Removing to Holland,
his high qualities led to his selection by the Dutch West India
Company as the fittest man to be the first governor and
director-general of the Dutch colonies on the Hudson. His great
efficiency and public success in that capacity made him the subject of
jealousies and accusations, resulting in his recall after five or six
years of the most effective administration of the affairs of those
colonies. Oxenstiern had the breadth and penetration to understand his
real worth, and appointed him the first governor of the New Sweden
which since has become the great State of Pennsylvania. He lived less
than five years in this new position, and died in Fort Christina,
which he built and held during his last years of service on earth. He
was a wise, laborious, and far-seeing man, consecrated with all his
powers to the formation of a free commonwealth on this then wild
territory. His name has largely sunk away from public attention, as
the work of the Swedes in general in the founding and fashioning of
our commonwealth; but he and they deserve far better than has been
awarded them.
A few years ago (1876) some movement was for the first time made to
erect a suitable monument to the memory of Minuit. Surely the founder
of the greatest city in this Western World, and of the colonial
possessions of two European nations, and the first president and
governor of the two greatest States in the American Union, ranks among
the great historic personages of his period; and his high qualities,
noble spirit, and valuable services demand for him a grateful
recognition which has been far too slow in coming.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133