USA > New York > History of the state of New York Vol I > Part 22
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* Alb. Rec, G. G., 7-30 ; De Vries, 162 ; Moulton, 402, 403 ; O'Call., i., 126. The pat- ent to Michael Pauw for Staten Island, which was attested by Minuit and his council, on the 15th July, 1631, recites, that the inhabitants, owners, and heirs of the land "called by us (the Dutch) the Staten Island, on the west shore of Hamel's Hooftden," appeared before the director and council of New Netherland, and declared that, " in consideration of cer- tain parcels of goods," they had sold the island to Michael Pauw, in whose behalf Minuit and his council accepted the conveyance. This patent seems to have been the first Indian conveyance of the island ; and it would scarcely have been signed by Minuit, if the island had already been bought by him, in 1626, for the West India Company, as affirmed by O'Callaghan, i., p. 104. The statements in Hol. Doc., vii., 70, and in Beverninck, 606, seem to be too vague to warrant that assertion.
204
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. VII. the shareholders of the company, that individual directors 1630. had grasped too much territory ; and Pauw's purchase of Pavonia was especially unpopular, as it included the im- portant spot where the Indians had been accustomed to assemble for trade, and whence they crossed directly over to Manhattan .*
The pa- troonship divided.
To appease the dissatisfied, as well as to secure more ample capital and more general interest, the original pa- troons were obliged to receive other members of the com- pany into copartnership with themselves. This was nec- essary, in order to insure the confirmation of the patents for the patroonships by the College of XIX. But even this arrangement did not entirely allay dissatisfaction, nor relieve the charter itself from criticism and attack.t
1631.
8 January.
1630.
I October. Renssel- aerswyck shared.
1
Accordingly, Van Rensselaer divided his estate about Fort Orange into a common stock of five shares. Two of these shares he retained in his own hands, together with the title and honors of original patroon ; one share was al- lotted to the historian John de Laet, another to Samuel Godyn, and the fifth to Samuel Blommaert ; all of whom were directors of the Amsterdam Chamber. With Blom- maert were also associated Adam Bissels and Toussaint Moussart. By their articles of association, the six partners became co-directors of the " colonie" of Rensselaerswyck ; the particular management of which, however, was in- trusted to a board, in which Van Rensselaer controlled two votes, and all the other partners two.#
Godyn and Blommaert also share their pur- chase.
Godyn and Blommaert also shared with other partners the benefits of their purchase on the South River. It hap- pened opportunely, that David Pietersen de Vries, the en-
* De Vries, 162 ; Moulton, 404. + Hol. Doc., ii., 100-103 ; Moulton, 404.
# Hol. Doc., v., 298 ; vi., 303 ; Alb. Rec., viii., 72 ; Renss. MSS. ; De Vries, 162 ; O'Call., i., 127 ; D. D. Barnard's Sketch, 109. On the ancient map of the colony, in the posses- sion of Mr. Van Rensselaer, at Albany, " Blommaert's Burg" is laid down at the mouth of " Blommaert's Kill," now known as Patroon's Creek. "De Laet's Island" was the original name of what is now known as Van Rensselaer's Island, opposite Albany ; and "De Laet's Burg" answers to the present Greenbush. "Godyn's Islands" are laid down a short distance below, on the east shore. Mr. Barnard intimates that the articles of co- partnership of the 16th of October, 1630, did not refer to Rensselaerswyck ; but besides the presumptive evidence of the names on the old map, there is clear proof of the partnership in the Documents and Records, quoted above. In 1685, however, the estate was repur- chased from the heirs of the original partners.
-
205
PETER MINUIT. DIRECTOR GENERAL.
terprising mariner of Hoorn, who, in 1624, had attempted CHAP. VI1. to invade the West India Company's monopoly, had just returned from a three years' voyage to the East Indies, 27 June. 1630. where he had served as supercargo. His good conduct gained him many friends ; and Godyn, with whom he had old acquaintance, meeting him about two months after his August. return, asked whether he would like to go to New Neth- erland, as " under patroon" and commander ? De Vries assented, upon condition that he should be made a patroon upon an equality with the rest. A partnership was ae- 16 October. cordingly formed between Godyn and Blommaert, and Vries inade D. P. de Van Rensselaer, De Laet, and De Vries himself. Four a patroon. other directors of the West India Company-Van Ceulen, Hamel, Van Haringhoeek, and Van Sittorigh-were soon afterward admitted as additional partners ; and the ship " Walvis," or Whale, of eighteen guns, and a yacht, were immediately equipped to proseeute their enterprise. Go- dyn having been informed that whales abounded at the mouth of the South Bay, thought that a profitable fishery might be carried on there, "and thereby that beautiful country be cultivated." So, besides a number of emi- grants and a large stoek of cattle, to begin a colony on the South River, the vessels carried out whaling equip- ments. In the middle of December, the expedition sailed 12 Dec. from the Texel, with instructions to land some of their pas- sent to the Expedition sengers at the island of Tortugas, which Godyn and his er under South Riv- partners had contraeted with sixty Frenchmen to hold for Ileyes. Pieter them as a colony, under the States General and the West India Company. The command of the vessels was intrust- ed to Pieter Heyes, of Edam, in North Holland; De Vries himself remaining at Amsterdam .*
The expedition was unlucky from the start. A week 20 Dec.
* Moulton, and all the writers who follow him, relying on the inaccurate translation of the Du Simitière MSS., erroneously represent De Vries as accompanying, in person, the first expedition to the South River, in December, 1630. The original work, which I follow, shows that the first expedition sailed from Holland under the command of Pieter Heyes. On the return of Heyes, in September, 1631, De Vries consented to go out to New Netherland in person, as "patroon and commander of the vessels." He accordingly left the Texel, for the first time, on the 24th of May, 1632 ; and being delayed two months at Portsmouth, and four more in the West Indies, he did not reach the South River until De- cember, 1632 .- De Vries's Voyages, p. 95-101 ; Alb. Rec., xxvi., 27, 30; post, p. 219.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. VII. after it sailed, the partners at Amsterdam received intel- '1630. ligence that, through the carelessness of the large ship, the yacht had been captured by a Dunkirk privateer. The Walvis, however, pursued her course ; and, after vis- iting Tortugas, which was found in possession of the Span- iards, conveyed her passengers to the South River, where 1631. she arrived early the next spring. Running along the April. west shore of the bay, a few miles within Cape Cornelius, Heyes came to the Horekill, " a fine navigable stream," filled with islands, abounding in good oysters, and bor- dered by land of " exuberant fertility." Upon the bank of this beautiful creek, which afforded a roadstead une- qualed in the whole bay for safety and convenience, "a brick house," to serve as a fort as well as a residence, was soon erected and inclosed with palisades. Gillis Hossett, who had acted as Van Rensselaer's agent in the purchases Colony es- around Fort Orange the previous summer, was placed in charge of the settlement, which was now formally named " Swaanendael ;" and the Dutch title, by discovery, pur- chase, and occupation, was solemnly asserted by the erec- tion of a pillar, surmounted by a piece of tin, on which were emblazoned the arms of Holland. Thus, upon the soil of Delaware, near the present town of Lewiston, a Dutch colony of about thirty souls was first planted in the spring of 1631. The voyage of Heyes was " the cradling of a state."*
5 May. Purchase of After establishing the colony at Swaanendael, Heyes Cape May. crossed over to the Jersey shore, and, in behalf of Godyn and Blommaert, purchased from ten Indian chiefs, " the
* De Vries, 95, 100 ; Korte Verhael van N. N. ; Vertoogh van N. N., in Hol. Doc., iv., 71, and in ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 281 ; Moulton, 406 ; Bancroft, ii., 281 ; Ferris, 21, 22 ; Hazard, Ann. Penn., 25. Wassenaar, before referred to (ante, p. 183), states, that in the year 1628, the West India Company "removed all those who were on the South River." Peter Laurensen, however, in his deposition, made in 1685 (quoted ante, p. 160, note). says, that in the year 1630, he went to the Delaware, "where the company had a trading house, with ten or twelve servants belonging to it, which the deponent himself did see there settled." On his return to Manhattan, Laurensen stopped at the Horekill, where he " did also see a settlement of a brick house, belonging to the West India Company." This, however, must have been in the year 1631. If there were any Dutch traders at Fort Nas- sau in 1630 and 1631, it is certain that there were none there in 1633. De Vries, who sailed up thither on the 5th of January, 1633, found " the Fort Nassau, where formerly some families under the West India Company had dwelt," in the possession of the savages .- Voyages, p. 102; post, p. 225.
tablished at Swaanen- dael.
207
PETER MINUIT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
rightful owners, proprietors, and inhabitants," a traet of CHAP. VII land, extending from Cape May twelve miles northward along the shore of the bay, and twelve miles inland. The 1631. bay itself Heyes now named "Godyn's Bay," in compli- ment to his chief patron. A few weeks afterward, he vis- 3 June. ited Manhattan, in company with Hossett, and caused a formal record of the new purchase to be attested by Minuit and his eouneil .*
Returning to Holland in the following autumn, Heyes September. reported his proceedings to the patroons. But though a turn to Hol- colony had been founded at Swaanendael, the whale-fish- land. ery had proved a failure. Heyes excused his ill luek, be- cause " he had arrived too late in the year." But his owners attributed their losing voyage to the ineapaeity of their captain, who had been accustomed only to three or four months' absenees from home at Greenland, and who "dared not to sail alone through the West Indies in a ship of eighteen guns."t
It is somewhat extraordinary that, in all the appropria- No Dutch tions of territory for patroonships, the valley of the Fresh tablishodou colonies es- River should have been neglected. Up to this period, the necticut the Con- Dutch were the only Europeans who, sinee Adriaen Block's River. first discovery, had visited that region. As early as the year 1623, the West India Company's agents seem to have taken actual possession of the river, and to have projected a fort. But it appears to have been their poliey to pre- vent the establishment of independent colonies there; and complaints were afterward made respeeting their "injuri- ous" conduet, in opposing the settlement of any Dutch families upon that river.#.
English colonization had, meanwhile, been gaining 1630. ground on the north and east of New Netherland. In the Progress of June. July. summer of 1630, John Winthrop, the newly-chosen gov- tion in New coloniza- ernor, arrived in Massachusetts Bay, with a fleet of fifteen
* Alb. Rec., 27-30 ; G. G., 29 ; Valentine's Manual of the N. Y. Common Council for 1850, p. 541. This purchase is stated by Moulton (401), and by O'Callaghan (i., 125), who follows him, to have been made in 1630 ; but Hazard, in his Annals of Penn., 27, corrects the error. t De Vries, 95.
# Vertoogh van N. N., in Hol. Doc., iv., 71, and in ii., N. Y. HI. S. Coll., ii., 276, 277, 269 ; ante, p. 153.
Heyes's re-
England - Arrival of Winthrop.
208
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. VII. ships, and more than a thousand emigrants. Winthrop,
who had the charter in his custody, at first settled him-
1630. self, with his immediate followers, at Charlestown. But this position not pleasing them, they soon afterward took possession of the opposite peninsula, of which the Indian Boston founded. name was " Shawmut." At first it was called "Tri- Sept. mountain," on account of its three contiguous hills ; but it soon received the name of Boston, after the town in Lincolnshire, from which some of the principal emigrants Other had come. Other parties settled themselves at Dor- towns set- tled. chester, Watertown, and Newtown, now known as Cam- bridge. In imitation of the example of Plymouth and Salem, the new settlements established among themselves distinct churches, which admitted their own members and 1631. chose their own officers. The next year, a form of gov- 18 May. ernment was established in Massachusetts, upon the the- ocratic basis that none should be admitted to the freedom of the body politic, "but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of this jurisdiction.", It was not easy, however, to obtain the privilege of church membership. Of the whole adult population, not a fourth part were members. Three fourths of the people were Govern- ment of Massachu- setts a re- thus practically disfranchised. As among themselves, the minority of church members seemed thoroughly imbued ligious oli- with a spirit of equality ; " but toward those not of the garchy. Church, they exhibited all the arrogance of a spiritual ar- istocracy, claiming to rule by Divine right." The elect- ive franchise, jealously withheld from the people, was as jealously confined to the members of the churches ; and the civil polity, which Massachusetts thus deliberately adopted, was an oligarchy of select religious votaries .*
New Plym- outh.
13 Jan.
The population of New Plymouth had, by this time, in- creased to nearly three hundred; and, through the agency 1630. of Lord Warwick and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the colony had obtained a new and ample patent from the council for New England. This instrument defined their boundaries
* Ancient Charters, 117; Bancroft, i., 360 ; Hildreth, i., 190 ; Story's Miscellanies, 64- 68. . The restriction of the franchise to church members was not repealed until 1665.
209
PETER MINUIT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
as extending from the Cohassett River on the north, to the CHAP. VII Narragansett River on the south, and inland, westwardly, to " the utmost limits of Pokenakut, alias Sowamset."* 1630.
The complaints which Bradford had sent to England against the traffic of the Dutch and other strangers with the Indians, had already attracted the attention of Gorges and Mason. Similar complaints from Endicott induced the general court of Massachusetts to petition the Privy Council to reform "so great and insufferable abuses." The 24 Nov. result was a royal proclamation, "forbidding the disorder- lamation ly trading with the savages in New England." No per- irregular sons, except those authorized by the council for New En- New En- gland, were to frequent those coasts, or trade with the na- gland. tives, or intermeddle with the English planters or inhab- itants, or teach the Indians the use of fire-arms, under pain of the king's high displeasure, and the penalties expressed in the proclamation of King James, in 1622.+
Royal proc-
restraining
traders to
Thus far, the New England colonies had not encroach- ed upon the territories claimed by the Dutch. The Mas- Extent of sachusetts patent included, indeed, within its sweeping England the New grant of land as far west as the Pacific, a portion of the ments. settle- northern regions of New Netherland. But the infant set- tlements at Salem, and near Boston, were confined to the sea-coasts north of New Plymouth; and the Hollanders had already tacitly admitted the jurisdiction of the " Old Colony" to extend as far south and west as Narragansett Bay. All the coasts and inland regions, however, from that bay, as far south as Cape Hinlopen, and as far north as Canada, were claimed by the Dutch as rightfully be- longing to New Netherland. During the pleasant inter- course which was opened with New Plymouth in 1627, the Hollanders, seeing that the Puritans were there seated "in barren quarter," with friendly purpose told them of a The Dutch river, " called by them the Fresh River, but is now known Puritans of inform the by the name of Conighticute River, which they often com- necticut the Con- mended to them for a fine place both for plantation and River.
* Chalmers, 97 ; Prince, 196-198 ; Hazard, i., 298; Hildreth, i., 174.
t Young, Ch. Mass., 84 ; Rymer Federa, xix., 210; Hazard, i., 311.
0
210
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. VII. trade, and wished them to make use of it." But the hands 1630. of the New Plymouth colonists "being full otherwise, they let it pass."* In thus inviting the English to settle them- selves within the territory of New Netherland, Minuit could have had no intention to surrender any of the char- tered rights of the West India Company, or to raise a doubt respecting their title, which he had so stoutly maintained in his correspondence with Bradford. If the New Plym- outh people had accepted Minuit's proposition, they could have settled themselves on the Connecticut only in due allegiance to the States General, and in subordination to the Company's authorities at Manhattan.
4 April. A Connec- ticut sa- chem visi Boston.
The fame of the "pleasant meadows" on the Fresh Riv- er soon reached the young hamlets on the Massachusetts 1631. Bay. In the first spring after his arrival, Winthrop was visited by one of the Mahican sachems upon the " River Quonehtacut," who extolled the fruitfulness of his coun- try, and urged the English to come and plant themselves there. But Winthrop, though he treated the sachem kind- ly, would send none of his people to explore the country, which " was not above five days' journey" from Boston. The intentions of the sachem were soon unveiled. He was at war with the Pequods, and desired a European settle- ment as a defense against his powerful enemies.t At New Plymouth the suggestion was better appreciated. The sa- chem's story confirmed the accounts which they had be- fore received from the Dutch; and Edward Winslow, vis- 1632. iting that region in 1632, verified these favorable reports by his own observation, and even " pitched upon a place for a house."# But the people of New Plymouth, know- ing that the Connecticut valley was beyond the bounds of their patent, took no immediate measures to plant a set- tlement there ..
Winslow visits the Connecti- cut.
While the colonial authorities of New Netherland and New England were thus all postponing actual occupation, a questionable English title to the territory was obtained
* Bradford, MS. in Hutch., ii., App., 416 ; Prince, 434.
t Savage's Winthrop, i., 52.
# Morton's Mem., App., 395 ; Hutch., i., 148 ; Trumbull, i., 30.
211
PETER MINUIT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
by other parties. Saltonstall, who had accompanied Win- CHAP. VII. throp to Massachusetts, returning to England in the spring of 1631, carried home with him the glowing accounts 29 April. 1631. which he had heard of the fruitfulness of the Connecticut valley. Through his exertions, the Earl of Warwick was The Earl of induced, early the next year, to grant and confirm to Lord grant of Warwick's Say and Seal, Lord Brook, Saltonstall himself, and others, cut. Connecti- all the territory extending forty leagues to the southwest 1632. 19 March. of the Narragansett River, and by the same breadth " throughout' the main lands there, from the Western Ocean to the South Sea." The territory thus conveyed is alleged to have been granted to Lord Warwick, by the couneil for New England, in 1630; and Warwick's sub- sequent conveyance has been considered by American his- torians as the original English charter for Connecticut. But no evidence of the grant to Lord Warwick has ever been produced : if such a grant was really made, it does not appear to have been confirmed by the king. Thus stood the question of right and title between the Dutch West India Company, by virtue of Block's first discovery and of their charter, and the English proprietaries of Con- necticut, by virtue of Lord Warwick's conveyance. But no steps were taken by these proprietaries to colonize that Lord War- territory, until several years after the end of Minuit's grantees government of New Netherland ; though the commence- onization. ment of his successor's administration was destined to wit- ness the first disagreement between rival Dutch and En- glish settlers on the banks of the Fresh River .*
wick's neglect col-
The attention of Director Minuit had been, meanwhile, Affairs at chiefly confined to the prosecution of the fur-trade for the benefit of the West India Company, and to the domestic affairs of the chief colony at Manhattan. No subordinate
* The date of Lord Warwick's conveyance to Lord Say and Seal, and his associates, has been erroneously stated to be in the year 1631. Its actual date, according to the new style, was 1632. The " seventh year" of Charles I., in which it is attested, was from the 27th of March, 1631, to the 27th of March, 1632. Saltonstall was not in England on the 19th of March, 1631. What purports to be a copy of Lord Warwick's " charter" is in the Secre- tary's office at Hartford, from which was taken the copy in Trumbull, i., App., 495. Ncal and Douglas speak of a previous grant from the council of New England to Lord War- wick, which was confirmed by the king. But Chalmers (p. 299) shows that there is no evidence to support this statement.
Manhattan.
212
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. VII. patroons ever exercised any jurisdiction over the reserved
1631.
Imports - and ex- ports.
Early pro- ficiency in ship build- ing.
Great ship " New Nether- land" built at Manhat- tan.
island : the West India Company alone was the territorial proprietary. After De Rasieres " fell into disgrace" with Minuit, his place as provincial secretary and keeper of the company's pay-books, was filled by Jan van Remund, who continued to hold these offices for several years. In 1629 and 1630, the imports from Amsterdam arose to the value of one hundred and thirteen thousand guilders ; while the exports from Manhattan exceeded one hundred and thirty thousand guilders, showing a considerable balance in favor of the company. Its admirable commercial situation in- dicated its future renown ; and its ships, which now car- ry the fame of its naval architects to the ends of the earth, even at that early day had begun to attract the attention and excite the envy of England. In the year 1631, the " New Netherland," a ship variously estimated at from " 600 tunnes, or thereabouts," to eight hundred tons, was built at Manhattan, and dispatched to Holland .* This ship was not only by far the largest that had ever been built in America, but it was probably one of the greatest merchant vessels at that time in the world. It was not until nearly two centuries afterward that the ship-wrights of Manhattan again began to build trading vessels which rivaled the mammoth proportions of the pioneer ship " New Netherland."
Fort Or- ange.
At Fort Orange, Vice-director Krol continued to super- intend the fur-trade of the company, which was annually growing more important. The subdued Mahicans had three years before been expelled from the valley of the North River; and the victorious Mohawks were glad to cultivate the most friendly relations with the Dutch set- tlers, by whom they now began to be supplied with the fire-arms of Holland.
While the new patroons were vigorously commencing
* Letter of Mason, 2d April, 1632, Lond. Doc., i., 47 ; N. Y. Co]. MSS., iii., 17. De Vries, p. 96, speaks of the "New Netherland" as "the great ship that was built in New Neth- erland," De Laet, App., p. 4, describes her as of four hundred lasts, or eight hundred tons burden, and as carrying thirty guns. The building of this ship, " at an excessive outlay," was afterward severely criticised, by Van der Donck, as a part of the "bad management" of the West India Company .- Vertoogh van N. N., in ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 289.
213
PETER MINUIT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
agricultural colonization on the North and South Rivers, CHAP, VII. they determined, under a liberal construction of the char- ter of Freedoms and Exemptions, to participate in the re- The pa- 1631. served traffic with the Indians. Pleading that the Amster- troons cov- et a share of the fur dam Chamber " had no factories" at certain points, the pa- trade. troons assumed that they had the right to engage in the peltry trade, which the company had certainly intended to retain in its own hands. But the directors, already jealous The direct- of their colleagues, who had secured such ample estates, ance with ors at vari- could not quietly permit their darling monopoly to be thus troon the pa- invaded. Articles were soon prepared, limiting and re- 30 October. straining the privileges of the patroons, in respect of the fur trade, to an extent which excited their bitter com- plaints ; the charter of Freedoms and Exemptions itself was attacked, and " drawn into dispute ;" and feeling ran so strongly against all who were supposed to favor the pretensions of the new colonial proprietaries, that Minuit, with whose knowledge and approbation these large appro- priations of territory had been secured, was recalled from Minuit re- his directorship. But no successor was immediately ap- called. pointed, and the post of director remained vacant for more than a year. Lampo, the schout at Manhattan, was, how- ever, superseded at once by the appointment of Conrad Notelman, who sailed for New Netherland late in the summer, in the ship Eendragt, bearing with him Minuit's August. letters of recall .*
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