Peter Stuyvesant: Director-General for the West India Company in New Netherland (Classic Reprint)

PREFACE. ORIGINAL sources of information concerning the early Dutch settlers of f.1anhattan Island are neither many nor rich. The two volumes of Holland Documents, published by the State of New YorkJ contain the official papers of the colony and the Vcst India Company. Some contemporary descriptions exjst, of which Van der Donck's is the best. But the Dutch wrote very little, and on the whole their records arc tllcagrc. Concerning their social conditions, the best authority is to be found in the proceedings of the burgomasters and schepens, preserved in the City J:Iall and in the books of the Surrogates and Register's. offices. These sources and the' collections of the New York lfistorical Society have been relied upon in the preparation of this book. The author's thanks are due to ltr. VILLIA~I KEBBY, Librarian of the Historical Society. THE BE~EDlCK. NEW YORK, itfarch, 1893,

Table of Contents

CON TENTS; CHAPTER I; Settlement of :fanhattan Island hy the Dutch Ve~t; India Compan)' - Administrations of Directors; Peter Minuitp Vouter van Twiller, and VilheJm; PAGE; Kieft 7; CHAPTER H; The Administration of Peter Stuyvesant • • 57; CH APTER Ill; Social Aspect of New Amsterdam in the Time of; Peter Stllyvesant 103; CHAPTER IV; N~w Amsterdam becomes New York 169

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