DELAWARE HISTORY
PIETER CORNELISZ PLOCKHOY
AMERICAS FIRST MENNONITE
Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy,
an idealist, arrived America 1663, determined to bring
together
a world where there would
be no social classes, no disparity between rich and poor, no
lordships,
or servile slavery. Pieter
Plockhoy, born 1625 or so, to a Mennonite family of Zierikzee
in the
Dutch province of Zeeland,
was about to get his first lesson of reality.
1658 he went to England to
find financing but unable to do so returned to Holland. Several
years later Amsterdam
supported him and a settlement which Plockhoy recruited who
would
work at farming, fishing,
handicraft, etc.
In May, 1663, Plockhoy
and forty followers , set sail on the St. Jacob for Cape
Henlopen where Zwaanendael had failed I 1631, and July, 1663 he
led the colonists and baggage ashore.
1663 as a time when the
British and Dutch were competing fro settlements worldwide.
The Hudson River Dutch and
the Delaware River Dutch were driving a wedge between the Virginia
and New England British
colonies and Plockhoy's Cape Henlopen was a British target.
British Sir Robert Carr
came to Cape Henlopen and had little trouble with Plockhoy's
settlement and the Dutch
were treated with humanity and gemtlemaness. Carr had destroyed
the Quaker society of
Plockhoy.
It is not known what
happened to Plockhoy but it is thought he was killed defending
his
upon Delaware colony.
Abstract: Wednesday,
May 4, 2016, Delaware Coast Press, Michael Morgan's
Delaware Diary.
No comments:
Post a Comment