Transcript: English Ships (1664)

BARRY LEWIS: In 1664, four British gun boats appear in New Amsterdam harbor, effectively blocking the port. Stuyvesant was up the river in Ft. Orange, he hurries back down to the city, but New Amsterdam is in turmoil.

Dr. CHARLES GEHRING: It was a time of peace. War hadn’t been declared. This was a surprise attack.

Prof. JOYCE GOODFRIEND: The major reason, of course, that the English wanted to come into New Netherland was that they had colonies to the north and colonies to the South and of course, the English claimed that the whole Eastern Seaboard belonged to them, and then of course, the Dutch claimed that too.

LEWIS: The English gunboats were within the range of the city and Stuyvesant wanted to keep on fighting, but the odds were against him.

GEHRING: As soon as the first shot is fired, in defense of the city, the city is now open to looting, and many of the New Englanders who had settled in Dutch jurisdiction were already at the ferry ready to come over. English soldiers had then landed on Long Island, and it would have been a mess.

LEWIS: So in late August 1664, without firing a shot, New Amsterdam becomes New York. Renamed for the English King’s brother, the Duke of York, who himself will be king one day, Richard Nichols is appointed governor, and the original 13 colonies are beginning to take shape.

It was here that the articles of capitulation were signed on September 6, 1664 ending Dutch rule. We’re here, in Manhattan’s East Village on Stuyvesant Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. And it was on this site that Stuyvesant’s country house which doubled as a working farm, was located. That act of surrender was signed in his house.

Now that farm of his, here’s an old map and it shows us where it was in relation to the city back in the 1660s. There’s New Amsterdam at the southern tip of the island, about two miles north is Stuyvesant’s farm, bordered by today’s Pitt Street on the south, about 23rd Street on the north, about 4th Avenue on the West and the East River, on the East. And we are right at that red dot.

At the surrender ceremony, neither Stuyvesant nor the English governor, Richard Nichols, were actually present. Well that was usual for those times. They sent delegates in their place. What was unusual, were the terms of the surrender. This was truly an amazing document. It didn’t replace once culture with another, which was typical of conquests in those days. Instead it created a sphere of co-existence between both Dutch and English societies. The Dutch were allowed to keep their inheritance laws, their laws about business, even their magistrates could continue to sit.

And, it also kept that quirky Dutch idea of tolerance. That means, in its founding documents, and we’re talking about the articles of surrender, there were certain guarantees for individual rights that did not exist in the other English colonies. These rights will appear more than 120 years later in the American bill of rights.

After the surrender, Stuyvesant was summoned to Amsterdam to answer for the loss of New Netherland. When that was over, he wanted to come back home. That meant America, even if they called his old city New York. He comes back here to this farm, he lives out his days, he dies in 1672, around the age of 60 and he’s buried in the cemetery of his own estate’s parish church, today we call it St. Mark’s in the Bowery. Peter Stuyvesant lies just a stone’s throw away from here.