Early Life and Education
Peter Minuit was born in 1580 in Wesel. This was during a period of religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics polities following the Protestant Reformation that culminated in the Thirty Years' War. Minuit's Walloon family, originally from the French-speaking city of Tournai in modern day Belgium, was among those Protestants who migrated away from suppression under the Roman Catholic government of the Spanish Netherlands. In 1580, Minuit's family took refuge in the city of Wesel, which had become a haven for Protestants as early as 1540.
The Eighty Years' War split the Netherlands into a Catholic South and a Protestant North. The religious wars were concluded by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. They would leave much of Germany devastated, though Westphalia suffered less than some areas. Protestant refugees from German states and France migrated to sympathetic nations and cities such as London. The neighboring Dutch Republic emerged in the 17th century as a dominant force in Europe.
At some point Minuit moved to Utrecht and never returned to his homeland.
Read more about this topic: Peter Minuit
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The experience of the race shows that we get our most important education not through books but through our work. We are developed by our daily task, or else demoralized by it, as by nothing else.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)