10. Peter Stuyvesant was the Governor of New Amsterdam and prohibited most people from his colony
At the southern and disputed boundary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was land controlled by the Dutch. The New Netherland Colony included the eastern areas of present-day New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Connecticut, and small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Like New England, the Dutch colonized for economic opportunities associated with the very lucrative North American fur trade. At first settlement was slow, but by the 1650s, Fort Amsterdam had grown into a major port city in the North Atlantic.
Unlike settlement to the north, most residents in Fort Amsterdam were multi-lingual, practiced a multitude of religious worship, and were from all parts of Europe, Native Americans, and African slaves. Most residents labored in some capacity associated with transatlantic trade and commerce. But like most other places under European control, colonial officials wanted to replicate their world using their mother land as a model. For New Netherland and Fort Amsterdam this meant adhering to the Dutch Reform Church.
Peter Stuyvesant was installed as the Director-General of New Amsterdam in 1657. He was a staunch supporter of the Dutch Reform Church and began passing laws and ordinances requiring all residents to attend and pay taxes to the church. He passed a law that prohibited Jews, Roman Catholics, and Quakers from entering into his colony. Stuyvesant also targeted Lutherans and prohibited them from building new churches or worshiping in the privacy of their own homes. Instead, all residents of the colony were forced to attend and pay taxes to the Dutch Reform Church.
For a brief time, Stuyvesant enjoyed the same type of success that the Puritans has displayed in New England. In 1657, he ordered the public torture of a popular Quaker, Robert Hodgson. After the torture, Stuyvesant issued an ordinance that forbade anyone from harboring a Quaker. If caught, they could be fined, imprisoned, banished, or hanged! Residents stood up to Stuyvesant and issued the Flushing Remonstrance that demanded religious tolerance in the rapidly growing port colony.
The controversy concluded when Peter Stuyvesant was forced to surrender the colony to the King of England on 6 September 1664. Fort Amsterdam became New York and Stuyvesant was permitted to live out the rest of his life on his farm. He is buried at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood.