Directors of New Netherland

This is a list of Directors, appointed by the Dutch West India Company, of the 17th century Dutch province of New Netherland (Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch) in North America. Only the last, Peter Stuyvesant, held the title of Director General. As the colony grew, citizens advisory boards – known as the Twelve Men, Eight Men, and Nine Men – exerted more influence on the director and thus affairs of province.

There were New Netherland settlements in what later became the US states of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, with short-lived outposts in areas of today's Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. The capital, New Amsterdam, became the city of New York when the New Netherlanders provisionally ceded control of the colony to the English, who renamed the city and the rest of the province in June 1665.

During the restitution to Dutch rule from August 1673 to November 1674, when New Netherland was under the jurisdiction of the City of Amsterdam, the first Dutch governor, Anthony Colve, was appointed.


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