From de Halve Maen, April, 1946, Vol.XXI No.x
Peace was concluded with the Long Island and River Indians on August 30, 1645, at a historic Conclave, held at the Bowling Green. Under the glowering eyes of the Mohawk Ambassadors, the bloody war, begun by Director Kieft’s unprovoked attack on the Algonquins more than two years before, finally came to an end. With the peace there came also a dearth of news and for the first three months of 1646, we do not find much in the old records to write about, although during this period there came to a head the violent controversy between Director Kieft and Domine Bogardus, which because it was the first battle for human rights on Manhattan, has much of interest for us.
Director Kieft was a small, waspish man, a martinet, of little ability except to make enemies and commit outrages. He was a coward, a blusterer and it is reported that in former years he had diverted to his own use monies left with him in trust. When he left New Amsterdam he took back with him a large sum of money.
Domine Bogardus was a tall, stately and handsome man, an eloquent speaker with a powerful personality and the courage of his convictions, with liberal political views and a penchant for liquor. He is reported to have been a hard drinker. In 1638 he had married Annetje, the widow who had inherited from her late husband Roeloff Jansen 62 acres of valuable lands on Broadway, north of Warren St. These lands became later the Trinity property. Thus Bogardus, through his wife, was a man of wealth and not altogether dependent on his ministerial stipend.
The Domine first comes into the records when he blasted Director Van Twiller in 1634. Then he denounced the Director from his pulpit and called him a “villain and a Child of the Devil” and threatened him with “such a shake from the pulpit—as would make him shudder.”
Director Van Twiller was a placid man and seems to have paid no attention to these attacks. But, some four years later, formal charges were brought against Bogardus before the Classis of Amsterdam and were later referred for action to Kieft, who was then Director, and to the Consistory of New Amsterdam. On that occasion Kieft defended Bogardus with the result that the charges were dropped.
The two men were friendly enough when, in 1642, on the festive occasion of the marriage of the Domine’s stepdaughter, Sara, to Dr. Hans Kierstede, the town physician, the Director passed a subscription list for the construction of the proposed church, a sorely needed innovation.
The first open breach between the men came in 1643. The Algonquins, in their mysterious fashion, had learned that the sinister Mohawk tribute gatherers were on their way. Terror-stricken, the River Indians, men, women and children, fled to the river shore at Pavonia (Jersey City) and to Manhattan (Grand St. and East River) seeking the protection of the Dutch. Having these poor refugees in his power, Kieft announced that he would destroy them. In vain Bogardus and De Vries protested. Kieft persisted in his evil design. On midnight of February 25, 1643, a black date in New York history, the unprovoked and unheralded massacre took place. Kieft proclaimed a victory and permitted the severed heads of his victims to be kicked around the parade ground within the fort.
The bloody war with the Algonquin tribes followed. Fire and murder swept across the province and the homeless people crowded down to the fort and clamored for the protection that the Director could not give them. For the first time, dissension, almost revolution, came to New Netherland. Kieft did not dare to leave the protection of the fort and Bogardus thundered at him from the pulpit.
By the summer of 1645, the controversy had assumed the characteristics of a public brawl. Kieft charged Bogardus with being drunk in the pulpit, of failing to partake of the communion although administering it, of rabble-rousing and of preaching on pornographic subjects to the shame of his parishioners.
Bogardus flamed back in prayer and sermon. The Director absented himself from the church and the communion and took along with him many of his officers and supporters, including Cornelius Van Tienhoven, Cornelius van der Hoyckens, Jan de La Montaigne, Oloff Stevensen, Gysbrecht Van Dyck and others.
Bogardus continued to fight from the pulpit preaching to many empty pews. The Director went further. During the sermon and the prayer, he arranged for “nine-pins’ bowls, dancing, singing, leaping and other profane exercises” and ordered drums to be beaten and cannon fired under the church windows. And yet he could not silence the Domine.
In the Autumn of 1645, Kieft denied to Arnoldus Van Hardenburg, a “free merchant,” the right to appeal to Amsterdam from a Decree of Confiscation and in addition fined him heavily for questioning the “Decree of the Director.” Kieft explained that he took this action “as an example to others.”
Bogardus now denounced this action as an act of tyranny and Kieft, in retaliation (January 1646), brought an indictment against the Domine charging, among other things, “mutiny and rebellion” and the “causing of schisms and abuses” in the Church and cited Bogardus to answer within fourteen days. This order Bogardus ignored and further refused to receive or to answer the letters and messages of the Director.
Bogardus was a champion of the common people. He is one of the outstanding figures of our history of New Netherland.