355 years ago on this day, the directors of the Dutch West India Company refused to grant Governor Peter Stuyvesant permission to bar Jews from entering New Amsterdam, essentially ending official efforts to restrict Jewish immigration into North America.
The first Jewish immigrants to settle North America came to New Amsterdam (now New York City) as refugees escaping the Inquisition's oppression in the Portuguese colony of Pernambuco, Brazil. New Amsterdam’s governor, Peter Stuyvesant, made it clear that they were not welcome. In hopes of preventing their entry, Stuyvesant wrote a letter to Dutch West India Company board members, who oversaw the colony, requesting permission to expel them. The letter, dated September 22, 1654, said:b
The Jews who have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians) were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most affection for you; the Deaconry also fearing that owing to their present indigence they might become a charge in the coming winter, we have, for the benefit of this weak and newly developing place and the land in general, deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart, praying also most seriously in this connection, for ourselves as also for the general community of your worships, that the deceitful race—such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ—be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony to the detraction of your worships and the dissatisfaction of your worships' most affectionate subjects.
Apart from Stuyvesant's anti-Semitic views, he ultimately argued that the Jews, as immigrants, would burden New Amsterdam thus harming the Dutch West India Company's profits. Learning of Stuyvesant’s plans, the twenty-three Jewish refugees appealed to Jewish shareholders of the Dutch West India Company for help. Responding to the refugees, company directors wrote a letter, dated April 26, 1655, ordering Stuyvesant to allow the Jews to remain in New Amsterdam, “provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation”:
We would have liked to effectuate and fulfill your wishes and request that the new territories should no more be allowed to be infected by people of the Jewish nation, for we foresee therefrom the same difficulties which you fear, but after having further weighed and considered the matter, we observe that this would be somewhat unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable loss sustained by this nation, with others, in the taking of Brazil, as also because of the large amount of capital which they still have invested in the shares of this company. Therefore after many deliberations we have finally decided and resolved to apostille [annotate] upon a certain petition presented by said Portuguese Jews that these people may travel and trade to and in New Netherland and live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation. You will now govern yourself accordingly.
A year later, on June 10, 1656, Governor Stuyvesant sent the following report to the company on his implementation of company policies:
Considering the Jewish nation with regard to trade, they are not hindered, but trade with the same privilege and freedom as other inhabitants. Also, they have many times requested of us the free and public exercise of their abominable religion, but this cannot yet be accorded to them. What they may be able to obtain from your Honors time will tell.
Despite Stuyvesant’s clear anti-Jewish sentiments, he complied with the wishes of the Dutch West Indian Company, setting a precedent for Jewish immigration in the colony. When the English captured the colony in 1664, the city’s Jewish residents continued to enjoy the same rights.
Over three-hundred years later, Stuyvesant's name is no longer negatively associated with Jews. Stuyvesant today is associated with Stuyvesant High School, opened in 1904 in New York City. Noted for its high academic standards, it is consistently ranked among the best high schools in America. As for the student body, it has historically been heavily Jewish. Governor Stuyvesant was wrong. The Jews were far from a burden.
