Reference material and sources.

Adriaen van der Donck, The Representation of New
Netherland, 1650. In J. Franklin Jameson, ed.,
Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original
Narratives of Early American History). NY: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1909.




INTRODUCTION

The fussy incompetence of Kieft and the disastrous results
of the Indian war he had aroused led at last to his removal,
and in May, 1647, a new director-general arrived, Petrus
Stuyvesant, who had made a good record as governor of Curacao
in the West Indies. Stuyvesant, the last of the Dutch
governors, was a man of character, brave, honest, capable and
energetic; but he was proud, headstrong and tyrannical, and
had such high notions of a governor's prerogative that from
the first he conceived a prejudice against the opponents of
Kieft, and presently Kuyter and Melyn were condemned to severe
punishment for attempting to bring the latter to justice.

The new director-general was bent on pursuing a vigorous policy
toward encroaching English and Swedish neighbors, on repressing
the high claims of the patroon's officers at Rensselaerswyck,
on putting the province in good condition for defence, on
suppressing illegal trading, especially the supplying of fire-