List of colonial governors of New York

A painting by Johannes Vingboons of the city of New Amsterdam in 1664—the year the Dutch authorities surrendered the New Netherland colony to the English under Richard Nicholls and renamed 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 Company in the Seventeenth Century. These colonists were largely of Dutch, Flemish, Walloon, and German stock, but the colony soon became a "melting pot." In 1664, at the onset of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, English forces under Richard Nicolls ousted the Dutch from control of New Netherland, and the territory became part of several different English colonies. Despite one brief year when the Dutch retook the colony (1673–1674), New York would remain an English possession until the American colonies declared independence in 1776.

With the unification of the two proprietary colonies of East Jersey and West Jersey in 1702, the provinces of New York and the neighboring colony New Jersey shared a royal governor. This arrangement began with the appointment of Queen Anne's cousin, Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury as Royal Governor of New York and New Jersey in 1702, and ended when New Jersey was granted its own royal governor in 1738.

Directors of New Netherland (1624–1664)

A hand-drawn parchment map with territories colored red, green, and yellow, and captions written in Latin.
A 1685 reprint of the 1650 map Novi Belgii Novæque Angliæ showing Virginia, New Netherland, and New England.

New Netherland (Dutch: Nieuw-Nederland) was the 17th-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and the Dutch West India Company. It claimed territories along the eastern coast of North America from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod. Settled areas of New Netherland are now constitute the states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, and parts of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.[1][2] The provincial capital New Amsterdam was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan at Upper New York Bay.[3]

New Netherland was conceived as a private business venture to exploit the North American fur trade.[4] By the 1650s, the colony experienced dramatic growth and became a major port for trade in the North Atlantic. The leader of the Dutch colony was known by the title Director or Director-General. On August 27, 1664, four English frigates commanded by Richard Nicolls sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded the surrender of New Netherland.[5][6] This event sparked the Second Anglo-Dutch War, which led to the transfer of the territory to England per the Treaty of Breda.[7][8]

Portrait Director or
Director-General		 Took office Left office Notes
Cornelius Jacobsen May
(fl. 1600s) 		1624 1625
Willem Verhulst
(or van der Hulst)
(fl. 1600s) 		1625 1626
Portrait of Peter Minuit Peter Minuit
(1580–1638) 		1626 1631
  • Purchased the island of Manhattan from Native Americans on May 24, 1626 for 60 Dutch guilders worth of goods.[9]
Sebastiaen Jansen Krol
(1595–1674) 		1632 1633 Commander at Fort Orange (New Netherland) before and after his term as Director General
portrait of Wouter van Twiller by Washington Allston Wouter van Twiller
(1606–1654) 		1633 1638
  • Previously a Dutch West India Company warehouse clerk, used family connections to the Rensselaer family to gain appointment
  • purchased Nut Island (Noten Eylant), later called Governor's Island from Canarsee tribe for two axeheads, a string of beads and iron nails
  • Lost the colony's claim of the Connecticut River valley to New England settlers
  • Pushed back encroaching Virginia settlers who tried to settle Delaware River valley
Willem Kieft
(1597–1647) 		1638 1647
Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant Peter Stuyvesant
(c.1612-1672) 		1647 1664

Under English control (1664–1783)

Apart from a short period between May 1788 and April 1789, during which New York was part of the Dominion of New England, the territory was known in this period as the Province of New York.

# Portrait Governor Took office Left office Notes
1 Richard Nicolls
(1624–1672) 		1664 1668 as military governor
2 Francis Lovelace
(1621–1675) 		1668 1673
3 Anthony Colve 1673 1674 Dutch naval captain under restored Netherlands rule
4 Edmund Andros
(1637–1714) 		1674 1683
5 Anthony Brockholls
(c. 1656) 		1681 1683 Commander-in-Chief of British Forces and acting governor
6 Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick
(1634–1715) 		1683 1688
7 Francis Nicholson
(1655-1728) 		1688 1691 military governor and de facto only until June 1689
8 Jacob Leisler
(c. 1640–1691) 		1688 1691 Militia officer in rebellion
9 Henry Sloughter
(d. 1691) 		1691 1691
10 Richard Ingoldesby
(d. 1719) 		1691 1692 military officer as acting governor
11 Benjamin Fletcher
(1640–1703) 		1692 1697
12 Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont
(c. 1636–1700/1) 		1698 1700/1
13 John Nanfan
(1688–1702) 		1701 1702as acting governor
14 Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon
(1661-1723) 		1702 1708
15 John Lovelace, 4th Baron Lovelace
(1672–1709) 		1708 1709
16 Pieter Schuyler
(1657–1724) 		1709 1709as acting governor
17 Richard Ingoldesby
(d. 1719) 		1709 1709as acting governor
18 Gerardus Beekman
(1653–1723) 		1709 1710as acting governor
19 Robert Hunter (governor)
(1664–1734) 		1710 1719
20 Pieter Schuyler
(1657–1724) 		1719 1720as acting governor
21 William Burnet
(1687/8–1729) 		1720 1728
22 John Montgomerie
(d. 1731) 		1728 1731
23 Rip Van Dam
(c.1660–1749) 		1731 1732as acting governor
24 William Cosby
(1690–1736) 		1732 1736
25 George Clarke
(1676–1760) 		1736 1743as acting governor
26 George Clinton
(c.1686–1761) 		1743 1753
27 Sir Danvers Osborn, 3rd Baronet
(1715–1753) 		1753 1753
28 James De Lancey
(1703–1760) 		1753 1755as acting governor
29 Charles Hardy
(c. 1714–1780) 		1755 1758
30 James De Lancey
(1703–1760) 		1758 1760as acting governor
31 Cadwallader Colden
(1688–1776) 		1760 1762as acting governor
32 Robert Monckton
(1726–1782) 		1762 1763
33 Cadwallader Colden
(1688–1776) 		1763 1765as acting governor
34 Sir Henry Moore, 1st Baronet
(1713–1769) 		1765 1769
35 Cadwallader Colden
(1688–1776) 		1769 1770as acting governor
36 John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore
(1730–1809) 		1770 1771
37 William Tryon
(1729–1788) 		1771 1774
38 Cadwallader Colden
(1688–1776) 		1774 1775 as acting governor
39 William Tryon
(1729–1788) 		1775 1780
40 James Robertson
(1717–1788) 		1780 1783as military governor
41 Andrew Elliot
(1728–1797) 		1783 1783as military governor

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Grant of Exclusive Trade to New Netherland by the States-General of the United Netherlands; October 11, 1614" from Documentary History of the State of Maine (Portland: Maine Historical Society / Bailey and Noyes, 1869-1916). Published online at the Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  2. ↑ Jacobs, Jaap. New Netherland: A Dutch Colony In Seventeenth-Century America. (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 35.
  3. ↑ van der Sijs, Nicoline. Cookies, Coleslaw and Stoops: The Influence of Dutch on the North American Languages. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 21.
  4. ↑ Dolin, Eric Jay. Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011) passim.
  5. ↑ World Digital Library. Articles about the Transfer of New Netherland on the 27th of August, Old Style, Anno 1664. Retrieved 21 March 2013
  6. ↑ Versteer, Dingman (editor). "New Amsterdam Becomes New York" in The New Netherland Register. Volume 1 No. 4 and 5 (April/May 1911): 49-64.
  7. ↑ Farnham, Mary Frances (compiler). "Farnham Papers (1603-1688)" in Volumes 7 and 8 of Documentary History of the State of Maine. (Portland, Maine: Collections of the Maine Historical Society, 2nd Series. 1901-1902), 7:311-314.
  8. ↑ Parry, Clive (editor). Consolidated Treaty Series 231 Volumes. (Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana Publications, 1969-1981), 10:231.
  9. ↑ Burrows, Edwin G., and Wallace, Mike. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), xivff.
  10. ↑ Merwick, Donna. The Shame and the Sorrow: Dutch-Amerindian Encounters in New Netherland Early American Series. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
  11. ↑ "Journal of New Netherland 1647. Written in the Years 1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645, and 1646". World Digital Library. 1641–1647. Retrieved 2013-08-01.
  12. 1 2 Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. (New York City: Vintage Books, 2004).
  13. ↑ Otto, Paul. The Dutch-Munsee Encounter in America: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Hudson Valley. (Oxford/New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 152; and Kraft, Herbert C. The Lenape: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography. (Newark, New Jersey: New Jersey Historical Society, 1986), 241.

External links

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