USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 5
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were ordered to get good guns and report to their respective corporals the event of trouble; and the appointment on December 1I, 1642, George Baxter as English secretary of the province, this move being ma because "of the number of English" who had "numerous law suits."
The most important act of Kieft's administration was his consultati with a "Board of Twelve Men," elected August 26, 1641, on the subj of adequate punishment for an Indian murderer. Although this board h no judicial authority and few important functions, and was abruptly d solved by Kieft on February 8, 1642, it may very properly be termed t beginning of representative government in the province.
Kieft's term came to an end when the directors at Amsterdam recall him, primarily because of a lack of profits for the company's venture, } also because of the number of protests and complaints from the peop 4 He was lost at sea on September 27, 1647, while on his way to the Neth lands to defend his administration before the company's directors Amsterdam.
His successor, Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived at New Amsterdam on M II, 1647, was the seventh and by far the best known of the Dutch Wi India Company's colonial administrators. His 17-year regime had the eff( of eclipsing the other 21 years of Dutch occupation. Opinions may diff as to his true historical stature, but none can deny that oblivion would lo. ago have overtaken anyone less gifted in political manipulation and she showmanship. He was by all odds the most colorful figure of these yea!
Under him, the first distinctly municipal form of government came in being in New Amsterdam on February 2, 1653, when Stuyvesant and I council proclaimed the creation of a body resembling our present-d aldermen, as well as of a bench of justices. Limited though both of the bodies were in real authority, they constituted the first major concessi(. to people who had come to the New World as little more than man-pow for the Dutch West India Company. They fed the desire for a great share in governmental affairs, and were followed by several assemblies, a. convened by Stuyvesant. The first had 19 members, representing Nejs de Amsterdam and seven outlying towns in Long Island and Westcheste This group, which met December 10, 1653, was the most truly represent tive assembly yet called in New Netherland and the forerunner of other all subject to call and dismissal by the governor-general, but all advancir the idea of giving the commonalty a voice in public affairs.
Soon the municipal government began to function with increasing reg larity, until the demands of the various assemblies and the city fathers r
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Ited in a "common council," at which the first definite citizenship rights re proposed. These demands were granted when the great and small rgher-rights were created by law on February 2, 1657. The great burgher- ght conferred citizenship upon all former as well as present provincial icials, burgomasters, schepens (corresponding to present-day aldermen), itch clergymen, and certain commissioned officers of the city regiment. le common or small burgher-right was given to all male inhabitants ho had kept fire and light within the City one year and six weeks," to native-born, and to those who had already married or should there- der marry native-born daughters of burghers. Between April 10 and May 1657, the burghers were registered, citizenship thus becoming an accom- shed legal fact for the first time in the city's history.
Commercially, the Dutch West India Company was a total failure; and 1661, New Amsterdam was bankrupt. Symptomatic of this situation, doubt, was the commonalty's disregard of laws and ordinances designed promote colonial interests. Again and again the people appear to have id not the slightest attention to acts of the provincial and city govern- ents, despite the severity of punishments inflicted on some who were osecuted, such punishments including branding, public lashings, use of rack and similar measures.
The attempt to replace the thatched roofs and badly plastered wooden imneys, both of which constituted a serious fire hazard, well illustrates e almost contemptuous disregard of many laws. Repeated ordinances and nal" warnings had no effect; indeed, the officer of the City Court who ued the "last and final" notice of 1657 reported that the people merely ighed at him as he read the order. Another example of this attitude is denced in connection with the ordinances which, beginning in 1638 d continuing steadily almost to 1664, were issued to control excessive inking. The use of liquor in the province had grown from mere lack of deration to proportions so menacing as to threaten prosperity and prog- s. Yet neither the provincial nor the city government could make the ghtest headway in effective restraint or control. Still further proof of : lack of respect for governmental edicts is revealed in the public atti- le toward ordinances calling upon the citizens to concentrate on Man- tan Island, to fence their lands and to form villages or hamlets for otective purposes. Not one of these commands was carried out as issued, d none was obeyed even to a decent degree until sheer necessity com- Dled it.
In addition to this lack of law observance, which in many cases amounted
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to nullification, the province was faced with a mounting burden of taxi that produced precious little in the way of justifiable or tangible resul The "evil genius" more responsible for this, probably, than any other : dividual was Cornelius van Tienhoven, who as provincial secretary help himself to no small part of the hard-won taxes from 1638 to 1656, th all too often making new and heavier taxes necessary. Dismissed fina from office, he committed suicide rather than face the charges broug against him. The combination of Van Tienhoven and a governor-gene who was so lax about submitting any financial accounting that his superi( were forced repeatedly to call upon him to do so, together with a popula either unwilling or unable to face the stern realities of colonial life, fina bankrupted New Amsterdam.
Although religious freedom existed in New Amsterdam, yet from tl time when Jonas Michaelius became the first regularly ordained clergym: and organized what is now the Collegiate Church, to the very end of ti Dutch regime, not a single religious organization other than the Dut Reformed Church was permitted to erect a house of worship on Manh: tan Island. Nevertheless, other denominations, the Lutherans in partic lar, did organize small congregations with comparatively little persecutic
Obviously, these years provided many "firsts" in the history of Ne York. The first recorded murder occurred in May 1638; the first asse: ment list was made up in 1653; the first official price-fixing occurred . September 11, 1653, when a duly convened assembly "froze" the prices many articles; the first crop control program in the United States was : up March 20, 1653, when tobacco planters were ordered to devote certa parts of their holdings to "hard grain for Bread" in order to prevent fai ine; the first "overtime" pay for workmen was inaugurated on August 2 1656, when "extra weighing out of hours" at the weigh-house was put an added-charge basis; the first recorded lottery was run off in Mar 1655, "Bibles, Testaments and other books" being used to provide a pro for the promoter and funds for the poor; the first attempt at silkwor culture in the nation was made in 1657; the first recorded "third degre was carried out on June 25, 1661, when a woman charged with stealix stockings was "placed on the rack, and threatened with torture" to ma her talk; the first unemployment "home relief" on a local-community t sis was inaugurated on October 26, 1661; and the first law against "lo sharks," very numerous in New Amsterdam at the time, was passed 1661.
The end of the Dutch West India Company's venture began on Mar
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22 1664, when King Charles II of England gave to his brother, the Duke York, a grant in America covering territory that included the highly sirable New Netherland holdings. The ink on this grandiloquently orded grant was hardly dry before the English began to convert its words to actualities; and a fleet of four warships under command of Colonel chard Nicolls, first deputy-governor of the Duke's territories, forced rmal surrender of New Amsterdam on September 8, 1664. Nicolls omptly renamed the place New York.
Even in these last days of Dutch rule, the lack of preparedness for hergencies was evident, there being no adequate fort or guns or military ores with which successfully to resist invasion.
Yet it was these Dutch who had established the first permanent settle- ent on Manhattan ; who had settled a number of outlying towns such as euckelen, Vlissingen (Flushing), Midwout (Flatbush), Heemstede Hempstead), Amersfoort (Flatlands), Middleburgh (Newton), and ravesend; who had started a common school as early as 1638 and a itin school in 1652; who had laid out a "city," no matter how crudely; itho had developed friendly relations with the Indians, despite Kieft's unders; and who had, above all else, laid the foundations for a com- Werde which was to become the backbone not only of the English regime ht of all future development in this part of the New World.
glish Control at Its Height: 1664-1763
After the oath of allegiance to the British monarch and the Duke of ork had been proclaimed by Governor Nicolls on October 28, 1664, ntrol of New York shifted from the Dutch merchants to the Duke as an dividual proprietor, with the right to establish whatever form of gov- nment might please him.
Unquestionably the most important single event under English control as the establishment of the right to a free press. This occurred as a re- It of Governor William Cosby's dismissal of Lewis Morris, long chief stice of the province, because of Morris' dissenting opinion in a case in- lving the governor. The strong popular opposition to this move did not orry Cosby, who controlled the courts and the meeting of the legislature, rough his legally granted powers; and who, furthermore, had the un- alified support of the city's only newspaper, William Bradford's New- ork Gazette. To provide a medium for presenting their case, the Morris pporters started another paper, the New-York Weekly Journal, under
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the editorship of John Peter Zenger. The Journal stated its opini bluntly until, as the result of charges made against him in the issue October 7, 1734, Governor Cosby ordered Zenger's arrest. Zenger's N York counsel was promptly "disbarred," but Andrew Hamilton of Ph delphia came to the rescue with so able a defense that the jury acquit Zenger. This victory had its immediate effect, newspapers thereafter coming the medium through which the people openly secured a kno edge of their rights, thus aiding the growth of a spirit of independe and hastening separation of the colonies from England.
The second major achievement under English rule was in the realm religious freedom. The Quakers held their first meeting under a roof 1671; the Lutherans established their own church, also in 1671; French Church, on the north side of Pine Street, east of Nassau, was b in 1704; the Presbyterians erected a church on Wall Street, the first that denomination in the city, and were permitted by the common cour to worship in what was then City Hall while their edifice was being c structed. In 1707, when Governor Cornbury jailed the "nonconformi ministers of these same Presbyterians, the courts tried and freed them spite the governor's attitude, thus definitely establishing a remarkably eral degree of religious toleration in the province of New York.
The charter which resulted from the general assembly called in 1683 Governor Dongan, and subsequent additions thereto, was one of the th major groups of laws in force within the colony of New York from I( to 1691. The first was the Duke's Laws of 1665, a code drawn up Colonel Richard Nicolls, first governor of the Duke of York's provir. and approved at a meeting of 34 deputies from 17 towns at Hempst on March 1, 1665. The Duke's Laws were the basis of government ui 1683, when an assembly elected according to the Duke's instructions Thomas Dongan, fourth governor, met at New York on October 17 This first general provincial assembly passed 50 statutes which constitu the law during 1683-1685. The assembly sat three times, twice in I6 and once in 1685. With its permanent dissolution by Dongan in 1685, law-making function of the province fell to the governor and his coun This executive council passed laws in the king's name which supersec those enacted by the assembly of 1683.
Of these three major groups of laws from 1665 to 1691, the charter 1683, which was in force 1683-85, is the best known. It includec charter of liberties, provided for new customs duties, and claimed the t ing power for the assembly. Its "Charter of Libertyes and Privileges"
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edited to Matthias Nicolls, a leading Englishman of the province. This arter was approved by King James II, but was never sent back to New ork because of involved reasons upon which historians do not agree.
e N hi A charter was granted to the city by Governor Dongan in 1686. In- ided in the provisions of this instrument, which continued in force 45 ars, was the English form of municipal government, under a mayor, O eriff, aldermen, etc., the right of electing aldermen, assistant aldermen, en
d sub-constables being granted to the voters in the several wards. This, addition to the provision for making freemen of natural-born subjects the king, or those who had been naturalized by the mayor, recorder d aldermen, constituted the major liberal gains. For signing this charter, overnor Dongan was paid 300 pounds sterling on authority of the com- on council.
A Gilbert and Sullivan touch was provided in this period when, as the jult of war between England and the Netherlands, New York was "cap- red" from the English by the Dutch on August 9, 1673, was renamed ew Orange, changed its form of government back to that of the Dutch, d went through another oath-taking ceremony. Then, because of a treaty peace signed in Europe, the entire show was staged over again, this ne with Sir Edmund Andros, third governor of New York, acting as ister of ceremonies in the "surrender" of the town back to the English November 10, 1674.
Fourteen years later, King James II annexed New York and East and est Jersey to the recently created Dominion of New England. Sir Ed- ind Andros, former governor of the province of New York, was ap- inted captain-general and governor-in-chief of the Dominion of New
In gland. Andros reached New York on August 11, 1688, had the seal of : province broken in the presence of the council according to royal com- und, and ordered that the seal of New England should thereafter be ed. S
But behind the formalities of Andros' reception lay factors that were idly pushing many of the people toward revolt. The heavy cost of main- ning defenses was resulting in high taxes; the English on Long Island wed with alarm the dissolution of the general assembly of 1683 and : creation of an executive form of government in which the governor d his council made the laws without recourse to popular opinion; mer- ants denied the legality of taxes and customs imposed by an all-powerful ecutive council; and many feared the growing power of Roman Catho- s in England, where the king was of that faith, and of Roman Catholic
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officials in the colonies. This last reason was perhaps the greatest contr uting cause of the revolt that manifested itself in America when James fled from England and the revolution there was capped by the ascens to the throne of William and Mary.
Governor Andros of the Dominion of New England was seized a imprisoned in Boston, and the Dominion collapsed as a political ent. each part resuming its former independent state. In New York, Lieutena Governor Nicholson tried to control the growing unrest there. On M 31, 1689, Jacob Leisler, a captain of the militia, seized the fort and himself up as head of the government. From December II, 1689, wł he had gained supreme command of the situation, until March 19, 16. Leisler controlled the province of New York. Among his more constr tive acts was the calling of a municipal election, whereby Peter Delar became the first mayor chosen by popular vote, and the decided efforts made toward colonial unity as a weapon against the French and English
On November 14, 1689, King William III approved the appointm of Colonel Henry Sloughter as governor of New York, but delay in ting out Sloughter's ships resulted in the arrival before him, at New Yo of one of his subordinates, Major Richard Ingoldsby. Leisler refused recognize Ingoldsby because the latter was not accredited by the king take command of the province. When Governor Sloughter himself rived, he clapped Leisler and others into jail, and executed Leisler a his son-in-law for treason on May 16, 1691. This created bitter politi dissension which endured for many years. An act of Parliament in 16 reversed Sloughter's and the trial court's verdict and vindicated Leisle seizure of the government.
Piracy, which began to manifest itself in New York waters about t time, was subsequently suppressed by the same administrator who ma an agreement in 1695 with Captain William Kidd to fit out a privat and share in the prizes captured, and who later sent Kidd back to Engla to be hanged for piracy. This was the Earl of Bellomont. He arrived New York as governor of the province in 1698, and almost immediat began a long series of reports to the lords of trade in England, in wh: he constantly stressed the prevalence of piracy around New York. Acc ing his predecessor, Governor Fletcher, of aiding the freebooters, Bel mont issued a proclamation on May 9, 1698, calling for the arrest of known pirates and the suppression of piracy. From that day until AF 16, 1700, when the notorious Captain Kidd and 40 other pirates land in England to be tried, Bellomont's reports to the lords of trade plead
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eadily for good judges from England, an honest and able attorney- eneral, a man-of-war commanded by a trustworthy captain, and pay and cruits for the four foot-companies of soldiers in the city-these, he erred, were the only means to put down piracy.
Despite corrupt customs officials and a populace "impudent in abetting id sheltering Pirates and their Goods," Bellomont personally ordered e seizure, examination and imprisonment of his former partner, Captain idd; and to the commissioners whom he had appointed to examine idd's ship he forwarded jewels valued at £10,000 which Kidd had pre- nted to Lady Bellomont during his term as the Earl's partner.
Bellomont's unrelenting war against the pirates resulted in the dispatch- g of a man-of-war from England in 1699, and the king's order of bruary 10, 1700, which required that certain pirates be sent from New ork to England with all witnesses and evidence against them. Among e prisoners was Captain Kidd, who, together with several of the others, is hanged soon after reaching England. With Kidd's execution, piracy New York waters dwindled.
Among the more constructive local administrations of this period were ose of Abraham de Peyster and William Peartree. As mayor of New ork from 1691 to 1694, Colonel de Peyster was very much interested in lancing the budget, his proposal of 1694 to sell certain vacant lots in e city to pay off the municipal debt being one of similar suggestions al at were supported by the common council. Yet he was not niggardly 6 le th respect to civic improvements, as was demonstrated in 1696 when he is appointed by the common council to consider the building of a new ty Hall-a project to which he gave much time and thought. In 1698 thị d in 1709, De Peyster was appointed to the governor's council, and in OI he was appointed deputy auditor-general of the colony. Both in and na 1
: of these and other offices, De Peyster's efforts were often directed to- ate la rd projects not customarily associated with the interests of his class at : time.
Colonel William Peartree, who served as mayor from 1703 to 1706, is ate hi CCU dited with having effected several public improvements. On May II, 56, he caused the citizens to begin work on fortifications of the city, se being described in the Manual of the Corporation of the City of el f Ap Inde w York (1853) as "the first erected at the Narrows," the "principal entive" therefor being cited as "the entrance of a French privateer hin the harbor, which put the whole city in consternation." In 1705, Manual continues, Colonel Peartree was entrusted "with the command
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of an expedition, consisting of a brigantine and two sloops, fitted out several of the principal shipping merchants of the city, to cruise after certain French privateer which had been depredating upon merchant v sels bound for this port." Peartree established the first free gramn school, as well as a school for Negro slaves. He also improved conditic in the jail and provided a debtors' prison in the City Hall.
One particularly disgraceful episode that stands out against the me constructive achievements of the period was the so-called "Negro plot" 1741. It began when several fires broke out in swift succession, w whipped up by lightning-like gossip implicating the colored inhabitar and resulted finally in the imprisonment of more than 100 Negroes, 10 burning of 29 at the stake and the transporting of 88. Three whites w also executed before the hysteria died down.
Among the many events of these years were the founding of the fi mercantile exchange in 1670; the death of Peter Stuyvesant two ye later; the establishment of part of the Boston Post Road in 1671, anc regular post between New York and Boston the following year; the ‘ pearance in 1680 of the first "trust" in American history, when coop organized for the express purpose of raising the prices of casks; the s ting up of the first printing press and the establishment on November 1725, of the city's first newspaper, the New-York Gazette; the opening 1731 of the first public library when 1,642 books received from the Sc ety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts were made ava able at City Hall; the organization of New York's first labor union, 1747, when 100 mechanics protested against the low wage scales in neig boring provinces and combined to increase their own; and the granting a charter on October 31, 1754, to King's College, now Columbia Univ sity, financial support of which was made possible by a lottery.
The Revolutionary Period: 1763-1783
The Treaty of Paris in 1763 freed the colonies from dependence on t British government for protection against the French and Indians by eli. inating the former from what was to be the United States and by ma ing peace with the latter. This led to swift development of the moveme te toward union of the colonies-a result long foreseen by competent ( servers, who knew that only fear of the French and Indians had kept t colonies in line.
The second force that now drove the colonies together and brought
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: Revolution was a series of stupid blunders made by the British gov- iment under a young king too ignorant and unyielding to compromise vital issues. Soon His Majesty's Government and the colonies were op- sed on two fundamental issues: enforcement of the navigation laws, ich would ruin a rich smuggling trade that was technically illegal but d been openly carried on for more than 100 years without official inter- ence; and insistence by the home government on raising a permanent enue from the colonies through direct taxation, the Stamp Act of 1765 1 the Townshend Acts of 1767 being prominent examples of these un- se measures.
On October 7, 1765, the so-called Stamp Act Congress met at City Hall New York, with 28 delegates seated from Massachusetts Bay, Rhode und, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, ith Carolina, and "the counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex on laware." A "declaration of the rights and grievances of the colonists in herica" was agreed to on October 19 and set forth in 14 articles, chief ong which were the protest against "taxation without representation," demand for the right to trial by jury, and the statement that the Stamp manifestly tended "to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonies." ree days later, the Congress approved an address to the king, a memo- to the lords, and a petition to the House of Commons. On October the Congress adjourned after the clerk had been directed to make a y of the proceedings for each of the colonies, and two sets to be dis- ched to England.
Among the "radical" organizations that did much at this time to con- date opposition to England's sudden enforcement of the Navigation is in 1763, and to taxes levied in 1765 and 1767, were groups consti- ng the Sons of Liberty. They first made their direct influence felt when Stamp Act laid a tax on all legal documents executed within the colo- . When the stamps for this tax arrived on October 22, 1765, the peo- were in an ugly mood, as threatening manuscript placards throughout city evidenced. "The first Man," read one of these placards, "that er distributes or makes use of Stampt Paper let him take care of His ise, Person & Effects." By November I, the government's refusal to me ender the stamps resulted in riots. Mobs, led by Sons of Liberty 0 ips, roamed the town, broke open the governor's coachhouse, and hed it and the palisades they had ripped away in Bowling Green. Then · broke into and sacked the house of Major James, who had been ap- tGhted to enforce the regulations, and proceeded to train cannon on the
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