Willem Kieft

Willem Kieft, also Wilhelm Kieft, (September 1597 – September 27, 1647) was a Dutch merchant and the Director of New Netherland (of which New Amsterdam was the capital) from 1638 to 1647.

Life and career The handwritten Journal of New Netherland 1647 by an unknown Dutch colonist, from the manuscript collections of the National Library of the Netherlands, is an important source for the study of Kieft's governorship, the war, and New Netherland in the 1640s.

Willem Kieft was appointed to the rank of director by the Dutch West India Company in 1638. He formed the council of twelve men, the first representative body in New Netherland, but ignored its advice.

He tried to tax, and then drive out, local Native Americans. His archive was also lost, so his exact role cannot be established apart from what his opponents wrote of him.

Legacy He is depicted in the Gods of Manhattan series by Scott Mebus.