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Adriaen van der Donck, born during the 1618-1620 period, is one of several interesting and important figures prominent in the development on New Netherland. He put his stamp on both the Rensselaerswyck colony, but later also on New Amsterdam during the periods of the governor generals Kieft and Stuyvesant. In addition, he was the first, and for a long time probably the only immigrant, who had had a university education and an education in the legal area. To be sure, the Dutch Reformed Church ministers also had advanced education but that was focused largely on theology.

Van der Donck also had a very interesting family background. His maternal grandfather, Adriaen van Bergen was the military officer, under the Dutch Prince Maurits, who masterminded the capture of the city of Breda in 1590 from the Spanish colonialists by means of smuggling a contingent of military troops into the city on a peat boat, a feat analogous to the Trojan Horse epic. The story of the Breda peat boat smuggling operation is one of the most famous patriotic stories of the eighty-year war [1568-1648], a war the Dutch fought for their independence from the hated Spanish colonialists. It is still an important part of Dutch history taught in the country's elementary schools.

Van der Donck was fortunate to come from a fairly well-to-do family and as a result he was destined to go on to University. His parents were Cornelis Gijsbrechtszoon van der Donck and Agatha van Bergen. He decided to study law and the University of Leyden was the top school to pursue a career in law. He was accepted and entered the university in 1638 and graduated with a law degree in 1641.

As a graduate of one of the world's most prestigious universities, and especially in law, Van der Donck had many career choices. But he was adventurous and was willing to take risks. So he decided to find a career in the new world. New Amsterdam and New Netherland fascinated him, and the two choices for him were to go to work for either the Dutch West India Company [DWIC], or for Killian Van Rensselaer, the wealthy Amsterdam businessman who had control of vast tracts of lands in the area that is now Albany, New York. He chose to go to work for Van Rensselaer, who promptly appointed him to be the Schout [loosely translated as sheriff] of his vast New Netherland estate, called Renssealerswyck.

Being the Schout of Rensselaerswyck turned out to be more than just a job of enforcing the law and maintaining peace. The job essentially involved managing the estate for Killian Van Rensselaer who liked to run his New Netherland estate from the safety of Amsterdam, but with a lot of close direction to his agents in New Netherland. Vanderdonck was essentially one of Van Renssealer's agents. It became quickly clear that Van der Donck and Van Rensselaer did not always see eye to eye and some of Van Renssealaer's directions were not always carried out by Van derDdonck. Whereas Van Rensselaer wanted to run a strict regime with his tenants, Vanderdonck in case of disputes would side with the tenants and go against the directions of Van Rensselaer. It was a relationship that was bound to fail, and fail it did.

It is not clear when Van der Donck decided to leave his position as one of Van Rensselaer's enforcers or agents and move to New Amsterdam where he felt he could more profitably use his skills as a legal expert and mediator. At that time Willem Kieft was the governor general of New Netherland and he had enraged the population of New Amsterdam by taxing the Indians and then by starting a war with the Indians. Since the population traded with the Indians and essentially lived among them, they were up in arms about Kieft's behavior. The local population had nothing to gain from a war and much to lose. When Vanderdonck arrived in New Amsterdam from Rensselaerswyck he did side with the population and wrote a treatise on the war which was sent to the Dutch government, the States General, in Holland. The Dutch government promptly ordered Kieft to end his ruinous war. Kieft then called in Van der Donck to help him negotiate a peace treaty with the Indians. Vanderdonck agreed to help and as a result of his efforts a peace
treaty with the Indians was agreed upon.

As compensation for his work on attaining peace with the Indians, Vanderdonck was given a large tract of land by the DWIC. Later he purchased additional land nearby, and established his own estate on what is now Yonkers, New York. Van der Donck, either because of his status as a landowner or on the basis of his status as a peace maker and judicial specialist was addressed by the honorary title "jonkheer", or with the shorter title of "jonker". The latter term in Dutch is pronounced as "Yonker", and this is where the term Yonkers, the name of the city, came from.

In 1649, Van de rDonck was appointed by the then governor general Peter Stuyvesant to be a member of the Council of Nine, a group of advisors and legislators in the New Amsterdam Colony. Since Vanderdonck was by far the best educated member of the Council of Nine he quickly became its leader. He then ran into conflict with Stuyvesant about running the colony. The conflict ended up in a stand-off and it was decided that the government in Holland, the States General, would have to resolve the conflict. Vanderdonck then left for Holland where he argued to the States General for making the governor general of New Netherland solely responsible to the States General in Holland and not to the DWIC. His arguments received considerable approval, but unfortunately Holland became involved with a war with England and the still weak Dutch government needed the support of the DWIC in its war efforts with the English. All of Vanderdonck's efforts were for naught. In 1653 Van der Donck received permission to return to New
Amsterdam with the provision that he would stay out of politics.

Van der Donck returned to his estate in New Amsterdam and lived the quiet life of a landlord to his tenants. He passed away in 1655 or early 1656, most likely the victim of an attack by the Indians, as the war with the Indians had resumed and the Vanderdonck estate had been raided. Van der Ddonck was only in his mid thirties at the time of his death. It was a sad epistle to his life story. He had been an advocate of Indians' rights during his life. But it was not enough to secure his life at that critical moment prior to his death.

Van der Donck did have a family life. He married Mary Doughty, the daughter of an English minister in New Amsterdam in 1645. During his trip and stay in Holland his wife accompanied him. As far as is known there were no children. After Van der Donck's death his widow remained on his estate and married Hugh O'Neil.

References

Wikipedia - Adriaen van der Donck (Dutch)

Dutch Colonies Archives

Philipse Manor Hall