WHEN PETER STUYVESANT SAID GO HOME
Many of us are familiar with the name Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant High School located in the East Village in Manhattan in New York City has many acclaimed alumni such as singer Norah Jones, baseball player Jackie Robinson and Comedian Jackie Gleason, and it is often cited for its high educational standard. The neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant located in the northern part of NYC’s Brooklyn borough has been the subject of a Billy Joel song and was the location for Spike Lee’s movie “Do the Right Thing.”
I became familiar with the Stuyvesant name when my son was in college and dated a girl who had attended Stuyvesant High School and whose nice Jewish middle-class family lived on the lower East Side.
I guess I knew that Peter Stuyvesant was a big name in New York City history. What I didn’t know was why, and just lately I learned that he wanted his Dutch colony to reject any Jewish residency.
First, a little about Peter Stuyvesant (1610 to 1672). He is best known as the last director general of the Dutch Colony in America before the British took over its rule in 1664. He was responsible for advancing the settlement of North America beyond the southern tip of Manhattan. When he arrived in 1645, the colony was in disarray, and he took to the task of rebuilding its physical and moral state, most notably enforcing regulations against fire hazards and preventing livestock from wandering. He also worked on building up a militia and erecting a protective wall on Wall Street.
Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of New Amsterdam, Credit: The Museum of the City of New York
Stuyvesant’s career was a bit checkered. He was born in 1610 in the Netherlands to Balthasar Stuyvesant, a Reformed Calvinist minister, and Margaretha Hardenstein. Apparently, his father was a very strong follower of the Dutch Reform religion, a belief carried on by his son. In 1654 Stuyvesant had been living in the Dutch Colony of Brazil as an agent for the powerful Dutch West India Company and for several nearby Caribbean islands when the Portuguese conquered Brazil. The company transferred Stuyvesant to the North American colony of the New Netherlands (soon to become New York). Since 1621 the Dutch had occupied territory in North America in what is now New York, New Jersey, parts of Delaware and other surrounding states.
At the same time that Stuyvesant came to the New Netherlands, a contingent of twenty-three Sephardic (Spanish) Jews also arrived from the former Dutch colony where they had primarily resided in the city of Recife, Brazil. They were described as “refugees (of) big and little families fleeing persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition after the conquest of Dutch Brazil.” (Jewish Virtual Library) Brazilian Jews were descendants of an estimated 5,000 Jews who had been living in Brazil, most of them secretly, since the mid 1500s (after the Spanish Inquisition began in the late fifteen century.) Also settling in the New Netherlands at the same time were some well to do Jewish traders who arrived from Amsterdam via London.
The kind of ship that transported immigrants to their new lives in North America, Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, Kinderhook, New York
When the Jews arrived, director-general Stuyvesant tried very hard to prevent them from being allowed to remain in the New Netherlands. Stuyvesant had a reputation for being antisemitic. He made all kinds of ruthless decrees against them when they arrived…. taxing them, jailing some, refusing to give traders permits, not allowing them to be protected by the military nor to join it. He told the Dutch West Indies Company (Stuyvesant’s superiors) that he “deemed it useful to require them (the Jews) in a friendly way to depart.” He had supporters but he also had critics.
Domine Johannes Megapolensis was New Amsterdam’s resident minister in 1655. He referred to the “obstinate and immoveable Jews who come to settle here and cause greater confusion in a colony already troubled with big dissident Catholics (Papists), Quakers, Mennonites and Lutherans.” “They aim to get possession of Christian property and to outdo other merchants by drawing trade toward themselves.” He called them “godless rascals” with no benefit to the country.
On the other hand, there was William Usselinx, a merchant and one of the founders of the Dutch West India Company, who felt that as many refugees as possible would strengthen the economy.
An author, Adrieny Van der Donck was on Stuyvesant’s advisory council and a severe critic of Stuyvesant because of his and his council’s “failure to promote good government and permanent substantial settlement.” He believed that the Dutch attachment to freedom and liberty was essential.
One of the reasons that Stuyvesant had a loathing for Jews and the Jewish religion came from an earlier incident he had with a Jewish trader in which he felt he had been deceived. He was also intent on keeping New Amsterdam purely a Dutch Reform territory. “Giving them (the Jews) liberty, we cannot refuse the Lutherans and Papists.” (Sacher) When Stuyvesant protested to the Dutch West Indies Company, his pleas were rejected. Jewish merchants were investors in the company and were extremely influential in its operation. Despite Stuyvesant’s attempts to rid the colony of Jews, it was decreed by the Dutch India Company in 1655 that the Jews were allowed to stay. “It would be best,” said the home office, “to admit the refugees ‘providing that they shall not become a charge upon the deaconry of the company.’” (Sacher) At first Jews were only allowed to trade and own real estate, but not hold public office, open a retail shop or establish a synagogue. The Jew most aligned with working towards equal rights was a man named Aaron Levy. With his assistance, the first synagogue in the country, Shearith Israel was founded in 1655. And because of his efforts, Levy was given a trading permit, a license to become a butcher (and the exemption from having to slaughter pigs which was against his religion). He was the first Jew to serve on a jury in North America.
The New Netherlanders from the beginning were not a homogenous society. There were many ‘fringe” groups living in the colony including the Walloons (French and Belgian settlers), Africans, Indo-Caribbeans, Algonquin Indians, French Huegenots, Scandinavians, Germans, Portuguese and Spanish Jews. The colonists, pioneers, merchants, and adventurers all seeking better lives in the new world, had to attract the indigenous Native Americans and other non-believers to God’s world “through attitude and by example.” But they were not “to persecute someone by reason of his religion and to leave everyone the freedom of his conscience.” (Wikipedia)
Despite the objections of Peter Stuyvesant, Jews and other marginal groups all remained in the territory and contributed to its diverse legacy that is mirrored in the current population of that territory.
A historian Eleanor Bruchey put Stuyvesant’s time in office into perspective:
“Peter Stuyvesant was essentially a difficult man thrust into a difficult position. Quick-tempered, self-confident, authoritarian, he was determined…to rule firmly and to repair the fortunes of the company. The company, however, had run the Colony solely for trade profits, with scant attention to encouraging immigration and developing local government. Stuyvesant’s predecessors…had been dishonest, at best, inept so, there was no tradition of respect and support for the governorship on which to build. Furthermore, the colonists were vocal and quick to change authority…Throughout his administration there were constant complaints to the company of his tyrannical acts and pressure for more local self- government. His religious intolerance also exacerbated relations with the colonists, most of whom did not share his narrow outlook. (Wikipedia, New Amsterdam).
References:
“By Chance or Choice: Jews in North America 1654” by Leo Hershkowitz
Americanjewisharchives.org
Colonial History, New Netherland, Wikipedia.
Stuyvesant, Peter. Encyclopedia of American Biography, John A. Garranty, editor, 1996.
Jewish Virtual Library.org
Colonial Jewish History
Colonial Jews –
https://www.americanjewisharchives.org
Wikipedia – History of the Jews in the United States
The Course of Modern Jewish History by Howard Morley Sacher, 1958