Willem Verhulst or Willem van Hulst was an employee of the
Dutch West India Company
The Dutch West India Company () was a Dutch chartered company that was founded in 1621 and went defunct in 1792. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647), and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was gra ...
and the second (provisional)
Director of the
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 ...
colony in 1625–26. Nothing can be verified about his life before and after this period. Verhulst may have consummated the purchase of
Manhattan Island
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the smallest county by area in the U.S. state of New York. Located almost entire ...
on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, although there is still considerable debate over the evidence that also supports the purchase by Peter Minuit.
Life and career
Verhulst sailed from the Netherlands in January 1625 on the ship ''Orangenboom'' ("Orange Tree") as "provisionally director of the colonists". In April of that year, four more ships sailed out with settlers and farm animals (the ships were named ''Paert, Koe, Schaep'', and ''Makreel'', meaning "horse, "cow", sheep" and "mackerel").
["Willem Verhulst", New Netherland Institute]
/ref> He had received detailed instructions from the board of directors. In 1625, Verhulst oversaw the decision to locate Fort Amsterdam
Fort Amsterdam, (later, Fort George among other names) was a fortification on the southern tip of Manhattan Island at the confluence of the Hudson River, Hudson and East River, East rivers in what is now New York City. The fort and the island ...
, the company's main fortress, and town on the tip of Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
Island in the colony of 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 ...
. The settlement, which was given the name New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, 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 (trading post), fac ...
, was the first permanent European settlement in what was later called New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
.[ Goodwin, 1897, pp. 239-240]
Verhulst was not popular with the Dutch colonists and was quickly replaced by Peter Minuit
Peter Minuit (French language, French: ''Pierre Minuit'', Dutch language, Dutch: ''Peter Minnewit''; 1580 – August 5, 1638) was a Walloons, Walloon merchant and politician who was the 3rd Director of New Netherland, Director of the Dutch Nort ...
. He sailed back to 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 ...
on the ''Wapen van Amsterdam'' ("Arms of Amsterdam") which left September 23 and arrived November 4, 1626 in Amsterdam. He brought with him the news that the colony was doing well and that Manhattan had been bought from the natives for goods valued at 60 guilders, leading some historians to propose that the otherwise obscure Verhulst oversaw this transaction. Although, there is still significant debate over the evidence, whether Minuit or Verhulst had executed the permission of the island of Manhattan.and the traditional version of the story attributes Peter Minuit with conducting and completing the purchase.[ Shorton, 2004, p.47]
See also
*Adrian Jorisszen Tienpoint
Adriaen Jorissen Thienpoint or Tienpoint (born in Saardam, North Holland) was a Dutch sea captain-explorer who commanded several ships to the newly developing colonies of New Netherland and New Sweden as well as other holdings of the Dutch Empi ...
, Verhulst's deputy
References
Sources
*
*
See also
* 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 16 ...
* Dutch Empire
The Dutch colonial empire () comprised overseas territories and trading posts under some form of Dutch control from the early 17th to late 20th centuries, including those initially administered by Dutch chartered companies—primarily the Du ...
* Fort Wilhelmus
Fort Wilhelmus was a '' factorij'' in the 17th-century colonial province of New Netherland, located on what had been named Hooghe Eyland (High Island) (also called Verhulsten Island) on the Zuyd Rivier, now Burlington Island in the Delaware Rive ...
* 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 force ...
* List of colonial governors of New York
The territory which would later become the state of New York (state), New York was settled by European colonization of the Americas, European colonists as part of the New Netherland colony (parts of present-day New York, New Jersey, Connecticut a ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verhulst, Willem
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
17th-century Dutch people
Directors of New Netherland
Dutch expatriates in the United States