John S. C. Abbott
Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664586421
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I.—DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER.
CHAPTER II.—THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER III.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF COLONISATION.
CHAPTER IV.—THE ADMINISTRATION OF VAN TWILLER.
CHAPTER V.—WAR AND ITS DEVASTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.—GOVERNOR STUYVESANT.
CHAPTER VII.—WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND.
CHAPTER VIII.—ANOTHER INDIAN WAR.
CHAPTER IX.—AN ENERGETIC ADMINISTRATION.
CHAPTER XI.—THE DISASTROUS YEAR.
CHAPTER XII.—ENCROACHMENTS OF THE ENGLISH.
CHAPTER XIII.—HOSTILE MEASURES COMMENCED.
CHAPTER XIV.—THE CAPTURE OF NEW AMSTERDAM.
CHAPTER XV.—THE FINAL SURRENDER.
PREFACE
It is impossible to understand the very remarkable character and career of Peter Stuyvesant, the last, and by far the most illustrious, of the Dutch governors of New Amsterdam, without an acquaintance with the early history of the Dutch colonies upon the Hudson and the Delaware. The Antiquarian may desire to look more fully into the details of the early history of New York. But this brief, yet comprehensive narrative, will probably give most of the information upon that subject, which the busy, general reader can desire.
In this series of "The Pioneers and Patriots of America," the reader will find, in the "Life of De Soto," a minute description of the extreme south and its inhabitants, when the Mississippi rolled its flood through forests which the foot of the white man had never penetrated. "Daniel Boone" conducts us to the beautiful streams and hunting grounds of Kentucky, when the Indian was the sole possessor of those sublime solitudes. In the "Life of Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain," we are made familiar with that most wonderful of all modern stories, the settlement of New England. "Peter Stuyvesant" leads us to the Hudson, from the time when its majestic waters were disturbed only by the arrowy flight of the birch canoe, till European colonization had laid there the foundations of one of the most flourishing cities on this globe.
In these Histories the writer has spared no labor in gathering all the information in his power, respecting those Olden Times, now passing so rapidly into oblivion.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
PETER STUYVESANT.
CHAPTER I.—DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER.
The Discovery of America.—Colonies.—The Bay of New
York.—Description of the Bay.—Voyage of Sir Henry
Hudson.—Discovery of the Delaware.—The Natives.—The Boat
Attacked.—Ascending the Hudson.—Escape of the
Prisoners.—The Chiefs Intoxicated.—The Return.—The
Village at Castleton.—The Theft and its Punishment.—The
Return to England.
On the 12th of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed upon the shores of San Salvador, one of the West India islands, and thus revealed to astonished Europe a new world. Four years after this, in the year 1496, Sebastian Cabot discovered the continent of North America. Thirty-three years passed away of many wild adventures of European voyagers, when, in the year 1539, Ferdinand de Soto landed at Tampa Bay, in Florida, and penetrating the interior of the vast continent, discovered the Mississippi River. Twenty-six years more elapsed ere, in 1565, the first European colony was established at St. Augustine, in Florida.
In the year 1585, twenty years after the settlement of St. Augustine, Sir Walter Raleigh commenced his world-renowned colony upon the Roanoke. Twenty-two years passed when, in 1607, the London Company established the Virginia Colony upon the banks of the James river.
In the year 1524, a Florentine navigator by the name of Jean de Verrazano, under commission of the French monarch, Francis I., coasting northward along the shores of the continent, entered the bay of New York. In a letter to king Francis I., dated July 8th, 1524, he thus describes the Narrows and the Bay:
"After proceeding one hundred leagues, we found a very
pleasant situation among some steep hills,