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Updated: June 15, 2025
The Governor and his subservient Council acted both as prosecutors and judges. The prisoners were accused of instigating the war with the savages, of counselling the mortgaging of Manhattan to the English, and of threatening Kieft with personal violence. The case was speedily decided and sentence was pronounced. Stuyvesant wished Melyn to be punished with death and confiscation of property.
It ran, "Anno Domini 1642, W. Kieft, director general, has caused the commonalty to build this temple." Willem Kieft was director-general of New Netherland from 1638 to 1647.
Stuyvesant, fearing that the English in New England, which was on the borders of New Netherland, would attack the city, set about fortifying it. The fence that Governor Kieft had built so that the cattle could not wander away was changed into a wall that extended from river to river. The fort was repaired, and a strong body of citizens mounted guard by day and by night.
In response to this appeal Kieft was recalled. Just before he received his summons peace was concluded with the Indians, on the 31st of August, 1645. The war had raged five years. It had filled the land with misery. All were alike weary of its carnage and woes. A new governor was appointed, Peter Stuyvesant.
Thus step by step English progress encroached upon the territories of the Dutch. In 1638 Van Twiller was recalled and William Kieft was sent over. He had to deal with Swedes as well as English, for in 1626 King Gustavus Adolphus was persuaded by Usselinx, an Amsterdam merchant, to form the Swedish West India Company, and after his death Oxenstierna, his prime-minister, renewed the scheme.
A dreary winter came and went, and just as the first signs of spring showed in the fields that closed about the fort, a ship sailed up the bay, bringing a stranger to the province. This was William Kieft, the new Governor of New Netherland. He was a blustering man, who became very angry when anyone disagreed with him, and who very soon was known as "William the Testy."
Wilhelmus Kieft, as has already been observed, was a great legislator on a small scale, and had a microscopic eye in public affairs.
Over on Staten Island about this time, an Indian stole several hogs from a colonist. Kieft's soldiers found the tribe to which the Indian belonged, and in revenge killed ten Indian warriors. After this the war-cloud grew darker. Kieft was anxious that there should be war. But there were many of the colonists who did all in their power to prevent it.
There were not wanting illiberal minds, however, who sneered at the governor for thinking to defend his city as he governed it, by mere wind; but William Kieft was not to be jeered out of his windmills; he had seen them perched upon the ramparts of his native city of Saardam; and was persuaded they were connected with the great science of defence; nay, so much piqued was he by having them made a matter of ridicule, that he introduced them into the arms of the city, where they remain to this day, quartered with the ancient beaver of the Manhattoes, an emblem and memento of his policy.
The vessel was wrecked on the coast of Wales Kieft and eighty-one men, women and children sank into a watery grave. Kieft died unlamented. His death was generally regarded as an act of retributive justice. New Netherland in 1646. Early Years of Peter Stuyvesant. Decay of New Amsterdam. The Germs of a Representative Government. Energetic Administration. Death of Governor Winthrop.
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