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 7
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DE VRIES.
the town." And every town of one hundred householders shall have a grammar school equal to fitting children for the university. So early did this wise people make provision for the future welfare of the state, and tax themselves for the benefit of posterity.
When De Vries, in April 1633, found Wouter Van Twiller at New Amsterdam, just arrived as the successor of Minuits, he says, the new commander was on board the ship De Zoutberg. Van Twiller had been a clerk of the West India Company of Holland. This was his second voyage to America : in the first he had acted as the agent of the patroons, in selecting lands and purchasing from the natives.
De Vries expressed to Van. Twiller the disappointment he ex- perienced in regard to the whale fishery on the coast of New Ne- therland. He said the company ought to have sent out two or three sloops to gain the necessary knowledge, before fitting out so expensive an expedition as that which he had brought out. Godyn, who had been a director of the Greenland Whale Com- pany, ought to have known better.
Van Twiller had arrived with a ship of twenty guns, fifty-two sailors and one hundred and four soldiers. By this we may form some notion of the importance of the place in a commercial point of view ; and it does not appear that the second Director-general was inattentive to agriculture. The colony or manor of Pavonia was neglected by De Pauw, and finally reverted to the West India Company. Heer Van Rensselaer* had not yet arrived in the country, and had only sent dependants with stock and farming utensils as the commencement of Renssellaerburgh.
The population of New Amsterdam was not so univer- 163S sally enlightened as that of New England. At the arrival of Director-general Kieft, it is recorded in the secretary of state's office at Albany, that fort Amsterdam in the city of New Amsterdam was in a state of decay and dilapidation ; many farms belonging to the company, were without tenants or cultivation, and thrown into common; the trading vessels, with only one ex- ception, were in bad condition ; the houses were out of repair ; there was but one smith's shop, one grist mill, and one saw mill in operation-there had been three saw mills, but one had been burnt and another was unfit for use. "The site of the magazine was
* In Vol. 13, Dutch Records, p. 43, Kilian Van Rensselaer is addressed by the States-general, " honourable, respected, beloved, Kilian Van Rensselaer ; being, with his associates, patroon of a colony in New Netherland, and merchants in Am- sterdam." Judge Egbert Benson, in a MS. communication to Doctor S. Miller, says, " Kilian Van Rensselaer came over with Van Cortlandt (who had been bred a car- penter,) and brought a number of low people, indented servants and others not ser- vants, for the purpose of planting colonees, as the Dutch called them."
VOL. I.
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ALBANY RECORDS.
scarce discoverable." The system of government had deteriorated as well as all things else about this time. "Judicial power was ex- ercised by the governor and council, or by special courts. Confes- sions were extorted from the accused by torture."
Perhaps a few extracts from the Albany Records, will here give a better notion of the population of New Amsterdam in this year and a clearer idea of the place, than any mode I could adopt.
The " fort of Amsterdam in .New Netherland,"* although di- lapidated, was tenanted; for here Cornelius Van Tienhoveen " se- cretary in behalf of the general, privileged, West India Company of Amsterdam," held his office and attended to business ; and here " Sir William Kieft, Director-general of New Netherland,". appeared on the nineteenth of April 1638, and met John Damen, who there and then contracted to leaset of the director, two lots of land, probably a part of the company's farms above mentioned, " the largest," says the record, which "thus far has been cultivated by the blacks." This largest piece of land is described as being near the . fort, and the other is "north of the company's garden." Damen contracts to manure and cultivate this land, and as rent, pay to the Director-general half the produce, " with which God our Lord shall bless the said lots." Kieft contracts, "to keep the palisades in good repair, and provide Damen with two labourers for a fortnight in harvest time at the company's expense." The contract is for six years, and the company have the privilege to plant vines on the premises. There are other provisions ; and in case any contro- versy should arise, it is to be submitted to " the high provincial court of Holland and other courts of judicature."
All the legal transactions appear to be in presence of the above secretary Tienhoveen, whether protests of skippers, or bargains for land.' Kieft appears in company with the " honourable, wise and prudent," (words used by the translator whenever the gover-
* Sir William Kieft repaired the fort which had been erected by Van Twiller, and built a church within the walls. It has been supposed that a house for a place of worship had been previously built by our Dutch ancestors, but I find no trace of it. In 1623 the city of Amsterdam contracted to send out at her expense with the colo- nists a person to read the scriptures, which probably was done, and the people attend- ed divine worship at a private house until Kieft built the first church within the fort, which was probably finished in 1641 or carlier, as it was begun in 1640. The reverend John Megapolensis was perhaps then in New Amsterdam, and probably was the first preacher : he was certainly there in 1643, and remained until the English conquest in 1664. He practised physic, as did Doctor Vanderdonck ; and we are incidentally told of a French physician residing at Manhattoes in Stuyvesant's time, to which phy- sician a sachem repaired to be cured of disease.
t It appears that although Kieft's farm was at Paulus Hook, the whole of which peninsula he sold to Planck for seventy-five pounds, the Director-general had likewise a plantation on Manhattan Island, which he leased for one hundred and fifty pounds of good tobacco per year.
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ALBANY RECORDS.
nor or ex-governor are named,) Wouter Van Twiller, who hires a farm from Kieft.
Witnesses are permitted to swear or affirm as conscience dic- tates : the latter mode is claimed and practised by the baptists ; and accordingly Reyer Hofelsen Smit, affirms before the said se- cretary to circumstances which I copy to illustrate manners, ra- ther than to add dignity to our history. This solemn affirmation is that of Reiner Jansen Van Sevord, who declares that Hendrick Jansen Snyder, called Anthony Jansen Van Zule, " is a turk, a rascal and a horned beast."
There appears to be a degree of rustic ill-manners in the above ; . but generally the records evince a state of society that is pleasant to contemplate. We have an agreement for the rent of a farm called Wallenstein, with horses, cows, calves, plough and harrow ; the owner of which is to receive from the farmer as rent one hun- dred and fifty pounds of butter, half before and half after harvest ; besides fifty schepels of corn (that is, thirty-seven and half bushels) either " wheat, rye, barley, or such produce as they can spare, to the contentment of the owner." The increase of the cattle was to be equally divided.
By another agreement, the wise and prudent* Wouter Van Twiller provides Lenaart Arentsen with three milch cows, of which Arentsen is to enjoy the increase for four years ; at the expiration of which time, the " wise and prudent" may take his choice of the creatures Arentsen has in his stable, to the number of three milch cows, and the residue shall be equally divided between them, " provided that the three calves which are actually with the cows are to be fed and taken care of by Lenaart during the sum- mer and next winter, after which said calves must be returned to the Honourable Wouter Van Twiller"-" and provided that the first heifer calf of the whole stock shall be the property of Lenaart Arentsen's youngest daughter." George Rapelye receives cows on similar terms from Van Twiller ; and Kieft, the present Direc- tor-general, sells to Abraham Isaacs Plank, " a lot of land called Paulus-hook, situated to the west of the Island of Manhattan, east from Ahasimus on the North River, to the valley which borders on it." For this farm Plank gives four hundred and fifty guilders of twenty stivers each, (£75 st.) and the sheriff in the colony of Rensselaer-wyk is security.
* Grants to Wouter Van Twiller entitled him to the appellation of "wise and prudent." In 1637, " Hellgate and Nutten Island," were granted to him, and in 1613, " Red-hook." Several negroes appear on the records as patentees as early a: 1643 and 1646. New Utrecht, Long Island, was granted and laid out in 1657, as appears by MS. translations by Mr. Goelet, who is mentioned by William Sinith thus, " Mr. Jacob Goelet supplied us with several extracts from the Dutch records." But Mr. Smith's history contains very little of the early story of New Netherland.
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PRIMITIVE MANNERS.
Some payments are made in tobacco, as they were in Virginia long after. Several debts are acknowledged of tobacco due to the wise and prudent ex-director-general, who not only furnishes the colonists with cows but with goats.
The plain " situated on the island of Manhattan behind Corlaer's lot," was cultivated in tobacco; and Hans Hansen contracts to provide houses for the workmen and stores for the tobacco, and " to keep the persons emigrating from Vaterland in constant em- ploy to their mutual profit."
These records remind me of the testimony borne by Chancellor Kent to the virtues of the first colonists of New York : he says, " they were grave, temperate, firm, persevering men, who brought with them the industry, the economy, the simplicity, the integrity and the bravery of their Belgic sires ; and with those virtues they also imported the lights of the Roman civil law, and the purity of the protestant faith." But we should have a very unfaithful picture of the society of New Amsterdam if we applied these flattering colours to them generally. They undoubtedly belong to the lead- ing men on the island of Manhattan, and to the agriculturists throughout New Netherland, who like the Walloons of Brooklyn and the settlers of Long Island, Esopus, and other early planta- tions on the North river, as well as the farmers upon the island beyond the pallisadoes of the city : but within the boundary line of Wall-street, in governor Kieft's time, the virtues above named were not so general. In the fort was a body of soldiers; in the harbour and at the wharves sailors and their skippers, of various character ; and among them drunkenness and brawls were not un- frequent.
"The administration of Kieft has been generally condemned by history, but we must make allowances for the many causes of ir- ritation and perplexity which pressed upon him : among which the several colonies of Swedes who settled within the Dutch limits, and whom he had no power to resist, must be taken into account.
Colonel John Printz had been appointed governor of 1640 the Swedes on Delaware river in 1640, but he did not ar- rive until 1642. He established himself near the mouth 1643 of the Schuykill in 1643, where he built a fort, called New Gottenburg, a church and a place of residence for himself. He was instructed to resist the claims of the Dutch, but was only opposed by Kieft's protests. He cultivated friendly relations with the natives and enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity ; the colony prospered, and the colonel received permission from home to return in 1654, resigning his government to John Papagoa, a gentleman who had emigrated to America with the earliest Swedish colonists. Two years after Papagoa resigned his government to Risingh,
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PRINTZ.
who, as we shall see, was forcibly displaced by governor Stuy- vesant.
In addition to the encroachment of the Swedes on Delaware, and of the English on Connecticut river, Kieft found his territory invaded on Long Island by Lyon Gardiner, who had emigrated to America in 1635, and under Lord Say and Seal built a fort at Saybrook, of which he was commandant until he found a more pleasant and profitable home in 1639 on Long Island, and on the adjacent island, which has to this day borne his name."
The Indians likewise disturbed Sir William Kieft more than they had done his predecessors. They' probably lost the admiration first inspired by their European guests, placed less value on their commodities, felt annoyance from their encroachments and con- tempt at witnessing their vices. But before I enter upon the con- tests of Kieft and his savage neighbours, I will bring up the affairs of the French in Acadia and Canada, to the period of his admi- nistration.
The natives of Acadia or Nova Scotia called by the French, Micmacs, were governed patriarchally by their chiefs, or sagamores, a title which was in use likewise among the Indians of New England. Charlevoix tells us of a great sagamore who was con- verted to christianity at Port Royal, by the jesuits, but on his death-bed desired to be buried among his forefathers ; and obtain- ed the governor's promise to that effect. But father Bedet the jesuit, said " no ; it would be a scandal to bury a christian among infidels. Biencourt, the governor, pleaded his promise : "be- sides," he added, " you can bless the place of burial." The jesuit
* Lyon Gardiner was a Scotchman, and a lieutenant in the British Army. He purchased Gardiner's Island from the Indians, and a confirmation of the property from the agent of the Earl of Stirling, who had a grant of Long Island and the adjacent islets from James the first of England. The Hon. Silas Wood of Huntington, Long Island, says, that the relinquishment of Long Island by the heirs of the Earl of Stir- ling. is recognized in the patent from Governor Nicolls to Constant and Nathaniel Sylvester for Shelter Island, 31st of May 1666. In the Stirling MS. in the Historical Library of New York, the attorney of William Alexander in 1759 tells him that the right of the heirs of Lord Stirling was conveyed to James Duke of York, in the year 1662 for three hundred pounds. David Gardiner, the eldest son of Lyon, was born at Saybrook, and is supposed to be the first white child born in Connecticut. After the removal of Lyon to Gardiner's Island, his daughter Elizabeth was born, on the 14th of September 1641 ; and she is traditionally considered to have been the first English child born on Long Island, as Sarah Rapelye born at Wallabout in 1625, was the first of Dutch parents. David Gardiner was probably the first English child born within the New Netherlands. Lieutenant Lyon Gardiner gained the friendship and grati- tude of Wyandaia the sachem of the Montauks, by generously ransoming his daugh- ter from the Narragansetts, who had carried her off prisoner in one of their war ex- peditions from the continent. The grateful chieftain presented him with the territory which forms Southtown. Lyon died in 1663, having been in favour with both Indians and whites to the hour of his death. Gardiner's Island was appraised in 1663 at seven hundred pounds, and in 1824 paid one sixth of the taxes of East Hampton, and belonged at that date to the eighth lineal descendant from Lyon Gardiner.
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ACADIA AND CANADA.
would not yield that the body should be deposited 'in the spot pointed out by the sagamore, unless all the infidels should first be dug up and removed. As the sagamore's intention was to sleep with them, not to disturb them, and as the natives would not suffer such profanation to be offered to the bones of their ancestors, this could not be done. The jesuit persisted, and refused to perform the ceremonies necessary for the repose of the dying man unless he relinquished his intention. And father Charlevoix tells us, that this firmness of the jesuit was blessed. The sagamore gave up, and renounced his wish ;' consequently made an edifying end, such as would have done honour to an "ancient christian."
In the meantime the colony decreased : the colonists 1613 were dependent on the natives for food; and the contempt they conceived for such helpless beings, who at the same time made extravagant pretensions, prevented the progress of con- version to , christianity. In 1613 M. La Haive found but five persons at Port Royal, including two jesuits and the apothe- cary, who had been in charge of the spiritual and bodily welfare of the community; the latter acted as governor.
La Haive removed the two fathers to Pantagaet, and the new colony was named St. Saveur. Here the jesuits performed at 'least one miracle, if the historian is correct : but scarcely had the savages been edified by this supernatural event (the cure of an infant by baptism,) when Samuel Argal with a fleet of English ves- sels from Virginia entered the harbour and carried off the colonists, jesuits and all. Shortly after, Argal expelled the French from Port Royal or its neighbourhood, claiming the whole country for England. and the plunder for himself.
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M. Champlain, who had returned to France, again crossed the ocean and ascended the St. Lawrence. Having promised the Indians of Tadoussac, who were called by the French Montag- nez, that he would accompany them on a second expedition against the Iroquois, he proceeded before them to Quebec, where the Algonkins joined in the war party, and the Indians from below coming up, all the savages proceeded to the river Sorel to await Champlain. On his arrival at the rendezvous his allies re- ported that one hundred Iroquois were near them ; on which Champlain and four other Frenchmen leaving their bark, entered the canoes of the Indians, for the purpose of falling by surprise on the Iroquois. Again the heroes of the confederate five nations were defeated by the aid which Champlain afforded to their ene- mies, and the repetition of the fearful effects of their fire-arms.' The report of the first defeated party, which probably could not be fully comprehended, was fearfully confirmed to the Iroquois.
After this battle the allies, though victorious, were disgusted
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CHAMPLAIN.
with each other. The Algonkins were displeased with the eager- ness the French had shown in seizing and appropriating the spoil ; and the French were shocked when they saw their friends eat one of their enemies who had been taken prisoner. .
Champlain, after another voyage to France, returned 1615 to the colonists on the St. Lawrence. An establishment was formed on the island of Montreal. Champlain, who thought that by accompanying the war parties of the Indians, who surrounded the French colonists, he should secure their friendship, and at the same time make himself acquainted with the country, and familiar with the names of the various inhabitants, entered into an engagement with the Montagnez, the Algonkins, and the Hurons, all in league against their former conquerors, the Iroquois, who yet had not become acquainted with fire-arms for their defence or the annoyance of their enemies ; for they had not yet received from the Dutch the weapons which they subsequently used with such effect against the French and their savage allies, when they proved themselves the guardians of New-York in repelling the Canadian inroads.
M. Champlain having occasion to visit Quebec, the Indians in the neighbourhood of the colonists, with a number of French- men, armed with muskets, proceeded to the country of the Hu- Ions to collect their forces against the Iroquois. They were accompanied by a father of the order of Recollet ; who, in his zeal as a minister of peace, persuaded himself that it became him to accompany this invading war party, that he might, says father Charlevoix, " accustom himself to the manner of life of the people to whom he proposed to announce Jesus Christ." This Recollet father was Joseph Caron.
Champlain, returning from Quebec to Montreal, immediately pressed forward, with two additional Frenchmen and ten Indians, for the purpose of overtaking the allies. At the village of the Hurons he joined them ; and they pushed on, accompanied by father Joseph Caron, to attack the Iroquois, who, at that time, had no knowledge of the French nation but by the injuries they had sustained at their hands.
The missionaries appeared among the Hurons, Algonkins, and other Canadian savages, with the advantage of being of the same country with those whose superiority in arts and arms gave them suc- cess over their enemies. The testimony of the Jesuit Charlevoix respecting the effects of the zeal evinced by the missionaries among the Hurons is given with candour and great nairete. He says, they made but few converts who submitted to baptism, but they saved many infants by baptizing them when dying. As to the adults, his words are, " We are not to consider a savage convinced because he assents to what is proposed to him ; for
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CHAMPLAIN.
they hate nothing so much as to contradict or dispute that which is asserted to them ; and, sometimes, from pure complaisance, and sometimes from laziness, they evince every mark of being con- vinced on subjects to which they have paid no attention, or have not comprehended." He says, they receive baptism, and attend to all the external observances of religion, and will say frankly that they do so to oblige the priest who has pressed them to change their faith ; but, with strange simplicity, he adds, that Indians, who have hud no doubt respecting the articles of the Roman faith, even the most incomprehensible, yet would not be converted.
M. Champlain fortified Quebec, he having been at this 1623 time established as governor of Canada; but the city, now so proud, and as a fortress the admiration of the western world, was, in 1623, a very paltry place, and so it re- mained in 1629, when Kirk took the place for the English go- vernment. Most of the French inhabitants remained, and Canada was restored to France in 1632, by the treaty of St. Germain, with all its dependencies.
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In this year the capital of Canada consisted of a small 1632 fort, surrounded by some miserable houses and barracks. Higher up the St. Lawrence, Montreal was still more inconsiderable. A few houses were commenced at Trois rivieres, and below Quebec the settlements were much the same. This scant colonization, with the ruins of Port Royal, were the only results of the efforts of France to plant civilization in America up to this time.
When Champlain was restored to his government by the peace of St. Germain, he sent a colony of jesuits among the Hurons, whose country was bounded by Lake Erie on the south, Lake Huron on the west, and Ontario on the east. Notwithstanding many miracles performed by the fathers this colony did not thrive ; and, although many christians were made, they were generally converted and baptized when dying.
The Iroquois had by this time procured guns, powder, 1638* and lead, from the New Netherlanders, and resumed their to haughty attitude, as warriors and conquerors, over the 1642 savages of Canada, notwithstanding the aid the latter re- ceived from their French allies. About the time that Sir William Kieft arrived at New Amsterdam, the skill attained by the confederated five nations, in the use of the European engines of destruction, enabled them to take ample revenge upon the French
* Let us crer remember that in this year the first printing press was sent to Ame- rica, by J. Glover, a dissenting clergyman of England, and arrived at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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MANHATTAN.
settlers for the inroads of M. Champlain. Eagerly and quickly the Iroquois seized the deadly arms of the Europeans, and, retain- ing his superiority of skill and courage, became more dreadful than ever to the Algonkin tribes; and the French were compelled to erect a fort, which they called Richlieu, at the mouth of the river Sorel, to guard against what they termed the insolence of the Iroquois .*
Their country, according to Charlevoix, extended from the Sorel to the Ohio; was bounded on the north by the great lakes and the Hurons, and on the south by the hunting grounds of the Leni Lenape or Delawares.
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About the year 1640 the French government established some schools at Quebec, a hospital, and convents. A feeble attempt was likewise made to resuscitate the colony at Montreal, and the establishment was placed under the patronage of, " The mother of God, our lady of Paris."
CHAPTER V.
Fort Amsterdam-Long Island-Hartford-Struggles of Sir William Kieft-With New England-with the Indians --- De Vries-Roger Williams-Canadian Affairs-Previous His- tory of Captain Underhill-Troubles and unhappy end of Director-general Kieft.
THE practice of purchasing their land from the Indians was one adopted by the colonists from a pure sense of justice and propriety ; it was not enjoined by the grants from the European potentates. Calvert, Lord Baltimore, and, one year after, Roger Williams, t purchased of the natives publicly in council the terri- tory they wished for their followers. The Dutch did the same at Manhattan, at Oranien, and in 1636 at Harlaem. The settlers on Long Island, both English and Dutch, satisfied the Indian claims. Many of the towns in Queens county were English, while the greater number in Kings county were Dutch. Wouter Van Twiller granted a tract of land in Kings county as early as 1636.
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