Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant (c.1612 – August 1672), served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York. He was a major figure in the early history of New York City. Stuyvesant's accomplishments as director-general included a great expansion for the settlement of New Amsterdam beyond the southern tip of Manhattan. Among the projects built by Stuyvesant's administration were the protective wall on Wall Street, the canal that became Broad Street, and Broadway.

Although conventionally referred to in English today as "Peter Stuyvesant", Stuyvesant's given name was actually "Pieter" or "Petrus"; "Peter" is not found in historical records.

Read more about Peter Stuyvesant:  Life and Career, Legacy, In Popular Culture, Religious Freedom

Famous quotes containing the word peter:

    That matches are made in heaven, may be, but my wife would have been just the wife for Peter the Great, or Peter Piper. How would she have set in order that huge littered empire of the one, and with indefatigable painstaking picked the peck of pickled peppers for the other.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)