This cri de coeur of the oppressed people of New Netherland against their despotic director, Willem Kiefft, was heeded by the West India Company and Kiefft was removed in May 1645.
Unfortunately, the company was delayed two years in sending the new governor, and Kiefft continued to oppress the citizenry in the meanwhile. Even the coming of peace did not completely lift the burdens of the people. The people had happily rejoiced when they heard the glad tidings of Kiefft’s ouster. Kiefft immediately threatened all of his critics with fines and imprisonment for their “sedition.” He continued to prohibit any appeals of his arbitrary decisions to Holland. The director was thereupon denounced by the influential Rev. Mr. Bogardus, in his sermons:
What are the great men of this country but vessels of wrath and fountains of woe and trouble? They think of nothing but to plunder the property of others, to dismiss, to banish, to transport to Holland!”
To counter this courageous attack, Kiefft decided to use the minions of the state to drown out Bogardus’ sermons—by soldiers’ drum rolls, and even by roar of the fort’s cannon. But Bogardus would not be silenced. Kiefft then turned to the method of violence to stop his critic—to the legal proceedings of his own state. Kiefft’s charges against Bogardus in Kiefft’s court included “scattering abuse,” drinking alcohol, and defending criminals (such as Adriaensen in his attempt to assassinate the director). When these charges were served on Bogardus, he defiantly refused to appear, challenging Kiefft’s legal right to issue the summons; with the people solidly on the minister’s side, Kiefft was forced to yield.
Finally, at long last, Kiefft’s replacement, Peter Stuyvesant, arrived in May 1647. So great was the jubilation of the people in getting rid of this incubus, that almost all of the fort’s powder was used up in the military salute celebrating the arrival of the new director. When Kiefft handed over the office, the conventional vote of thanks to the old director was proposed, but two of the leading Eight Men, Cornelis Melyn, the patroon of Staten Island, and the German Joachim Kuyter, refused to agree, saying that they certainly had no reason to thank Kiefft. Moreover, they presented a petition for a judicial inquiry into Kiefft’s behavior in office. But apart from being no liberal himself, Stuyvesant saw immediately the grave threat that a precedent for inquiry into a director’s conduct would hold for any of his own despotic actions. The late-19th-century historian John Fiske aptly compared Stuyvesant’s position to that of Emperor Joseph II of Austria-Hungary during the American Revolution over a century later:
Stuyvesant felt as in later days the Emperor Joseph II felt when he warned his sister Marie Antoinette that the French government was burning its fingers in helping the American rebels. I, too, like your Americans well enough, said he, but I do not forget that my trade is that of king—c’est mon metier d’etre roi! So it was Stuyvesant’s trade to be a colonial governor.*
Stuyvesant loftily declared that government officials should never have to disclose government secrets on the demand of two mere private citizens. And furthermore, to petition against one’s rulers is ipso facto treason, no matter how great the provocation. Under this pressure, the petition of Melyn and Kuyter was rejected in the council, even though the company, in a mild gesture of liberality, had agreed to vest the government of New Netherland in a three-man supreme council (instead of Kiefft’s one-man rule): a director general, a vice director, and the Schout-Fiscal. All, however, were company appointees.
The Dutch soon found that their jubilation at the change of directors should have been tempered. From his speech upon arrival, “I shall govern you as a father his children” Stuyvesant indicated no disposition to brook any limits to his rule. Even on the ship coming over, he had angrily pushed the new Schout-Fiscal out of the room because the latter had not been summoned. When Stuyvesant assumed command, he sat with his hat on while others waited bareheaded before he deigned to notice them, a breach of etiquette; he was, as one Dutch observer exclaimed, “quite like the Czar of Muscovy.” Furthermore, Stuyvesant was not willing to let the Melyn-Kuyter matter rest with the rejection of their petition. He now summoned them to trial; and Kiefft eagerly accused these two “malignants” of being the real authors of the “libelous” Eight Men petition. Kiefft suggested that the two defendants be forced to produce all their correspondence with the company, and to show cause why they should not be summarily banished as “pestilent and seditious persons.” Stuyvesant agreed, but Melyn and Kuyter showed so much damning evidence against Kiefft that these charges were quickly dropped. But if one charge fell through, another must immediately be found. Melyn and Kuyter were now indicted on the trumped-up charge of treachery with the Indians, and of attempting to stir up rebellion. Without bothering about evidence this time, Stuyvesant rushed through the prearranged verdict of guilty.
Stuyvesant was eager to sentence Melyn, as the leader of the two, to death, and he seriously pondered the death sentence for Kuyter also. For Kuyter had also committed two grave crimes: he had dared to criticize Kiefft, and he had shaken his finger at the ex-director. And Stuyvesant remembered the philosophizing of the Dutch jurist Josse de Damhouder: he who so much as frowns at a magistrate is guilty of insulting him. He also recalled the admonition of Bernardinus de Muscatellus: “He who slanders God, the magistrate, or his parents, must be stoned to death.” Stuyvesant was persuaded by his more cautious advisers, however, not to execute Melyn and Kuyter; instead, both were heavily fined and banished. Banishment, however, raised the danger that they would spill their tales of woe to the authorities in Holland. So Stuyvesant warned Melyn: “If I thought there were any danger of your trying an appeal, I would hang you this minute from the tallest tree on the island.” This was in line with Stuyvesant’s general view of the right to appeal: “If any man tries to appeal from me to the States-General, I will make him a foot shorter, pack the pieces off to Holland and let him appeal in that fashion.”
The ironic climax of the Kiefft saga occurred when Kiefft finally left for Holland in August 1647 with a large fortune of 400,000 guilders, largely amassed from his term in office, and with Melyn and Kuyter in tow as his prisoners. The ship was wrecked and Kiefft drowned, in seeming confirmation of De Vries’ prophecy. Before his death, he purportedly confessed his wrongdoing to Melyn and Kuyter, who were rescued and who were able to gain their freedom in Holland.
