Nicasius de Sille was the second most powerful official of New Netherland, after the Director General. De Sille was born in Arnhem in 1610, as the son of one of the Burgomasters of the town. He had already made a career as a soldier and an administrator in the Dutch Republic, before migrating to New Amsterdam in the summer of 1653. He first lived with his family in New Amsterdam and later moved to New Utrecht, modern Brooklyn. He had five children, all with his first wife, who died before they moved to the new world. He remarried with Trijntje Cregier, but the union was, by all accounts, a disaster. They separated four years later, when Trijntje was accused of public drunkenness. De Sille was also a poet. His surviving works dealt with faith, nature and the premature death of his child. During his time in New Amsterdam, he was the first councilor to Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant. After the Peach War-an attack by a number of Native groups during which fifty colonists were killed in 1655, Fiscal Cornelis van Tienhoven was sacked. De Sille was appointed fiscal of New Netherland in his place.
Introduction
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In his position as fiscal, De Sille had to uphold the rights of the West India Company and could investigate and prosecute anyone that transgressed them. For example, in 1660, Stuyvesant tasked De Sille with investigating the murder of three Natives by European colonists. To maintain peace between the WIC and the Native Americans, De Sille made sure to have some of them present during the trial and execution of the perpetrators.
Nicasius de Sille shows us how justice was dealt in New Amsterdam. As a prosecutor, he had to maintain peace between the Native Americans and the Europeans. He had to do justice in both the eyes of the original inhabitants and the newcomers.
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