Articles about Transfer of New Netherland on 27 August Old Style 1664

The Articles of Capitulation on the Reduction of New Netherland was a document of surrender signed on September 29, 1664 handing control of the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

's colonial province

New Netherland New Netherland () was a colony of the Dutch Republic located on the East Coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states ...

to the

Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the late 9th century, when it was unified from various Heptarchy, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland to f ...

. Director-General

Peter Stuyvesant Peter Stuyvesant ( – August 1672)Mooney, James E. "Stuyvesant, Peter" in p.1256 was a Dutch colonial administrator who served as the Directors of New Netherland, director-general of New Netherland from 1647 to 1664, when the colony was pro ...

conceded two days later to the capture of New Amsterdam by

Richard Nicolls Richard Nicolls ( – 28 May 1672) was an English military officer and colonial administrator who served as the first governor of the Province of New York from 1664 to 1668. Early life Richard Nicolls was born in in Ampthill, Bedfordshire. He ...

, who would become the first Governor of the

Province of New York The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to 1783. It extended from Long Island on the Atlantic, up the Hudson River and Mohawk River valleys to ...

. The lead negotiator for the Dutch side was Stuyvesant's lawyer

Johannes de Decker Johannes De Decker (c. 1626 - Unknown) was a Dutch lawyer and colonial official. He was one of the six signers of the articles of capitulation of New Amsterdam to the English on September 6, 1664. De Decker was sent to work as a lawyer for Peter St ...

. Negotiated at

Stuyvesant Farm Stuyvesant Farm, also known as the Great Bowery, was the estate of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director of New Netherland, director-general of the colony of New Netherland, as well as his predecessors and later his familial descendants. The ...

, the articles of surrender were signed by De Decker on an English ship in the harbor. De Decker negotiated the articles of surrender which included many legal rights and freedoms for residents of the province, as a sort of

bill of rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...

. Many of these legal rights were later included in the Declaration of Independence and the American constitution. There were 12 signatories: six representing the English and New England colonies and six representing the Council of New Netherland, the West India Company and

New Netherlander New Netherlanders were residents of New Netherland, the seventeenth-century colonial outpost of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America, centered around New York Harbor, the Hudson Valley, and ...

s. The terms were mostly adhered to by the English in the remainder of the

conquest of New Netherland The conquest of New Netherland occurred in 1664 as an English expedition led by Richard Nicolls that arrived in New York Harbor effected a peaceful capture of New Amsterdam and Fort Amsterdam, and the Articles of Surrender of New Netherland wer ...

, with the notable exception of the mistreatment of Dutch prisoners of war at

New Amstel New Castle is a city in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The city is located six miles (10 km) south of Wilmington and is situated on the Delaware River. As of 2020, the city's population was 5,551. New Castle constitutes part o ...

Signatories

English side: * Sir Robert Carr (officer) * George Cartwright (officer) *

John Winthrop John Winthrop (January 12, 1588 – March 26, 1649) was an English Puritan lawyer and a leading figure in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the fir ...

(

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

) * Samuel Willys, (

) * Thomas Clarke (

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

) * John Pincheon (

) Dutch side: *

(Council of New Netherland) *

Nicholas Verleet Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In turn, the name ...

(Council of New Netherland for trade) * Samuel Megapolensis (Council of New Netherland, med. doc.) * Cornelius Steenwyk (

burgomaster Burgomaster (alternatively spelled burgermeister, ) is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or executive of a city or town. The name in English was derived from the Dutch . In so ...

) * Oloff Stevens van Cortlandt (old burgomaster) * James Cousseau (

schepen A schepen (Dutch, ; . ') or échevin (French, , ) or Schöffe (German, ) is a municipal officer in Belgium and formerly the Netherlands, where it has been replaced by the (a municipal executive). In modern Belgium, the ''schepen'' or ''échevin'' ...

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References

{{reflist

External links

The surrender of New Netherland, 1664: A Spotlight on a Primary Source by Richard Nicholls
Gilder Lehrman Collection

* https://www.wdl.org/en/item/4062/view/1/1/ Dutch 1664 documents 1664 in military history 1664 in the Dutch Empire 1664 in the Province of New York Documents of New Netherland Thirteen Colonies documents Instrument of Surrender Second Anglo-Dutch War

Signatories

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See also

References

External links