USA > Delaware > Narratives of early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707 > Part 8
USA > New Jersey > Narratives of early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707 > Part 8
USA > Pennsylvania > Narratives of early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707 > Part 8
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1 Now Christina Creek.
' Mattahorn, also Amattahorn, possibly of the Delaware Indians of the sub- tribe of the Ermewarmoki mentioned below, who is said to have sold land at the Schuylkill to the Dutchman Arent Corsen in 1633, granted land at the Sandhook, later Fort Casimir, to Stuvyesant in 1651.
· Mitotschemingh or Mitasemint was a chief mentioned in several land transactions with the Dutch and Swedes. He was dead by July, 1651.
. The Ermewarmoki, also called Eriwoms, Arwames, Ermomex, and Armeo- mecks, apparently a tribe of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware River Indians located near the present Gloucester, New Jersey.
"The Mantes of the Delaware or Lenni Lenape tribes were doubtless lo- cated on or near the Mantes Kill, the present Mantua Creek, New Jersey, nearly opposite Tinicum Island.
·The Minquas or Susquehanna Indians.
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all the land, as many days' journeys on all places and parts of the river as they requested; upwards and on both sides. Be- cause, however, they did not understand our language, the abovementioned Andress Lucassen, who had before this lived long in the country and who knew their language, translated the same into their speech. Thereupon they all unanimously with one another declared in what manner they transported, ceded, and transferred the said land with all its jurisdiction, sovereignty, and rights to the Swedish Florida Company under the protection and patronage of the most illustrious and most mighty Princess and Virgin Christina, elected Queen of the Swedes, Goths and Wends. At the same time they acknowl- edged that they, to their satisfaction, were paid and fully com- pensated for it by good and proper merchandise, which was delivered and given to them in the personal presence of the abovementioned witnesses and of others of the [ship's] coun- cil. The two first-mentioned witnesses and attestors affirm that they have heard and seen all this, and were present as witnesses. Thus the abovementioned Jacob Evertss. Sandelin attests that he with the often-mentioned director himself had [gone] up the Minquas Kill, and also journeyed several miles into the country; but they had nowhere seen nor observed any sign or vestige of Christian people. And he further de- poses and says, together and in company with the above- mentioned upper boatswain Peter Johanss., that both of them and the rest of the ship's people, all together, saw the princes of the abovementioned nations enter the cabin of their ship, whereupon they heard and understood that the said princes had ceded and transferred the land in the above-described manner. And thereupon they give testimony, and all four with one another affirm that, after the completion of the said ceding and transference, followed the erection of the arms of Her Illustrious Majesty of Sweden, accompanied by the firing of cannon and other solemn ceremonies, in the presence of said sachems or princes, and the country was called New Sweden. Then a fort was built on the bank of the river, and the same river was given the name of the Elb-River 2 under
1 I. e., the New Sweden Company, founded in 1637 for trade on the South or Delaware River.
' Now Christina Creek.
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other solemnities; the fort, however, was called Christina. Here the attestors, closing this account of theirs, after the re- lation perseveringly insisted in its veracity and hence that it was to be considered as true. They also offered to confirm the same with an oath of grace before me the aforesaid notary. Accordingly, permission was granted to the exhibitor [Peter Spiring], to use and to make, concerning this, one or more open documents in due form, when and wherever it is proper, which in part has been done in this city of Amsterdam, in the lodging and writing-room of my office, in the sight and pres- ence of the honest Cornelius Vignois and David de Willet, called in for this purpose as credible witnesses.
Attested, upon request, by the abovementioned.
P. RUTTENS, Nots. Pub. 1639.
REPORT OF GOVERNOR JOHAN PRINTZ, 1644
INTRODUCTION
THIS report, like the other Swedish narratives that follow, is an orderly official statement, and thoroughly reliable. The Swedish original is strongly and clearly expressed; it contains fewer of the Dutch and other foreign words found in Rising's reports, and the sentences are shorter and less involved than in most similar contemporary documents. The author, Johan Printz, governor of New Sweden, had spent only a little over a year on the Delaware, yet he had secured a firm grasp of the situation, and he affords us an intimate view of the problems and conditions of the colony at the end of its first six years of existence.
Johan Printz was born in Bottnaryd in Småland, in the southern part of Sweden, in 1592. He received a liberal edu- cation in the universities of Rostock, Greifswald, Leipzig, Wittenberg, and Jena. After an adventurous youthful career in Germany and Italy, and in the armies of France and Austria, he returned to Sweden in 1625. Entering the Swedish army he saw service in the German campaigns, and in 1638 was raised to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Forced to surrender the Saxon city of Chemnitz in 1640, he was removed from his command. Receiving knighthood, in November, 1642, at the age of fifty, he sailed for America with his family, to assume the governorship of New Sweden.
Arriving in the colony in February, 1643, he established his household on Tinicum Island and made that the capital. For the next ten years he ruled the Delaware with the strong arm of the soldier, maintained the supremacy of the Swedish crown against the Dutch and English, extended the bounds of the colony, carried on the Indian trade, and in general, seems to
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have governed in the manner best suited to the rough fron- tier conditions. Under him New Sweden saw its best days. Physically he was a huge man, weighing over four hundred pounds; the Indians called him the "big tub." His hospitable side, as we have seen, is depicted in the pages of De Vries.
In 1653, dissatisfied with the outlook for the colony, Printz returned home. In 1658 he was made commander of the castle of Jönköping, in southern Sweden, and in the following year governor of Jönköpingslän, where he died in 1663. Fur- ther references to him may be obtained in Johnson's Swedish Settlements, especially pp. 688-690.
The original manuscripts of this report, two in number, one in Swedish and the other in German translation, both signed by Printz, are in the Riksarkiv (Royal Archives) at Stockholm. The Swedish manuscript, which is defective in parts, has been printed with some omissions in the appendix of Claes Theodor Odhner's Swedish book, Kolonien Nya Sveriges Grundläggning (The Founding of the Colony of New Sweden), 1637-1640, (Stockholm, 1876), pp. 27-36. Our text is a translation by Dr. Amandus Johnson from Odhner in com- parison with transcripts of the Swedish and German manu- scripts in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- vania, the defective parts of the Swedish being supplied from the German transcript. The brief portion relating to Sir Edward Plowden, as translated by Dr. Gregory B. Keen, has been previously published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History, VII. 50-51 (1883), and in Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, III. 456-460 (1884); the list of colonists and of the dead is printed in Johnson's Swedish Settlements, pp. 700-709. The remainder of the report is now published for the first time in English.
A. C. M.
REPORT OF GOVERNOR JOHAN PRINTZ, 1644
Relation to the Noble West India Company in Old Sweden 1 sent out of New Sweden on June 11, Anno 1644.
1. THE ship Fama arrived here in New Sweden at Fort Christina the 11th of March, and is now sent away in the name of God on the 11th ' of June. The reason for this long delay has especially been this, that we have this past year not had any special cargoes and therefore no returns to send home again, but now the trade went well with the savages, [and we delayed in order] that the ship might not go back again empty, and that the goods which now were bought might not lie for years and days and be eaten and destroyed by moths, mice, and other vermin (which are very plentiful and destructive) but be sent over with the ship as now has happened. God grant hereto luck and His gracious blessing, that the ship, goods, and people may arrive well preserved and in a right time at the place to which they are destined, etc.
2. The goods sent from Sweden are safely delivered, as the receipt shows, except a good deal of the linen, and the stock- ings, which are moulded and entirely ruined, as the skipper and his people have seen, yet the abovementioned articles were not (as one observes) ruined on the ship, but in Gothenburg in a cellar or in some other damp house, where they were care- lessly allowed to stand. And this loss, due to Timon von Schotting,' can be searched and examined there through him, who is more able to write about it than I am, and ought to be held to account for so considerable a loss.
3. Timon von Schotting has also forgotten to put the price
1 Or, the New Sweden Company.
" Really sailed about July 20. Cf. Printz's next report for 1647, post, p. 120.
" Timon van Schotting (1603-1674), a native of Flanders, at the age of about twenty-four accompanied his father to Sweden, settling at Gothenburg, appar-
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on the articles, which he has now sent here, which was done last year, and always used to be done. And it ought not to be otherwise, in order that one may know how to make up the bill for each one of those, who are later discharged, and what amount they have received here, and that it may then be subtracted from their salary on their return home. But probably this is done with a purpose, in order that, as it happened last year, both the proof and the price of all kinds of goods should be sent back again. And to this paragraph also belongs the remark that one ought not to give to the wives or authorized representatives of these people [in Sweden] any- thing on their salaries before they have been informed from here how much they have received, because part of them have spent so much money during their sickness that they have very little to claim, or nothing at all.
4. The returns which it has been possible to bring together in a hurry are herewith sent over, namely, whole beavers, 1300, one-third-part beavers, 538, half-beavers, 299, and one- fourth-part beavers, 5, total, small and large beavers alto- gether, 2142 pieces. The tobacco which is now sent over makes all together 20467 lbs. And how the trade has pro- gressed here in the last year as well as now, since the ship was here, the commissary's account and written relation will fully show. And it is necessary that we have ships here again next December with all sorts of cargoes, according to the specifica- tions enclosed. If this does not happen the Company will in the future suffer no less damage than it suffered in the past year, which cannot be repaired with 20,000 florins. One does not send the beavers now as formerly and as happened before my time, all mixed, large and small together, but, both to prevent fraud and also on account of the customs collector, each kind, as has been said, is packed and strongly sealed by itself, according to which the commissary, both now and here- after, ought and shall make his account. In the same manner it can also be seen from the bills that [15476] [bs.1 of the tobacco
ently in mercantile business. In 1639 he was appointed factor for the New Sweden Company, and served until 1645 when he was compelled to resign for negligence in office. Later he became burgrave of Gothenburg, and died there. See Amandus Johnson, Swedish Settlements, especially p. 695.
1 See Amandus Johnson, Swedish Settlements, pp. 317, 318.
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is Virginian tobacco, bought for 6 and 7 stivers 1 a pound. The rest [4991] lbs. were planted here in New Sweden, one part by our English at Varken's Kil, one part by our Swedish free- men, for which we have paid eight stivers a pound; the reasons for giving our own more than the strangers are, first, that one would make them in the beginning more industrious; secondly, in order that people, both of our own nation and strangers, may in larger numbers come here and settle under Her Royal Majesty. When the land, with the help of God, has thus been populated, then one could easily regain the damage which is not very large; yet I have presented this as well as all other things to the Honorable Company's gracious consideration. But our Swedish freemen request humbly that they may be allowed to send their tobacco to old Sweden, where it can be sold to the Company with greater advantage than here.
5. God grant success to the Caribbean trade, and we hope in case it is rightly administered and faithfully managed that it will become a large means for the continuation of this work. Thus the tobacco trade was last year made free in Virginia to all strangers by the payment of toll; if we had here suitable goods which could be taken to Virginia then one could yearly bring from there a considerable quantity of tobacco with our sloops and increase the supply of the same on the arrival of our ships, and twice as good tobacco for as good a bargain, I suppose, as can be obtained from Cribitz,' and the toll be paid at the residence seat Kekathan,' 50 ' miles up in the river. But we could have a good deal of tobacco from Heckemak " yearly and would not need to give toll, but we could arrange with the merchants that they pay the duty, which they can do with practically nothing.
6. Of the people twenty-five have died during the year at
1 About 16 cents then or about 80 cents now, the stiver equalling about 2 cents then, or 10 cents now.
" The Caribbees or Lesser Antilles in the West Indies.
" Kecoughtan, on the James River, in Virginia, near Hampton and Old Point Comfort.
' I. e., apparently, fifty German miles or two hundred and thirty English miles from Fort Christina or the Swedish settlements to Kecoughtan in Virginia.
" Accomac, near the end of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, in what is now Northampton County.
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different places, as the daily register shows twelve laborers, eight soldiers, two freemen, two women." The others who are preserved, officers and common people, have no longer any desire to remain here, but since I have caused some provisions to be bought from the English and Dutch sloops and given it to them on their request as part of their salary, they have had better health and have become more willing and have allowed themselves to be persuaded to remain here yet for some time. One observes indeed that it is more for the harm than for the benefit of the Company to give to the people here a part of their salary from those goods which have been bought to be used in trade, from which sum the gain will be subtracted at home, yet rather than that the people should leave, as has now happened, I have at all events thought it more advisable to preserve the people than to look upon the small gain; one sees that the amount and the damage are moderate and will not become in the end altogether too great. But if Her Royal Majesty and the Honorable Company should graciously de- cide to erect a trading-place and a shop with all sorts of pro- visions, small wares, cloth, and other goods, placing over it a wise and faithful man, who would have both that and other provisions under his charge and in his care, from which they could be given on their salary as much as each one should re- quest, then the people could month after month be paid out of the gains alone, and the Honorable Company would prob- ably retain the capital and a large part of the profit for its benefit, for everything is fearfully dear here. One barrel of malt, Swedish measure, is worth seven, yes even eight, rix- dollars, a pound of hops, half a rix-dollar, a pound of pork ten stivers, a pound of butter ten stivers, a barrel of grain six rix- dollars, which here could be sown, brewed, and baked and then sold for the highest price to the people. For one barrel of meat I have paid to the English 135 florins, which makes 54 rix-dollars; in short everything is expensive.
7. I planted last year maize all over, thinking, according to the representations of Peter Hollander,' to receive yearly
1 Add, to make 25, the preacher, Rev. Reorus Torkillus.
? Peter Hollender Ridder (1607-1691), the second governor (1640-1643) of New Sweden, succeeding Peter Minuit, was of Dutch or German origin, but had entered the Swedish service as early as 1635, being employed by the Admiralty in various capacities in Finland and Sweden. He arrived in the colony with the
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food for nine men from the planting of one man, but I received, as well on the one place as on the other, from the work of nine men hardly a year's nourishment for one man. Immediately I sent the sloop to Manathans' and caused to be bought there for the company seven oxen, one cow, and [75] bushels of winter rye. And although they arrived a little late in the year yet I have caused three places to be sown with rye, also a little barley in the spring. It looks very fine. In addition to this, maize can be bought cheaply from the savages here in the river, so that I hope that the nourishment of the people shall not be so expensive hereafter as it has been before. And therefore I have appointed the people to plant tobacco on all places and have engaged a special master or tobacco planter for a monthly wage of 35 florins; ' who made good proof of his competence last year. How this will turn out will depend on God and the weather; one must hope, with the help of God, for the best. But as concerns salt-making, oil manufactories, whale catching, minerals, or silk worms, I must report that I have not been able to find an opportunity for these things, as is reported in my former letters.
8. The places which we now possess and occupy are: 1. Elfsborg, which now (especially on the one side) is so secure that there is no need to fear any attack (if it is not entirely too severe); 2. Christina; 3. Tinnakongh; these two places are also in like manner made so strong that those who are therein need not fear for any savages, even if they were several thou- sands; 4. Upland; 5. Schylenkyll;" these two places are now open, yet strong wooden houses are built upon them with small stone-cannon. In the Schylenkyll there have now been bought, since we received a cargo, three hundred beavers for the Hon- orable Company, yet with such discretion that the Hollanders
second expedition, in 1640. Upon his return to Sweden he was advanced in the naval service from lieutenant to captain and to major, finally in 1663 receiving the command of the castle of Viborg in Finland. See Amandus Johnson, Swedish Settlements, pp. 691-692.
" Manhattan, or New Amsterdam.
* See Amandus Johnson, Swedish Settlements, p. 313.
" About $17 United States currency in values of that period, or about $87 in terms of present day values; the florin, a Dutch coin, being equal to about 50 cents at that time, or about $2.25 to-day.
. Evidently Wasa, or Nya Wasa, at Kingsessing.
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are not in any manner offended, and although they do not gladly see us here, but always protest and in the meantime loosen the tongue, yet they have nevertheless since I came here kept and yet keep with us good friendship, especially their commander in Manathans, Willem Kiefft, who often and in most cases, when he has been able, has written to me and advised me about what has happened in Sweden, Holland, and other European places. He reminded me indeed in the begin- ning in his letters about the pretension of the Dutch West India Company to this entire river, but since I answered him with as good reasons as I could and knew how, he has now for a time relieved me of this protesting. Now a new commander is about to arrive and in that case probably a new action may follow. But how hard the Puritans 1 have lain upon my neck and yet do lay can be seen from the acts which are enclosed here. I believe that I shall hardly get rid of them in a peace- ful manner because they have sneaked into New Netherland also with their Pharisean practices. Now they are so strong there that they have chased the Hollanders from that place called Fort River, and now keep it with violence although it
1 Printz had difficulties with New Haven as well as Boston Puritans. The people from New Haven, who in 1641 had made a settlement on the Varkens Kill, now Salem Creek, New Jersey, under the leadership of the agent, George Lam- berton, secured yet another location higher up the Delaware River, at the eastern terminus of the great trading path of the Minquas Indians, from the Susquehanna Valley and beyond, so as to participate in the valuable beaver trade with them. There in 1642, on the present Fisher's or Province Island at the south side of the mouth of the Schuylkill River, as Dr. Amandus Johnson makes clear in his Swedish Settlements, p. 213, the New Englanders built a blockhouse, the first edifice definitely recorded as erected within the present limits of Philadelphia. Both the Dutch and the Swedes vainly protested against this competition, and finally the Dutch descended upon the place, burned the blockhouse and adjacent dwellings, and carried the settlers to New Amsterdam. Lamberton escaped with his vessel, but later was tried in the Swedish court at Fort Christina. In 1647 the Swedes built Fort Nya Korsholm (1647-1653) on the site of this devastated English post.
The Boston Puritans who caused Printz some anxiety, were a company of merchants interested in promoting the search for the inland lake where the beavers were supposed to be plentiful. Believing that this lake might be reached from the upper waters of the Delaware, in the early summer of 1644 they sent an ex- pedition to the river under William Aspenwall. In spite of Printz's suspicions, he was allowed to pass the Swedish forts but was halted by the Dutch at Fort Nassau and obliged to return to Boston.
' Connecticut River.
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is the land of the Hollanders. And now neither protest nor good words will avail, but if the Hollanders wish to obtain the place again it must be done with other and stronger means. I look at least a hundred times a day in this mirror, God knows with what meditation, for I am here alone and there are hardly thirty men, of all that are here, upon whom I can rely in such cases.
In a like manner I have also in my former writings spoken about the English knight,' how he last year wished to go from Heckemak ' in Virginia to Kikathans' with a bark and his people, about sixteen persons, and when they came into the Virginian bay" the skipper, who had conspired beforehand with the knight's people to destroy him, took his course, not towards Kikathanss but to Cape Henry. When they had passed this place and had come close to an island in the big ocean called Smeed's " Island, they counselled together how they should kill him and they found it advisable not to kill him with their own hands but to put him on the said island without clothes and guns, where there were no people nor any other animals but where only wolves and bears lived, which they also did, but two young pages of the nobility, whom the knight had brought up and who did not know of this conspiracy, when they saw the misfortune of their master, threw them- selves out of the bark into the sea and swam ashore and re- mained with their master. On the fourth day after that an English sloop sailed near by Smeed's Island, so that these young pages could call to it. This sloop took the knight (who
1 Sir Edmund Plowden (d. 1659), knight, a Catholic, of Wansted, Hampshire, England, second son of Francis Plowden, of Plowden, Herefordshire, is "the English knight" whose misadventures are here related by Governor Printz. Having received a patent, in 1634, from the viceroy of Ireland, under Charles I .- with vague and inconsistent bounds and without the necessary great seal of England for a great domain on both sides of the Delaware, called New Albion, the Earl Palatine of New Albion, as he styled himself, had come over to America to try to secure his claim. 'Befriended by Governor Berkeley, he made Virginia his base of operations, staying with his people apparently at Accomac on the Eastern Shore, in present Northampton County. From here at intervals during the next six years he engaged in hazardous cruising vainly seeking to induce the dislodgment of Printz and the Swedes. His means failing, and his followers de- serting him, he went back to England to return no more.
? Accomac.
* Kecoughton. Chesapeake Bay.
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