England Expands Its Empire

Facing a British military threat, the Dutch surrender their hold on New Netherlands.

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

In August, 1664, an English soldier named Richard Nicolls sailed his warship into the deep water off the western Long Island shoreline, dropped anchor, and ordered the Dutch to leave their small community on Manhattan island.

It took only a few days for the Dutch to comply.

"It was a humiliating few days for the Dutch," said Charles Gehring, director of the New Netherlands Project in Albany. "Nicolls threatened to turn his ship's cannons on them, so they packed up and left."

Word spread across Long Island that the Dutch government, led by Peter Stuyvesant, the man with the wooden leg embroidered with silver bands, had surrendered and boarded a boat for the Netherlands. The Island's residents -- from the Dutch farmers on the western end to the small, English villages on the East End -- waited anxiously to see what changes would be wrought by Nicolls, who was installed as the new governor.

They did not have to wait long. Among Nicolls' first tasks was to redraw the map. What is today Staten Island, Long Island and Westchester -- the heart of New Netherlands -- was renamed Yorkshire. He then divided Yorkshire into three "ridings," or administrative districts. East Riding included all of the present-day Suffolk County; North Riding included Weschester County and nearly all of modern-day Queens County; West Riding took in Staten Island, what is now Kings County and a section of Queens County.

A sheriff was appointed for all of Yorkshire, and each riding had a deputy sheriff. A court system made up of justices of the peace, who would meet three times a year, was instituted. The foundation for English law was now in place across the region. In what would be his most significant contribution to New York history, Nicolls then compiled "the Duke's Laws," which contained the civil and criminal codes that covered all of Yorkshire. He named them for James, the duke of York, who was the brother of England's King Charles II. These laws also regulated Indian affairs, church activities and required all governments to keep public records.

The English towns on Long Island, which had for more than two decades almost entirely governed themselves, were now under the umbrella of laws written in far-off New York -- they were now a part of something much larger. They had a governor to answer to, and judges, and a set of laws where none before existed.

Hoping to sell the Duke's Laws to his new subjects, Nicolls held a political convention -- a first for Long Island. He picked the tiny hamlet of Hempstead -- the English village that had been under Dutch control -- and summoned representatives from every English town on Long Island. In March, 1665, six months after the Dutch surrender, Dutch-speaking farmers from the west end and English-speaking villagers from the East End arrived in Hempstead to discuss the new laws that would govern their lives.

The Duke's Laws were based on codes that existed in New England. But there were modifications that troubled Long Islanders. The biggest gripe was that Nicolls made no provision for town meetings, an elected assembly or for public schools. Bowing to the Dutch, who had permitted religious dissidents such as Quakers, he allowed for religious tolerance, which was unheard-of in the church-dominated governments on the East End.

"Nicolls tried hard to find a middle ground between two very different people -- the Dutch and the English," said Paul Otto, a history professor at Dordt College, in Iowa. "He is seen as doing a pretty good job, even though there was a great deal of complaining from both sides."

The governor evidently wearied of the complaining, and he was replaced just three years after vanquishing the Dutch. His replacement was Francis Lovelace, who assumed power in April, 1667. Nicolls stayed on another year before sailing for England, where five years later he was killed in a sea battle. (His Long Island legacy can be found in street names such as Nicolls Road.)

But the Dutch flag would fly over Manhattan Island again.

In 1672, another war erupted between the Dutch and English on the high seas. The following year, a Dutch fleet plundered English shipping along the East Coast, then sailed into New York Harbor to reclaim their former colony. The Dutch commander, Cornelius Evertsen, sent a message ashore that he was here to take what "was theyr owne ..." Soon, 600 Dutch soldiers landed on the west side of Manhattan, and the English promptly surrendered.

On July 30, 1673, the Dutch flag once again flew over the city. Once again, the maps were redrawn. New York was now New Netherlands.

But this was not to last. Fifteen months later, in October, 1674, the Dutch signed a treaty relinquishing their American claim for good, in exchange for other property concessions internationally. New York was back on the map. And so were the Duke's Laws.