USA > New York > History of the state of New York Vol I > Part 11
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* De Witt Clinton's Address, in N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 79. "Regret has been expressed that some one of the sonorous and appropriate Indian names of the West had not been chosen to designate the state. The colonists were but little regardful of questions of this kind. Both the Dutch in 1609, and the English in 1664, came with precisely the same force of national prepossession-the first in favor of Amsterdam, and the second in favor of New York-both connected with the belittling adjective "New." * * * * It would be well, indeed, if their descendants in America had been a little more alive to the influence of this trait. Those who love the land and cherish its nationalities, would at least have been spared * * the continued repetition of foreign, petty, or vulgar names, * * * while such names as Saratoga and Ticonderoga, Niagara and Ontario, Iosco and Owasco, are never thought of."-Schoolcraft, in N. Y. H. S. Proc., 1844, p. 95. 1
t "The word ' Mohawk' itself is not a term of Mohawk origin, but one imposed upon them, as it is believed, by the Mohegan or Mahican race, which inhabited the borders of the sea. Among this race the Dutch and English landed ; and they would naturally adopt the term most in vogue for so celebrated a tribe. The Dutch, indeed, modified it to ' Maquaas,' a modification which helps us to decipher its probable origin in Manqua, a bear. * * * The Mohawk sachems, who presented their condolence at Albany in 1690, on the taking of Schenectady, said, "We are all of the race of the bear-and a bear, you know, never yields while one drop of blood is left. We must all be bears.'"-Schoolcraft's Notes, 73. Clark, i., 31, says, that the Mohawks furnished the'" Te-kar-a-ho-gea," or war captain of the league. But this has been denied by Morgan.
87
EMPIRE OF THE IROQUOIS.
their formidable foe. Long before European discovery, CHAP. III. the question of savage supremacy had been settled on the waters of the Cahohatatea. 1617.
Such were the famous Indian nations among which the Empire of Dutch first established themselves on the upper waters of quois. the Iro- the North River. Under the influence of that spirit of ag- gression, and thirst for aggrandizement which the con- sciousness of power excites, the Iroquois confederates soon reduced the neighboring tribes into vassalage; and exact- ed a universal tribute, from the Abenaquis on the Bay of Fundy, to the Miamis on the Ohio. The weaker nations trembled when they heard the awful name of the Konosh- ioni. Their war-cry sounded over the great lakes, and was heard in the Chesapeake Bay. They quenched the fires of the Eries, and exterminated the Susquehannas. The Lenapees, the Metowacks, and the Manhattans were sub- jugated. The terror of the Iroquois went wherever their war-canoes were paddled ; and the streams which flowed from the summit lands around their grand council-fire at Onondaga, were the channels which conducted their war- riors to triumphant expeditions among the neighboring tribes. Their invincible arms humbled every native foe, and their national pride grew with every conquest .*
But when the progress of the French along the Saint First hum- Lawrence had introduced the knowledge of European Champlain. bled by weapons among the Hurons and Algonquins of Canada, the war-parties of the far-conquering Iroquois suffered se- verely in their encounters with enemies who were aided
* Smith's N. Y., i., 51-66 ; Bancroft, i., 134 ; ii., 416 ; iii., 245 ; Schoolcraft's Notes, 52; Morgan, 9-17. I can not forego the pleasure of extracting a few lines descriptive of the supremacy of the Iroquois, from Mr. Street's metrical romance, "Frontenac."
" The fierce Adirondacs had fled from their wrath, The Hurons been swept from their merciless path ; Around, the Ottawas, like leaves had been strown, And the Lake of the Eries struck silent and lone. The Lenape, lords once of valley and hill, Made women, bent low at their conquerors' will.
By the far Mississippi the Illini shrank,
.When the trail of the TORTOISE was seen on the bank ; On the hills of New England the Pequod turned pale, When the howl of the WOLF swelled at night on the gale ; And the Cherokee shook in his green smiling bowers, When the foot of the BEAR stamped his carpet of flowers."
88
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
Treaty of the Tawa- sentha.
CHAP. III. by the military skill of Champlain. The lesson which he 1617. had first taught to the Mohawks in 1609, had been re- peated to the Onondagas in 1615. His unerring arque- buse had struck down the chiefs who were thought invul- nerable in their arrow-proof native armor ; and the terri- fied confederates had twice fled before their unusual foc .* Anxious to wipe off the disgrace of unexpected defeat, the Iroquois sought the alliance of those whose friendship might, perhaps, enable them to recover their ancient su- periority ; and the treaty of the Tawasentha was soon concluded between the chiefs of the aborigines and the representatives of the Amsterdam merchants, in all the solemn forms of Indian diplomacy. Besides the Iroquois, the Mahicans, the Mincees, the Minnisincks, and the Len- ni-Lenapees were represented at this grand council, which the Mohawks, who were the prime movers of the treaty, invited the other tribes to attend. Under the supervis- ion of the Dutch, a general peace and alliance was nego- tiated ; and the supremacy of the Five Confederated Na- tions was affirmed and acknowledged by the other tribes. The plenipotentiaries of the Iroquois were five chiefs, each representing his nation, and each bearing a hered- itary name, which, nearly a century before, had distin- guished the delegates who formed the grand confedera- tion. The belt of peace was held fast at one end by the Iroquois, and at the other by the Dutch ; while in the mid- dle it rested on the shoulders of the subjugated Mahicans, Mincees, and Lenni-Lenapees, as a nation of women. The calumet was smoked, and the tomahawk was buried in the earth, over which the Dutch declared they would erect a church, so that none should dig it up again without de- stroying the building and incurring their resentment.t
Conse- quences of the treaty.
Thus the factors of the Amsterdam Company gained for the Hollanders the lasting friendship of the Iroquois. Their traders fearlessly visited the wigwams of the red men ; and in exchange for the peltries of New Netherland,
* Voyages de Champlain, 151, 163, 262.
t Moulton, 346 ; Schoolcraft, 91 ; Heckewelder, Morgan.
89
EXPIRATION OF THE NEW NETHERLAND CHAPTER.
CHAP. II.
the Dutch, at first anxious to limit their payments to duf- fels and toys, before many years began to supply their In- dian allies with weapons which had conquered a peace 1617. with Spain .* To both parties the treaty was advanta- geous. The tranquil monopoly of the fur trade filled the coffers of the Amsterdam adventurers ; while the posses- sion of European fire-arms eventually enabled the confed- erated nations to reassert and maintain their former su- premacy over the neighboring savage tribes. But the in- troduction of these weapons was, in the end, fatal to the peace of the frontier. The Indian warrior soon became more expert with the firelock than the European who manufactured it. For more than a century, the confed- erated nations were alternately courted as allies and dreaded as enemies by the rival statesmen of England and France ; and no sooner did the news of the battle of Bunker Hill reach London, than Lord Dartmouth com- municated the king's orders to Colonel Guy Johnson, the 1775. Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New York, to " lose 24 July. no time in taking such steps as may induce them to take up the hatchet against his majesty's rebellious subjects in America, and to engage them in his majesty's service."t
On the first of January, 1618, the exclusive charter of 1618. the Directors of New Netherland expired by its own lim- Netherland The New itation. Year by year the value of the returns from the pires. charter ex- North River had been increasing ; and the hope of larger gains incited the factors of the company to push their ex- plorations further into the interior. Besides visiting, and, perhaps, establishing a post among the Esopus Indians, Dutch traders had partially explored the rich and extens- ive vale of Talpahockin, drained by the upper channels of the Delaware ; and it has been asserted that a settle- ment was now commenced on the shores of the river op- posite to Manhattan, at Bergen, in Scheyichbi, or New
* This, however, was not the case until after 1630. In 1626, it would seem that the Mo- hawks had only bows and arrows, and other native implements, and did not yet possess the fire-arms of Europe .- Wassenaar, xii., 38; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii., 43.
+ Letter of Lord Dartmouth to Colonel Guy Johnson, dated 24th July, 1775, in London Documents, xlv., 211 ; W. W. Campbell, in N. Y. H. S. Proc., 1845, Appendix, 167.
90
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. III. Jersey .* But though the Dutch unquestionably had a 1618. just title to New Netherland by first discovery and sub- sequent possession, no systematic agricultural colonization of the country had yet been undertaken. The scattered agents of the Amsterdam Company still looked merely to peaceful traffic, and the cultivation of those friendly rela- tions which had been covenanted with their savage allies on the banks of the Tawasentha.
Upon the expiration of their special charter, the mer- chants who had formed the United New Netherland Com- pany applied to the government at the Hague for a renew- al of their privileges, the value of which they found was daily increasing. But the States General, who were now contemplating the grant of a comprehensive charter for a 4 October. Its renewal the States General. West India Company, avoided a compliance with the pe- refused by tition. This circumstance, however, did not cause even a temporary abandonment of New Netherland, nor weaken the title of the Dutch to their American discoveries ; though it may have delayed, for a short time, the devel- opment of the various resources of the territory. The government still continued to encourage trade and com- merce on the North River. A few days after a renewal of the first New Netherland charter had been refused, Hendrick Eelkens, and other participants in the late com- pany, petitioned to be allowed to send their ship, " the Scheldt," on a voyage to Manhattan, without any preju- dice to 'or from their former associates; and the States General promptly complied with their prayer.t
9 October.
Smith in New En- gland.
Up to this period the Dutch were the only Europeans who had any accurate knowledge of the regions about the North and South Rivers, and of the coasts of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Long Island. English fishing vessels had, however, continued to resort to the coasts of Maine ; and notwithstanding the failure of Popham's enterprise at the Sagadahoc in 1608, the active perseverance of Gorges had kept alive the drooping spirits of the old Plymouth 1614. Company. Early in the spring of 1614, John Smith, dis- * Moulton, 347. + Hol. Doc. i., 91, 92.
3 March.
91
JOHN SMITH IN NEW ENGLAND.
gusted with his undeserved treatment in Virginia, set sail, CHAP. III. with two ships, for the regions allotted in James's charter of 1606 to the Plymouth or Northern Company. In an 1614. open boat, with eight. men, he explored the coasts from Penobscot to Cape Cod, while the rest of his company re- mained employed in fishing. Returning to England in July, Smith left one of his ships behind, in charge of 18 July. Thomas Hunt, to complete a cargo. But Hunt, perfid- iously entrapping twenty-seven of the natives on board his vessel, carried them to Malaga, and sold them as slaves to the Spaniards. Hunt's baseness naturally ex- cited against his countrymen the enmity of the savages. A ship which had been dispatched by Gorges and Lord Southampton, under the command of Captain Hobson, to settle a plantation, arriving soon after Hunt's departure, was attacked by the natives, and was forced to return to England, with Hobson and several of his crew wounded.
On his return home after a profitable voyage, Smith New En- presented a map of the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts named by gland first to Prince Charles, who, in the warmth of his admiration, Charles. Prince bestowed upon the adjoining country the name proposed by the enterprising explorer-" NEW ENGLAND." By a re- markablé coincidence, Smith was exhibiting his map, and explaining his adventures to the son of King James, in London, almost at the very moment that Block was ex- 11 October. hibiting the " Figurative Map" of New Netherland, and Block con- Smith and detailing the discoveries of the Dutch to the States Gen- in discov- eral at the Hague. Thus the names of "New Nether- ery. land" and " New England" took their places, contempo- raneously, in History.
The Plymouth Company, moved by Smith's representa- 1615. tions, now attempted to plant again a small colony on the coast of recently-named New England. But the enter- prise resulted in another disappointment. Smith, while on his way to America, was captured at sea by a French squadron, and detained a prisoner on board the admiral's ship. Escaping in an open boat, he reached Rochelle ; whence, returning to London, he published, the next year,
temporaries
New En- gland re- mains un- colonized.
92
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. III. his "Description of New England." Not discouraged by 1616. repeated failures and difficulties, he then spent several months in vending copies of his book and map, and in 1617. constant efforts to excite the merchants and noblemen in the west of England to new adventures in America. Plans of colonization on a large scale were soon formed ; Smith was appointed admiral for life; and the Plymouth 1618. Company applied to the king for a new charter, similar to the one which had proved so advantageous to Virginia. But, for two years, the proposition was strenuously and successfully opposed, not only by the Virginia Company, which desired to retain a monopoly of commerce, but also by private traders, who pressed the importance of pre- serving the freedom of the North American fisheries. Meanwhile New England remained uncolonized .*
1619. Dermer's voyage.
26 May.
An English vessel was now to sail, for the first time, through Long Island Sound, and to visit the coasts which Block had thoroughly explored five years before. In the summer of 1619, Captain Thomas Dermer, " employed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others, for discovery and other designs in these parts," after dispatching to En- gland, from the Island of Monhegan, near the Kennebeck, a vessel laden with fish and furs, set out on a voyage to Virginia, in a small, open pinnace, of about five tons bur den, " determining, with God's help, to search the coast along." In rounding Cape Cod, he " was unawares taken prisoner" by the Indians, from whom he ransomed him- self by giving several hatchets. After passing Martha's Vineyard, Dermer " discovered land about thirty leagues in length, heretofore taken for main,t" where he feared he would be embayed ; but, by the help of an Indian pilot, he reached the sea again at Sandy Hook, " through many crooked and straight passages." Near Throg's Neck, " a multitude of Indians let fly" at Dermer from the bank ; but he came off victorious. In passing through Hell-gate,
June.
* "A Brief Relation," &c., in Mass. Hist. Coll., xix., 5-11 ; Gorges, "Brief Narration," in same, xxvi., 56-60 ; Smith, ii., 174-218 ; Bancroft, i., 269-271.
t Long Island, which Block, in 1614, had ascertained to be insular, and had laid down as such on the " Figurative Map" presented to the States General in that year.
93
DERMER'S VOYAGE TO VIRGINIA.
" a most dangerous eataraet among small rocky islands," CHAP. III. he lost his anchor by the strength of the current, which hurried him on through the East River with such swift- 1619. ness, that, without stopping at Manhattan, he passed, " in a short spaee," into the lower bay, which gave him " light of the sea." From Sandy Hook, Dermer coasted safely to : Sept. Cape Charles, and the James River ; whenee he sent an ac- count of his adventures to his friend Purchas at London .* 27 Dec.
Having finished his business in Virginia, " where he was kindly welcomed and well refreshed," Dermer put to sea again, early the next spring, " resolving to accomplish, in 1620 his journey back to New England, what in his last dis- covery he had omitted. In his passage, he met with cer- tain Hollanders, who had a trade in Hudson's River some years before that time, with whom he had a conference about the state of that coast, and their proceedings with those people, whose answer gave him good content." This " conference" was held, no doubt, with the Dutch traders who were then settled at Manhattan Island. Availing himself of the information which he thus obtained, Der- mer " betook himself to the following of his business, dis- covering many goodly rivers, and exceeding pleasant and fruitful coasts and islands, for the space of eighty leagues from east to west; for so that eoast doth range along," from the North River to Cape Cod. But, before he left Manhattan, Dermer took care to warn the Dutch, whom he found there in quiet possession, not to continue their occupation of what he claimed as English territory. Meet- ing, says Gorges, with " some Hollanders that were settled in a place we call Hudson's River, in trade with the na- tives," Dermer " forbade them the place, as being by his majesty appointed to us." The Dutch traders, however, replied that "they understood no such thing, nor found any of our nation there ; so that they hoped they had not offended."+
· Dermer's letter of 27th December, 1619, in Purchas, iv., 1778, 9, and in ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., p. 352 ; Morton's Memorial, 56 ; Prince, 154 ; Holmes, i., 158.
* Smith, ii., 219; " A Brief Relation," &c., in Mass. Hist. Coll., xix., I1; Gorges, " Brief Narration," in Mass. Hist. Coll., xxvi., 72; De Laet, book iii., cap. iv. It seems
94
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. III.
1620.
30 June.
Dermer un- justly con- sidered by the English as the first explorer of Long Isl- and Sound.
On reaching New England, Dermer transmitted to Gorges "a journal of his proceeding, with the description of the coast all along as he passed."* Upon the receipt of this journal, and the previous letter to Purchas, the Plymouth Company seem, most unjustly, to have con- sidered Dermer as the original discoverer of Long Island Sound and of the adjacent coasts. But though Dermer appears to have been the first Englishman that ever sailed through the Sound, he had been preceded, several years, by Block and his Dutch associates ; with the details and re- sults of whose earlier enterprise he was made fully ac- quainted, in the "conference about the state of that coast" which he had with those Hollanders, whom, on his retur from Virginia, he found " settled" at Manhattan.
Patent for New En- gland.
3 March.
The first account of his adventurous voyage to Virginia, which Dermer had sent to Purchas, from his winter quar- ters on the James River, seems to have quickened the ef- forts of Gorges and his associates to obtain from the king the new privileges for which they had so long pined. Constant appeals were addressed to the court for a new patent-" such as had been given to Virginia." The old Plymouth adventurers petitioned the king that the terri- tory might be called New England, " as by the Prince his Highness it hath been named," and asked that its proposed boundaries should be settled " from forty to forty-five de- grees of northerly latitude, and so from sea to sea through the main, as the coast lyeth.""
23 July.
At length, after two years entreaty, the king yielded, and the solicitor general was directed by the Privy Council to prepare a patent for the limits "between the degrees of
clear that the Dutch, whom Dermer conferred with and "forbade the place," were those " settled" at Manhattan, though they do not appear, as yet, to have built any fort there. Dermer says nothing about ascending the river, while he speaks distinctly of his explora- tions eighty leagues eastward from the North River to Cape Cod. It likewise appears to me very probable that Dermer's account was the only foundation for " Beauchamp Plantag- enet's" fabulous story of Argall's visit ; see Appendix, Note E.
* Morton's Memorial, 56-60 ; Gorges, " Brief Narration," in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., xxvi., 63 ; Prince, 157. Holmes, i., 158, misled by Prince, erroneously asserts that Dermer was "the first person" who ascertained Long Island to be an island. Bancroft, in a note, ii., 273, corrects Belknap's similar error.
+ London Doc., i., 6 ; N. Y. Col. MSS., iii., 3 ; Mass. Hist., Coll., xix., 11, 12.
95
THE NEW ENGLAND PATENT OF 1620.
forty and forty-eight."* The original charter of 1606 had CHAP. III. fixed the northern boundary of British territory in America at the parallel of forty-five degrees ; and to that line the 1620. prayer of the petitioners had been limited. Now, the En- glish government boldly instructed their law officer to in- clude in the new patent all that part of Canada compre- hended between the forty-fifth and the forty-eighth de- grees. While the details of the proposed instrument were yet under advisement, Gorges and his associates probably received Dermer's second journal. By this they were in- 30 June. formed that the Hollanders were fairly " settled in a place" which the English called " Hudson's River, in trade with the natives ;" and that, upon those Hollanders being for- bidden the place as British territory, they had answered that " they understood no such thing," nor had they found any English subjects there. In truth, since the return of the Sagadahoc colonists, no English subjects had perma- nently occupied any part of what was called New England. On the other hand, it was certain that the Dutch were actually in quiet possession of the region "between New France and Virginia," and that they had been so for at least six years after the building of their fort at Castle Island in 1614, and the grant of the New Netherland charter by the States General. The applicants for the New England patent deprecated any further delay. The tedious forms of English official law were at length com- pleted ; and a royal charter, which included three degrees of latitude more than had been originally comprehended in the patent of 1606, or been petitioned for by the Plym- outh adventurers, was finally engrossed. Late in the au- 3 Nov tumn, the important instrument duly passed the great seal, by which the Duke of Lenox, the Marquises of Buck- ingham and Hamilton, the Earls of Arundel, Southamp- ton, and Warwick, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Sir Francis Popham, and their associates and successors, forty in all, were incorporated by the king, as " the council established
* London Doc., L., 8; N. Y. Col. MSS., fil., 4; Hazard, i., 99; Mass. Hist. Collection, xxvi., 64.
96
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. III. at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, and governing of New England in America."
1620.
The political powers granted to the new corporation were immense. Emigrants who might become inhabit- ants of New England were to be subject to the plenary authority of the Plymouth council. By the terms of the patent, the corporation was invested with the absolute propriety and exclusive jurisdiction of the territories thenceforth to be known as " New England in America," extending from forty to forty-eight degrees of northerly latitude, "and in length, by all the breadth aforesaid, throughout the main land, from sea to sea." It was dis- tinctly alleged, in the preliminary recitals of the instru- ment, that the king had " been certainly given to under- stand" that there were "no other the subjects of any Christian king or state, by any authority from their sover- eigns, lords, or princes, actually in possession" of any of the lands or precincts " between the degrees of forty and forty-eight," whereby any right or title might accrue to them; and this bold allegation was made a leading induce- ment to the patent. Yet the French occupation of Cana- da, as far south as the forty-fifth 'degree of latitude, was notorious to the world ; and Gorges and his associates, before their patent was sealed, must have received from Dermer the clearest evidence that the Dutch were " set- tled" in actual and quiet possession of New Netherland. The conveying clause, however-as if future embarrass- ment was anticipated-expressly provided that the premi- ses intended to be granted "be not actually possessed or inhabited by any other Christian prince or estate," nor be within the bounds of Virginia .*
The Dutch continue to explore New Neth- erland.
Thus the weak-minded King of England attempted to affirm a dishonest dominion over nearly all the American territory north of Virginia. Meanwhile, the Dutch re- mained in possession of their original discoveries, and con- tinued to explore New Netherland. Cornelis Jacobsen May, who had been among the first to visit the neighbor-
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