Cornelis van Tienhoven (ca. 1601 Utrecht

Utrecht (city)

Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

- November 1656 ?, Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 ?) was secretary of the New Netherlands from 1638 to 1656 and as such one of the most influential people in New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....

.

Van Tienhoven was born the son of Luyt (Lucas) Cornelisz van Tienhoven and Jannetje Adriaens de Haes. He arrived in New Amsterdam as a Dutch West Indies Company accountant in 1633 on the same ship as the new director of the colony Wouter van Twiller

Wouter van Twiller

Wouter van Twiller was an employee of the Dutch West India Company and the Director-General of New Netherland from 1633 until 1638...

. He was promoted to 'schout-fiscaal' (usually translated as secretary) with the arrival of Director Willem Kieft

Willem Kieft

Willem Kieft was a Dutch merchant and director-general of New Netherland , from 1638 until 1647. He formed the council of twelve men, the first representative body in New Netherland, but ignored its advice...

 in 1638 and retained that title under
Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant , served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York...

 in 1647. In 1648 he married the 16-year old Rachel Vigne. During the 1649 mission of Adriaen van der Donck

Adriaen van der Donck

Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck was a lawyer and landowner in New Netherland after whose honorific Jonkheer the city of Yonkers, New York is named...

 to the Netherlands to plead to the States-General of the Netherlands

States-General of the Netherlands

The States-General of the Netherlands is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The parliament meets in at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The archaic Dutch word "staten" originally related to the feudal classes in which medieval...

 for local governance for the residents of New Amsterdam, Cornelis van Tienhoven also went as the representative of Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant , served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York...

 and argued against it.

When New Amsterdam was granted the right to establish a local government in 1652, he became the first schout

Schout

In Dutch-speaking areas, a schout was a local official appointed to carry out administrative, law enforcement and prosecutorial tasks. The office was abolished with the introduction of administrative reforms during the Napoleonic period.- Functions:...

 in the colony. His actions appear to have had a very negative effect on the relationship of the colonists and the native people, instigating several retaliatory raids by the latter. His last misdeed, when Stuyvesant was on a visit to the Dutch colony in Delaware

Delaware

Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...

, seems to have led to the Peach Tree War

Peach Tree War

The Peach Tree War, also known as the "Peach War," is the name given to a large scale attack on the New Netherland colony of Pavonia, across from New Amsterdam, and surrounding settlements along the North River by the Susquehannock Nation and allied Native Americans on September 15,...

, after which the Company directors back in Holland ordered Stuyvesant to fire Van Tienhoven, which happened in June 1656.

Van Tienhoven's hat and cane were found in the Hudson river

Hudson River

The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

 on November 18, 1656, but it is unknown if he drowned, was murdered by one of his many enemies, or simply disappeared, as he was supposed to appear in court. At the moment his wife was expecting his fourth child. Van Tienhoven's younger brother escaped at around the same time to Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

 but there is no indication that Cornelis came along.

External links

• A less than flattering biography
• A biting profile in The Morning News
  The Morning News (online magazine)
  The Morning News is a U.S.-based daily online magazine founded in 1999 by Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack. It began as an email newsletter and in the fall of 2000 evolved into a news-oriented weblog with a New York focus...
  
  (published and accessed April 3, 2008)