USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 3
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patched, one after the other, in search of it. But they found nothing but ice and snow where they had hoped to find a clear sea, and returned after having endured unheard-of hardships, and earned a lasting fame as the earliest Polar navigators.
The English, in the meantime, had not been idle. Jealous of the growing commercial prosperity of their neighbors, they determined on trying the experiment in which the Dutch had failed. In 1607, a company of merchants fitted out a ship, and intrusted it to the com- mand of Henry Hudson, an Englishman and an experi- enced and skillful navigator, with instructions to carve a passage through the Polar Seas to China and Japan for the benefit of England. But he met with no better success than his predecessors, and after two voyages, the merchants became discouraged, and refused to permit him to make a third trial.
Hudson, however, was more than ever sanguine of the ultimate success of the enterprise, and as the Eng- lish refused to help him to try again, he asked the Dutch to do so. They consented, and in 1609 the Dutch East India Company fitted out a yacht called the Half Moon, of eighty tons burden, which they manned with a crew of twenty sailors, partly Dutch and partly English, and intrusted it to the command of Hudson.
Hudson sailed from the Texel on his third expedition, on the 6th of April, 1609, hoping to reach the Indies by the way of the Polar Seas. After a stormy voyage, he reached the banks of Newfoundland early in July. Here he lay becalmed for some time, after which he steered to Penobscot Bay, where he remained a week to
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replace his foremast, which had been lost during the voyage, and to mend his rigging. Coasting southward as far as Chesapeake Bay, landing on his way at Cape Cod, which he mistook for an island and named New Holland, he retraced his course, and proceeded north- ward to Delaware Bay, which he attempted to explore ; but finding the navigation difficult, he again put to sea, and, on the evening of the 2d of Sept., came in sight of the Highlands of Navesinck, which he describes "as a " good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." Here he remained all night, and setting sail the next morning came to what he describes as "three great "rivers," the northernmost of which he attempted to enter, but was prevented by the shoal bar before it. This was probably Rockaway Inlet; the others, the Raritan and the Narrows. Foiled in this attempt, he rounded Sandy Hook, sending a boat before him to sound the way, and anchored his vessel in the lower bay. Seeing that the waters were swarming with fish, he sent a boat's crew to obtain some. They landed, it is said, at Coney Island, and were the first white men that ever set foot on the soil of the Empire State.
We can easily excuse Hudson if he forgot the North- ern Passage and the Polar Seas-the prime objects of his expedition-in the beautiful scene before him, and determined to explore this strange, new country, which was worth more than all the wealth of the Indies. The shores were covered with gigantic oaks from sixty to seventy feet high, the hills beyond were crowned with grass and fragrant flowers, strange wild birds were flit- ting through the air, and fish were darting through the
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sparkling waters. Friendly Indians, dressed in mantles of feathers and fine furs, and decorated with copper or- naments, flocked on board the vessel, bringing corn, to- bacco, and vegetables for the mysterious strangers. Hudson received them kindly, and gave them axes, knives, shoes, and stockings in return. But these arti- cles were all new to them, and they put them to a new use ; they hung the axes and shoes about their necks for ornaments, and used the stockings for tobacco pouches.
Hudson remained in the bay for a week, sending a boat's crew, in the meantime, to sound the river. They passed through the Narrows, entered the bay, and came in sight of the grassy hills of Manhattan. Passing through the Kills, between Staten Island and Bergen Neck, they proceeded six miles up the river, and disco- vered Newark Bay. On their return, the boat was attacked by the natives. An English sailor named John Colman was struck in the throat by an arrow and killed ; two others were slightly wounded, and the rest escaped to the ship with the dead body of their companion, to carry the tidings of the mournful catastrophe. This was the first white man's blood ever shed in the territory, and it is probable, though not certain, that the sailors themselves were the first aggressors. Colman was an old comrade of Hudson ; he had been the companion of his earlier voy- ages, and his death inspired him with distrust and hatred of the natives, whom before he had regarded with favor. On the following day-the 9th of September-the first white man's grave in these regions was dug on Sandy Hook, and the spot was christened Colman's Point in memory of the departed.
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On the 11th of September, 1609, the Half Moon passed through the Narrows, and anchored in New York Bay. Distrusting the fierce Manhattans, the captain remained there but a single day. Canoes filled with men, women and children, flocked around the ship, bringing oysters and vegetables ; but though these were purchased, not a native was suffered to come on board.
The Half Moon ascending the river.
The next day Hudson made his way up the river which now bears his name, and through which he hoped to find the long-sought passage to the Indies. He called it the Groot Rivier. It was called by the respective tribes which inhabited its shores, the Shatemuc, Mohi-
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can, and Cahohatatea. The Dutch afterwards gave it the name of the Mauritius, in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau, by which it continued to be known until the . name of its discoverer was properly bestowed on it by its English owners. Sailing slowly up the river, and anchoring at night in the friendly harbors so plentifully scattered along his way, Hudson pursued his course towards the head of ship navigation, admiring the ever changing panorama of the beautiful river with its lofty palisades, its broad bays, its picturesque bends, its ro- mantic highlands, and its rocky shores, covered with luxurious forests. Everywhere he was greeted with a friendly reception. The river Indians, more gentle than those of the island of Manhattan, welcomed the strangers with offerings of the best that their land afforded, and urged them to remain with them. Fancying that the white men were afraid of their arrows, they broke them in pieces and threw them into the fire. Game was killed for their use, hospitalities were urged upon them, and every attention which a rude but generous nature could prompt was offered to the strangers. Indeed, this seems in the beginning to have been the usual conduct of the natives, and it is probable that in their future hostilities, in nearly every instance, the whites were the aggressors. 1740033
ยท On the 19th of September, Hudson reached the site of the present city of Albany, which, greatly to his disap- pointment, he found to be the head of ship navigation. To be sure of the fact, he dispatched the mate with a boat's crew to sound the river higher up, but, after pro- ceeding eight or nine leagues, finding but seven feet
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water, they were forced to 'return with the' unwelcome intelligence. After remaining at anchor for several days, during which time he still continued to hold friendly intercourse with the natives, Hudson prepared to descend the river. His stay here was marked by a revel, the tradition of which is still preserved among the Indian legends, and the scene of which is laid by some historians upon the island of Manhattan. Various legends of a similar import concerning the introduction of the fatal "fire-water " are in existence among the different tribes of Indians ; everywhere the same causes produced the same results, and the multiplicity of these traditions may easily be accounted for.
On the 23d of September, Hudson commenced to descend the river. He had ascended it in eleven days ; he descended it in the same time, constantly receiving demonstrations of friendship from the natives of the neighboring , shores. But unfortunately this harmony was soon destined to be broken. While anchored at Stony Point, an Indian was detected pilfering some goods through the cabin windows. The offender was instantly shot by the mate, and the frightened natives fled in con- sternation.
Nor was this the only rupture of peaceful relations with the hitherto friendly natives. Following the exam- ple of other discoverers, who were accustomed to carry to their own homes specimens of the natives of the new countries which they had visited, Hudson had seized and detained two Indians on board his ship at Sandy Hook; both of whom had escaped during his passage up the river, and were lying in wait for his return, to avenge
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their captivity. Their narrative had enlisted the sympa- thies of their countrymen, and a large body gathered in their canoes at the head of Manhattan Island, and attempted to board the vessel. Repulsed in the attempt, they discharged a harmless flight of arrrows at the yacht, which was returned by a musket shot, which killed two of their number. They scattered in dismay, only to gather again, reinforced by several hundreds, at Fort Washington; where they again attacked the vessel as she was floating down the stream. A few musket-shots soon put them again to flight, with the loss of nine of their warriors. This strange new weapon of the white men, speaking in tones of thunder, and belching forth fire and smoke, was more terrible to them than an army of invaders. They did not return to the attack, and Hud- son pursued his way unmolested to the bay near Hobo- ken, where he anchored for the last time, and, lying windbound there for one day, set sail for Europe on the 4th of October, just one month after his arrival, to carry to his patrons the news of the discovery of a new country, and the opening of a new commerce. Though Verrazani was the first to behold the island of destiny, to Hudson belongs the credit of being its practical dis- coverer, and of opening the way to its future settlers.
The directors of the East India Company were dis- satisfied with the success of the enterprise. They had expected to find a short road to the land of silks and spices, and cared little for the rich lands and broad forests described by Hudson in the account of his voyage, which he published on his arrival. Hudson proposed again to undertake the enterprise, and would probably
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have done so, but, having landed at Dartmouth on his re- turn homeward, he was forbidden to leave the country by the English authorities, who were jealous of the advan- tages which the Dutch had gained by his means. Untir- ing in his efforts to find the northwest passage, that ignis fatuus which has lured on so many intrepid navigators to their destruction, he sailed on another voyage of dis- covery in the service of his early English patrons in the spring of 1610, and, after passing a winter of suffering among the Arctic regions, perished, abandoned by his mutinous crew, amid the ice and snows of the bay which bears his name. The Half Moon, on her return to Hol- land, was dispatched on a trading voyage to the East Indies, during which she was wrecked and lost on the island of Mauritius.
The voyage of the Half Moon to America, if it did not gain the exact thing desired, was at least suggestive of a new idea to the busy Dutch speculators. Though their most lucrative traffic was with the East Indies, they did not neglect the smaller mines from which money might be extracted, but maintained a flourish- ing commerce with the other European nations, espe- cially with Russia. They dispatched nearly a hundred ships to Archangel every year, whence they carried on a lucrative traffic in furs with the interior of the country, subject to a duty of five per cent. on all goods exceeding an equal amount of importations. But Hudson's glowing accounts of the rich peltries which he had seen among the natives of the newly-discovered territory, suggested to the traders that it would be much cheaper to purchase them with knives and trinkets in a country where
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custom-houses and duties were unknown, than to buy them, as hitherto, at a high rate in Russia. Acting under the impulse of this idea, in 1610, a few merchants fitted out another vessel, and dispatched her under the command of the former mate of the Half Moon, to trade in furs with the Indians. The speculation proved eminently successful. Stimulated by their example, other mer- chants joined in the enterprise, and in 1612 dis- patched the Fortune and the Tiger, under the command of Hendrick Christiaensen and Adriaen Block, on a trad- ing voyage to the Mauritius River, as it was now called. The following year, three more vessels, under the com- mand of Captains De Witt, Volckertsen, and Mey, were sent from Amsterdam and Hoorn to the same coast on the same errand.
The fur traffic might now be considered to have fairly commenced, and a new mine of wealth to be opened to Holland. It was determined to open a regular com- merce with the new province, to make the island of Manhattan the chief depot of the fur trade in America, and to establish agents there to collect furs while the ships were going to and returning from Holland. Hend- rick Christiaensen was appointed the first agent. He built a redoubt with four small houses on the site of the present 39 Broadway, and thus laid the foundation of the future city.
The navy was commenced about the same time. One of the vessels, the Tiger, commanded by Adriaen Block, was accidentally burned just as he was preparing to return to Holland. He immediately set about building another, the fine timber of the island furnishing him with ample materials, and in the spring of 1614, finished the first
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vessel ever launched on the waters of Manhattan. This was a yacht of sixteen tons burden, and was called the Restless-a name truly prophetic of the future city. The building of the vessel occupied the whole winter, the friendly natives meanwhile supplying the strangers with food.
The little yacht completed, Block set about explor- ing the neighboring country. Passing through the Hellegat into the Long Island Sound, he discovered the Housatonic, and Connecticut, or Fresh River, as he named it, in contradistinction to the Hudson, the waters of which were salt, and ascended the latter to the head of navigation. Returning to the Sound, he again proceeded eastward to Montauk Point, which he christened " Vis- schel's Hoeck," and discovered Block Island, which still bears his name. Continuing his course to Narragansett, or Nassau Bay, he thoroughly explored its waters, discovered Roode or Red, since corrupted into Rhode Island, and coasted northward as far as Nahant Bay, exploring and naming the intervening bays and islands, which, however, had before been discovered and named by earlier English adventurers. On his return to Cape Cod, he encountered the Fortune, which had quitted Manhat- tan to return to Europe. The temptation was too strong to be resisted, the picture of home rose before his eyes, and leaving his little yacht, too frail to encounter the perils of the ocean voyage, in the charge of Cornelis Hendricksen, he embarked in the returning vessel to bear the news of his discoveries to Holland. He never returned to the scene of his early discoveries, but his name is one of the few relics of the early pioneers that ."
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still remain to us. His comrades had not been idle in the meantime. Cornelissen Mey had explored the southern coast of Long Island, thus proving for the first time that it was an island, and had visited Delaware Bay and bestowed his name on its northern cape, while Hendrick Christiaen- sen had ascended the Mauritius, and built a little struc- ture, half fort, half warehouse, armed with two large guns and a few swivels, and garrisoned by eleven men, on Castle Island, a little below Albany. This post he christened Fort Nassau in honor of the stadtholder.
It is affirmed by several historians that, soon after its foundation, the little settlement was visited by Captain Argall of Virginia on his return from his Acadian expe- dition, and that the Dutch traders were compelled by him to strike their flag and to acknowledge the supremacy of England. But this assertion seems unsupported by suffi- cient evidence. The earlier historians are silent in re- spect to it, nor do the state papers of either nation make mention of the fact. The story rests upon the authority of one or two printed English works, unsupported by documentary evidence, and cannot at least be affirmed with certainty ; the probability is that it is fictitious.
A few months previous to Block's return to Holland, the States General of the Netherlands, to encourage emigration, had passed an ordinance, granting to all dis- coverers of new countries the exclusive right of trading thither for four voyages. Unwilling to lose any part of the profitable commerce thus opened by their enter- prise, the merchants who had fitted out the first expedi- tion made a map of all the country between the Cana- das and Virginia, and, claiming to be the original dis-
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coverers thereof, petitioned the government for the promised monoply. This was granted, and on the 11th of October, 1614, they received a charter, granting them the exclusive right of trade, to the territory lying be- tween the fortieth and forty-fifth degrees of north lati- tude, for four voyages within the period of three years ; and forbidding all other persons to interfere with this monopoly, under penalty of confiscation of both vessels and cargoes, with a fine of fifty thousand Netherland ducats for the benefit of the grantees of the charter. In this instrument, the province first formally received the name of New Netherland.
The merchants now formed themselves into an asso- ciation under the name of the "United New Nether- land Company," and prepared to carry on their opera- tions on a more extensive scale. Parties were sent to explore the interior, and to collect furs from the natives which were stored at the depots of Fort Nassau and Manhattan ; and Jacob Eelkins, a shrewd and active trader, was appointed agent at the former, in the place of Hendrick Christiaensen, who had been murdered by one of the natives. This is the first murder on record in the province. The murderer, a young Indian, whom Christiaensen had carried to Holland on his first voyage, and who had ever since remained with him, met a speedy death from the hands of the settlers.
Yet the Dutch did not neglect to cultivate the friend- ship of the natives. The several tribes within the pro- vince of the New Netherland differed widely in char- acter. The whole, indeed, claimed originally to have been one people, the Lenni Lenape, or "unbroken
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nation ;" but few vestiges remained of the original brotherhood. The generic name of this people was Wapanachki; the name "Indian" was an anomalous one, derived from the idea that North America formed part of the Indies. The Manhattan Indians were fierce and war- like, though they treated the traders kindly, and supplied them with food during the long, cold winters. The Mo- hicans on the east side of the river were peaceful and friendly, yet they were the deadly enemies of the Min- cees, who dwelt on the other side ; and their war parties often crossed and recrossed the river on hostile expedi- tions. On the southern border of the province, along the Delaware River, were the Lenape or Delawares. To the north of these, were the Mengwes or Iroquois, the most dreaded and powerful of all the Indian tribes. These held acknowledged supremacy over all the other tribes. Their hunting-grounds stretched across the entire province, and their wigwams opened at the east on the Hudson River, and at the west on Lake Erie. But they had not gained this ascendency without a struggle. Weak in the beginning, they had learned to comprehend that union is strength ; and the five tribes which originally occupied this vast extent of territory- the Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas, Cayugas, and Ononda- gas, had leagued themselves together in a firm union under the name of Iroquois, or the Five Nations. Later, the Tuscaroras were admitted into the confeder- acy, and the Five Nations were thus increased to six. Strengthened by this alliance, and fierce and despotic by nature, they soon subjugated their gentler brethren, and forced them to lay aside their weapons and to assume
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the name of "women," trusting their defence entirely to them. They sent their old men into the villages to collect tribute from the river Indians, and there was not one among them who dared refuse it. A single Iroquois would put a hundred Mohicans or Mincees to flight, so great was the terror inspired by them. But this sove- reignty did not extend to the Hurons or Canada Indians, who were as formidable as they, and their constant and deadly foes. The French in the Canadas leagued with the latter, and taught them the use of firearms ; and see- ing themselves threatened with extermination by this new and wonderful weapon, the Iroquois hailed the arrival of white men in their own country with delight, as the only means which could save them from being subjugated in turn, and forced to take their place with the Mohicans and Mincees. The Dutch, on their side, were quite as ready for the alliance. The country of the Iroquois abounded in rich furs which could only be obtained through the friendship of the natives. Their fort at the head of the river was on the land of the Iro- quois, and, without their alliance, they could not secure its safety. In the spring of 1617, a solemn council of both nations was held in a place called Tawasentha, near the site of the present city of Albany. Each tribe of the Iroquois sent a chief to the meeting, and a delega- tion was also present from the river tribes. A formal treaty of peace and alliance between the Dutch and the Iroquois was concluded, and the other tribes renewed their acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Five Nations. The pipe of peace was smoked, and the hatchet buried in the earth ; and the Dutch declared
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that they would build a church over the spot, so that none could dig it up without overthrowing the sacred struc- ture, and thus incurring the wrath of the Great Spirit and the vengeance of the white men. Well indeed would it have been for them, could it always have thus remained buried.
The Council at Tawasentha, in 1617.
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This treaty insured the prosperity of the traders. Sure of the friendship of the natives, they fearlessly sent their agents among them to obtain their costly furs in exchange for the muskets and ammunition they so much coveted. It was not long before the Indian be- came more skillful than his master in the use of the deadly weapon, and grew in turn to be the terror of the white man. The agents explored the interior, bringing back stores of valuable furs, and the trade became so profitable that when, in 1618, the charter of the United New Netherland Company expired by its own limitation, they petitioned the government to grant them a renewal. This they failed to obtain, though they were permitted to continue their trade under a special license two or three years longer.
Hitherto the Dutch had looked on Manhattan only as a trading-post. They did not think of making them- selves homes in this new, wild country, but dwelt in temporary huts of the rudest construction, which scarcely protected them from the cold. But the English were exploring the coast, and laying claim to all the coun- try between Canada and Virginia, and the Dutch began to realize the importance of planting colonies in the new province, and thus securing their American posses- sions.
About this time, too, the little settlement received a visit of threatening import. In 1620, Captain Thomas Dermer, an Englishman in the service of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, touched at Manhattan on his way to New Eng- land, and warned the traders not to continue on English territory ; to which they replied that it belonged to them
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of right, as the first discoverers and occupiers. Upon this, Dermer, Gorges, Argall and others, petitioned James I. for a grant of the province of New Netherland, protesting that it was wrongfully occupied by the Dutch, and claiming for Dermer the discovery of Long Island Sound and the adjacent country. That he was the first Englishman who had ever sailed through the Sound is probable : yet Block, Christiaensen and others had preceded him. He is one of the few who makes men- tion of the prior visit of Argall to Manhattan-an inter- ested witness, since this pretext served to strengthen his claim to the possession of the territory. The king, how- ever, listened to their prayer ; a royal charter conferring the exclusive jurisdiction of all territories in America between the parallels of forty and forty-eight degrees was granted to Gorges and his associates, and the English ambassador at the Hague was directed to remonstrate with the States General against the occupation by the Dutch of English territory. But little attention was paid to this remonstrance, and the Dutch went on in their work of colonizing New Netherland.
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