SIEGECRAFT: THE LESSON OF NEW AMSTERDAM | nationalsalvation.net
Historians love to talk about the extreme tolerance of New Amsterdam.
Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam was astonished when the first shipload of Jews arrived there about 1640.
He immediately informed the Dutch company that owned the colony the he had told them to leave, without the slightest doubt that they would agree. Stuyvesant was astonished when the company instructions arrived from Holland telling him to let them stay. New Amsterdam was for EVERYBODY, they said.
The Dutch on the island were merely a large minority.
Historians love to talk about this incident. They never mention what happened afterward.
When the British fleet came in to take New Amsterdam from the tolerant Dutch AND the tolerant company that owned it, Stuyvesant tried to organize a defense. He was met by a delegation of citizens of New Amsterdam that was led by his own son.
This delegation reflected the exact sentiments of the Dutch who had founded the place and the company that owned it. They told the Governor that they were not about to fight the British.
They said that, as far as they were concerned, it made not the slightest difference who governed the place, as long as it was a stable power, like England, that would allow business to go on as usual.
So the Dutch lost their profitable colony and the company lost every guilder it had put into the place, all without a shot fired.
A melting pot has no loyalty.