USA > New York > New York City > History of the New Netherlands, province of New York, and state of New York : to the adoption of the federal Constitution. Vol. I > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54
Hudson coasted the shores of Greenland, renewed the discov - eries of Spitzbergen ; came within eight degrees of the pole, but found himself baffled by ice, and returned discomfited but not discouraged.
In the mean time the States of Holland had formed a 1608 company for traffic and colonization in Africa and Amer- ica, called the East India Company. Europe was alive to find the predicted short passage to the East, the seat of wealth and land of wonders. It was in 1606 that Hudson first sailed .* In 160S he again found men in England whose hope he could re-animate, and whose prospects of future gain led them to fit out
* In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold sailed (March 26th) with thirty colonists for America, and made land, May 14th, near Cape Cod. He commenced a settlement which failed. In 1608 John Robinson went to Holland. Tyranny in Europe was the prime cause of colonization in America. It was during the reign of James the Ist of England that the equality of rights (without which man is a slave) began to revive from a long torpor in that island. But it was found to flourish better in the colonies of the New World than in any part of the Old. "Those," says Hume, " who were discontented with the established church and monarchy, had sought for freedom amidst those savage deserts," meaning North America. James Ist, with that generosity which is pleasantly exercised at the cost of others, gave, by patent, Acadia and Long Island to the first Earl of Sterling ; but the natives and original possessors knew nothing of it. Feeble attempts at colonization were made by the French at Port Royal, and by the English on James River. As I have to record the burning of men at the stake in the city of New York, I will here remind the reader, that, in the year 1612, three white christian men-learned and pious men- were sentenced in England to be burned as hereticks, that is, for not believing as king James the Ist and his bishops believed, or, becoming hypocrites. Two of these men, so sentenced, were burned alive at the stake, and the third, for fear of popular opinion, was hid in a dungeon until death released him from tyranny. When in New York, a century after, negroes were burnt at the stake, it was not in cold blood, but under the influence of panic terror.
1
32
NEW NETHERLAND.
another expedition for the same purpose as the first, and again he exerted his skill and periled his life in vain among the regions of snow and mountains of ice. His employers were disheartened : not so the dauntless mariner. He offered his services, made more valu- able by experience, to the Dutch East India Company ; they were accepted, and on the 4th of April, 1609, he made his third voyage of discovery. He was accompanied by his son, in the Dutch ship, the Half-moon, with a crew of eighteen men, half English and half Dutch, and sailed on that voyage which has rendered his name immortal, and which gave to the Dutch, according to received notions, a just title over an empire in the New
1609 World. Again, with a perseverance worthy of his em- ployers, he sought the passage to India by the north, and again he was turned back from Nova Zembla by icebergs and in- terminable fields of frozen sea : he shaped his course to the west, and passing Greenland and Newfoundland, coasted until he saw the promontory of Cape Cod. He called this land, and the region beyond it, New Netherland, and Cape Cod was long considered by the Dutch as the boundary of their territory to the north-east. Hudson supposed that he was the discoverer of the promontory. He is believed to have anchored in the mouth of the Penobscot river. Sailing south, Hudson found himself opposite the bay of Chesapeake, and knowing this was an already occupied region by his countrymen, the English, claimed by them and named from their virgin queen, he again turned to the north, and discovered Delaware bay and river, called by the Dutch South river. and considered by them as the boundary of New Netherland in that direction. Continuing his course, Hudson saw on the second of September, the highlands of Navesink or Neversink. He sup- posed, and mankind generally considered, that he was the first European who had viewed this prominent land-mark, so familiar now to navigators. The voyage of Verrazzano was unknown to him. The next day he entered the great bay between Sandy Hook, Long Island, Staten Island and Perth Amboy ; into which flows the Raritan, Passaic, Hackensack, and part of the mighty stream which bears the navigator's name. Well might he linger a week in admiration of this beautiful lake-like water, with the un- dulating hills of New Jersey on his left, and on his right those islands, to one of which he gave the name it still bears, of " Staten."
Hudson and his Half-moon were no less objects of admiration to the natives, than they and their country were to him. The re- cords of the Indians gave them no reminiscence of Verrazzano, his ship, or his crew ; and the savages saw a moving and floating palace in the Half-moon-a Manito in Henry Hudson. He, how- ever, was not so fortunate in all his intercourse with the Indians as Verrazzano had been. One of his boats, when on an explo-
.
33
HARBOUR OF NEW YORK.
ring expedition, perhaps gave offence to some of the natives, and by a discharge of arrows a seaman of the name of Coleman, was słain. Happily the commander of the ship did not undertake to chastise the savages for an act which probably had been provoked by the strangers. Coleman was carried to the ship, and next day buried. The Indians generally seem to have been ignorant of this mishap, for they visited the Half-moon as before, bringing fruits, tobacco and maize for the much-admired strangers.
The journal of the voyage tells us that some of the crew landed, and rambled into the woods of Monmouth county without impe- diment. Many of the natives visited the ship, bringing, among .other fruits of their country, dried currants. Some were clothed in furs, some in dressed skins, and some in feather mantles; wearing round their necks copper ornaments, and bearing pipes of copper in their hands.
On the twelfth of September, Hudson passed into the harbour of New York, and entered the mouth of De Groote riviere. If lic explored the East river, it was done by sending his boats for the purpose. De Groote riviere was likewise called the North, as distinguishing it from the waters on the eastern side of the island. During this time, and before sailing up the North river, the natives brought " Indian wheat," tobacco, oysters, and whatever they thought would be acceptable to the strangers ; and the Indians were observed to have " pots of earth to cook their meat in.".
The harbour of New York after passing the Narrows, is bounded on the west by the shore of New Jersey, has the island of Man- hattan in front, or north, and on the east the shore of Long Is- land. A reef near the entrance was called after the seal seen on it, Robyn's rift, from the Dutch name for the animal ; Governor's Island being covered with nut trees, was named Nutien (or Nooten.) The two small islands of Ellis and Bedlow do not seem to have received names at this time, nor long after.
'Turning from Amboy bay, the Raritan river, and the
1609 inviting channel west of Staten Island, the discoverer passed the Narrows, and found himself in one of the finest harbours of the world .* He must have seen that the south point of Manhattan was by nature intended for a great commercial city ; but he at the same time hoped that he saw in one or the other of the broad water's which flowed on either
* When Hudson entered his river, it was called by the natives Mohicanituck, or Shatinicut. or Cahohatatea, according, as I suppose, to the tribe who gave the infor- mation. And the neighbouring nations, he was told. were the Sanchkiecani, Wabanje, and Mohawks: the latter being above the Kaatskill. All were on the western bank. and so were the Wappingers. (Wapinga, or Wanbingi, ) a name which Heckewelder derives from the opossum. Ebeling calls the Esopus Indian's Wappingers:
VOL. I.
5
34
RIVER HUDSON.
side of this land, the much-desired passage to India." Though delighted with the realities he saw-the goodly oaks and luxuriant soil promising a refuge to the oppressed of Europe-a home for the liberty of the world-still the object of his search was fore- most in his mind ; and it was not until he had explored the North river, that he relinquished the hope of finding here a north-west pas- sage to the Indian Ocean. When he had carried the Half-moon up to the site of the present city of Hudson, and found himself in fresh water, and among islets and sand bars, the visions of eastern riches must have given place to the reality of being the first navi- gator of this noble river, and conferring on his employers a title, as he supposed, to a country unrivalled on the globe. After ex- ploring in his boat, perhaps in his ship, as far as the situation at present of the city of Albany, and holding intercourse in his pro- gress with the friendly natives, Hudson returned to the Man- hattoes about the fourth of October ; not far from the time when the famous Captain Smith sailed for England from Jamestown, and Champlain was invading the Iroquois from Canada, by the way of the lake which bears his name .*
From September tenth to the twenty-second, Hudson had felt his way, with line and lead, through the Highlands to the site , of Albany, and again descended to Spikendevil creek and the Copsey rocks, on which our southern promenade, once a bat- tery, now rests.t To himself, and his crew, all was a scene of de- light and wonder, as he explored his own great stream. But I am grieved to say, that the lives of eleven of the natives were sacri- ficed in his visit to the beautiful river. The untamed wilderness and the untamed men, were equally objects of admiration. All was free to grow, luxuriate, enjoy, and decay as nature dictated. In one of the pleasantest months of our many pleasant months, did Europeans first see this noble river ; and Hudson returned to the island of the Manhattoes, with ideas of the stream that bears his name, and the country through which it rolls, that cannot easily be imagined by an inhabitant of the present day. :
* In the library of the New York Historical Society, in a MS. by the late Rev. Mr. Abeel, in which he says, that at the point of Manhattan island, Hudson found a fierce and hostile people. but this is contradicted by other statements : on the con- trary, Mr. Abecl savs, the Indians on the west side of the harbour, about Comunipaw, came daily on board the Half-moon, and brought oysters, maize, and fruits ; and here Hudson landed. See Appendix D.
t When Hudson, in descending the river, was about the Highlands, some of the natives came aboard the vessel, who were given' rum to drink, and made drunk by the crew, I hope, though I fear, not without the participation of the Captain. It is said that the effect of this poison " astonished the Indians, and filled them with great fear." Happy would it have been if this dread of the liquor and its effects, had been accompanied by a disgust that could have withstood the seduction of European teaching.
1
2
MANHATTAN.
1752894 36
Although Henry Hudson landed on the island of Manhattan, before he ascended the great river, and had his first interview with the assembled Sachems of the adjoining country, as the Indians have informed Heckewelder, he certainly did not 1609 fail to seek the northwest passage through the North river, and when he opened the sea of Tappan, might have imagined that the road to riches was found.
Long after the days of the discovery of Manhattan, Hudson and the Dutch generally, as well as the Indians, supposed that the Half-moon was the first ship that had been seen by the natives of this part of the continent. Of this we have the testimony of Vanderdonck, who wrote in 1650. The Indians appear to have lost all knowledge of Verrazzano's visit to Sandy Hook, and the shores within ; or' those who saw him had, in the lapse of years, been replaced by other tribes.#
There can be no doubt that the Delaware Indians had preserved the tradition which the reverend Mr. Heckewelder communicated to Doctor Samuel Miller, and which is deposited in the Library of the New York Historical Society. They described the ap-
+ 1609. Vanderdonck says, that when the Half-moon arrived at the New Netherland, the natives " did not know that there were any other people in the world than those who were like themselves ;" he says many of them were still living at the time of his writing, " with whom" he had conversed. When they first discovered Hudson's ship, they " stood in deep and solemn amazement," not knowing whether it was an "apparition from the world of spirits, or a monster of the sea ; and when they saw the men their astonishment was still greater ;" from which the author concludes, " that the Netherlanders were the first finders or discoverers and possessors" of the country. It appears that in the eyes of Europeans the natives were not considered as either discoverers or possessors. But although Verrazzano had made his appearance among these Indians in 1524, eighty-five years before the arrival of the Half-moon, neither the Dutch voyagers nor the Indians they conversed with had any knowledge of the events. Those natives who received the Italian, and his French crew, were no longer the inhabitants of the shores of New Jersey cr New York ; probably no longer in ex- istence ; and no trace would remain of the event among the people seen by Hudson in 1609, or by Vanderdonck in 1650.
Although Doctor Vanderdonck gives as the limits of New Netherland north and south, the sea coast from 38 degrees 53 minutes north to 43 degrees south, yet he subsequently says it is bounded "by New England and the Fresh river," (meaning.the Connecticut river) and in part by the river of Canada or New France (the St. Law- rence) and by Virginia. And again ; " north east the New Netherlands butt against New England, where there are differences on the subject of boundaries which we wish were well settled. On the north the River of Canada stretches a considerable dis- tance, but in the north-west it is still undefined and unknown. Many of our Nether. landers have been far into the country, more than 70 or 80 miles from the river and sea shore : we also frequently trade with Indians who come more than 10 and 20 days journey from the interior, and who have been further off to catch beavers, and they know of no limits to the country," therefore he concludes, that, " we know not how deep or how far we extend inland." Such were the ideas of the learned among the Dutch as to the boundaries of New Netherland. At the time Vanderdonck wrote there appear to have been many whales on our coast; some occasio ally grounded in the shoal waters, when too cager in pursuit of pleasure or food. I am indebted for Vanderdonck's History, to a MS. translation by Jeremiah Johnson, Esq.
36
FIRST TASTE OF RUM.
pearance of the Half-moon when first descried approaching fromn . sea as that of a wonderful marine monster ; then they imagined the ship was a floating house of uncommon magnitude ; at last they compared her to a great canoe filled with gods, and directed by tiie great Spirit himself, dressed in scarlet. They said that those Indians who first saw this awful vision approach, sent runners, and messengers in canoes to spread the news, and inform the chiefs of the adjacent shores and islands : and that in consequence a council of Sachems convened on the point of land, afterwards the site of the city of New York, who awaited the approach, and re- ceived with propitiatory offerings the great Manito in red. They said nothing of the death of John Coleman, or of any untoward occurrence. They described the preparations which were made for sacrificing to the great Spirit who had designed to visit them ; and he having landed with his attendant spirits, ordered a culibash to be brought from his moving house, from which he poured a liquid into `a smaller transparent receptacle, and drank it off. Again filling the small calibash, he offered it to the Sachem who was nearost to him, and he, after smelling the liquor, passed it to another, who did the same, all refusing to drink. At length the fatal cup came to the last in the circle, and was still untasted. A bold warrior however at last accepted the pledge for fear of of- fending the benignant Manito by rejecting his offering, and rather than draw down the wrath of heaven upon the red men, he re- solved to risk his own life. He drank the rum. The delete- rious poison soon began its operation upon one unaccustomed to any stimulants ; and while his companions anxiously looked at him he began to reel, and soon staggered and fell. They gathered about him in sorrow and wonder, and he recovering, described the pleasure he received from the intoxicating excitement. All the as- sembly then desired to experience the bounty of the red-coated Manito, and all became drunk. In this .state of madness, which has been the bane of their race, the navigator left them ; and as the narrators informed Mr. Heckewelder, the island was called by the Indians, Manhattan, or the place of drunkenness, or mad- ness by intoxication. An ominous name .*
The story of the Dutch gaining land for their first establishment, trading house, or fort, by cutting the ox-hide into strips, and thus surrounding a space sufficient for their purpose, is likewise a tra- dition told by the Delaware Indians to Mr. Heckewelder; and if applicable at all, can only be supposed to have happened at a subsequent period, when in 1615 Christianse visited America, ' and commenced a post for trading. The tradition is, that the Dutch
* Doctor Barton gives all this scene of drunkenness, but supposes it happened when Verrazzano came within the Hook, and long before Hudson.
1
37
!
FORTS.
asked, in like manner as did Queen Dido, for as much land as would fall within the circumference of an ox-hide ; which being granted, they cut the hide carefully into one continuous strip not larger than the little finger, and thus encircled a large piece of ground, which the admiring savages willingly gave, pleased with the ingenuity displayed by their visiters. All that renders this probable is, that the Dutch traders, rather than the Indian narrator, should have been familiar with the original story of the foundation
of Carthage. The fact is, that until 1615 the Dutch had 1615 made no purchase, nor obtained any permanent footing on the island of Manhattan, but at that time, probably under the guidance of Christianse, they purchased a piece of land on the bank of the Hudson, and obtained permission to erect a trading house, which being guarded by a palisade fence, was called the first fort. The situation of this fort was near or on the site of what is now Bunker's hotel or boarding house, and immediately looking down to the beach. The first real fort, as we shall see, was erected in 1623 or 4, and was a square, and on the bank of the river where the west wall of Trinity Church burying-ground is now. The first piece of soil purchased, extended from the pali- sadoed trading-house along the bank, to Rector street, and was cultivated and used as a garden. I am aware that in the controversy between Massachusetts and New York, in 1667, respecting bounds, the commissioners of New York admitted that there existed a town and fort at New Amsterdam in 1612, when Argal received the submission of the man he called governor. But in 1612 the Dutch government had neither town nor fort here. Some huts sheltered a few unlicensed traders, who probably had a stockade round their dwellings to protect them from the savages with whom they bartered.
New Amsterdam (or New York) was begun by traders, and it now flourishes by trade ; but what a difference ! Then a stock- ade fort, or a stone wall, a few huts, a single ship, (to which an Albany sloop is a floating palace,) beads and shells for money, and otter skins and green tobacco for merchandise ! Now, thou- sands of palaces, and thousands of vessels, whose long-boats might vie with the half-decked shallop of Columbus, banks, mints, bills of credit, and specie ; with the manufactures of both hemispheres as the articles of commerce.
. . To return to Henry Hudson. Sailing back to Europe, 1610 he brought the Half-moon into the harbour of Dartmouth in England, (compelled so to do by his mutinous English sailors,) and sent his Dutch employers an account of his discoveries. Again the English merchants had their hopes revived of finding the much-desired passage by a short road to India, and Hudson was again employed by his countrymen for the purpose. On the 17th
-
38
HUDSON'S BAY.
of April 1610, he sailed on his fourth and last voyage, toward the North Pole, in the never-dying hope of discovering this imagined passage to the Indian Ocean. From April to July, amidst the suf- ferings of incessant cold, danger from ice islands and icebergs, struggling with disappointment and a mutinous crew, he thought himself rewarded for all when he passed the straits that bear his name, and saw a clear sea beyond. Into this sea he entered on the fifth day of August. To an island which he encountered he gave the name of Digges Island, in honour of one of his employ- ers. The sailors who were sent to examine this place, reported great plenty of game, and the navigator was advised to replenish the exhausted stock of food ; but elated with the bright prospect before him, he rejected the salutary counsel, and steered on for the country of gold and spices. He now felt assured that all his dreams were realized. Again he found that his way to India was impeded by snow-covered land and ice : he coasted the inhospitable shores but found no opening-he was in Hudson's bay. Here he wished to remain until spring, still hoping that the opening had · only eluded his search in consequence of the late season ; but in this fatal bay his voyages and discoveries terminated .*
In the same year that Hudson sailed on his last voyage, · 1610 'the merchants of Amsterdam sent out a ship to this coun- try ; claiming it as belonging to Holland by virtue of the un- fortunate navigator's discoveries. The intention was to trade with the natives, others soon followed ; and some few of the adven- turers erected huts on the south point of Manhattan Island.
Samuel Smith, the historian of New Jersey, says, that in a pamphlet published in 1648, with a view to oppose the Dutch Colony of New Netherland, the author states, that at the time of Argal's visit there were " at Manhattan Isle, in Hudson's river," but four houses and a pretended Dutch governor, " who kept trading boats and trucking with the Indians." Argal made the trader pay whatever he pleased to demand as the charges of his voyage, and submit to the governor of Virginia.
The Dutch East India Company, finding that Hudson's 1614 discovery of the great river gave them no monopoly of the trade to New Netherlands, but that private adventurers visited Manhattan and the neighbourhood, bearing off furs and other produce, applied to the States general for an exclusive pri- vilege, on the ground that the discovery was made at their ex- pense ; and this privilege was given by the edict of 1614 ; by which all persons who might discover new countries should have the ex- clusive trade thereto for four years in succession. This was the
* See Appendix E.
-----
39
CHRISTIANSE AND BLOCK.
first exclusive right vested in the citizens of New Amsterdam by the republic, and was the foundation of the Dutch West India Company hereafter mentioned.
Adrian Block arrived at Manhattan Island for the purpose of trading with the Indians for skins, and making further discoveries for the Dutch East India Company. By some accident his vessel was burned, and he built another; certainly the first sea vessel, how- ever small her tonnage, ever built here. With this sea-boat he ex- plored the East river and Sound, between the main land and Long Island, which the Indians called the Island of Shells. Christianse, who was on similar service for the company, met Block somewhere about Cape Cod, and they in company explored the coast, and it is supposed that they discovered Newport harbour, where Ver- razzano had been long before, and the whole of Narragansett bay, to which they gave the name of Nassau. They then re- turned to Manhattan after entering Connecticut river.
For the voyages of Christianse and Block, and the first settle- ment near Albany, we are indebted to the Albany Records .* Christianse sailed up to the neighbourhood of Albany and erected Fort Orange, further than this he considered the navigation fit for sloops only.t Block and Christianse brought out traders who built on Manhattan Island. Block when he sailed through Hell-gate (the appellation now fixed on this pass) left his name permanently on Block Island.į
1621
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.