page_title: Peter Stuyvesant
section_title: Capitulation
hierarchical_section_title: Peter Stuyvesant / Career / Capitulation
caption_attribution_description: English: Pear tree planted by Peter Styvesant
context_page_description: Peter Stuyvesant; served as the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was split into New York and New Jersey with lesser territory becoming parts of other states. He was a major figure in the early history of New York City and his name has been given to various landmarks and points of interest throughout the city.
  Stuyvesant's accomplishments as director-general included a great expansion for the settlement of New Amsterdam beyond the southern tip of Manhattan. Among the projects built by Stuyvesant's administration were the protective wall on Wall Street, the canal that became Broad Street, and Broadway. Stuyvesant, himself a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, opposed religious pluralism and came into conflict with Lutherans, Jews, Roman Catholics and Quakers as they attempted to build places of worship in the city and practice their faiths. However, Stuyvesant particularly supported Antisemitism, and loathed Jews not merely through religion, but also through race.
context_section_description: In 1664, King Charles II of England ceded to his brother, the Duke of York, later King James II, a large tract of land that included all of New Netherland. Four English ships bearing 450 men, commanded by Richard Nicolls, seized the Dutch colony. On 30 August 1664, George Cartwright sent the governor a letter demanding surrender. He promised "life, estate, and liberty to all who would submit to the king's authority."
  On 6 September 1664, Stuyvesant sent Johannes de Decker, a lawyer for the West India Company, and five others to sign the Articles of Capitulation. Nicolls was declared governor, and the city was renamed New York. Stuyvesant obtained civil rights and freedom of religion in the Articles of Capitulation. The Dutch settlers mainly belonged to the Dutch Reformed church, a Calvinist denomination, holding to the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dordt). The English were Anglicans, holding to the 39 Articles, a Protestant confession, with bishops.
  In 1665, Stuyvesant went to the Netherlands to report on his term as governor. On his return to the colony, he spent the remainder of his life on his farm of sixty-two acres outside the city, called the Great Bouwerie, beyond which stretched the woods and swamps of the village of Nieuw Haarlem. A pear tree that he reputedly brought from the Netherlands in 1647 remained at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue until 1867 when it was destroyed by a storm, bearing fruit almost to the last. The house was destroyed by fire in 1777. He also built an executive mansion of stone called Whitehall.
caption: Pear tree planted by Peter Styvesant
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