Merchant Kings

by Stephen R. Bown

  When it was suggested that only company employees should be forced to obey the regulations of the director-general and his hand-picked council, Stuyvesant fumed. “We derive our authority from God and the West India Company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant subjects,” he coolly informed them. Another commentator observed wryly that anyone who openly opposed Stuyvesant “hath as much as the sun and moon against him.” The director-general was prone to violent rages and threatening tantrums when anyone challenged him, and some colonists believed he was slightly mad or unhinged, so strong were his passions and his desire to keep power to himself. Passionate also about his religion, he went to great lengths to curtail religious freedom in the company’s colony and to compel the inhabitants to observe the tenets of the Dutch Reformed Church. His policies targeted and persecuted Jews, Lutherans, Baptists and Quakers until the company directors in Amsterdam, belatedly responding to public opinion, demanded that he accommodate other views, in keeping with the tolerant practice in the Dutch Republic at the time.

  For years Stuyvesant deftly strode a narrow line regarding the obvious conflict of interest between his company, his country and the colonists. He relished his position of authority, the respect it bestowed, the money it brought him and the lifestyle it enabled. For seventeen years he managed this balancing act with a firm hand, pushing the colony forward with one hand and holding it back with the other. Only a man of Stuyvesant’s mettle, unflinching and wily in the ways of managing people, could have held it all together for so long—running a colony of thousands of people, with their unfathomable and complex dreams, ambitions and schemes, and containing them by using the governing structure of a joint stock corporation. Over the years, however, an ever-increasing number of the colonists were no longer directly employed by the company, and these people resented its power over their lives.

  Stuyvesant’s efforts regarding the freedom and rights of New Amsterdam’s inhabitants, however, were noteworthy in illustrating his lack of enthusiasm—his obstruction, resistance and continuous conflict with his “subjects.” He preferred the time-tested military dictatorship model, tempered with the type of corporate efficiency that worked wonders in the African slave trade and other company operations farther south.

  The trouble began with the first speech he made after he and his entourage, including several advisers and three shiploads of soldiers, stepped ashore. Festooned in breastplate with his sword belted at the hip, his stump thrust defiantly to his side, Stuyvesant addressed the assembled townsfolk, informing them of his plans for the settlement, the company settlement. He would treat them “as a father to his children, for the advantages of the Privileged West India Company, the Burghers, and the Country”— presumably in that order; and presumably they would learn to see the wisdom of his ways.

  5

  AADRIAEN VAN DER DONCK FIRST CAME TO NEW NETHerland in 1641 as a recently graduated lawyer, about twenty-two years of age. He had completed his degree at the University of Leiden, an intellectual centre at the heart of the philosophical and legal debate surrounding the Dutch Republic’s efforts to throw off the Spanish yoke. It was the Netherlands’ Golden Age, and the republic’s worldliness and prosperity conspired to ease the rigid bonds of conservative society and admit new ideas and ways of doing things. A swift talker and superb self-promoter, van der Donck had talked his way into a respectable position as a sort of travelling sheriff and prosecutor for Kiliaen van Rens-selaer, the patron of the enormous semi-independent estate of Rensselaerwyck, up the Hudson River near present-day Albany. The kind-eyed idealist imagined that he would be the upholder of justice in the far-flung, sparsely populated regions of van Rensselaer’s estate, a dispenser of law to the people.

  His employer, however, had other notions. Van der Donck travelled around the estate, granted by the Nineteen under a special licence, revelling in its beauty and natural splendour. He frequently took matters into his own hands without consulting his employer, who remained in Europe. He chose a new farm site for himself, dismissing the one assigned to him, refused to collect rent from tenants he considered too poor to pay and did not bother cracking down on the black-market sales of beaver skins that provided much-needed income to the estate’s impoverished tenant farmers. Van Rensselaer admonished van der Donck in letters, pointing out that his duty was “to seek my advantage and protect me against loss,” not to champion the interests of the settlers. “From the beginning you have acted not as officer but as director,” van Rensselaer complained. But he was far away—indeed, he had never visited his estate in New Netherland and had no intention to do so—and van der Donck continued as he saw fit. But when his three-year term ended, van Rensselaer did not renew it. Van der Donck packed up and moved south to New Amsterdam to seek his fortune in the true heart of the Dutch colony.

  Van der Donck loved his new home. He acquired a large tract of land north of Manhattan, on the mainland, married a young English woman named Mary and began to hire people to farm the land for him. He continued his studies of the local native peoples and the flora and fauna and eventually published his knowledge and opinions in A Description of New Netherland. Most importantly, though, he earned a reputation as a troublemaker.

  He hired himself out to represent people in legal matters against the Dutch West India Company. He was arrogant, outspoken and tenacious. He ingratiated himself with the governor, Willem Kieft, on the one hand, hiring out his services as a lawyer to help run the colony, while on the other hand he took an ever more prominent role in crafting what became the increasingly tenacious letters of protest to the States General in The Hague, advocating rights for individuals “according to the custom in Holland.” He fought for a permanent council of advisers and was soon advocating for Kieft’s removal from office.

  During this time, while Kieft blithely destroyed years of the New Amsterdam colonists’ hard work and decades of reasonably stable relations with the native peoples, van der Donck stumbled upon what would become his life’s work: the need for responsible political representation for the people. “As it was,” writes Russell Shorto in his history of New Netherland, The Island at the Center of the World, “there was no judicial system; or rather, the system was Kieft. There was no body of case law; he settled disputes however he chose. There was no appeal. Kieft and the other directors of the colony weren’t given a mandate to oversee the establishment of a political and legal system; instead, the company shipped them off with a single tool: military dictatorship.” While this government by corporate dictate had its merits for far-flung commercial outposts perched on the rim of strange and dangerous foreign lands, New Amsterdam had already evolved beyond this narrow corporate outpost style and was, according to Shorto, “fast becoming a full-fledged society.” It begged for a governing structure free from the iron grip of the Dutch West India Company. Kieft’s great concession to inclusive government was to appoint a two-member governing council that would represent the people’s interests: one member he personally chose from the citizens, the other was himself. One of the members of this new council was given two votes, whereas the other had only a single vote. It is not hard to guess who Kieft appointed to the position with two votes. And, with decisions being carried by majority vote, Kieft’s council of advisers was little more than a joke, an insult to the people whom he and the company considered to be little more than serfs. The mediaeval political structure of the colony was one that could no longer contain the expanding spirit of the community.

  Like many in the growing body of settlers who wanted to make their home in America, van der Donck was annoyed at the poor state of the settlement. It was clearly failing to achieve its potential on many levels. The idealist had found an outlet for his passion for the new land and his belief in the freedom of peoples to determine the course of their own future, ideals that had been instilled in him during his university years in Leiden. As Dutch citizens, were the settlers not entitled to the same legal rights here as in Holland? No other monopoly trading outpost had e
ver been concerned with these issues, since most were staffed by employees serving out their time before returning home. In New Amsterdam, most of the residents really wanted to stay and make the new land their home, and the disgruntled masses of merchants, tradespeople and farmers found their voice in van der Donck. But the company had powerful representation in the government and was not about to let its monopoly be so easily challenged. The problem would be solved, the Nineteen reasoned, not by more autonomy but by a firmer hand.

  In the days and weeks after Stuyvesant first strode from his ship in August 1647, he immediately began his overhaul of the company settlement. He made New Amsterdam—the regional corporate headquarters, as he saw it—into a valuable asset. He also set about dealing with the problem of the treasonous fellows who had been drafting documents calling for greater self-government in the colony. Throughout much of Stuyves-ant’s reign, the young lawyer van der Donck was a thorn in his side. Van der Donck and Stuyvesant—who were only eight years apart in age—did not start out as enemies; indeed, van der Donck initially ingratiated himself with his stern new boss.

  The community was small, and everyone lived within walking distance of each other, so good relations were necessary to smooth the conduct of daily business. Van der Donck was very proficient in English, his wife being from England, and helped Stuyvesant in his dealings with the bordering English colonies— an important service because by the 1640s, New Amsterdam was emerging as the central hub of North American shipping, even functioning as the entrepôt for the English colonies to the south and north.

  By 1648 van der Donck and his co-agitators had persuaded Stuyvesant to accept some limits to his absolute authority and succeeded in securing from Stuyvesant a board of nine advisers to help guide the director’s decisions regarding the common good of the colony. Van der Donck revealed his true affiliations and long-time involvement in the politics of reform only after Stuyvesant confirmed his post on the board. He became the president of the council and devoted himself to politicking for its cause, travelling to the outlying farms and villages, meeting merchants in taverns and strolling the harbour to discuss business with ship captains. While building support and learning about the desires and wishes of the citizens, van der Donck was also compiling a list of grievances in a tract advocating civil rights for the residents of New Amsterdam. These sentiments ran deep in the Dutch tradition of responsible municipal government, one that was free from arbitrary taxes, corruption and political and mercantile favouritism. A proud man like Stuyvesant made co-operation difficult, however; his ultimate responsibility was to the company. The situation created obvious conflicts over which common good had to be served.

  Van der Donck wanted the Dutch government to take over the settlement, effectively ending company rule. There were two opposing driving forces within the Dutch Republic at this time. Stuyvesant represented one force: the merchant kings, the slavers and the warriors, men who could be brutal expansionists, loyal to their company and country and frequently confusing the two loyalties in their quest for dominance over global trade and their commercial and military war against the hated English, Spanish and Portuguese. Van der Donck represented the other force: the thoughtful, Renaissance-inspired philosophers and legal thinkers who championed natural law and the rights of individuals to self-determination. His position was naturally at odds with Stuyvesant’s ultimate job: to run New Netherland for the financial benefit of distant shareholders. Citizens’ rights occupied a second tier at best.

  The friction between the two men grew as the years passed. Stuyvesant even considered van der Donck’s behaviour treasonous; he could not understand why van der Donck persisted in writing petitions and holding public meetings after he had been given a prominent position on the governing board. He understood the world in terms of power, and thus thought van der Donck wanted to depose him and claim the power for himself.

  Van der Donck was equally baffled by Stuyvesant’s intransigence and increasing animosity. “These persons had been good and dear friends with him always,” van der Donck claimed, “and he, shortly before, had regarded them as the most honourable, able, intelligent and pious men of the country, yet as soon as they did not follow the General’s wishes they were this and that, some of them rascals, liars, rebels, usurers and spendthrifts, in a word this and that, hanging was almost too good for them.”

  Stuyvesant had van der Donck arrested and expelled him from the council, keeping him in jail while deliberating over the matter of the “mutinous and insulting” actions of the board. He had charged van der Donck with treason, a crime warranting the death penalty. The stakes had been raised, and no one was going to back down. Stuyvesant, however, released van der Donck when he realized that too many prominent people in the community opposed him. If Stuyvesant blatantly flouted Dutch law, he could be denounced as a tyrant. But as soon as van der Donck was released, he went back to work agitating for citizens’ rights.

  Civil rights were in the spirit of the age: in 1648 peace had been declared throughout Europe, ending the Thirty Years’ War, and Spain had officially recognized Dutch independence. The need for the West India Company to be a licensed syndicate for piracy was greatly decreased—in fact, it was now illegal—and having a corporate military-style governor over one of the republic’s greatest colonies was beginning to be seen as an anachronism. The company was, after all, chartered primarily to tap private capital in the assault on Spanish shipping in the Caribbean.

  On July 26, 1649, van der Donck and the councillors signed the “Petition of the Commonality of New Netherland” and he put the final touches on the “Remonstrance,” an eighty-three-page formal complaint grounded in legal principles that were the foundation of the Dutch Republic. The latter was van der Donck’s crowning achievement, the culmination of years of work. He and two other members of the council sailed across the Atlantic and presented their case to the Dutch government in The Hague. Van der Donck spoke eloquently during his “Address to the High and Mighty Lords States General of the United Netherlands, by the People of the New Netherland.” He claimed that the settlement had been crushed, smothered and held back by the incompetence and corruption of the West India Company and that the people should be brought under the authority of national government to alleviate the “very poor and most low” state it was now in. Stuyvesant, he claimed, was a “vulture destroying the prosperity of New Netherland” and was reviled by “all the permanent inhabitants, the merchant, the burgher and peasant, the planter, the labouring man, and also the man in service.” The colony had not reached its potential, and would not, unless the people were granted economic freedom and local government and lower taxes. The English colonies, he pointed out, were “fully aware that our country is better than theirs,” but with the company in charge, stifling growth and development, “it will lose even the name of New Netherland, and no Dutchman will have anything to say there.” The “Remonstrance” complained of the lack of schoolhouses, churches, orphanages and other government services, which the company would not supply. The company, the petition claimed, should be stripped of all authority because “this country will never flourish under the Honorable Company’s government.”

  Prompted by the “Remonstrance,” the States General took action in 1650 with a provisional order to the West India Company to create a more liberal form of government, in accordance with the Dutch tradition, and to encourage more immigration, which the company had restricted. Meanwhile, van der Donck went to great effort to generate positive interest in the colony such that “formerly New Netherland was never spoken of, and now heaven and earth seem to be stirred up by it and every one tries to be the first in selecting the best pieces of land there.” Two years later, in 1652, the States General ordered the company, despite its arguments and connections to powerful individuals, to set up a functioning and responsible municipal government. Stuyvesant was commanded to return to Holland in order to answer for his actions. Van der Donck was to personally deliver the States General’s le
tter to Stuyvesant when he returned, after years away from his home and family, and his position on the board of nine was to be reinstated.

  6

  IT WAS A MONUMENTAL AND EPOCHAL DECISION, ONE that could have changed the history of North America and the world, but for the vicissitudes of war. Before van der Donck could sail across the Atlantic, Dutch and English fleets clashed in the English Channel. It was the beginning of the First Anglo-Dutch War, which was fought mostly over global trade. The Dutch West India Company, now holding the upper hand, persuaded the States General to rescind its earlier directive. With Holland fearing an English invasion, freedom, long dreamed of in New Netherland, was again denied. “Van der Donck’s activism,” Russell Shorto writes, “which only weeks before had been lauded as the full flowering of Dutch legal progressivism being applied, in a test case, to the nation’s overseas province, suddenly looked positively dangerous.” The company’s charter was not revoked, and Stuyvesant was not recalled. With a war starting, the company’s original purpose, as an agent to fight foreign enemies, was significant once again. But the States General did at least uphold the requirement for the company to establish a functioning municipal council.