Hi all,
I'm a resident of the state of NJ and am trying to learn more about the early history of the state and region. I've been reading a couple of books on the subject like The Barbarous Years by Bernard Bailyn and A History of Middlesex County: 1664 - 1920 by John Wall, and I am a bit confused about something.
Peter Stuyvesant was director of the colony for 17 years (since 1647) and from what I understand, he was responsible for expanding the settlement of New Amsterdam and improving its economy and aesthetic after the disastrous tenure of Willem Kieft, but had a lot of controversial social and religious policies and was a bit of an authoritarian. I've also read that in the 4 years between the Stuart Restoration and the take-over of New Netherland by the British, Stuyvesant intentionally settled English from Long Island and the New Haven colony in what is now NJ as those colonists were not fans of Charles II and had enjoyed extensive freedoms under the Protectorate; they were more republican-minded than they were fans of the English monarchy and Stuyvesant thought it advantageous to populate the areas under his control with residents who were not so politically different from the Dutch.
So I'm wondering, what was the general opinion of Stuyvesant's administration when he was forced to step down in 1664 in the eyes of these English settlers? Was it a positive one, or relatively more positive than the opinion these settlers would have had of Charles at the time, or did they care all that much? Are my sources total bullshit? Sorry if this is a bit of a rambling question...
I'll approach this from a religious side because that my area of expertise. Stuyvesant had a complicated mission as the governor of New York. The Netherlands was the most religiously tolerant nation in Western Europe, but Stuyvesant was sent to run it as a military dictator. The New Netherlands was famously diverse both religiously and ethnically, but the original vision was for a homogenous Dutch Protestant land.
Stuyvesant’s mission was to uphold and defend a fragile Dutch colony at the edge of the world. Like many others of the time, he believed that ethnic and religious homogeneity was essential to internal stability (one people, one church). Foreigners bringing foreign religions were the antithesis to this concept, and Stuyvesant only allowed them to lived and worship privately because his bosses in the Netherlands forced him to in the interest of attracting more settlers. Stuyvesant had attempted to expel 23 Dutch Jews fleeing from Brazil , but his bosses vetoes him. He banned the Quakers from even landing in the colony and jailed those who did, only relenting when his bosses in the Dutch West India Company forced him to allow the Quakers in.
Settlers (but not Catholics) were allowed to practice their faith in private, but they needed permission from the governor to build churches and preach publically. English and Scottish Calvinists had it a bit easier because their religion was close enough to the Dutch Reformed Church to be palatable, but Quakers, Anabaptists and Lutherans were not so lucky. Stuyvesant jailed some Lutherans and passed laws to suppress Lutheranism when they repeatedly requested permission to build a Church in New Amsterdam (NYC) leading up to 1656. Stuyvesant was not alone in his distrust of the foreign religions. Dutch clergy wrote repeatedly to the West India Company to expel the non-Dutch ministers, to no success.
Many of the settlers in New Jersey were not even English. Most of the settlers during the Dutch campaign to seize New Jersey were Swedish Lutherans, who took issue with Stuyvesant’s refusal to allow them a clergyman. These settlers strongly disliked Stuyvesant and were certainly not sad to see him go.
So to answer your question, the settlers in New Jersey were less than found of Stuyvesant. The Quakers, Anabaptists, and Swedish Lutherans met constant resistance to their ideas of free worship with Stuyvesant in charge. They were relatively ambivalent to the Dutch, as they had been allowed to settle on the land and the West India Company had repeatedly come to the aid of dissedents against Stuyvesant. Many welcomed the English when they came, eager to be ruled by their own countrymen. It didn’t help that, while Stuyvesant was an effective administrator, he was a stiff martinet and definitely authoritarian in his approach to governance. He was respected by the Dutch and the wealthy merchants because he did much to promote and protect them, but he never held wide popularity with the non-Dutch colonist, nor did he attempt to build such popularity.
Source: “The Roots of Religious Freedom in America: Religious Toleration and Religious Diversity in New Netherland and Colonial New York”, by Paul Finkleman