Peter Stuyvesant and the Historic Knickerbocker Bank $1 Proof | Stack's-Bowers Numismatics News

In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant (shown at lower right of the Knickerbocker Bank $1 Proof) arrived as the new Director General of New Amsterdam, at the time a colony in need of rescue from chaos and corruption. His autocratic governing style made him a good administrator and he is credited with making peace with local natives, increasing commerce, and improving relations with other colonies, particularly the English.

However, Peter Stuyvesant was a rather roughhouse guy and a man who wanted his way. His leg had been shot off 20 years back and he had a prosthetic (see vignette featured here from the Bowery Bank $1 proof offered as Lot 5577 of The 52 Collection). His overpowering style and religious intolerance were notorious. He liked to use those punishment devices seen in the 1659 New York view vignette above for those “heretical” to his approach. He attempted to keep Jews and all other non-Dutch reformed out of New Amsterdam, an unrealistic stance for what would become one of the major world ports in the history of mankind. However, the English Colonials saw the wisdom of owning New York, cooperated with rich Dutch land barons there; it was better for the “peg-leg” to hit the bricks to his homeland when the British came in 1662.