USA > Delaware > History of Delaware : 1609-1888 > Part 8
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If of little use to himself, Hendricksen's discov- eries were nevertheless of vast importance to Hol- land, and of far-reaching influence and effect in the planting of the American Colonies. His report of his voyages along the coast and exploration of the great Zuydt River, did more to bring about the organization of the Dutch West India Com- pany than any one power, if possibly we except the long continued patient, powerful and adroit manipulations of public opinion by William Ussel- inx. This man who had long before been a char- acter in the action of the drama of human progress now became a most prominent one. He was a native of Antwerp, in Brabant, a merchant, who bad traveled several years in Spain, Portugal and
the Azores Islands, and had become thoroughly familiar with the profitable commerce carried on between those countries and West India, as all of
As early as 1591, on his return to Holland, he proposed to certain merchants 'a plan to establish a company for carrying on trade with America, and in the following year he presented that plan in writing to the States General, to several cities and numerous individuals He secured an ardent adherent in the person of Prince Maurice, and at his suggestion traveled throughout Holland to urge his scheme upon the inhabitants, but he could not arouse them, for as he expressed it "The people could not be awakened from their sleep." Now that Hendricksen's report had awakened fresh in- terest in America, Usselinx in 1616, resumed the agitation that he had commenced at the beginning of the century, and in that year he presented a pe- tition to the States General of Holland and West Friesland, in which he offered to prove the follow- ing points :-
"1. That through ench a West Indian Company the United Nether- lands could be strengthened and be better secured against the King of Spain than through all their revenues.
" 2. That the country could expect more treasures and a more exten- sive trade from India than Spain, in case we continue in peace with the King of Spain.
9 3. That in case we should become involved in war with the King of Spain, we could, through the means which we might acquire, not only retain but take places now in his possession, or render them altogether fruitless to hita.
4. 4. That money could be collected to carry on this work properly without weakening or reducing the regular trade in the least, even it the snin should amount to ten millions
"5 That this work should not only prove a benefit to merchant4, mechames, and serfaring people, but that each and every inhabitant should derive an advantage from a."s
It was not until nearly a year had passed that this document was permitted to be read, and even then its time of fruition had not come, and even when it did, the man who had fostered and nour- ished the plant received no reward for his indefati- gable services which were of vast value to his eoun- try. For years he had devoted nearly all of his energies to his favorite scheme, and he became so impoverished and embarrassed in his private affairs, that in 1618 it became necessary that he should be protected from arrest by his creditors through the granting of surete du corps. But further than this his frequent pleadings for remuneration re- ceived no recognition, and the very people who re- ceived benefit from his acts harshly criticized them. This was too much for his fiery spirit to bear, and he gave expression to his indignation in unmistak- able language. "Crack-brained and overwise pre- tenders" he wrote :--
! By those who deny that Hendricksen awended the Delaware to the S. buylkill it is claimed that he obtathed Ins knowledge of the maer portion of the inver from these men who passed down its share.
: Pran, Archives, Al Series, Vol. L.
Hendrickson was douches a Hollander, although his name was Swedish. He is aud in Dutch documents to have lwen hom Mominken- Jam, eight miles from Amsterdam on the Zuyder Zce.
" Who think that wlech they cannot comprehend in their crazy heads is not to be found in nature, even if they don't know what haspassed in this athair and what my intentions may have been, are get so ingerti- Bent not only to -launder the good work and my propositions, but even dare to avense persons of high tank and intethecher of incon-tderate-
4 .Jeph .I. Mickley's "Some Account of William Forlinux and Peter Minuit," published by the Fu-torient society of Delaware.
5 Mickley.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.
ness and imprudence, because they give me a hearing and approve of my propositions."
If we follow for a brief period the history of this remarkable man, before taking up the organi- zation and affairs of the company which he did more than any other one man to create, we find in his misfortunes the effect of an ingratitude which it is difficult to account for, except upon the ground of the baseness and selfishness of the common herd of man, who often when enjoying the results of wine action forgets the instrument by which they were accomplished. Prince Maurice most earnestly urged a settlement of poor U'sselinx's claim, and in a letter to the States General of the United Neth- erlands under date of August 30, 1622, said :-
"Usseliny has during a number of years employed much of his time in laboring faithfully to promote and establish the West Inha Company, in which he har rendered great and useful services, and still continues in it with the same zeal, for which he jn-tly deserves to be properly rewarded. Therefore it is our destre that your High Mightiness con. sider well his former and futute services, and sati-ty his just claimt. Da not lose sight of hum, do not let him go from here, for that may prove dangerous."
In spite of this strong advocacy of his rights by an influential personage, the States General on July 4, 1623, positively refused to settle his claim, and referred him to the managers of the West India Company, with a letter in which they warm- ly attested his zeal and affection for the continnance of the Company, spoke of his willingness to remain and his willingness " to give and explain the know- ledge he had acquired by long experience," and begged that the managers "would examine and consider everything favorably, and according as they found him worthy of his services, make a sui- table disposition." Usselinx did not deliver this letter, because in the first place he did not regard the managers or company as his debtors, but " that their High Mightinesses the Lords States Generals owed for his services." and secondly, because he had reason to fear the jealousy and unfriendliness of several of the managers. "For these reasons." he says, " I finally resolved not to trouble myself any more about the company, and, after giving due notice, left them and the country to try my luck elsewhere, out of the country." And thus poor, disappointed, stung with ingratitude and embittered in spirit, he transferred his valuable knowledge and energies to the service of Sweden and of Gustavus Adolphus, where as will presently be shown they were not only used to good advantages, but better appreciated than in his native country.
The Dutch West India Company was finally incorporated on the 3d of June, 1621, for the time was ripe for the consummation of the great scheme which, indeed, now looked to a colonization of the new world possessions of Holland, as well as the establishment of trade. To understand the long delay of this measure, it is necessary to recall one or two circumstances in the condition and attitude of Holland early in the seventeenth century. The
nation had been in war with Spain for several years, but, in 1609, a truce, to last twelve years. was negotiated in lieu of a permanent treaty of peace. Philip H. had consented to the indepen- dence of the Netherlands, but would not consent to give them free trade in the East Indies. The Netherlands would not accept a final and per- manent treaty which did not guarantee their commercial freedom, hence the truce as a com promise. The negotiation was etfected by Grotin- and Barnevekit and was bitterly opposed by the distinctively " war party " of the day, headed by Usselinx, for the reason that it destroyed the project for a West India Company. This party was eager to resort to every means to injure and humble their haughty and arrogant enemy, and, indeed, Usselinx appears to have had a bitter, personal hatred of Spain and the other Catholic countries in which he had traveled. The party, too, was infused as a whole with the heat of re- ligious rancor for the Calvinists and Puritan, (the latter exiles in Leyden) were in bitter antag. onism to the Arminians, who controlled the State.1 The Reformers, finally in 1619, carried everything before them in the Synod of Dort, the Arminians were put down and thus one obstacle to the success of colonization was removed. The charter to the Amsterdam merchants expired in 1618; the twelve year truce with Spain ended in the spring of 1621, and the United Provinces must soon be renewed while the nece-sity for a more vigorous policy on the part of Holland, in support of its claims to the New Netherlands was given an ad- ditional force of demonstration by the fact that the English government was preparing to remon- strate against the expansion of the Dutch territory, both on the New England side and on the Dela- ware, the Virginians having, in fact, sent one abortive expedition against the traders on the latter stream. Thus various causes conspired to bring about the result that Usselinx and his party had, for more than twenty years, labored to bring about.
It was upon the 3d of June, 1621, that the States General, under their great seal, granted the formal patent incorporating the West India Company, for the encouragement of that foreign settlement and commerce that its advocates asserted the wel- fare of the Netherlands largely rested. The con- pany was invested with tremendous powers. It was anthorized, as Brodhead says, to make in the name of the States General, "contracts and alliances with the princes and natives of the countries comprehended within the limits of its
1 It is a fact that the Puritans, in IG20, applied to the Netherlands, through the Amsterdam merchants, for permission to settle upall the Noth River, but that because of the opposing regions preferments el the slate Gruetal, that body prtemptonly rejected floor proposition It is interesting to speculate as to what, but for thuis refusal, might have been the conroeof American history.
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DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT BY THE DUTCH.
charter, build forts, appoint and discharge gov- happened, however, that the books were not closed ernors, soldiers and publie officers, administer until June, 1022, when the organization was com- pleted. Justice and promote trade. It was bound to ad- vance the peopling of these fruitful and unsettled While the orgaalantion was being completed, several ships were sent on trading ventures of more or less private charseter to the newly discovered countries, between iatitudes 40° and 45° " together with a great river lying between 38 and 40 de- grees of istitude, ' which of course was none other than the Delaware. There is no evidence that they acially traded on this river, but it is to be inferred from the action of the English in Virginia that they det. Indeed it is probable that they visited all of the water- of the coast from Buz zard's Bay (within twenty miles of Plymouth) down to the Delaware. parts and do all that the service of those countries and the profit and inerease of trade shall require.' It had a power in America practically equal to that of Holland itself, for all of the functions of that government, appertaining to its foreign posses- sions, were unreservediy delegated to h. The States General, reserving the power to declare war. had a sort of general supervision with the privi- lege of confirming the appointment of superior officers, but that was the limit of its powers. The charter set forth that except in the name of " the I'nited Company of these United Netherlands, ' ter the space of twenty-four years, no native inhabitants of the Netherlands should be permitted to sail to or from, or to traffie on the coast of Africa, from the tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, nor in the countries of America or the West In- dies, between the south-end of Terra Nova, by the straits of Magellan, La Maire, or any other straits and passage situate thereabout, to the straits of Arrian, neither upon the North or the South Seas, nor any islands situated on the one side or the ether, or between both, nor on the Western or Southern Countries, reaching, lying and between both the meridians from the Cape of Good Hope in the west-end of New Guinea in the west, " under penalty of forfeiture of goods and ships."
The government of the company was vested in five boards of managers-one at Amsterdam mana- ging four-ninths of the whole ; one at Middleburg, in Zealand, managing two-ninths; one at Dor- trecht, on the Maese, managing one-ninth ; one in North Holland, one-ninth ; and one in Friesland and Groningen, one-ninth. The general execu- tive power was placed in the hands of a board of nineteen delegates, (usually denominated the Col- lege of Nineteen ) of whom eight were to come from the Amsterdam Chamber, and the rest from the other Chambers in proportion to their shares, ex- cept that the States General was to be represented by one delegate. The States were pledged to de- fend the company against all comers, togive for its assistance sixteen ships of war, of three hundred tons each, and four yachts of eighty tons each, and were to advance a million guildlers in money. The com- pany was to provide at its own expense a number of ships equal to those supplied by the government and to arm and equip them all The fleet thus constituted it was provided should be placed under the command of an Admiral selected by the State- General. The books of the company were only to Iw. kept open for stock subscriptions during the year 1621, and while any inhabitant of the Netherlands might become a stockholder within that period, it was announced that noue could do so ler. It
A plan of colonization was also matured. There were then in the Netherlands a number of Walloons (Belgian Protestants of supposed Waelsche or Celtic origin ) who were refugees from Spanish per- seeation, who had sought to emigrate to Virginia but could not secure satisfactory terms. The West India Company quick to see that these people would be good immigrants with whom to begin the per- manent settlement of their possessions in America, at once made provision to carry them over in one of their ships soon to sail. This was the "New Netherlands" in command of Captain Cornelis Jacobsen Mey, who first after Hudson had sailed into the Delaware Bay and who was going out now as the first resident director or governor of the colonies. The vessel sailed from the Texel in March 1623, ( Adriaen Joris of Thienpoint being second in command ), without about thirty Walloon 1 families on board and took the southern course to America, (the one then commonly followed ) by way of the British Channel, the Canaries, across the Atlantic to Guiana and the Carribees, thenee northward between the Bermudas and Ba- hamas to the Virginia coast, and then skirting the shore to the North River. Reaching his destina- tion Mey di-tributed his handful of colonists as far as he could. The majority were taken up to the site of Albany where the Dutch had built Fort Orange (Aurania) in 1614, a few to the Connecti- cut River and four couples who had married on the way out, with several sailors and other men were sent to the Delaware, where they were either ac- companied or soon visited by Mey. The site select ed for this South River settlement was Verhulsten Island near the present city of Trenton, N. J. While the Walloons were located at this place, it appears that the sailors and soldiers were stationed at a little fort which was hurriedly built for their protection at a spot which the natives called " Te- kaacho " near Gloucester Point, immediately oppo- site the lower part of the city of Philadelphia.
! The name comes, it is said, either from Wall, (water or sea) or more probably, from the old German word Wahle, signifying a foreigner.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE.
This was Fort Nassau, the first building known to have been erected by civilized men on the shores of the Delaware. Its exact site cannot now he pointed out, but it was supposed to be upon the north branch of Timber Creek or as the Dutch called it " Timmer Kill," ' then called " Sapackon." . It was built close to the point of rocks, its sonthern rampart being within a few feet of the ereek.' The year in which the fort was built is disputed. but it is probable that its construction was under- taken about 1623, which was doubtless also the time of the settlement near the site of Trenteo. The men and women of the Walloons at this iso. lated station grew homesick, and within a year or so returned to Manhattan. The fort too was aban- doned after one or two years of occupation though it was irregularly occupied by a few soldiers for short periods, down to 1642 when it was contiun- ously garrisoned until 1650 or 1651 when the Dutch themselves destroyed it, because it was too Ingh up the river and too far from the chief theatre of their activities to serve any valuable purpose. It appears to have been occasionally used as a lodging place by the Indians, probably at such times as they ex- peeted trading vessels to arrive which was at least once a year, and De Vries found it thus tenanted by the savages when he visited it in 1633.
In 1625, the colony at Manhattan numbered over two hundred souls, and Cornelis Jacobsen May, who administered its simple government, during the year 1624, was succeeded by William Verhulst, as the second director of New Nether- lands. He seems to have visited the South River, and his name was for a long time com- memorated by " Verhulsten Island, " near the bend of the Delaware at Trenton. Upon this island, which is described as being " near the falls of that river, and near the west-side thereof, " the West India Company established a trading house, "where there were three or four families of Wal- loons." The company also had a brick house at Horekill. The Wallvon families did not remain very long in their lonely frontier home. By order of the West India Company, " all those who were at the South River," at Verhulsten Hand, and Fort Nassau, in 1628. were removed to Manhattan. A small vessel only remained there, to keep up the fur trade. That trade, however, was less pro- fitable than traffic on the North River.
1 On the map in Campanini work it is designated as being between the two braun hes of Timber Crerk.
: Varion- discoveries and relivs have been muule at different times it digging at the site of the fort. In Wifi a Spanish privateer threatened to land on the Delaware, and fears being entertained that they would attack Wilunngton, attempts were made to place the oll fort in repair In digging the eronud for that purpose, they found several pieces of money, with Queen Christithis stampupon it. Wa the Het at March, 1755, of taking up by chance seque poresof the walls, their were tottal many caution balle, granules, and other similar things, which had been kept carefully concealed store the surrender of the tort by Hisine Five pirres of cunttion (according to Acrefins) were kept mounted there previously, ns at the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, in Jofi, an English salute was fired from them, in honor of the Governor, who was going to meet the Legislature at New Castle.
While ships regularly visited the South River for purposes of trade, halt' a dozen years elapsed before any further attempt was made to place a colony or build a fort upon its shores, and when this was Giuatly brought about it was largely through private enterprise and resulted in the founding of the first settlement within the present state of Delaware. In the meantime changes had taken place in the management of New Netherland affairs and in the policy of the West India Company. Peter Minuiti came out and succeeded Verhulst as Di- rector of the New England colonies, in 1624, hold- ing the position until 1632, when he was recalled and Van Twiller became governor in his stead- Miunit (as will become apparent in the succeeding chapter) was a man of great sagacity and energy, but he was compelled, so far as what might be call- ed the home affairs of the colonies, to follow a very w.nservative policy, for the West India Company was sadly neglecting the colonization and commer- cial schemes it was supposed to have been organized to foster and devoting its strength to far more ambitious and adventurous ones. While the com- paby had been nominally chartered to trade with ant colonize the New Netherlands, the real object of its chiefs, had been a colossal system of legal- ized piracy against the commerce of Spain and Portugal, in Africa and America. And already had it won brilliant successes and acquired vast profits in following this mammon of unrighteous- hess. It had preyed upon Spanish fleets from one side of the Atlantic to the other. It had in two years taken one hundred and tour prizes. It fre- quently sent out squadrons of seventy armed vessels to sweep the seas. It had captured Bahia and Pern- ambuco and aspired to the conquest of Brazil. It had declared dividends of fitty per cent. These spectacular and enormously profitable perform- ances had dazzled the wealth-worshipping Dutch mind and completely cast into the shade humble profits of plodding, but legitimate trade and the company did not care to be bothered with the discharge of such common-place duties a> direct- ing the settlement of the Dutch possessions and organizing commerce. It was this abandonment or dwarfing in importance of the original purposes of the company which had been one of the chief canses of the withdrawal of William Uselinx, its promoter, in 1624. But there were, nevertheless, among the members of the Amsterdam chamber some shrewd minds albeit of conservative charac- ter, who did not, amid the excitement of conquest and quick making of vast fortunes, forget that there was an abiding value in lands. Of this class -all rich, all well-informed, all interested in the support and development of the colonies, all, also. not unwilling to make investments which would further enrich themselves - were John De Laet,
J The name is variously spelled Minvet, Minnewit and Minnewe.
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DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT BY THE DUTCHL.
the historian, Killiaan Van Rensselaer, Michael land, and these agents purchased from the Indians, Pauw Peter Evertsen Hueft, Jonas Witsen, Hon- drick Hamel, Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blom- maert. These Amsterdam men of substance, after consulting with Isane De Rasieres, Minuit's serre tary, who, for some reason, had been sent back to Holland, secured, from the College of Nineteen a " Charter of Exemption and Privileges " to all such as shall plant colonies in New Netherlands which the States General confirmed on June 7, 1629. This created a complete feudal system and planted it upon the soil of the western world, destined not, indeed, long to nourish it, but to become the globe's broadest field of democracy. A landed aristocracy was brought into existence and the New Netherlands were handed over pretty much to its control. The charter gave the privilege to members of the company to send to America by the company's shije, on certain con- ditions, three or four persons to select lands, which on purchase from the Indians and on preserihed conditions of planting colonies, should in traets of fixed size, become the properties of feudal lords, or patroons, who were also to have the control and government of their inhabitants. The land select- ed for a colony might extend sixteen Dutch miles in length if confined to one side of a navigable river or eight miles on each side, if both banks were occupied, and extend as far into the country as the situation of the occupier- should make de- sirable (though this latter clause seems afterwards to have been revoked and the extent inland to have been modified to one half of a Dutch mile, or two English miles). These great grants were to be bestowed upon any members of the company (to none others were the privileges open) who should within four years plant a colony of fifty adults upon the tracts in question anywhere in New Netherlands except upon the Island of Man- hattan More immigrants entitled the patroon to proportionately more land. The patroons acquired their estates in fee simple, with power of disposing by will ; they were magistrates within their own bounds -" had chief command and dower juris- dietion " -- and each patroon had the exclusive privilege of fishing, fowling and grinding corn within his own domain. They had also the power of founding cities and appointing officers and could trade anywhere along the coast or to Hol- land on payment of five per cent. duty to the company, at its reservation of Manhattan. The company prohibited engagement in manufacturing and retained exclusive monopoly of the fur trade. In all other matters the patroon- were to be sov- ereign in their lordship
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