Document: Ordinance|Burgomasters and Schepenen regulating currency

Document ID
NYC-RNA_V1_059
Description

Ordinance|Burgomasters and Schepenen regulating currency

Document Date
1658-10-10
Document Date (Date Type)
1658-10-10
Document Type
Full Resolution Image

Translation
Translation

The Schout, Burgomasters and Schepens of the City of Amsterdam
in N.N. to All etc. Greeting!
We have seen and noticed, besides we hear daily complaints among the community over, such depreciation of the wampum, that it is almost impossible to make bargains in it with bakers, brewers, peddlers, shopkeepers, laborers and others. Wishing to remedy this trouble to the best of our ability for the promotion of trade and the general welfare of the inhabitants we have, with the knowledge and approval of the Director General and Council, resolved and decreed, that henceforth, when differences arise between man and man, wampum shall in this City be worth: 8 white or 4 black beads of good wampum equal to one stiver; besides in cases of existing debts, payable in wampum, the debtors are allowed six weeks time, in which to pay their creditors in 6 white or 3 black beads for the stiver. If the creditors are not paid within this time, they have to govern themselves according to this proclamation. We also recommend to all bakers, brewers, shopkeepers and merchants to sell their goods at reasonable prices to the people and we charge everybody to govern himself by the tenor hereof and guard against losses.
Thus done etc., October 10, 1658.

References

The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini, Volume I Minutes of the Court of Burgomasters and Schepens 1653-1655, Translations by Edmund O'Callaghan,  Edited by Berthold Fernow,  1897, Published under the authority of the City of New York by the Knickerbocker Press

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