Document: Sentence of Laurens Duyts

[several lines lost] various [ ] present that the same by [ ] as often as he wanted [ ] to the bed, forcing her that she [ wou ld ] with Jan Botcher; also, that she would sleep between them, Jan Botcher on one side and he, prisoner, on the other side, [ for ] which, when she refused to do so, he beat and hit her several times because she did not want to obey his evil intentions. Later, his wife having been punished and banned on account of the committed adultery with the said Jan Botcher (which he, prisoner, incited first) he sold and left his wife to the aforesaid Jan Botcher for an old debt of 500 guilders, thirty guilders in the hand and half a barrel of beer, promising Jan Botcher not to speak to his wife nor trouble her during a period of 60 years, and if he would do so, he would forfeit a sum of 500 guilders according to the written statement made thereof. In the meantime he committed and overindulged himself in adultery with Geesie Jans, the married wife of Jan Jansen Smit, with whom he had sexual intercourse at various times and places, according to the confessions of both of them, all of which are matters directly in conflict with the canon and political laws and ordinances, and therefore [ neither ] can nor should be tolerated or suffered in a place where law and justice apply and is being administered and maintained, but as an example to others deserves to be punished severely. Therefore, the honorable lord [several lines lost] [ director general and councilors, performing justice in the name of the honorable ] high and mighty States General of the United Netherlands and the honorable lords directors of the Chartered West India Company at the chamber of Amsterdam sentenced and condemned, as they hereby sentence and condemn, the [ aforesaid Laurens ] Duijts alias Grootschoen [i] to be brought to the place where justice is commonly done, and there, with the hangman’s rope around the neck be severely whipped with rods, and his right ear shall be cut off, and he shall be and remain banished from this province for the period of 50 years, on penalty if he returns again to this province of being punished with the rope until death follows, and to pay the legal costs made for this, as an example to others, denying the fiscal’s further claim made on and against him. Thus done and sentenced in Fort Amsterdam the 25th of November 1658, and executed the 30th of the same month.

P Stuyvesant Pieter Tonneman