USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > New Brunswick > The colonization and subsequent history of New-Jersey : a discourse pronounced before the Young Men's Association of New-Brunswick on the 1st of December, 1842 > Part 2
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'This massacre, though occurring within the New-Netherlands, was in the immediate neighborhood but without the present bounds of New-Jersey. The picture of the times would be incomplete, did we not give an illustration, that shows that savage cruelty was not confined to the Indians. The war, which arose in 1643, and
*Grahame's United States, Vol. 2 p. 510.
tDe Laet was the author of the New World, a work which as well as the voyages of De Vries, the histories of Lambrechsten and Vander- donck will be found in the collections of the New-York Historical So- ciety, the last volume of which, was published in 1841 under the super- intendence of George Folsom, Esq. to whom the student of American history is, on more than one account, under great obligations.
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which was attended with such destructive consequences to the scat- tered settlements of the emigrants, would appear, according to De Vries, to have commenced in an unprovoked aggression, on the part of Governor Kieft, who deemed the murder of a few savages at Pavonia, which was as has been remarked, situated in New-Jersey, opposite New- York, a feat worthy of the ancient heroes of Rome. De Vries, who was then at New-Amsterdam, thus describes the massacre. " It was in the night between the 25th and 26th of February 1643, that they executed these fine deeds. I remained that night at the Governor's and at midnight, I heard loud shrieks. I went out to the parapet of the fort and looked towards Pavonia. I saw nothing but the flash of guns and licard nothing more of the yells and clamour of the Indians, who were butchered during their sleep-about day the soldiers returned again to the fort, having murdered eighty Indians. And this was the feat worthy of the heroes of old Rome to massacre a pack of Indians in their sleep, to take the children from the breast of their mothers and to butcher them in the presence of their parents and throw their mangled limbs into the fire or water ! Other sucklings had been fastened to little boards and in this position they were cut to pieces ! Some were thrown into the river, and when their parents rushed in to save them, the soldiers prevented their landing, and let parents and children drown ! Children of five or six years old were murdered, and some decrepid and aged men cut to pieces, those, who had escaped these horrors and found shelter in bushes and reeds, making their appearance in the morning to beg some food or warm them- selves, were killed in cold blood or thrown into the fire or water .-- Some came running to us in the country having their hands cut off. Some lad their arms and legs cut off-some who had their legs cut off were supporting their entrails with their arms, others were mangled in other horrid ways, in parts too shocking to be concei . vel."* I need not add that the result was disastrous to all the pop- ulation without the walls, the revenge on the part of the Indians, was deep and far felt, and, for two whole years, the tomahawk was in active operation. From the shores of New-Jersey to the borders of Connecticut not a settlement was safe and peace ultimately was only effected by the instrumentality of Underhill, an emigrant. from New England.
The establishments of the Dutch before the surrender were confi-
*New-York Historical Collections, N. S. Vol. 1 p. 268.
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ned to the vicinity of the North and South rivers, as the Hudson and Delaware were termed. Numerous settlements, however, ex- isted on the shores opposite to New-Amsterdam, while between that City and fort Casimir, now Newcastle, which was their chief seat on the Delaware, more than one communication traversing the entire State of New-Jersey was maintained. 'These roads crossed the Raritan at this place, where there was a ferry afterwards called Inians ; but New-Brunswick, though its colonization was essen- tially of Dutch origin, was founded long subsequent to the fall of the New-Netherlands, inany of its early inhabitants having come from Long Island, while it received in 1730 so large an accession from Albany that the emigration from that source has permanently affixed, in despite of a different legal appellation, to the principal Street, the name of their former residence. At Burlington, where the capital of West Jersey was afterwards established, a few Dutch families were collected at an early day ; while the migratory habits of the Eastern settlers had even before the end of the 17th century, already induced them to regard the territory of New- England as too circumscribed for their abode, and brought emigrants to dispute with the Swedes and Dutch the possession of the banks of the Delaware. But, the most important occurrence in the colonial his- tory of the New-Netherlands was the subjugation to their sway by Governor Stuyvesant. in 1655, of the Swedes, whose settlement in this country will require, after we have brought the Dutch mat- ters to a close, even in the cursory view which we are taking, a special notice.
England had always, during the fifty years that the government of the New-Netherlands was in existence, asserted claims to that territory, and it was said that the only right, which the Dutch possessed arose from permission, accorded to them by the former power, to maintain a place of refreshment at the island of Man- hattan for vessels proceeding to the Brazils. The existence of any arrangement of this kind is altogether denied by the best author- ities : while we cannot attach, as against the voyage of the Half Moon*, and the actual occupation of the country, more importance to the grant, which James the 1st is said to have made of these territories to the Earl of Stirling, than we accord to the papal bulls. However, there was in the pretension sufficient plausibility to jus- tify an act, which suprethe power was capable of enforcing. 'The
* Hudson's Ship.
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New. Englanders had long regarded with little favor the proximity of the Dutch, while they were assisted in their projects by the views of the inhabitants themselves, to which we have adverted. The anomalous condition of the New Netherlands, the property of the West India Company, without being an appendage to the polit- ical authority of the mother country, enabled England to acconi- plish the conquest of these provinces without even violating the re- lations between her and the States General, and though in 1673, owing to the naval triumphs of Holland and the pusillanimity of the English officer in command at New-York, who, reversing the course of Stuyvesant and his people, refused to allow the City to make a defence, there was a temporary restoration, throughout the Province, of the Dutch authority ; yet for all practical purposes, we may look upon the surrender of New-Amsterdam in 1764, as closing the political domination in America of the West India Company of the Netherlands.
Before, however, we treat of events incident to the surrender to England, we must recur, for a few minutes, to those settlements from Sweden which gave so much additional value to the British acquisitions. Though the project of colonization originated in the reign of Gustavus Adolphus and received the sanction of that illus- trious defender of the Protestant faith, before he was, by the battle of Lutzen, prematurely lost to the world, yet it was not till 1633, during the minority of his eccentric daughter, and while ()xestiern directed the destinies of Sweden, that any colonization actually conunenced. Christina, which has been corrupted into Christiana, was the place of the first settlement, while purchases were made on both sides of the river from Cape Henlopen, as far up as Tren- ton. Minuits, who had been Governor of the New Netherlands and had left the employ of the Dutch West India Company, was the chief of the enterprise ; but a more direct countenance was, soon after, given to the colony by the appointment of Col. Prinz, an officer in the Royal service, to be governor of New Sweden, who established his residence at Tinicum, an island in the Dela- ware, below Philadelphia. According to the historian of this colony, those of our fellow-citizens, who can trace their descent from Scandinavian ancestors, have no reason to blush for their origin, for though three classes of people emigrated to America, viz. The Company's servants- - the freemen, whose object was the bettering of their fortunes-aud the malefactors, who went to per- form the duties of slaves, Camparnius adds, that " the Europeans
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refused to receive these last, declaring that there was no scarcity of good and houest people to settle the country, and that most of these unfortunate beings, so far from being incorporated with the emi- grants, perished on their way back."" To the conquest of this little Colony, before the New Netherlands themselves submitted to England, we have already alluded. Traces of Swedish dominion in the names of places and the appellations of families are still to be found, as well in this State, as in Delaware and Pennsylvania, and though, after a very brief term, from their first emigration, all political dependence on the mother country ceased, a most interest- ing connection continued to be kept up with her, till a very recent period.
Both of the historians, to whom I have referred, came to this country, at the royal expense and with the promise of further recompense, to administer spiritual consolation and religious instruc- tion to those of their brethren, who had long ceased, by the force of political events, to owe allegiance to the king of Sweden, and it was to the same munificence that we are indebted for the settlement among us of the translator of Acrelius, who arrived liere, so late as 1771, as the minister at Swedesborough in this State, and who, instead of returning to Stockholm to claim his reward from the king, finished a clerical career of forty-five years as the Pastor of the Swedish Church in Philadelphia t
It is also to be noticed, while on ecclesiastical topics, that as in the case of the Swedes, so likewise with regard to the Dutch, political revolutions did not affect the relations between the churches of the mother country and the colonies, but for a long period after the surrender to the English our Dutch congregations continued subject to the Classis of Anisterdam, and many of the most distin- guished om nameuts of the church, during the last century, received their education in the Universities of the United Provinces. It may likewise beadded that the intelligent agent,# whoni the State of New_ York has employed to procure copies from abroad of the documents, connected with her colonial annals, has also been fortunate in obtain- ing papers to illustrate the early history of the Dutch Church in America.
The grant of New- York and New-Jersey to the Duke of York, who had indeed some pretensions derived from the purchase of
* Duponceaus' Translation of Campanius in the Pennsylvania Hist. Coll. Vol. 3, p. 73.
t The Rev. Dr. Collin.
+ J. R. Brodlicad, Esq.
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Lord Stirling's rights, was almost simultaneous with its acquisition by Great Britain, and was the same year followed by the con- veyance of New-Jersey to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley. And though this royal personage does not seem to have acted with better faith, on this than on other occasions, and the numerous private grants made by his governor Nicolls, at New-York, led to much litigation in a subsequent period of the history of the colony, yet after the departure of the Dutch in '73, the title of Carteret and Berkeley was confirmed, as well as respects the political as the territorial rights. It was the acts of Nicolls, which gave rise to the controversy respecting what was called the Elizabeth-Town grant, involving 400,000 acres of land, and which led to the filing in 1745 of that bill in Chancery, from which so much of the early history of the State may be learned .* Settlements on the Raritan and from Bergen to Shrewsbury were made by Eastern people from Long Island, who had come hither during the Dutch regime. After the surrender, New England, that nursery of nations, at once availed herself of the new territory and Newark was soon obtained and settled by emigrants from that region. *
In the first days of colonial history, the same view which, in support of independence, was afterwards maintained by the Americans, that the foreign possessions depended on the Crown alone, and were not subject to the intervention of Parliament, was recognised as a universal principle. Ilence the grant to the Duke of York and his subsequent transfer of New-Jersey, as well as the establishment of other proprietary governments in Pennsylvania, Maryland and the Carolinas. These proprietary rights were not confined to the mere ownership of the soil, or the exclusive privi- lege of extinguishing the Indian title, but went even far beyond the grants made by the West India Company to the Dutch Patroons. The colonies of the latter were restricted to a few square miles, and were subjected to the superior authority of the Governor of the New-Netherlands, while the proprietary grants embraced provinces, large enough to constitute independent empires, and their owners knew, in their provincial governments, no superior authority save that of the paramount Sovereign. Nor were these rights, like the English peerage or the kingly power transferable only by descent
*Bill in the Chancery of New-Jersey, at the suit of John, Earl of Stair, and the Proprietors of the Eastern Division of New-Jersey, against Benjamin Bond and some other persons of Elizabethtown dis- tinguished by the name of the Clinker Lot Right men, filed in 1745.
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and confined to the families of the original grantees, but the juris- diction, equally with the soil, was a matter of traffic and was sold as merchandize or transferred by the operations of bankruptcy and more than one instance of such changes of proprietorship is to be found in the annals of New-Jersey, before the surrender of the political powers of the proprietaries of East and West New-Jersey to the Crown, in 1702.
Notwithstanding, however, the disadvantages, which in theory would seem to attend governments regulated upon the principles of trading companies, the self interest of those who looked to the co- Ionization, as a means of pecuniary profit, accomplished more for the establishment of free principles than ever could have been ob- tained from the voluntary grant of an independent monarch .- The proprietaries in the American colonies looked for emigrants to the people of England, on whose minds the excitements attendant upon the civil wars and the establishment of a Republic were still vivid, and they had to compete with one another and with the ad- vantages, which the chartered colonies, already independent in fact, held out to settlers. Popular rights ivere thus wrested by consider- ations of avarice from the most bigoted royalists. It would have been in vain, for Sir George Carteret and the representatives of Lord Berkeley's interests, when they partitioned New-Jersey between them, to have invited Englishmen to settle here, had they refused them the privilege of selecting their own spiritual instructors, had they denied them the rights of determining their own taxation, through colonial representation. We accordingly find that while New-York was till 1683 without any colonial assembly, the inhab- itants being ruled by the Duke's governors and councils, who from time to time, made regulations, which were esteemed as laws, the legislature of East Jersey was convened under the proprietary governor, Philip Carteret, as early as 1663, holding its sessions at Elizabethtown, Woodbridge, Middletown and Piscataway or Pis- cataqua, as it was then called, some of which provincial capitals, from their present aspect, would seem, indeed, not to have justified the ambitious anticipations of their founders.
The concessions, as they are styled, of the Proprietaries of both the Jerseys, though the term " concessions" may sound somewhat discordant to republican ears, granted to the Colonists the most ample privileges and in one respect, as has been frequently remarked, went far beyond the constitution adopted by the provincial congress of 1776. While that instrument confines political privileges to
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protestants, the concessions made no religious distinctions whatever. There is a provision against the imposition of any taxes, assess- ments or duties, without the authority or consent of the general assembly, and the exercise of religion, according to every one's conscience and judgement, is secured in the fullest manner.
At an early day, in the annals of the proprietary government of both Colonies, we are introduced to the great leaders of a sect, whose enthusiasm then attracted no little attention in the mother country, but the quiet deportment of whose followers, as we have ever known them, would induce the belief that its distinctive ap- pellation, like lucus a non lucendo, was derived from the absence of the quality implied by it. This is not the occasion to treat of the dogmas of theology or even to allude to that " inner light, which the Quaker regards not only as the revelation of truth but the guide of life and the oracle of duty." Intellectual freedom, su- premacy of mind, universal enfranchisement constitute Quakerismn, so far as regards civil society. But, however, George Fox might have relied on natural impulses, unaided by what the world calls learning, it could not have been so with Robert Barclay and Wil- liam Penn. They were both skilled in all the knowledge of their age, had been familiar with the most refined Society of England and the continent, while the son of Admiral Penn, notwithstanding the diversity of their religious tenets, enjoyed the personal intimacy of James the second. Penn, though identified with the origin of an- other State of our confederacy, bas greater claims than any other individual to be remembered in connection with the Province of New-Jersey.
Robert Barclay, who has done more than any other writer of his persuasion to render Quakerism a methodical and rational system, though on his conversion, acting under one of those irresistible impulses, by which its votaries were then influenced, he is said to have traversed the streets of Aberdeen in sackcloth and ashes*, was the first governor of East Jersey. He never visited America, but from 16S3 till his death in 1690, acted by a deputy. He was very instrumental in inducing the emigration of his countrymen the Scotch, as well those of other sects as the Quakers, and to con- ciliate other interests, there were introduced among the proprietaries, who made the purchase from the representatives of Carteret, sev- eral, whose religious opinions were utterly at variance with Barclay's.
*Biographic Universelle, Tome, 3, p. 360.
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Of this number was the Earl of Perth whose name was given to the seat of government, and which was not unreasonably, from its location, intended for a great connuercial emporium. There was also a large infusion of New Englanders into the population of East Jersey, and a subsequent immigration of Dutch during the convulsions, that preceded the assassination of Dewitt and the tri- umph of the Prince of Orange.
Lord Berkeley had sold his interest to two Quakers, as early as 1673, by one of whom a settlement was commenced on the Dela- ware, and in 1677 a large immigration of the people of that sect took place under the proprietaries of West Jersey, among whom Penn was conspicuous. In 16S1 the first assembly was held .- The commencement of the government was signalized by a deter- mined resistance to the exactions of Andross, who was then govern- or for the Duke, at New-York, and of whom it was said that " he knew no will but that of his master, and that Kirk and Jeffries were not fitter instruments to execute the despotic projects of James the second." To preserve the population from the contaminations of vice, every emigrant was obliged to prove that his change of resi- dence was " not the effect of crime nor an act of fraud, but that he was reputed a person of blameless and sober life."
Among the names at this epoch deserving of commemoration in' the annals of West Jersey is that of Thomas Jennings. He came to America in 1679 as the deputy of the Proprietary Byllinge, and was soon after made Governor. On the surrender of the proprie-' tary rights of jurisdiction, he remained in the province and became the first Speaker of the Assembly of New-Jersey and in a public career, that continued till his death in 1708, was distinguished as the unbending advocate of popular rights against the exactions of Commbury .* 1.
The various acts of James the second, while Duke of York, did not protect the proprietaries of New-Jersey from an usurpation of their rights, when he became king. He caused writs of Quo warranto to be issued against East and West Jersey, as well as against the charters of the Eastern Colonies and proposed to unite all New- England, New-York and New-Jersey under the government of that Andross, of whom we have spoken-that arbitrary and time serving ruler, who, after having fulfilled the views of the Catholic James, towards the Protestants while he was in power, on the
*Smith's History of New-Jersey, p. 352.
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change of government stood ready to act as the agent of William in an usurpation, equally unjust, against the rights of the Catholic, but tolerant proprietary of Maryland. These measures against the Jerseys, were of course arrested by the English revolution of 1683, which however was in its consequences far from benefiting the colonics. It secured the rights of the people at home ; but, at the same time, established the parliamentary ascendancy over those possessions, which, as has been observed, it had till then been ad. mitted, were subject to the king alone.
, 'The surrender of the government to the crown in 1702, though termed a voluntary act, seems to have had in view the avoiding of an expensive litigation. By the new system the proprietaries, whose organization continues to this day, were confirmed in their rights to their estates and quit rents, and were alone permitted to make purchases from the Indians, but their political authority was at an end. There was a confirmation of the rights of conscience, though they were not, as before, extended to the Papists. Quakers were rendered eligible to all offices, and conformably to the spirit of that age, the Governor was instructed to give special countenance to the Royal African Company in the sale of their negroes.
Though the two divisions of New-Jersey were thus consolidated with a single legislature, the effect of the arrangement, by placing the government of the colony under the same individual as that of New- York, was to subject the lesser province to all the inconveni- ences attendant on a connection with a greater State. New-York was the Governor's residence and there also most of the other offi- cers of State resided. Lord Cornbury, who succeeding the Earl of Bellamont at New-York, was under this arrangement the first Governor of New-Jersey, though a near connexion of Queen Anne, being the grandson of that illustrious Earl of Clarendon whose daughter married James the second, was extremely needy and came to this country for the purpose of exacting from his situation as much money as possible. Never, it is said, was a governor so detested as Cornbury, and the Queen was obliged to yield to the remonstrances of her subjects of both provinces and remove him from his office. Among other difficulties attendant on his admin- istration no little dissatisfaction was created by the attempt to give extraordinary favor to the Episcopal church with a view to render- ing it, as in England, the establishment, contrary to the wishes of the great body of the People. Indeed, though Churches were built at Perth Amboy in 1655, at Elizabeth Town in the time of Carteret
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and at several other places before the revolutionary war, it is only within our own recollection that the Church of England in this State obtained its complete organization by the consecration to the Eiscopate of a reverend clergyman, long the respected minister of this parish .*
It was in 173S that the colony succeeded in obtaining the ap- pointment of a separate governor in the person of Lewis Morris, who had been Chief Justice both in New- York and New-Jersey, and a prominent member of the Councils of those Colonies, who had more than once temporarily adininistered the government du- ring a vacancy, and who, as a member of assembly in Cornbury's time, had been associated with Jennings in the support of popular riglits. He was the son of the first patentee of Morrisania, and was in all respects a very remarkable individual, and would alone hare rendered memorable the name of Morris, t but the almost he- reditary influence, for upwards of a century, of his family in the two States, with which he had been connected, and the brilliant talents and revolutionary services of one of his descendants, in the second degree, have added to it far greater eclat. Though much gratitude was, at first, evinced towards Governor Morris for achie- ving, as it were, the freedom of the Province from the thraldom of New- York, his career was another illustration of the instability of popular favor. After the death of Morris in 1746, Belsher and Bernard occupied the chair of State, which without referring more particularly to the series of Governors, was, at the breaking out of the revolution, filled by Franklin, who, though possessed of the talents and acquirements adequate to his position, is particularly
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