Editing New Netherland (section)

===Director-General Stuyvesant===
[[File:St Mark's Church - New York City.jpg|thumb|[[St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery]], site of [[Peter Stuyvesant]]'s grave]]
[[Peter Stuyvesant]] arrived in New Amsterdam in 1647, the only [[governor]] of the colony to be called [[Director of New Netherland|Director-General]].
Some years earlier, land ownership policy was liberalized, and trading was somewhat deregulated, and many [[New Netherlander]]s considered themselves [[entrepreneur]]s in a [[free market]]. The population had reached about 15,000, including 500 on Manhattan Island.<ref name="Shorto" />

During the period of his governorship, the province experienced exponential growth.<ref name="wellingnieuwnl"/> Demands were made upon Stuyvesant from all sides: the GWC, the States General, and the New Netherlanders. The English were nibbling at Dutch territory to the north and the [[New Sweden|Swedes]] to the south, while in the heart of the province, the [[Lenape|Esopus]] were trying to contain further Dutch expansion. Discontent in New Amsterdam led locals to dispatch Adriaen van der Donck back to the United Provinces to seek redress. After nearly three years of legal and political wrangling, the Dutch Government came down against the GWC, granting the colony a measure of self-government and recalling Stuyvesant in April 1652. However, the orders were rescinded with the outbreak of the [[First Anglo-Dutch War]] a month later.<ref name="Shorto" />  Military battles were occurring in the [[Caribbean]] and along the [[Atlantic Ocean|South Atlantic]] coast. In 1654, the Netherlands lost [[Dutch Brazil|New Holland]] in Brazil to Portugal, encouraging some of its residents to emigrate north and making the North American colonies more appealing to some investors. The [[Esopus Wars]] are so named for the branch of [[Lenape]] that lived around Wiltwijck, today's [[Kingston, New York|Kingston]], which was the Dutch settlement on the west bank of [[Hudson River]] between [[Albany, New York|Beverwyk]] and [[New Amsterdam]]. These conflicts were generally over settlement of land by New Netherlanders for which contracts had not been clarified, and were seen by the natives as an unwanted incursion into their territory. Previously, the Esopus, a clan of the [[Munsee]] Lenape, had much less contact with the [[Hackensack (Native Americans)|River Indians]] and the [[Mohawk nation|Mohawks]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Otto, Paul |title=The Dutch-Munsee Encounter in America: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Hudson Valley|year=2006|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=1-57181-672-0|author-link=Paul Otto (historian)}}</ref>
According to historian Eleanor Bruchey:
:Peter Stuyvesant was essentially a difficult man thrust into a difficult position. Quick tempered, self-confident, and authoritarian, he was determined...to rule firmly and to repair the fortunes of the company. The company, however, had run the colony solely for trade profits, with scant attention to encouraging immigration and developing local government. Stuyvesant's predecessors...had been dishonest or, at best, inept, so there was no tradition of respect and support for the governorship on which he could build. Furthermore, the colonists were vocal and quick to challenge authority....Throughout his administration there were constant complaints to the company of his tyrannical acts and pressure for more local self-government....His religious intolerance also exacerbated relations with the colonists, most of whom did not share his narrow outlook.<ref>Eleanor Bruchey, "Stuyvesant, Peter" in John A. Garraty, ed. ''Encyclopedia of American Biography'' (2nd ed. 1996) p. 1065 [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780062700179/page/94/mode/2up online]</ref>