USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 28
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 | Part 55 | Part 56
The French, Dongan explained to his superiors, had the advantage in the beaver trade 'by their industry in making discoveries in the country before us.' On the other hand they were hampered in their trading by the fact that the St. Lawrence was frozen during the long months of winter; the savages especially wanted the coarse cloth, not made in France, that they could get at Albany; and they preferred New York rum to French brandy not because it was more wholesome but because it was cheaper. So, with good hopes of immediate and of future profit, in 1685 and 1686 Dongan sent large parties of New York traders far up into the Lake regions which the Canadians had long frequented although never before had New Yorkers, he said, gone beyond the Senecas' country on the hither side of the Niagara River. They were to bring back peltry, of course. They were also to try to form a triple alliance between the tribes of the upper Great Lakes, the Iroquois, and the English. This design so enraged Denonville that, he said, he felt inclined to go straight to Albany, storm the fort there, and burn the whole place; at the least a sharp blow must be struck against the Iroquois
321
THE DONGAN CHARTER
1687]
or Canada would be lost to France; and it would be well for the king of France to buy New York from the king of England.
In the autumn of 1686, the year when Dongan was busy with land patents and city charters, he warned the Iroquois chiefs, who had come to Manhattan to take counsel with him, that Denonville meant to attack them and to build a fort at the mouth of the Niagara River which was certainly within the domain of the English king. One of the promises that he made them was that he would get for them English priests to take the place of the French missionaries who had labored so long among them. A wise measure this would have been, and Dongan urged it upon the king, asking also for leave to build forts at Niagara and on the spot where Detroit now stands. But when in the autumn of this year he got his new commission from James II, he heard again the old vague and contradictory commands : Encourage the fur trade, give the Frenchmen no cause of offence. They were commands as hard to obey as those that the West India Company had sent to Van Twiller, Kieft, and Stuyvesant : Keep the English out of New Netherland, make no use of force.
Alarmed by the reports from America, for there was trouble in the Hudson Bay region as well as in New York, Louis XIV sent agents to England to try to settle boundary lines. This proved impossible, but in November a pact called a 'Treaty of Peace, Good Correspondence and Neutrality in America' was signed at Whitehall. Henceforward, it said, there should be firm peace, union, and amity as well by land as by sea be- tween the two nations in North and South America and their islands. Neither nation should assist with men or victuals the 'barbarous or wild Indians' with whom the other might be at war, or aid or protect them in their 'depredations.' Neither should trespass upon the waters or territories of the other to fish or to trade. And even if 'any breach should happen' between the two sovereigns in Europe 'a true and firm peace and neutrality' should continue between their subjects in America 'in the same manner as if such breach in
VOL. II. - Y
322
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
Europe had not happened.' Few historians say much about this curious treaty which, indeed, had small practical effect; Parkman, for example, barely mentions it. King James appears to have thought it noteworthy. The quotations from his autobiographical notes which are given in Clarke's Life and in Macpherson's Original Papers include only two references to American affairs - the one already quoted in regard to the capture of New Netherland in 1664, and one which describes the treaty of 1686.
The treaty said nothing of the claim of either king to sovereignty over the Iroquois, nor had Charles or James at any time made this claim. But Louis was aware that it had been asserted on their behalf by two of the governors of New York, and he seems to have favored the treaty for the purpose of undermining it. In truth, it was greatly to the advantage of the French to secure such a treaty, for they knew on the one hand that Canada could not stand if New England, just then united under Governor Andros, should be aroused against it and, on the other hand, that they might hopefully deal with the Five Nations if the governor of New York were securely fettered. James meant what he said when, sending a copy of the treaty to Dongan, he bade him observe its provisions. But when Louis sent a copy to Denonville he also sent more troops, much money in cash and supplies, and instructions to proceed against the Iroquois. Should Dongan assist the Iroquois, the fact was to be reported so that the French king might demand his recall.
In July, 1687, Denonville raided the Senecas' country, crossing Lake Ontario from Fort Frontenac with a force of some 3000 white men and Indian allies; and although he did not follow the savages, who fled toward the east, he seized the chance to declare the sovereignty and to set up the arms of the king of France on their own soil, and on his homeward way he built the long-talked-of fort at Niagara. Thus he exasperated without really injuring the Senecas; and he roused all the Iroquois to fury by sending some two score of
323
THE DONGAN CHARTER
1687]
them as captives to France to be worked in the war-galleys of the king. Louis had ordered that Iroquois prisoners be thus utilized, but most of those whom Denonville sent had been treacherously captured while not under arms. He could not have committed a more blundering crime. The tribes would no longer receive the French missionaries who had been so useful to the French cause, and more earnestly than ever before they turned to the governor of New York for support. Meanwhile Denonville's lieutenants had captured some of the traders whom Dongan had sent to the far northwest, and Denonville had hanged one of them, a Frenchman, and had ordered that the others be kept under arrest at Montreal. All this Dongan felt as a great affront; and after another conference with the Iroquois sachems at Albany he consented to aid the Senecas with arms and ammunition although not with men.
Of course each governor accused the other of infringing the Treaty of Neutrality. In August Dongan sent Judge Palmer with urgent despatches to England. The French, he wrote, were encroaching more and more; boundary lines should be established; there should be forts on Lake Champlain, at Niagara, and between Schenectady and the Onondaga coun- try; and English priests should at once be sent out. Again he wrote that, 'peace or war,' it would be necessary to send out men and to build the forts, adding, prophetically, that
. a little thing can prevent now what will cost a great expense of blood and money hereafter.
The French meanwhile were urging Dongan's recall; so, it appears, was William Penn who had not forgiven the block- ing of his plans to secure the Susquehanna lands; and in the autumn Dongan heard from his uncle Richard Talbot, now Earl of Tyrconnel, that he was to come home at once. Writing in October he explained to the king that by the terms of his commission he could not come without more formal orders; moreover, the king was much in debt to him, and he was much in debt to his people; if the king would send him
324
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
£3500 these obligations could be discharged; otherwise they could not be unless Connecticut were added to his province; and without Connecticut no future governor would be able to meet the expenses of governing New York.
In the previous April, when the status of Connecticut and Rhode Island was still undetermined, Dongan had tried to induce Connecticut to consent to come under his government. Employing Graham and Palmer as his envoys he promised that all lands should be secured to the posterity of their owners by general or special patents; the clergy should have sufficient support, taxes should be no greater than elsewhere in the province, Connecticut should have a port to trade as before with Boston for corn and provisions, and it might send two or three persons to England to have the agreement con- firmed by the king. When his envoys returned after visiting all the towns between Hartford and New York they reported that the Connecticut people were 'obstinate not to surrender to the king.' But their assembly, so Dongan wrote to the Earl of Sunderland, now secretary of state, had so far con- sented to give up their charter and be annexed to New York that a letter to this effect was written and ready to be signed when some of the clergy came in and overthrew all that Graham and Palmer had accomplished. This was in May. In June the king had directed Andros to bring Connecticut and Rhode Island within the Territory and Dominion of New England, but Andros had not yet done so when Dongan sent his letter to the king in October. The Canadians, he also wrote, would never live easily with the English until 'one good blow' was given them, which might readily be done if four or five hundred troops were sent out and the other colo- nies were ordered to give aid, for the English would then be 'twenty to one of the French.' But, knowing the expense, he wished that peace might be settled in Europe if Denon- ville would abandon the new fort at Niagara and leave things 'as they were.'
Governor Andros was now completing the consolidation
325
THE DONGAN CHARTER
1687]
of the king's great New England province. Visiting Hartford he took over the government of Connecticut on November 1, and its charter, says the famous story, was hidden away in a hollow oak tree to be brought forth again on a more fortunate day. Robert Treat the deposed governor and John Allyn the secretary accepted the seats on Sir Edmund's council which by the king's command were offered them. Still Dongan did not understand the situation. The terms of Sir Edmund's instructions must have been unknown to him, for he wrote that it was owing to 'fraud' on the part of the governor and secretary, without the knowledge of the rest of the assembly, and against the wishes of ninety-nine to one among its people that Connecticut had been added to Massa- chusetts and not to New York. The Jerseys New York still hoped to acquire.
It was known in New York that the Canadians had been strengthened and instructed to attack the Iroquois, and it was believed that they meant to descend upon Albany as soon as Lake Champlain and the lesser waterways should be frozen into roadways. Dongan decided to spend the winter at Albany, and for the defence of the border he ordered a draft of one man in ten from the militia of all the counties, except- ing such men as 'were out last year a-whaling.' As this meant only a draft of some four hundred men he earnestly besought the aid of New England, asking Andros to send him two hundred of the youngest and lustiest of the Massachusetts militia, fifty horsemen, and two hundred and fifty militiamen from Connecticut, to all of whom he would give the same pay as the king's soldiers received. Furthermore he wanted a hundred of Andros's 'red coats' - a term, afterwards very familiar, which thus appears for the first time in the records of New York. Andros answered that he would willingly give aid and asked for more information, reporting at the same time. to the secretary of state that Dongan had informed him of the 'French aggression,' that he was putting the military in as good order as possible, and that he desired the king's instruc-
326
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
tions. Dongan wrote directly to Connecticut also. But the New Englanders, as may be read in a letter written to Andros from Hartford on December 5 by Colonel John Talcott, were still too near in time to the horrors of King Philip's War to think of another without dismay or to believe that a war on the borders of New York might be needful for their own ulti- mate security. Referring to the 'last Indian war' in which Andros himself had 'very honorably and wisely' prevented the New York savages from 'drawing the sword,' Talcott urged that Dongan should be counselled to negotiate for a truce of eight or nine months so that the sovereigns in Europe might decide the disputes between their American subjects:
And that we may not be engaged in a bloody war for the maintain- ing litigious boundaries twixt English and French (I desire to speak without reflection upon the meanest man, much less upon any gentle- man or person of honor) for the sake of a beaver-trade to be upheld by the point of the sword for the enriching a few mercenary spirited men.
At last Governor Dongan's explanations and appeals had aroused some spirit in his royal master. In November James put forth a formal claim to sovereignty over the Five Nations, issuing a warrant which authorized Dongan to protect them and, if the Canadians should continue to annoy them and should invade New York, to support them by force and to ask the other colonies for aid. He also instructed Andros to give such aid to the uttermost of his power. In case of need the French were to be pursued into their own territories.
By the time these instructions reached America the im- mediate danger had passed. Denonville's forces had melted away; the climate had destroyed them, Dongan explained. So the Frenchman grew more timid and the Irishman grew bolder. Denonville sent back the captured New York trad- ers and showed a wish for peace at any price with the Iro- quois. Dongan would not sanction peace until his demands were met: Fort Niagara must be demolished and the Iroquois braves who had been sent to France must as English subjects be surrendered to the English government. But he could
327
THE DONGAN CHARTER
1687]
not press these demands. Again instructions from England stayed his hand. Peace for America had again been decreed, the commissioners of the two sovereigns compacting that for a year from the first day of 1688 no acts of hostility should be committed in the colonies. The French commissioners, however, did not neglect the chance to protest against the 'entirely novel' claim of the king of England to sovereignty over the Iroquois, saying that he had mentioned no such claim when the treaty of 1686 was drawn up and that more than once the Iroquois had made submission to the king of France. Nor, it may be added, did the advisers of the king of France cease to urge him to acquire New York so that he might be master of 'all America.'
These were the long and serious troubles that inspired Dongan's determination to strengthen New York by an en- largement of its borders and that depleted his own purse as well as the treasury of the province while the collector of customs was embezzling a great part of the public revenue. Truly, as Dongan said, the governors of other colonies, whose salaries were larger than his and whose perquisites were 'infinitely larger,' had no such great expenses as he. Not so much of the revenue, he explained, had passed through his hands in Santen's time as would meet the cost of the civil establishment. He had himself supported the garrison for a year before any money at all came in. In his compacts and intrigues with the savages he had used a little bribery as well as many hard words and fair words. He had paid them well for ceding the Susquehanna country. As obliged by his instructions he had bought lands for his master whenever good occasion offered. He had been 'at great expense on the Assembly at their first sitting - when they gave the reve- nue,' a statement which suggests a little bribery again but probably means no more than a diplomatic hospitality, for the next words read: 'and on Lord Howard of Effingham when here with his train,' as also 'on' Governor Penn, Gov- ernor Treat, and commissioners from Boston and other places
328
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK [1684-1687
who had likewise visited New York intent upon their own advantage. The council had laid special taxes of a penny in the pound at New York, Kingston, and Albany, and of a penny and a half on Long Island and elsewhere as the people there did not 'advance the king's revenue neither by excise nor customs £150 per annum'; but the province was 'too poor of itself to help our Indians.'
At this time Robert Livingston of Albany began the prac- tice of aiding the government with loans or advances in money or kind which kept his hand at work in public affairs for many years, sometimes to his temporary discomfiture, in the long run to his great advantage. Between August, 1687, and June, 1688, as an account presented to the government set forth, he had disbursed £2067 for the maintenance of the king's forces, gifts to the Indians, and the relief of French prisoners.
Another reason why Dongan wanted to enlarge New York was that, as things stood, the greater part of his people were Dutchmen who, if occasion came, might not show themselves 'very fit for service.' There should be more of the British- born to 'balance' them. More than once he had asked in vain for a ship to run regularly between New York and Ire- land, to bring over subjects of the king who would put the king to no charge after their arrival. The council, he thought, should consist of more than seven members, for one had to be always at Albany and two, meaning Van Cortlandt and Phil- ipse, had 'such great business and trade' that they could not possibly attend all council meetings. Subject to the king's approval he added to their number Nicholas Bayard, then serving a second term as mayor of the city, Judge Palmer, and James Graham who thus became a colleague of the Major Baxter who had once stabbed him under the collar- bone.
REFERENCE NOTES
PRINCIPAL PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS : Col. Docs., III, IX (398) ; Colo- nial Laws of New York, I (272) ; Cal. of Council Minutes (142) ; Cal. Hist. MSS., English (390) ; Minutes of the Common Council, I (409) ; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688 (485).
GENERAL AUTHORITIES: Brodhead, Hist. of New York, II (405) ; Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (116) ; Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts (180) ; histories of England.
QUIT RENTS : Col. Docs., III; Calendar of Land Papers (264) ; histories of Long Island and of Harlem; Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, II; Schwab, The New York Property Tax (447) ; Governor Hunter, State of her Majesty's Quit Rents [1713] in Col. Docs., V.
PHILIPSE : see Reference Notes, Chap. XX. - His LANDS : Col. Docs., XIII; histories of Westchester County.
VAN CORTLANDT: see Reference Notes, Chap. XX. - His LANDS : histories of Westchester County.
RENSSELAERSWYCK: D. Murray, The Antirent Episode in the State of New York in Report of the Amer. Historical Association, 1896, I; and see Reference Notes, Chap. III.
ROBERT LIVINGSTON : Fleming, The Public Career of Robert Livingston (283) ; E. B. Livingston, Livingston of New York (281) ; Hunt, Life of Edward Livingston (279); Sedgwick, Life of William Livingston (280); Schuyler, Colonial New York (395). - His LANDS : Papers Relating to the Manor of Livingston (282).
PETITION OF 1683 FOR MUNICIPAL CHARTER, WITH ENDORSEMENT: in Col. Docs., III.
DONGAN CHARTER : Original in N. Y. Public Library, Lenox Building. Printed in extenso in Colonial Laws of New York, I, in Minutes of the Common Council, I, in Hoffman, Estate and Rights of the Corporation of New York (136), in Mem. Hist., I (408), and in Valentine's Manual, 1868; summarized in Valentine's Manual, 1870 .- Gerard, The Dongan Charter of the City of New York (91) ; Kent, The Charter of the City of New York (93) ; Black, Municipal Ownership of Land on Manhattan (328) ; Mckinley, Transition
329
330
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
from Dutch to English Rule in New York (422) ; Jameson, Origin and Development of the Municipal Government of New York City (327) ; Hoffman, Estate and Rights of the Corporation of New York. - KING'S FARM : see JANS, ANNETJE, in Reference Notes, Chap. V. CITY SEAL: Minutes of the Common Council, I; Early Seals of the City (467).
ALBANY CHARTER: in Colonial Laws of New York, I, and in Annals of Albany, II (40).
PETER SCHUYLER : Schuyler, Colonial New York.
CITY REVENUES : Minutes of the Common Council, I; Durand, Finances of New York City (186) ; Valentine, Financial History of the City of New York (187).
DONGAN AND LANDS : Col. Docs., III; Minutes of the Common Council, I .- SANTEN : Col. Docs., III; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688. - CASTLE- TON : Cal. Hist. MSS., English.
TREAT AND DONGAN, CORRESPONDENCE: in Col. Docs., III, and in Records of Connecticut Colony (125).
DONGAN'S COMMISSION and INSTRUCTIONS, 1686 : in Col. Docs., III. RANDOLPH AND WEST: Hutchinson, Original Papers (311).
CITY MAGISTRATES TO THE KING: in Col. Docs., III, and in Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
PROVINCIAL SEAL: Col. Docs., III.
THE FIVE NATIONS AND CANADA : Col. Docs., III, IX; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688 ; Colden, Hist. of the Five Indian Nations (188) ; Papers Relating to Delabarre's Expedition, 1684, and to Denonville's Ex- pedition, 1687, in Doc. Hist., I (397) ; New Hampshire Grants in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, 1869 (214) ; Parkman, Frontenac and New France (191) and La Salle and the Great West (191) ; Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, II; Channing, Hist. of the United States, II (502) ; histories of Canada. - DON- GAN'S CORRESPONDENCE : in Col. Docs., III, IX.
TREATY OF NEUTRALITY : Extracts in Channing, Hist. of the United States, II. - Col. Docs., III; Vernon-Wager Papers, MSS., Library of Congress, Washington. - CLARKE'S LIFE OF JAMES II (quoted) : (243). - MACPHERSON'S ORIGINAL PAPERS (quoted) : (433).
NEGOTIATIONS WITH CONNECTICUT: Records of Connecticut Colony; Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
DONGAN TO SUNDERLAND: in Cal. S. P. Col., 1685-1688.
DONGAN AND ANDROS, CORRESPONDENCE: ibid.
TALCOTT TO ANDROS : in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 3d Series, III.
THE KING'S WARRANT REGARDING THE IROQUOIS and PEACE FOR A YEAR: Col. Docs., III.
LIVINGSTON'S ACCOUNTS : Papers Relating to Denonville's Expedition in Doc. Hist., I.
CHAPTER XXIV
A TIME OF CHANGES
1684-1689
(GOVERNOR DONGAN, GOVERNOR-GENERAL ANDROS)
We therefore . .. do by these presents constitute and appoint you the said Sir Edmund Andros to be our Captain General and Gov- ernor in Chief in and over our Colonies of the Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth, our Provinces of New Hampshire and Maine, the Narragansett country or King's Province, our Colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut, our Province of New York and East and West Jersey ... to be called and known as formerly by the name and title of our Territory and Dominion of New England in America. - Commission of Governor-General Andros. 1688.
'THE men who are here have generally lusty strong bodies,' wrote Colonel Dongan in 1687, answering in a long report twenty-five 'heads of enquiry' addressed by the Lords of Trade to colonial governors. He had heard of one woman who had three hundred and sixty living descendants. The Dutch were 'great improvers of land.' The militia of the province included about 4000 foot and 300 horse besides one company of dragoons. At New York and at Albany the buildings were mostly of stone and brick. All other places excepting Kingston were mere 'country villages.' On Long Island the people were increasing so fast that they complained of a lack of land. Within the last seven years, the governor believed, not twenty English, Scotch, or Irish families of immigrants had arrived :
But of French there have since my coming here several families come both from St. Christopher's and England, and a great many more are expected, as from Holland have come several Dutch fami- lies.
331
332
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
New York, it may be explained, was getting no British immigrants because Pennsylvania, with its wider lands and freer form of government, was more attractive. By the year 1685, when this province was only four years old, it had a cosmopolitan population of eight thousand souls while New York, sixty-two years old, had not more than eighteen thou- sand. Dutchmen and Frenchmen, however, liked best to come where their compatriots predominated; and many French- men were seeking new homes at this time, for it was in 1685 that Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes which in 1598 had secured to the Protestants of France religious toleration and many material privileges. Within the next few years scores of thousands of Huguenots left the kingdom although their departure was soon forbidden upon pain of death. Those who first reached New York petitioned that, as King James had promised them special privileges, they might have the same rights in trade as his own subjects; and from the king or the governor many received letters of denization. Among them there arrived in 1686 the founder of a promi- nent New York family, Etienne (Stephen) De Lancey a native of Caen in Normandy.
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.