New Amsterdam Becomes a City

On February 2, 1653, Candlemas Day, Governor Peter Stuyvesant granted New Amsterdam a municipal charter, making it an official city rather than just a company outpost run from Holland. The change had been forced from below: colonists led by Adriaen van der Donck had sailed to Amsterdam and petitioned the Dutch government directly, and in April 1652 the West India Company's Directors told Stuyvesant he could set up a city government with a schout, two burgomasters, and five schepens, officials who acted as both administrators and a court of law. Stuyvesant sat on the order for months before finally acting on the date Amsterdam's own burgomasters traditionally took their oaths. Four days later, on February 6, 1653, the new officials held their first court session in the old City Tavern, promptly renamed the Stadt Huys, at what is now the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets.