Willem Kieft (September 1597 – September 27, 1647) was a Dutch merchant and the
Director of New Netherland (of which
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''factory'' gave rise ...
was the capital) from 1638 to 1647.
Life and career
Willem Kieft was appointed to the rank of director by the
Dutch West India Company
The Dutch West India Company ( nl, Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie, ''WIC'' or ''GWC''; ; en, Chartered West India Company) was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx ...
in 1638.
He formed the
council of twelve men
The Council of Twelve Men was a group of 12 men, chosen on 29 August 1641 by the residents of New Netherland to advise the Director of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, on relations with the Native Americans due to the murder of Claes Swits. Althoug ...
, the first representative body in New Netherland, but ignored its advice.
He tried to tax, and then, drive out, local Native Americans.
He ordered attacks on
Pavonia and
Corlears Hook
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an ...
on February 25, 1643 in a massacre (129 Dutch soldiers killed 120 Indians, including women and children). The Dutch local citizen advisory group had been specifically against such a raid, and were aghast when they heard the details. "Infants were torn from their mother's breasts, and hacked to pieces in the presence of their parents, and pieces thrown into the fire and in the water, and other sucklings, being bound to small boards, were cut, stuck, and pierced, and miserably massacred in a manner to move a heart of stone. Some were thrown into the river, and when the fathers and mothers endeavored to save them, the soldiers would not let them come on land but made both parents and children drown". This was followed by retaliations resulting in what would become known as
Kieft's War
Kieft's War (1643–1645), also known as the Wappinger War, was a conflict between the colonial province of New Netherland and the Wappinger and Lenape Indians in what is now New York and New Jersey. It is named for Director-General of New Ne ...
(1643–1645). The war took a huge toll on both sides, and
Dutch West India Company
The Dutch West India Company ( nl, Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie, ''WIC'' or ''GWC''; ; en, Chartered West India Company) was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx ...
Board of Directors fired him in 1647. He was replaced with
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant (; in Dutch also ''Pieter'' and ''Petrus'' Stuyvesant, ; 1610 – August 1672)Mooney, James E. "Stuyvesant, Peter" in p.1256 was a Dutch colonial officer who served as the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Ne ...
.
He died on September 27, 1647 in the ''
Princess Amelia'' shipwreck near
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the C ...
, Wales, en route to Amsterdam to defend himself, along with many of his opponents, including the Rev.
Everardus Bogardus.
[ Russell Shorto, ''The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America.'' First Edition. ]New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
: Vintage Books
Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Ho ...
(a Division of Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
, 2004. His archive was also lost, so his exact role cannot be established apart from what his opponents wrote of him. He is depicted in the Gods of Manhattan series by
Scott Mebus
Scott Mebus is American novelist, composer and playwright. He has written two adult novels, ''Booty Nomad'' and ''The Big Happy'', and the children's urban fantasy series "Gods of Manhattan." His first musical, ''Tarnish'', played in the NY In ...
.
See also
*
Land of the Blacks (Manhattan)
*
Colonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...
*
Dutch colonization of the Americas
The Netherlands began its colonization of the Americas with the establishment of trading posts and plantations, which preceded the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. While the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 ...
*
Dutch Empire
*
List of colonial governors of New Jersey
The territory which would later become the state of New Jersey was settled by Netherlands, Dutch and Sweden, Swedish Settler, colonists in the early seventeenth century. In 1664, at the onset of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, England, English forc ...
*
List of colonial governors of New York
The territory which would later become the state of New York was settled by European colonists as part of the New Netherland colony (parts of present-day New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware) under the command of the Dutch West India ...
References
Further reading
*
William Elliot Griffis ''The Story of New Netherland. The Dutch In America''. (Chapter IX. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. 1909)
*Allen Johnson, Ed. ''Dutch and English on the Hudson'' (Chapter IV. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1919)
*Jaap Jacobs (2005), New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, .
*
Journal of New Netherland 1647. Written in the Years 1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645, and 1646'. 1641–1647.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kieft, Willem
1597 births
1647 deaths
17th-century Dutch businesspeople
People of the Province of New York
Businesspeople from Amsterdam
Directors of New Netherland
Colonial American merchants
Kieft's War
Deaths due to shipwreck at sea
Accidental deaths in Wales