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Peter Stuyvesant, From his Fortress in New Amsterdam in 1664, signs important document
Peter Stuyvesant, From his Fortress in New Amsterdam in 1664, signs important document
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Stuyvesant Peter 1610 - 1672 In 1664 from his fortress in New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant signs an important document, anxious for communication from the "fatherland" about the impending British takeover that in just a few months would rename his home "New York". The letter also mentions Jacques Cortelyou, Manhattan's first mapmaker and real estate speculator.



Single page LS on laid paper, 7.25" x 10.75". Boldly scripted in Dutch and offered with an English translation. Signed and dated by Peter Stuyvesant as "P Stuyvesant' and dated "February 21, 1664". Near fine, with barely perceptible folds. The letter is both strongly contrasted and well preserved. Accompanied by documented provenance, as noted below.


A most intriguing letter from Peter Stuyvesant, Dutch Director-General of the New Netherland colony, begging the question about the contents of the letters he and the General Directors and Council members were so desperate to locate and unveil in the "presence of" the Director-General. Via English translation "When few or no letters came with the recently arrived ship Saint Pieter .... The General Directors and Council members .... decided to have the crate of the aforementioned Supercargo opened to see if it contained any private letters ... this having been done in the presence of the undersigned (Peter Stuyvesant), nothing was found ...."

To put this letter in context, it requires an understanding of the period, the rapid rise, fall and resurgence in a short period of time, and Peter's position at New Netherland.

In a quick synopsis, in 1609, Henry Hudson sailed to New York from Holland, which lead to new expeditions to trade beads, knives, and hatchets for furs with the Munsee and Lenape Indians. This ultimately established New Amsterdam, later New York City. The arrival of the Dutch had piqued the interest of local Indians, who regarded the newcomers as potential allies and sources of trade. The Dutch quickly found themselves drawn into a web of Indian diplomacy that they only partially understood.

By 1629, migration of thousands of English Puritans ensued from New England. These New Englanders provided Native Americans with yet another source of gifts and friendship, and their rapidly growing and spreading settlement soon threatened to overwhelm the thinly populated New Netherland. The Dutch who did make the trans-Atlantic journey often deserted their designated employment, hoping to get rich quickly by defying their Company's regulations and joining the lucrative fur trade. Meanwhile, English colonists continued to settle in the Dutch territory.

In desperation by 1640, the Company gave up its trading monopoly and under the new "Freedoms and Exemptions" policy offered two hundred acres of land to Dutch or English immigrants who undertook to settle five colonists. The change of policy finally succeeded in bringing new settlers to the colony. By 1645, the colony grew to four or five hundred men of different sects and nationalities speaking eighteen different languages.

However a fateful decision become one of the turning points for the demise of New Netherland, nearly wiping out the colony. Willem Kieft, made the decision to try to extract a tribute from the neighboring Raritan Indians under the guise that since the Indians, as defensive allies, benefited from the presence of the Company and the colonists, it was only reasonable that they bear some of its costs. The Indians, for their part, could see little benefit in having allies who stuck to the coast and concentrated on trade, and they rejected Kieft's authority to levy a tribute. The two sides clashed inconclusively until 1643, when the slaughter of some eighty Wecquaesgeek Indians across the river from New Amsterdam at Pavonia (Jersey City) succeeded in uniting almost the entire Indian population of the Lower Hudson Valley against New Netherland. Keift's War resulted in dozens of colonists and some 1600 Indians being killed, and New Netherland was almost wiped out. New Netherland was left with almost every place abandoned and the survivors in poverty "whilst the Indians daily threaten to overwhelm us".

With the colony virtually wiped out, starving and scared, the Company shareholders dispatched Peter Stuyvesant in 1647 to restore the colony. Peter's seventeen-year administration was enormously successful during which time he negotiated boundary agreements with the English to the north, led a force of seven hundred men to expel the Swedes from the Delaware River to the south, and, through a combination of diplomacy and armed force, rebuilt Dutch influence and strength in the region.

New Amsterdam quickly became known as the major port and capital of this increasingly prosperous provincial society, but only 17 years had passed since all the inhabitants knew only poverty, death and fear. During this period of growth, neither the burgomasters nor the ordinary colonists realized that their success was about to become the source of their undoing.

In the late 1650s the colony's new-found prosperity attracted the attention of powerful English interests who were jealous of the Dutch imperial success. Within months of Charles II's restoration in 1660, Parliament adopted another Navigation Act, designed to drive the Dutch from the English-controlled American trade.

Note- this letter from Peter Stuyvesant is dated February 21, 1664, after the intent to drive out the Dutch was adopted by the English. By May of 1664 James, Duke of York, dispatched Colonel Richard Nicolls with four ships and three hundred soldiers to secure the "entyre submission and obedience" of England's newest colonial American subjects. The invasion had started, and The General Directors, Peter, and Council Members of New Amersterdam were desperate to locate any letters from England offering a glimpse of strategic information and vital intel allowing them to prepare. By mid-August the British invaders disembarked from vessels offering fair treatment for those who surrendered.

During the last brief 20 years, the colonists had just endured vast long periods of devastation, starvation and fear; only recently having enjoyed stabilization and prosperity.

The English commander repeated his terms in a letter written to Stuyvesant, promising that in return for capitulation the settlers would "peaceably enjoy whatsoever God's blessing and their own honest industry have furnished them with and all other privileges with his majesty's English subjects." Stuyvesant wanted to make a fight of it. But when he tried to convince New Amsterdam's leaders to keep news of the lenient surrender terms_„îand reports of the fort's limited supply of good gun powder_„îfrom the inhabitants, the burgomasters left the meeting "greatly disgusted and dissatisfied." Furious at their defiance, Stuyvesant tore up Nicolls's letter offering terms. Within hours work on the city's fortifications ceased, and a delegation of the "inhabitants of the place assisted by their wives and children crying and praying" confronted the director and demanded that he re-assemble the letter and negotiate surrender.

Ultimately Stuyvesant relented, and merchant leaders met with Nicolls and his officers to draft the Articles of Capitulation under which New Netherland and New Amsterdam became New York, New York.

This fascinating, beautifully preserved letter alludes to this important turning point for the Dutch. Although the content of the missing letters will never be known, we do know they were important enough to be hunted for in the presence of Peter Stuyvesant, and that only 2 months later the English fleet disembarked for their invasion of New Amsterdam. The full translation is found below:

"When few or no letters came with the recently arrived ship Saint Peter, it was said that the letters as usual will have been handed to the Supercargo of this ship (who stayed in the fatherland). Therefore the General Directors and Council members (at the request of various citizens) decided to have the crate of aforementioned Supercargo opened to see if it contained any private letters. This having been done in the presence of the undersigned, nothing was found other than a missive to Mr. Jacques Cortljouw, which was removed, in addition to an ink pot with an almanac, after which the chest was locked again, Actum Fortresse Amersterdam, New Netherlands, February 21, 1664.

P Stuyvesant"

As the Surveyor General of the city, Cortelyou's main accomplishment was the so-called Cortelyou Survey, the first map of New York City, commonly called the Castello Plan, after the location in a Tuscan palace where it was rediscovered centuries later. Cortelyou was also instrumental in helping to erect the wall, originally fortified against attacks by Native Americans, from which Wall Street derives its name.

Provenance: This item was recently discovered in an extra illustrated volume of "History of the City of New York" by Mary L. Booth, New York W. R. C. Clark, 1867. Originally two volumes, the monumental task of expanding the work to 21 volumes by none other than Emery E. Childs esquire of New York City. In volume 1 of this work exists a lovely india ink Drawing of Mary L. Booth along with a notation "presented by her to E E C" in pencil. Next to the title page we find an original letter of Booth to Childs dated April 4, 1872 " I am in receipt of your favor of the 4th inst., and am grateful to hear that you are taking the trouble to illustrate my History of the City of New York in the manner you describe. I shall be happy to see you, should you favor me with a callas I am usually in my office during business hours and should be pleased to facilitate your Enterprise by any means in my power"

It is assumed that the book took several years to assemble at which point, assumedly through Childs, it made its way to Senator Charles B. Farwell of Chicago who took the seat of John A. Logan in 1887. Farwell had an extensive library that fortunately survived the great Chicago fire in 1871 having been housed in his Lakeside home. In the American Bibliopolist of November 1871 there is an article about the devastation to libraries caused by the tragedy . "Mr C. B. Farwell's library is also fortunately far out from the city, at his country house, and is safe, The same remark will also apply to the extensive collection of books and curiosities belonging to Mr. E. E. Childs." This establishes the Chicago connection between Childs and Farwell.

That these letters were preserved for over 140 years and have never been on the market for that period is remarkable on many levels. It is the state of being wedged in these volumes that also account for what is mostly the pristine state of preservation.

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