Peter Stuyvesant

Peter Stuyvesant had more experience in governing. After he was expelled from University for seducing his landlord's daughter, he got a position with the Dutch West India Company rising through the corporate hierarchy until he became Acting Governor of Bonaire, Aruba, and Curaçao.  In April 1644 he led an attack on the island of St Marten which didn't go very well for him he lost his leg to a cannonball and the Dutch were defeated.  He was now 35.  He returned to Holland to convalesce.  In the year he was there, he managed to acquire a prosthesis consisting of a wooden stick studded with silver nails, a wife, and a promotion.  By 1647 he had arrived in New Amsterdam to do God's work. There was certainly much to do to managing the Indians, pacifying the neighboring settlements, and constructing the wall and fort.  He was autocratic, but he lasted until the British took over the City and then spent his retirement on a 62 acre farm in the Bowerie.