He's protected today from Covid 19 but not in April 1644 as Governor of Curacao when he lead an unsuccessful attack on St. Martin against the Spanish and lost his leg to a cannonbal. He was then forever known as 'Peg Leg Pete'.
In 1845 he became Director-General of New Amsterdam, currently New York City.
His great contribution to us today is religious freedom. He was against it. He hated Jews, Catholics every race and religion that was not a part of the Dutch Reformed Church. & When he ordered the public torture of 23 year old Quaker convert Robert Hodgson, the Quakers of Flushing, Queens rebelled. That is known as the Flushing Remonstrance, an important trigger to our Bill of Rights' Freedom of Religion.
Is there a moral to the story? Seems like there should be.
Should he have a statue? He helped grow the city but he used that growth to fight the New Haven Community. And more: He sailed down the Delaware river to attack New Sweden as a part of the European Second Northern War. In his absence Native Americans attacked Pavonia and that began the Peach Tree War. No one knows how many lives were lost in these conflicts but we know not much was changed because of them. New Sweden's 18 settlements still exist as American Cities e.g. Kingsessing is Southwest Philadelphia, and Sidoland is a part of Wilmington, Delaware.
And then there's slavery. He owned 40 slaves, the largest amount owned by any person at that time in New Amsterdam. He oversaw in 1660 Manhattan's first auctioning of slaves.
Let's find someone else to represent New Amsterdam. Think positive. There must be one.
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