Contents 
Front Matter Where I Was Born Alone in Holland An Important Introduction I Go My Way The Bargain Sailing for the New World A View of New Netherland The "Brown Men" or Savages Summoned to the Cabin Toys for the Savages Claim of the India Company Making Ready for Trade Braun and Gildersleeve Gathering the Savages Going Ashore Buying Manhattan Boats Used by the Savages Wandering over the Island The Homes of the Savages Master Minuit's Home Beginning the Work A Strange Kind of Craft Building a Fort In Charge of the Goods The Value of Wampum Buildings of Stone The Government A Prosperous Town Quarrelsome Slaves A Brutal Murder A Village Called Plymouth I Go on a Voyage A Lukewarm Welcome Two Days in Plymouth Forging Ahead The Big Ship Minuit's Successor Trouble with the English Van Twiller Discharged Director Kieft Unjust Commands Minuit's Return Revenge of the Savages Kieft's War Director Petrus Stuyvesant Time for Sight-Seeing How the Fort was Armed Village Laws Other Things about Town A Visit of Ceremony New Amsterdam, a City Stuyvesant Makes Enemies Orders from Holland Making Ready for War An Unexpected Question With the Fleet Driving out the Swedes Uprising of the Indians An Attack by the Indians Back to New Amsterdam Coaxing the Savages Religious Freedom Punishing the Quaker Other Persecutions Dull Trade Charge Made by Hans Braun Dismissed by Stuyvesant English Claims Idle Days On Broad Way Looking after the Ferry Coming of the English A Weak Defense Stuyvesant Absent Disobeying Commands Surrender Demanded A Three Days' Truce English Visitors Stuyvesant's Rage The End of Dutch Rule The City of New York

Peter of New Amsterdam - James Otis




Idle Days

While I waited, making myself as small as possible lest the Director should see me and remember that he had threatened to throw me into prison, the people were growing more and more discontented because of Master Stuyvesant's not ceasing to punish Lutherans, Baptists, or Quakers when they refused to attend the Dutch church.

Many a one threatened, in private, to do what he might toward teaching the Director a lesson, if a fitting chance came his way, and I have been told that a dozen or more Dutchmen, who had friends in power in Holland, sent to the West India Company many complaints concerning Master Stuyvesant, praying that he might be deprived of his office.

It was during these idle days that I learned, because of asking many questions, much concerning the village of Hartford, which had been begun by the preacher Hooker, and all who went to his church in New Town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

These people wanted a village of their own, therefore entered the forest with but little of goods, suffering much in the battle with the wilderness, but coming out victors owing to their industry.

While we of New Amsterdam had built a city, we could count no more than fifteen hundred people in it, and this settlement on the Connecticut river, which was by this time made up of three villages, boasted of more than eight hundred persons.

It was to Hartford I would first go when a fitting opportunity came, so I said to myself after hearing all that could be told concerning these people, and to such an end I began to make plans.

Wherever I might go, however, I could not find so much to please the eye as in New Amsterdam, for the English people in this New World are much more prim and sedate, both in manner and dress, than are the Dutch.