Director and Council of New Netherland - Notice to magistrates of English towns to assist Sheriff Resolved Waldron in arresting persons at unlawful meetings.
“By these presents are all Magistrates and Inhabitants off the English Townes in the jurisdiction of the New Netherlands ordered & Required to assist the bearer, our Schout* Resolved Waldron, for to imprison all such persons, which shall be found in a prohibited or an unlawful meeting. Given under our hand this 9th off September, A°: 1662.”
*Schout roughly translates to Sheriff.
Dutch Colonial Council Minutes, 1638-1665. Volume 10 Part 1, p.208. (New York State Archives Digital Collections) - View and download in hi-res
Note: The above document was damaged in the 1911 Capitol Fire in the State Archives at Albany.
Written nearly two weeks after the initial complaint was lodged against John Bowne by the magistrates of Rustdorp, this was the order that sealed his fate. Although it never mentions his name, given the timing of its issue the document is a de facto arrest warrant for Bowne. Resolved Waldron, the “Schout” referred to, held an office equivalent to Sheriff or Chief Constable of the colony. Resolved was a Dutch native of English parentage- ironically, his family probably numbered among the Protestant English who had resettled in the Netherlands for greater religious freedom in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He began life in Holland as a printer’s apprentice, but upon emigrating found his calling in law enforcement, working his way up from the lowly position of “Nacht-Schout” or night watchman to be Stuyvesant’s right-hand man.
Note that the document is written in English (unusually for the Council of the New Netherlands) and addressed specifically to the magistrates, or judges, of the English towns on Long Island where Quaker missionaries from England were focusing their activity. Above and beyond authorizing the Sheriff to arrest all participants in illicit meetings, the order compels local authorities and even ordinary residents to assist him in doing so. No one is allowed to remain a neutral bystander in this battle over Christian souls: citizens must either choose rebellion or complicity.
This was consistent with Director Stuyvesant and the Council’s previously demonstrated desire to dragoon all residents into their law enforcement priorities. In 1661, the previous year, they had demanded that the citizens of Rustdorp commit in writing to inform on any Quaker meetings, and then quartered soldiers for over two months in the homes of holdouts who declined to sign- at the occupants’ expense. (See an account of this episode taken from the Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York.) Genuine prejudice against the Quakers was widespread among the English, but no doubt this recent experience of coercion also factored into the Rustdorp magistrates’ August 1662 denunciation of Bowne.
REFERENCES
Damaged text reproduced from: Documents Relating to the History of the Early Colonial History of New York, Principally on Long Island, ed. & trans. Berthold Fernow. Vol. XIV of Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 1883. https://archive.org/details/documentsrelativ14brod/mode/2up
“Council Minute. Proceedings Against the Quakers at Jamaica, Long Island, 1661.” In Documents Relating to the History of the Early Colonial History of New York, Principally on Long Island, ed. & trans. Berthold Fernow. Vol. XIV of Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 1883) 489-93.