History
Peter Stuyvesant on board
The Prinscesse Amelia sailed early in 1647 from Texel in the Netherlands and arrived in New Amsterdam (present-day New York) in May of that year. On board was Peter (official name Petrus) Stuyvesant, the new Director-General of the colony.
The Amelia left again for the Netherlands on August 16th, 1647, with a cargo of 200,000 pounds of dyewood from Curaçao and around 14.000 beaver pelts.
There were 107 people on board. The predecessor of Stuyvesant, Willem Kieft, was one of them. The other passengers included Dutch West India Company soldiers who had recently arrived in Manhattan from Brazil and the Caribbean.
The Princesse Amelia was lost before the coast of Wales on 27 September 1647. of the 107 passengers, only 21 were saved. Former governor Kieft also drowned. Most of the cargo was lost.
During the rule of Kieft, there were conflicts concerning the amount of self-governance of the colonists, conflicts with the ever advancing English, and conflicts with the native inhabitants. These had it increasingly difficult because they were driven from their hunting areas by the colonists. Thes conflicts led to the dismissal of Kieft.
Description
Yard: Amsterdam
Owner: WIC chamber of Amsterdam
Tonnage: 300 last
Crew: 107
Armament: 38 cannon
| Master | Bol, Jan Claesen |
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