00:31:55.040 --> 00:32:00.440 One of Kieft's contributions to the struggle was to be the first white man to offer a bounty 275 00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:03.320 for Indian scalps. 276 00:32:03.320 --> 00:32:09.940 The disastrous consequences of Willem Kieft were now becoming fully evident. 277 00:32:09.940 --> 00:32:15.320 A needless and terribly destructive war had been inflicted upon the Dutch as the sole 278 00:32:15.320 --> 00:32:21.900 result of Kieft's tough, hard-line policy toward the Algonquins. 279 00:32:21.900 --> 00:32:28.780 Their indignation against Kieft now rose insistently, and demands grew for his expulsion. 280 00:32:28.780 --> 00:32:34.660 De Vries, embarking for Holland, bitterly warned Kieft that the murders in which you 281 00:32:34.660 --> 00:32:42.620 have shed so much innocent blood will yet be avenged on your own head. Typically, Kieft 282 00:32:42.620 --> 00:32:48.780 tried to disclaim all responsibility by throwing all the blame on his advisor in slaughter, 283 00:32:48.780 --> 00:32:51.380 Maren Adriaensen 284 00:32:51.380 --> 00:32:56.660 Adriaensen, whose farm had just been destroyed, naturally grew somewhat bitter at this treachery 285 00:32:56.660 --> 00:33:02.180 and with a few comrades rushed into Kieft's room to try to shoot the director. 286 00:33:02.180 --> 00:33:04.660 The assassination attempt failed. 287 00:33:04.660 --> 00:33:10.780 The man who fired the shot was instantly killed and his head publicly displayed. 288 00:33:10.780 --> 00:33:16.600 With the Dutch community facing disaster, the despotic Kieft, his treasury empty, was 289 00:33:16.600 --> 00:33:21.760 again forced to consult the leading colonist in order to raise money to fight a war of 290 00:33:21.760 --> 00:33:24.520 his own creation. 291 00:33:24.520 --> 00:33:31.120 In late 1643 he chose a board of eight men for this purpose. No funds could be obtained 292 00:33:31.120 --> 00:33:36.060 from the West India Company because it was in the process of going bankrupt, and money 293 00:33:36.060 --> 00:33:42.680 raised by piratic attacks on Spanish shipping could only be highly irregular. Regular funds 294 00:33:42.680 --> 00:33:47.960 Taxes were also needed to maintain a company of soldiers, recently sent by the company 295 00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:54.340 and peremptorily quartered upon the town. Faced with this problem, Kieft turned to one 296 00:33:54.340 --> 00:34:00.380 of his favorite devices, the imposition of a crushing tax. 297 00:34:00.380 --> 00:34:06.920 Kieft proclaimed an excise tax on the brewing of beer, on wines and spirits, and on beaver 298 00:34:06.920 --> 00:34:23.920 The eight men strongly objected, arguing rather lamely, that taxes could be levied only by the home company itself, and, more cogently, that it was the business of the company and not of the settlers to hire and maintain soldiers. 299 00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:29.920 Furthermore, they protested that the settlers were ruined and could not pay taxes. 300 00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:35.920 The suggestion of the eight men to tax speculators and traders was not, however, very constructive. 301 00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:39.920 Kieft replied in his usual brusque fashion, 302 00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:45.920 In this country, I am my own master, and may do as I please. 303 00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:51.920 The people of New Amsterdam now had to confront not only Indians on the war path, 304 00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:54.920 but further tyranny and exactions at home. 305 00:34:54.920 --> 00:34:58.920 Naturally, their grumbling opposition to Kieft redoubled, 306 00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:02.920 and it was hardly allayed when Kieft made an appointment with some of the eight, 307 00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:04.920 and then failed to keep it. 308 00:35:04.920 --> 00:35:19.920 The brewers refused to pay the tax. The matter was taken into court, but in essence, Kieft was the court, and speedy judgment was rendered against the brewers, whose product was confiscated and given to the soldiers. 309 00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:29.920 Hostility to Kieft now filled the colony, and he was generally reviled as a villain, a liar, and a tyrant. 310 00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:34.920 Finally, the long-suffering colonists could bear Kieft no longer. 311 00:35:34.920 --> 00:35:41.440 Speaking for the colonists, the eight men in October 1644 directly petitioned the states 312 00:35:41.440 --> 00:35:46.560 general in the Netherlands to remove Kieft forthwith. 313 00:35:46.560 --> 00:35:50.720 The eight men wrote eloquently of their plight under Kieft. 314 00:35:50.720 --> 00:35:54.520 Our fields lie fallow and waste. 315 00:35:54.520 --> 00:35:57.360 Our dwellings and other buildings are burned. 316 00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:03.660 Not a handful can be either planted or sown. We have no means to provide necessaries for 317 00:36:03.660 --> 00:36:10.040 wives or children. The whole of these now lie in ashes through a foolish hankering after 318 00:36:10.040 --> 00:36:16.920 war. For all right-thinking men here know that these Indians have lived as lambs among 319 00:36:16.920 --> 00:36:24.820 us until a few years ago. These hath the director by various uncalled-for proceedings so embittered 320 00:36:24.820 --> 00:36:30.060 against the Netherlands Nation that we do not believe that anything will bring them 321 00:36:30.060 --> 00:36:32.500 and peace back. 322 00:36:32.500 --> 00:36:37.740 This is what we have in the sorrow of our hearts to complain of, that one man should 323 00:36:37.740 --> 00:36:45.700 dispose here of our lives and property according to his will and pleasure, in a manner so arbitrary 324 00:36:45.700 --> 00:36:49.100 that a king would not be suffered legally to do. 325 00:36:49.100 --> 00:36:54.700 We pray that one of these two things may happen, either that a governor may be speedily sent 326 00:36:54.700 --> 00:37:01.860 with a beloved peace to us, or that the company will permit us to return with wives and children 327 00:37:01.860 --> 00:37:08.620 to our dear fatherland, for it is impossible ever to settle this country until a different 328 00:37:08.620 --> 00:37:13.960 system be introduced here and a new governor be sent out. 329 00:37:13.960 --> 00:37:19.620 The petitioners also asked for greater freedom and more representative institutions to check 330 00:37:19.620 --> 00:37:21.760 the executive power. 331 00:37:21.760 --> 00:37:27.160 This Creed de Cour of the oppressed people of New Netherland was heeded by the West India 332 00:37:27.160 --> 00:37:36.160 Company, and Kieft was removed in May 1645. It was perhaps not coincidental that the Algonquins 333 00:37:36.160 --> 00:37:42.520 and the Dutch were able to conclude a peace treaty soon afterward, in August, under pressure 334 00:37:42.520 --> 00:37:49.440 to be sure of the pro-Dutch Mohawk tribe. The parties sensibly agreed that whenever 335 00:37:49.440 --> 00:37:54.520 Where a white man or an Indian should injure the other, the victim would apply for redress 336 00:37:54.520 --> 00:37:58.360 to the jurisdictional agencies of the accused. 337 00:37:58.360 --> 00:38:04.360 An ironical part of this peace treaty was the Algonquin agreement to return the kidnapped 338 00:38:04.360 --> 00:38:11.880 granddaughter of Anne Hutchinson, who now liked Algonquin life and who was returned 339 00:38:11.880 --> 00:38:14.520 against her will. 340 00:38:14.520 --> 00:38:20.160 Even a peace treaty could not be carried out, it seems, without someone being coerced. 341 00:38:20.160 --> 00:38:27.160 Unfortunately, the company was delayed two years in sending the new governor, and Kieft 342 00:38:27.160 --> 00:38:31.160 continued to oppress the citizenry in the meanwhile. 343 00:38:31.160 --> 00:38:35.800 Even the coming of peace did not completely lift the burdens of the people. 344 00:38:35.800 --> 00:38:41.520 The people had happily rejoiced when they heard the glad tidings of Kieft's ouster. 345 00:38:41.520 --> 00:38:47.380 Chief immediately threatened all of his critics with fines and imprisonment for their sedition. 346 00:38:47.380 --> 00:38:53.240 He continued to prohibit any appeals of his arbitrary decisions to Holland. The director 347 00:38:53.240 --> 00:39:00.120 was thereupon denounced by the influential Reverend Mr. Bogardas in his sermons. What 348 00:39:00.120 --> 00:39:06.920 are the great men of this country but vessels of wrath and fountains of woe and trouble? 349 00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:12.440 They think nothing but to plunder the property of others, to dismiss, to banish, to transport 350 00:39:12.440 --> 00:39:18.840 to Holland. To counter this courageous attack, Kieft decided to use the minions of the state 351 00:39:18.840 --> 00:39:25.520 to drown out Bogardus's sermons, by soldiers, drum rolls, and even by roar of the fort's 352 00:39:25.520 --> 00:39:31.280 cannon. But Bogardus would not be silenced. Kieft then turned to the method of violence 353 00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:36.400 to stop his critic to the legal proceedings of his own state. 354 00:39:36.400 --> 00:39:41.720 Keefe's charges against Bogardus in Keefe's court included scattering abuse, drinking 355 00:39:41.720 --> 00:39:49.480 alcohol and defending criminals such as Adrienson in his attempt to assassinate the director. 356 00:39:49.480 --> 00:39:55.360 When these charges were served on Bogardus, he defiantly refused to appear, challenging 357 00:39:55.360 --> 00:40:04.360 and Kieft's legal right to issue the summons. With the people solidly on the minister's side, Kieft was forced to yield. 358 00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:13.360 Finally, at long last, Kieft's replacement, Peter Stuyvesant, arrived in May 1647. 359 00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:20.360 So great was the jubilation of the people in getting rid of this incubus that almost all of the fort's powder 360 00:40:20.360 --> 00:40:27.600 was used up in the military salute celebrating the arrival of the new director. 361 00:40:27.600 --> 00:40:34.880 When Kieft handed over the office, the conventional vote of thanks to the old director was proposed, 362 00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:41.080 but two of the leading eight men, Cornelius Mellon, the Patron of Staten Island, and the 363 00:40:41.080 --> 00:40:48.320 German Joachim Coyter, refused to agree, saying that they certainly had no reason to thank 364 00:40:48.320 --> 00:40:49.320 Kieft. 365 00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:56.720 Moreover, they presented a petition for judicial inquiry into Keefe's behavior in office. 366 00:40:56.720 --> 00:41:03.540 But apart from being no liberal himself, Stuyvesant saw immediately the grave threat that a precedent 367 00:41:03.540 --> 00:41:10.160 for inquiry into a director's conduct would hold for any of his own despotic actions. 368 00:41:10.160 --> 00:41:17.460 The late 19th century historian John Fisk aptly compared Stuyvesant's position to that 369 00:41:17.460 --> 00:41:24.540 of Emperor Joseph II of Austria-Hungary during the American Revolution over a century later. 370 00:41:24.540 --> 00:41:31.100 Stuyvesant felt as in later days the Emperor Joseph II felt when he warned his sister Marie 371 00:41:31.100 --> 00:41:36.620 Antoinette that the French government was burning its fingers in helping the American 372 00:41:36.620 --> 00:41:37.620 rebels. 373 00:41:37.620 --> 00:41:44.260 I too like your Americans well enough, said he, but I do not forget that my trade is that 374 00:41:44.260 --> 00:41:53.020 of King, c'est mon métier d'être roi. So it was Stuyvesant's trade to be a colonial 375 00:41:53.020 --> 00:41:59.620 governor. Stuyvesant loftily declared that government officials should never have to 376 00:41:59.620 --> 00:42:05.640 disclose government secrets on the demand of two mere private citizens, and furthermore 377 00:42:05.640 --> 00:42:13.440 to petition against one's rulers is ipso facto treason, no matter how great the provocation. 378 00:42:13.440 --> 00:42:19.720 Under this pressure, the petition of Mellon and Coyter was rejected in the council, even 379 00:42:19.720 --> 00:42:25.100 though the company, in a mild gesture of liberality, had agreed to vest the government of New 380 00:42:25.100 --> 00:42:33.520 Netherland in a three-man Supreme Council instead of Keith's one-man rule, a director-general, 381 00:42:33.520 --> 00:42:37.320 a vice-director and the scout fiscal. 382 00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:41.260 All however were company appointees. 383 00:42:41.260 --> 00:42:47.660 The Dutch soon found that the jubilation at the change of directors should have been tempered. 384 00:42:47.660 --> 00:42:54.220 From his speech upon arrival, I shall govern you as a father his children, Stuyvesant indicated 385 00:42:54.220 --> 00:43:00.340 no disposition to brook any limits to his rule. Even on the ship coming over he had 386 00:43:00.340 --> 00:43:07.100 angrily pushed the new scout fiscal out of the room because the latter had not been summoned. 387 00:43:07.100 --> 00:43:13.020 When Stuyvesant assumed command, he sat with his hat on, while others waited bareheaded 388 00:43:13.020 --> 00:43:19.460 before he deigned to notice them, a breach of etiquette. He was, as one Dutch observer 389 00:43:19.460 --> 00:43:25.940 exclaimed, quite like the Tsar of Muscovy. Furthermore, Stuyvesant was not willing to 390 00:43:25.940 --> 00:43:31.620 let the mail-in-coitor matter rest with the rejection of their petition. He now summoned 391 00:43:31.620 --> 00:43:38.620 and Kieft eagerly accused these two malignants of being the real authors of the libelous eight-man petition. 392 00:43:38.620 --> 00:43:46.620 Kieft suggested that the two defendants be forced to produce all their correspondence with the company 393 00:43:46.620 --> 00:43:53.620 and to show cause why they should not be summarily banished as pestilent and seditious persons. 394 00:43:53.620 --> 00:44:05.620 Stuyvesant agreed, but Mellon and Coyter showed so much damning evidence against Kieft that these charges were quickly dropped. 395 00:44:05.620 --> 00:44:09.620 But if one charge fell through, another must immediately be found. 396 00:44:09.620 --> 00:44:17.620 Mellon and Coyter were now indicted on the trumped-up charge of treachery with the Indians and of attempting to stir up rebellion. 397 00:44:17.620 --> 00:44:25.620 Without bothering about evidence this time, Stuyvesant rushed through the pre-arranged verdict of guilty. 398 00:44:25.620 --> 00:44:33.620 Stuyvesant was eager to sentence Mellon as the leader of the two to death, and he seriously pondered the death sentence for Coyter also. 399 00:44:33.620 --> 00:44:43.620 For Coyter had also committed two grave crimes. He had dared to criticize Kieft, and he had shaken his finger at the ex-director. 400 00:44:43.620 --> 00:44:50.020 Stuyvesant remembered the philosophizing of the Dutch jurist Josa de Damhouder, 401 00:44:50.020 --> 00:44:59.380 he who so much as frowns at a magistrate is guilty of insulting him. He also recalled the admonition 402 00:44:59.380 --> 00:45:07.700 of Bernard Dinas de Muscatelis, he who slanders God, the magistrate, or his parents must be 403 00:45:07.700 --> 00:45:17.140 Stuyvesant was persuaded by his more cautious advisors, however, not to execute Mellon and 404 00:45:17.140 --> 00:45:22.940 Coyder. Instead, both were heavily fined and banished. Banishment, however, raised the 405 00:45:22.940 --> 00:45:29.060 danger that they would spill their tales of woe to the authorities in Holland, so Stuyvesant 406 00:45:29.060 --> 00:45:35.860 warned Mellon, if I thought there were any danger of your trying an appeal, I would hang 407 00:45:35.860 --> 00:45:41.420 I knew this minute from the tallest tree on the island. This was in line with Stuyvesant's 408 00:45:41.420 --> 00:45:47.980 general view of the right to appeal. If any man tries to appeal from me to the state's 409 00:45:47.980 --> 00:45:53.820 general, I will make him a foot shorter, pack the pieces off to Holland and let him appeal 410 00:45:53.820 --> 00:46:01.020 in that fashion. The ironic climax of the Kieftasaga occurred when Kieft finally left 411 00:46:01.020 --> 00:46:10.500 for Holland in August 1647 with a large fortune of 400,000 guilders, largely amassed from 412 00:46:10.500 --> 00:46:17.540 his term in office and with Mellon and Coyter in tow as his prisoners. The ship was wrecked 413 00:46:17.540 --> 00:46:24.820 and Kieft drowned in seeming confirmation of De Vries' prophecy. Before his death, 414 00:46:24.820 --> 00:46:30.740 he purportedly confessed his wrongdoing to Mellon and Coyter, who were rescued and were 415 00:46:30.740 --> 00:46:33.740 are able to gain their freedom in Holland.