USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 3
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INDIANS BRINGING TRIBUTE
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PIONEER WORK IN NEW NETHERLAND EARLY SETTLEMENT ON MANHATTAN ISLAND
After the charter of the United New Netherland Company expired, sev- eral attempts were made to extend its monopoly of trade by a renewal of the grant from the States-General. The individual merchants who composed the company continued to control most of the commerce to Manhattan, although no attempt was made to obstruct or interfere with the other merchants, and associations engaged in the trade. Up the river, Fort Nassau continued to be the centre from which a dozen or more Dutch traders pushed their opportu- nities for securing furs, which, from time to time, they sent down the river to Manhattan to be shipped to Holland. 1142783
The trade to New Netherland assumed such proportions as to become a much-coveted prize, for a monopoly of which various parties were contending. The Dutch East India Company was the model upon which it was hoped to found a new West India Company with a similar valuable monopoly in America, the agitation for which had begun in 1604. For such a monopoly there were several aspirants, among whom one of the most notable was a com- pany headed by Henry Eelkens, who was a relative of that Jacob Eelkens who had charge of the trading post at Fort Nassau, on North River, as the "Groot River" of Hudson had come to be called, the name "Mauritius" lasting only a few years.
The United New Netherland Company's charter having lapsed by limita- tion, each ship dispatched from Holland required the special permission of the authorities. Such permission was obtained by Henry Eelkens and associates in October, 1618, for a voyage of the ship Schilt (Shield), from Amster- dam to the North River. Cornelis Jacobsen May, whose former adventure in the ship Fortune, in 1615, has already been noted, made another voyage in August, 1620, in the ship Glad Tidings to the James River in Virginia. He seems to have mixed up this voyage with his former one to the Delaware Bay region in a report and claim which he made for a charter based on the dis- covery of new countries, under the general charter of March, 1614, one of the provisions of which was that such a discovery should be reported within four- teen days from the discoverer's return to Holland. Henry Eelkens made a vigorous opposition to the application of May's principals for a charter, and withstood the efforts of the States-General to reconcile the opposing factions, and the charter was refused. This contention had considerable effect in bringing to a head the movement for a charter for a national association, which was granted and executed June 3, 1621, to the "West India Company."
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
Meanwhile the directors of the United New Netherland Company, who continued in the trade with the North River, had become convinced that the future success of New Netherland must depend upon colonization. The Dutch did not readily respond to any project which involved permanent expatriation, and the desire of the directors for colonists seemed unlikely to be gratified so far as the Hollanders themselves were concerned. John Robinson and his flock of English Nonconformists, because of their views on church govern- ment, had been compelled to leave England rather than submit themselves to the intolerant demands of conformity on the part of the State Church, enforced by the crown. They had settled in Leyden, four hundred families strong, and under the liberal policy of the Dutch government they had perfect liberty of conscience. They were, however, English in their habits and ideas, and though enjoying religious liberty, still found their surroundings in many respects uncongenial. Believing in congregational independency, they were not much more sympathetic with the Presbyterianism of the Dutch Reformed Church than the Episcopalianism of the Church of England. They desired some place of settlement where they had not only liberty, but power; and where they might remove their children from contact or possible sympathy with any antagonistic ecclesiastical ideas.
During their twelve years in Holland John Robinson and his people had frequently turned their attention to the possibilities of America as a final haven and home. They had several times attempted to arrange with the London Company and the Plymouth Company, but found no inducement in that direction. Then they came in touch with the United New Netherland Company, which promised them, if the consent of the States-General could be secured, to give them free transportation to New Netherland, and to furnish every family with a sufficient number of cattle for its needs. The company wanted the approval of the States-General because of the hostility of King James and his government to these religious refugees. The States-General had been made aware of this hostility several times through the British Embassy at The Hague, and the liberality of the Dutch government in har- boring the Pilgrims was very distasteful to James.
Another matter which entered into the deliberations of the States-General was a political one. The English claim which afterward appeared in several printed volumes, had already been advanced, in all probability, in diplomacy, to the effect that because Henry Hudson was an Englishman, the country claimed by the Dutch as New Netherland was, in fact, English soil. If the story of Argall's demand at Manhattan be true, it was doubtless known to the Dutch government. Therefore the States-General, to keep out of complica- tions, declined the request of the New Netherland directors, and refused to permit the Pilgrims to colonize Manhattan. Only a short time afterward
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WALLOON EMIGRANTS TO NEW NETHERLAND
about half of the Pilgrims at Leyden sailed on the Speedwell, from Delfshaven, and the same year began at Plymouth Rock the colonization of New England.
Several voyages were licensed by the States-General in 1620 and 1621, not only to the Mauritius or North River, but also to the South River (now Delaware River) which Cornelis Hendricksen had visited several years before. This activity was accentuated by the chartering of the Dutch West India Company into a definite claim of sovereignty over a three-hundred mile strip between the northern and southern English settlements. Therefore Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassador of James I at The Hague, exchanged various communica- tions and finally, in February, 1622, addressed a formal communication, in French, protesting against the continuance of Dutch trade, or the planting of Dutch colonies in the region in which the title of King James I was, said the address, "notorious to every one." It concluded with the statement that the king had commanded him to apply to the States-General and to require of them in the king's name that the six or eight ships now ready to sail for the country in question should be detained and that further prosecution of the colonial enterprise should be forbidden.
It was only a month or two after this protest that occurred the most important movement so far made toward peopling the new colony. There were located in Amsterdam a community of Protestant Walloons, or natives of the southern provinces of Belgium. In their native provinces they had been subjected to persecution for their Protestant principles, and for that reason they had settled in Holland; becoming identified with the Dutch church and in every way reputable citizens of Amsterdam. These Walloons, though having few of the reasons for desiring to emigrate which impelled the Pil- grims to leave the Netherlands for the rocky coast of Massachusetts, were not restrained by the ties of birth from leaving their adopted home in Amsterdam for another in New Netherland. Therefore they made applica- tion to the States of Holland for leave to go and settle in New Netherland. The application was referred to the Dutch West India Company, and the Amsterdanı Chamber, which was probably the only one that then had its capi- tal fully subscribed, took up the matter. After about eleven months of nego- tiation and preparation, fifty or sixty families embarked on the ship New Netherland, of two hundred and sixty tons burden, in March, 1623, under command of Cornelison May, appointed by the Amsterdam Chamber to be captain of New Netherland. The vessel arrived off Manhattan Island in May following. The ship went up the river to the mouth of the Tawasentha River, where the small Fort Nassau was located; but as it was thought desirable to build a larger fort for the protection of the new colony, a site four miles up the river was chosen, where Fort Orange was built at what is now the prin- cipal business section of Albany. Adriaen Joris was left in charge of this set-
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
tlement with eighteen Walloon families, and as Joris was a sea captain likely to be away at intervals on voyages to Holland, Daniel Kriekenbeeck was des- ignated to command the fort and colony in his absence.
Jacob Eelkens, who had been in charge of Fort Nassau since it was established in 1614, had, on one of his numerous trading expeditions gone over to the Connecticut Valley. He seized Seguin, an Indian chief, and took him to the fort, and he demanded more than a hundred fathoms of wampum for the sachem's ransom-a most exorbitant demand. The Indians paid the price, but for a long time were suspicious of all Dutch traders, with the result of a decided slump in the fur trade. One immediate consequence was the dismissal of Eelkens from the service of the Dutch West India Company.
Captain May in the same year went down the river in the New Nether-
land. A few families were left on Manhattan Island, and the ship was taken
down the coast to the South (or Dela- ware) River, where on Timmer's Kill, near the site of the present town of Gloucester, New Jersey, he built a fort, which he named Fort Nassau, about four miles south of Philadelphia. In June, 1623, the West India Company having been fully organized, there sailed under its auspices an expedition of three ships, the Orange Tree, the Eagle, and the Love, which all brought over more Walloon families, some for the settlements on the North River and the others for Fort Nassau on South River.
In this same year of 1623 the States-General gave provincial status to COUNCIL OF TAWASENTHA, 1617 New Netherland by granting it a seal with the device of a shield, bearing a beaver, proper, surmounted by a count's coronet and surrounded by the words "Sigillum Novi Belgii."
The term of Cornelis May having expired in 1624, William Verhulst was appointed director of New Netherland for the term of one year. He had his headquarters on the Delaware River, and there is no record of his having visited Manhattan. It was during his administration that more than one hundred head of cattle were sent over to the settlement at Manhattan. In 1625, William Verhulst's term expired, and in December, 1625, Peter Minuit was appointed Director-General of the Province of New Netherland.
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THE WEST INDIA COMPANY AND PETER MINUIT THE FIRST DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF NEW NETHERLAND
New Netherland was founded by merchants and traders, and throughout the 'history of that colony and the city of New York, which grew out of it, the commercial interest has been paramount. Although at the time of the coming of Peter Minuit, in 1626, the permanent settlement of Manhattan by the Netherlanders had been decreed by the Dutch West India Company, that organization had little care for political or civic theories. The company was composed of merchants who were after trade, and it was in order to help that trade and give it stability that the colonial project had been formulated.
The Dutch had less incentive to emigrate, at that time, than the people of any other European nation. The religious intolerence which had driven the Puritans to New England and was later to drive the Quakers to Pennsylvania and the Catholics to Maryland, had been banished from the Netherlands, which had achieved such a high degree of civil and religious liberty that every man, whether Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic, or of whatever denomination, was free to follow his conscience as to the mode of worship he desired.
The peopling of Manhattan was, therefore, slow work. To travel four thousand miles by the slow and tedious methods of the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, with many discomforts and privations, and with poor and scanty fare, for a period of four or five months, was not the kind of thing to attract people from a free and prosperous land such as Holland was at that period. Even when the voyage was concluded there was not much in the pioneering life to allure people from such sober, comfortable and orderly homes as those of these Hollanders.
Reports which came from New Netherland told of many privations and a scarcity of food, "beans and gray peas" being mentioned as the daily diet of the settlers. Cultivation of the soil was only possible upon a very small scale, because the horses and cattle of the colony were very few in number, and for the same reason milk, butter and cheese were only obtainable by a few. Under all the circumstances it is not wonderful the emigrants were few while the country was so little developed, for the inducements were insufficient.
Peter Minuit, the first director-general of New Netherland, embarked in the ship Sea Mew, from Amsterdam, December 19, 1625. The endeavor to start the voyage was, however, blocked by ice, and the Texel Channel was not cleared until January 9, 1626, from which time the voyage was made slowly until the final arrival at Manhattan Island, May 4, 1626. With Minuit on
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
the Sea Mew were the members of his council, Peter Bylvelt, Jacob Elbertsen Wissinck, John Jansen Brouwer, Simon Dircksen Pos, and Reymert Harmensen.
The first act of Peter Minuit and his council was to buy Manhattan from the Indians. The usual method with Europeans in dealing with the nations was to look for what was wanted. and take it. The Dutch method, as exemplified by Minuit and his associates, was the commercial one. The sale was officially reported to the Dutch West India Company and by that company to the States-General as having been made for the value of sixty guilders ($24) and that the land conveyed covered eleven thousand morgens, or about 23,100 acres, the Dutch "morgen" being equal to two and one- tenth acres.
The price was not paid in money, which would not have attracted the Indians at all, but in beads, baubles and ornaments of various kinds, and bright colored cloths, of which a vast quantity could be bought in Amsterdam for sixty guilders, and doubtless, both in quantity and quality the consider- ation seemed adequate to these "wild-men" as they were named in the report of the sale. There was no writing connected with the sale, but the Indians received the goods, and the settlers entered into possession of the ceded lands.
Besides the director-general and his council there arrived on the Sea Mew, Isaac de Rasières, Secretary of New Netherland; and the other official, who arrived in July, 1626, was Jan Lampe (or Lampo), who was Schout-fiscal; whose duties comprised not only those now performed by a sheriff, but also that of counsel, both for the prosecution and the defense, in criminal cases. Another important arrival on the Sea Mew was Kryn Fredericke, a military engineer, who set to work at once, with the aid of the inmates, to build Fort Amsterdam, the walls of which were at first built of earth and faced with sods, but in 1628, before the fort was finished, the walls were strengthened by strong masonry.
Although twenty-four large quarto volumes of documents relative to the history of New York have been collated by Messrs. Brodhead and O'Callaghan and published by the State, there is a singular paucity of archives relating to the administration of the first director-general of New Netherland. So few were these that for a long time some even questioned the fact that such a dignitary ever held charge of the destinies of New Netherland. One reason for the scarcity of documents, is the action of a thrifty official of The Hague, who about ninety years ago, finding the place encumbered with what he thought useless documents, sold more than a ton of the West India Com- pany's oldest papers, in an auction sale of waste paper. Documents have been found, however, in private hands, which sufficiently establish a place in Man- hattan's history for Peter Minuit. One of these is a document signed by
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PETER MINUIT GREETS WILLIAM BRADFORD
Minuit conveying a part of the patroonship on the Delaware. Besides this document found by Mr. Brodhead, there are two others, discovered in 1889 by General James Grant Wilson in possession of Admiral Van Rensselaer Bowier, in Amsterdam. These comprise a contract made with Indians in behalf of Kiliaen van Rensselaer of part of the patroonship of Rensselaers- wyck, near Albany, and a deed in pursuance of that contract made to Van Rensselaer, signed by "Peter Minuit, Director" and by the five councilmen before enumerated, attested by Lenaert Cole, vice secretary (in the absence of the secretary) and Jan Lampe, schout.
In the year following his arrival, Director-General Minuit sent greetings to Governor William Bradford of New Plymouth Colony. To his letters Governor Bradford replied, recalling the Pilgrims' gratitude to the people of the Netherlands for kindness to them when living with freedom and contentment in that country. He states, however, that the country where they had settled was Eng- land's by first right, and while disclaiming any intention on his own part to interfere, he warned him of possible trouble with the Virginians or with English fish- ing vessels. In Minuit's reply he declared to Governor Brad- G ford, that there was no doubt as to the right of the Dutch to New THE OLD FORT Built by Peter Minuit, in 1626 Netherland, declaring that they had been there "twenty-six or twenty-seven years;" although he doubtless meant sixteen or seventeen. Further personal communications were sent in August, by Director Minuit to Governor Bradford, by the hand of John Jacob- sen, Captain of the Drei Koningen or Three Kings, and afterward by De Rasières, the provincial secretary, who was, next to the director-general, the principal officer of the province. De Rasières was received at New Plymouth with distinction, was honorably attended with the noise of trumpets, and pleas- ant relations between the two colonies continued for some time.
The 'up-river settlement around Fort Orange (now Albany) had its troubles. The surrounding Indian tribes fought among themselves and some of the settlers, interfering in the quarrel, lost their lives; so Director-General Minuit ordered all the families of that settlement to come to Manhattan, which they did, and, according to Brodhead, a similar order was, for some undisclosed reason, made to the colonists at Fort Nassau, and they also came to the island. A garrison of men was left at Fort Orange, but Fort Nassau
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
was abandoned. As a consequence of these orders, by far the larger part of the population of New Netherland was concentrated, in 1628, on Man- hattan Island, in the settlement around the still incomplete Fort Amsterdam, and this settlement numbered just two hundred and seventy souls.
This is not much of a showing. The Virginian settlement had four thousand, six years before, and New England's numbers were being rapidly augmented, but there seemed to be very few of the Dutch people who could be induced to leave home for the colony. Farmers were anxious for an influx of farm labor, which would not come; and industries were undeveloped because there were no mechanics or laborers. In order to get immigrants, the Dutch West India Company devised a plan modified from the Portuguese system which had been successfully applied to Madeira, the Azores and Brazil; which was to give hereditary grants or captaincies to courtiers who would settle them or improve them. This plan, more highly commercialized, was adopted in 1629 by the Dutch West India Company with the consent of the States-General. The beneficiaries were to be "members of the company" (directors or large shareholders), who would become acknowledged patroons of New Netherland upon filling certain conditions, the first of which was that they should within the space of four years undertake to plant a colony in New Netherland, of fifty souls of adults over fifteen years old; failing which the grant of patroonship should become ineffective. The grant should include sixteen miles frontage on one side or eight miles each on both sides of any river in New Netherland. There was no mention, and therefore, practically no limitation of the distance backward from the stream which these grants should take. It was made a condition of the title, that it should be purchased from the Indians, should be occupied by settlers at the expense of the patroon, and when these conditions were fulfilled he was to be absolute owner of all privileges of hunting and fishing on such lands, of the tim- ber and mineral resources, and could cultivate the soil to any extent he desired. All products, however, must be sent to the Fatherland, after being first brought to Manhattan. The patroons might trade anywhere from Newfoundland to Florida, but all goods received in trade must be taken to Manhattan to be disposed of. The fur trade was prohibited to the patroons or their colonists, all beaver, otter, mink, and other peltries being reserved for the company. The patroons and their settlers were, for the space of ten years, to be free from customs dues, taxes, excise and imposts of all kinds whatsoever, and they were to be protected by the company's troops and navies from inland or foreign wars, and aggression. Manhattan Island was exenipted from the territory which might be located by a patroon.
The first patroonships were located by Samuel Bloemart and Samuel Godyn, merchants of Amsterdam and directors of the company, who secured
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THE PATROONSHIPS ESTABLISHED
lands extending thirty-two miles along the southwest bank of the Delaware River and sixteen miles on the northwest shore. These patroons gave their patent the name of Swanendael or Swan's Valley. They planted a colony there, but Fort Nassau had been abandoned, and an Indian uprising occurred, in which the settlers were exterminated. Kiliaen van Rensselaer secured lands at Fort Orange. He was a pearl merchant in Amsterdam and a director of the company, and his patroonship of Rensselaerswyck was the only one which proved to be a success. Michael Paauw, another director of the company, planted his colony at Hoboken-Hacking, across the river from Manhattan Island, which he called after himself in the Latinized form of Pavonia. He afterward added Staten Island and another colony on the Jersey side, on the site of the present Jersey City, which he called Ahasimus. In all these colonies other Amsterdam merchants became interested as partners.
The patroons soon found that their privileges made them little return. They were not able to prosecute agriculture to any large extent, and they were prohibited from the fur trade, which was almost the only really lucrative activity of the colony. They complained to the company, which in turn rescinded some of the most important exemptions. An investigation which followed convinced the States-General that the grants were excessive, and in other features objectionable; and the upshot of the matter was that Peter Minuit, who had issued the charters, was recalled. So far as the facts are known this seems to have been an unjust decision, as on the face of it he was bound to carry out the provisions of the company's charter in relation to these matters. With the director, went the schout-fiscal, Lampe, early in the year 1632 on the ship Eendracht (Union), for Holland. The Eendracht also carried several families of returning colonists, and had a cargo of five thousand beaver skins. Meeting with contrary winds in the British Channel, the ship was compelled to take refuge in Plymouth Harbor, where she was detained by the English authorities on the charge of illegal traffic in British monopolies. Minuit sent news of the actions of the English to the Dutch West India Company, and to the ambassador of the States -. General in London. A correspondence ensued, in which the respective claims of the two countries were set forth.
The English claimed the region under the prior discovery of Cabot, declaring it to be included in the grant made by James I to the Plymouth Company; that Henry Hudson was an Englishman, and that his further exploration of a country originally discovered by an English expedition vested no right by discovery in his alien employers. The Dutch contended that there was no previous discovery by Cabot of that section of America; that the English had failed to occupy it; that Hudson's was the first discovery
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