The Anniversary Page

New York, New York…
340 years ago this month, a little piece of America became a British colony. Back in 1664, the American Dutch community of New Amsterdam was thriving, its population had grown steadily and trade with its neighbours had expanded considerably.
   New Amsterdam’s Director-General was Peter Stuyvesant, formerly of the Dutch army where he had lost a leg in an ‘argument’ with a Portuguese cannon ball. Soon after his inauguration in May 1647, he set up a ‘Council of Advisors’, but given his dictatorial attitudes and despotic manner, he was frequently at odds with and resented by the city burghers. The settlers demanded redress for their numerous grievances and Stuyvesant’s response was to dissolve the nine-man council! The councillors remonstrated to the Dutch parliament, who granted them the first ‘Municipal Government’ status in 1653.
   Stuyvesant’s neighbours to the north were English speaking New

Englanders and Long Islanders, who were a regular thorn in his side, involving frequent disputes over land boundaries etc.
   Late in 1664, King Charles II of England gave his son, the Duke of York (later to become James II), a large area of land upstate including the New Netherlands. Captain Richard Nicholls took 4 English warships with 450 soldiers aboard, up the Hudson River into the New Amsterdam Harbour, where he made the City elders an offer they found very difficult to refuse! The Terms were indeed generous, some 23 articles giving the Dutch settlers religious tolerance, personal freedoms and

 property retention, which the good citizens urged Peter S to accept. He tore up the papers, allegedly without even reading them! The City Fathers pieced the documents together, found out what they were missing under English rule and demanded Peter accept the terms and surrender to the British.
   Not a shot was fired, nor was anybody injured as the English took charge of the land. Most importantly, property and farmland remained intact and unharmed, so that life went on normally after the take-over, a vital economic factor.
   On 2 February 1665, 340 years ago this month, New Amsterdam was officially re-named New York after Charles II son, the Duke of York, who now owned the land.
   Peter Stuyvesant retired to his farm until his death in 1672. While the area changed hands many times over the following 25 years, the name New York lives on. So good – as they say - that they named it twice (New York City and State)!

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