Document: Sentence of Geesje Jansen

[several lines lost] man [ aka Grootschoen being [ ] was familiar [ ] had [ sexual intercourse ] with him at various times and places, which shame[ ful ] adultery should not be tolerated nor allowed in places where good justice [ is administered ] and maintained, but as an example to others should be punished. Therefore, the honorable lord director general and councilors of N: Netherland, having heard the claim of the fiscal and the said Geesie Jans’ own confession, done without torture, performing justice in the name of the high and mighty lords States General of the United Netherlands and the honorable lords directors of the Chartered West India Company at the chamber Amsterdam, sentenced and condemned the aforesaid Geesje Jans, as they hereby sentence and condemn her to be brought to the place where justice is commonly done, and there with the upper body naked and two rods in the arm be put at the whipping post, and further be led out of this city’s gate this way, and banished out of this province for the time of thirty years, and to pay the legal costs made in this case, as an example to others, denying the fiscal his further claim made on and against her. Thus done at the meeting of director general and councilors of New Netherland held in Fort Amsterdam, the 25th of November anno 1658 and executed the 30th of the same month.

P Stuyvesant Pieter Tonneman

Rights: This translation is provided for education and research purposes, courtesy of the  New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Collections, Mutual Cultural Heritage Project. Rights may be reserved. Responsibility for securing permissions to distribute, publish, reproduce or other use rest with the user. For additional information see our Copyright and Use Statement Source: New York State Archives. New Netherland. Council. Dutch colonial council minutes, 1638-1665. Series A1809. Volume 8.