Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck (c.1618 – 1655) was a lawyer and landowner in New Netherland after whose honorific Jonkheer the city of Yonkers, New York, is named.

[1] Enchanted by his new homeland of New Netherland, Van der Donck made detailed accounts of the land, vegetation, animals, waterways, topography, and climate.

[5] His family was well connected on his mother's side, as her father, Adriaen van Bergen, was remembered as a hero for having helped free Breda from Spanish forces during the course of the Eighty Years' War.

To this end, he approached the patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer, securing a post as schout, a combination of sheriff and prosecutor, for his large, semi-independent estate, Rensselaerswijck, located near modern Albany.

In New Amsterdam, disgruntled colonists had been sending ineffective complaints to the Dutch West India Company about the Director of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, who had begun a bloody war with the Indians against the advice of the council of twelve men.

Kieft's War badly damaged relations and trade between the Indians and the Dutch, made life more dangerous for colonists living in outlying areas, and drained the colony's resources.

The Dutch West India Company did decide to remove Kieft from his post in 1645, citing the terrible damage caused to trade by his war against the Indians.

Despite this change, van der Donck continued his flurry of documents against Kieft, apparently using his example now solely to make a case for the creation of a local government.

The new director-general tried to take a firm hand with the colonists — it was noted that anyone who opposed Stuyvesant "hath as much as the sun and moon against him"[13] — but eventually he had to agree to the creation of a permanent advisory board.

[14] Van der Donck began keeping a journal of the colonists' many grievances against the West India Company, Kieft, and Stuyvesant,[15] planning to synthesize their complaints into a single document to be presented to the Dutch States General.

His enthusiastic description of the land and its potential created much excitement about New Netherland; so many were suddenly eager to immigrate that ships were forced to turn away paying passengers.

[3] Apparently, van der Donck's decision to go public paid off, because in April 1650, the States General issued a provisional order that the West India Company create a more liberal form of government to encourage emigration to the Dutch colony.

The States General also drafted a letter in April 1652 demanding the recall of Stuyvesant to the Netherlands, which van der Donck would personally deliver to the Director-General.

The States General feared experimenting in local government in a time of war, and needed the close cooperation of the West India Company (practically a branch of the military) in the struggle, and so rescinded their decision.

[24] Of special note to modern anthropologists are Van der Donck's descriptions of the indigenous peoples' beliefs regarding God, devils, and the origin of the world.

After years of firmly blocking van der Donck's requests to sail, the Dutch West India Company finally agreed on May 26, 1653, to allow him to return home to his family on the condition he retire from public life.

The Company sent the following petition to its directors: The undersigned, Adriaen van der Donck, humbly requests consent and passport of the Board to go to New Netherland, offering to resign the commission previously given to him as President of the community, or otherwise as its deputy, and...to accept no office whatever it may be, but rather to live in private peacefully and quietly as a common inhabitant, submitting to the orders and commands of the Company or those enacted by its director.

[25]However, once arrived, van der Donck's giving up public office was apparently not enough, as he was subsequently denied the right to continue practicing law because there was no one of "sufficient ability and the necessary qualifications" to equal him.

[21] There is no record of van der Donck's death, but he was alive and just 37 years old during the summer of 1655, then referred to as deceased in a court case heard January 10, 1656 over parties disputing ownership of two bibles taken from his house by Indians.

[4] Thomas O'Donnell wrote, Had he written in English rather than Dutch, his Description would certainly have won from posterity the same kind, if not the same amount, of veneration that has been bestowed on Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation.

[30]Though the English eventually took over the colony, the city of New Amsterdam retained the municipal charter van der Donck had lobbied for, including uniquely Dutch features, such as a guarantee of free trade.