History of the state of New York Vol I, Part 7

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n
Publication date: 1871
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Number of Pages: 844

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Christiaen- sen's first

Manhattan

* Winwood's Memorial, iii., 239 ; Extract of a letter from Mr. John More to Sir Ralph Winwood (English ambassador at the Hague), dated London, 15th December, 1610. "So soon as the Hector (now ready to hoist sail) shall be set forth of this haven towards Vir- ginia, Sir Thomas Gates will hasten to the Hague, where he will confer with the States about the overture that Sir Noel Caron hath made for joining with us in that colony. Sir Noel hath also made a motion to join their East India trade with ours ; but we fear that in case of joining, if it be upon equal terms, the art and industry of their people will wear out ours."

Hol. Doc., i., 12; Van Meteren, xxxii., 715 ; Davies, ii., 294, 743 ; Neg. de Jeannin, iii., 294.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. II. accomplished his voyage thither, bringing back with him two sons of the chiefs there."*

Public at- tention in Holland awakened.

7 Sept.

1612.

Ships sent from Am- sterdam to Manhattan under Christiaen- sen and Block.

The experience which Christiaensen and Block had now gained, naturally recommended them for further employ- ment. Three influential and enterprising merchants of Amsterdam, Hans Hongers, Paulus Pelgrom, and Lam- brecht van Tweenhuysen-of whom Hongers was a di- rector in the East India Company-soon determined to avail themselves of the favorable opportunity thus offered to their enterprise. Equipping two vessels, "the Fortune" and " the Tiger," they intrusted the respective commands. to Christiaensen and to Block, and dispatched them to the island of Manhattan, to renew and continue their traffic with the savages along the Mauritius River.

Other merchants in North Holland soon joined in the Other ships trade. The "Little Fox," under the charge of Captain sent out. John De Witt, and the "Nightingale," under Captain Thys 1613. Volckertsen, were fitted out by the Witsens and other prom- inent merchants of Amsterdam ; while the owners of the

* Wassenaar's "Historische Verhael," &c., viii., 85 ; Muilkerk, A, 21. Wassenaar's work has hitherto been unknown to our historians. In 1848, I was fortunate enough to procure a copy in London, from which a short " Memoir of the Early Colonization of New Netherland" was prepared and published in N. Y. H. S. Coll. (second series), ii., 355. A translation of some extracts from Wassenaar has just appeared in Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii., 27-48. The precise date of Christiaensen's first voyage is not given.

+ Hol. Doc., i., 14 ; Wassenaar, ix., 44.

1611. The reports which the comrades made on their return to Holland, and the personal presence of the two young savages, named " Orson and Valentine," whom they had brought over as specimens of the inhabitants of the New World, added a fresh impulse to the awakened enterprise of the Dutch merchants. Public attention in the Nether- lands soon became alive to the importance of the newly- discovered regions in North America. A memorial upon the subject was presented to the Provincial States of Hol- land and West Friesland by " several merchants and in- habitants of the United Provinces ;" and it was judged of sufficient consequence to be formally communicated to the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoorn, and Enck- huysen.t

CONDITION OF MANHATTAN ISLAND.

ship " Fortune," of Hoorn-the city which was soon to give CHAP. II. its immortal name to the southern Cape of America-dis- patched their vessel, in charge of Captain Cornelis Jacob- 1613. sen May, to participate in the enterprise of their metropol- itan friends, on the Mauritius River .*

cial impot-

Manhattan

The admirable commercial position of Manhattan Isl- Commer- and soon indicated it, by common consent, as the proper ance of point whence the furs collected in the interior could be perceived. most readily shipped to Holland. To secure the largest advantages from the Indian traffic, it was, nevertheless, perceived that inland depôts would become indispensable. Thus, cargoes of furs could be collected during the winter, so as to be ready for shipment when the vessels had been refitted, after their arrival out in the spring. Manhattan Island, at this time, was in a state of nature; herbage was Condition wild and luxuriant ; but no cattle browsed in its fertile and. of the isl- valleys, and the native deer had been almost exterminated by the Indians. The careful kindness of the Dutch mer- chants endeavored to remedy, as well as possible, the want of domestic animals for the use of their solitary trad- ers ; and Hendrick Christiaensen, by his ship-owners' di- rection, took along with him, in one of his voyages, a few goats and rabbits to multiply at Manhattan. But these animals-the first sent from Holland to New York-were soon poisoned by the wild verdure, to which they were un- accustomed.t

Up to this time, the Dutch traders had pursued their The Dutch lucrative traffic in peltry, without question or interruption. quainted alone ac- No European vessels but theirs had yet visited the regions North or with the around the Mauritius River. Their ships returned to Hol- River. Mauritius land freighted with large cargoes of valuable furs, which

* Hol. Doc., i., 39 ; Muilkerk, A, 24. The " Little Fox" was probably the same vessel which had been sent to Nova Zembla in 1611.

t Wassenaar, ix., 44. It seems from Wassenaar's account, that the native species of dogs, in New Netherland, was quite small ; for when Lambrecht van Tweenhuysen, one of the owners of Christiaensen and Block's ships, gave one of these captains a " large dog" to take out with him, the Indians, coming on board the ship, were very much afraid of the animal, and called him "the sachem of the dogs," because he was one of the largest they had ever seen. The translation in Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii., 40, is inaccurate. Van Tweenhuysen gave the dog to his schipper ; he was not a " schipper" himself, but a "reeder," or ship-owner, and he does not appear ever to have visited Manhattan.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. II. yielded enormous profits to their owners. From Manhat- 1613. tan, small trading shallops were dispatched into the neigh- boring creeks and bays of "Scheyichbi," or New Jersey, and up the Mauritius River, as far as the head of naviga- tion. The Dutch had been the first, and, hitherto, the only Europeans to visit the Indian tribes in these regions, with all of whom they had continued to maintain a friendly and cordial intercourse. But while the Holland merchants pro- moted new explorations, they do not appear, as yet, to have directed the construction of permanent defenses ; although it has been said that, " before the year 1614," one or two small forts were built on the river for the protection of the growing peltry trade .*

Loss of Block's ship, and building of a yacht at Manhattan. By accident, Adriaen Block's ship, the Tiger, was burn- ed at Manhattan, while he was preparing to return to Hol- land. Undismayed by his misfortune, the persevering mar- iner set about building a small yacht, out of the admirable ship timber with which the island abounded. This work occupied Block during the winter of 1613, and until the spring of 1614. To accommodate himself and his com- First cab- ins built on panions during their cheerless solitude, a few huts were the island. now first erected near the southern point of Manhattan Island; and, in the absence of all succor from Holland, the friendly natives supplied the Dutch, through a dreary win- ter, " with food and all kinds of necessaries."i

* In a memorial to the States General, dated 25th of October, 1634, the West India Com- pany say, that " under the chief command of your High Mightinesses, before the year 1614, there were one or two little forts built there, and provided with garrisons for the protection of the trade."-Hol. Doc., ii., 138. De Laet, however, who wrote in 1624-ten years before the company's memorial-distinctly states that one small fort was built "in the year 1614," upon an island in the upper part of the river. In another place he says it was built in 1615 .- De Laet, book iii., cap. vii., ix. For various reasons, which will be exhibited further on, I think there was only one fort built ; that it was on " Castle Island," near Albany ; and that it was erected in 1614.

t De Laet, book iii., cap. x. ; De Vries, 181 ; " Breeden Raedt aen de Vereeinghde Ne- derlandsche Provintien," &c., p. 14, 15. This latter very rare tract (for the use of which I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Campbell, the deputy librarian at the Hague) is now for the first time quoted in our history. The statement in the Breeden Raedt, of the In- dians themselves, is that " when our people (the Dutch) had lost a certain ship there, and were building another new ship, they (the savages) assisted our people with food and all kinds of necessaries, and provided for them, through two winters, until the ship was fin- ished." De Laet, in his later editions of 1633 and 1640 (book iii., cap. vii.), says, that to carry on trade with the natives, " our people remained there during winter." De Vries, p. 181, repeats the same statement. The account in the Breeden Raedt, that Block built his yacht during the winter, seems thus to be fully confirmed. That the vessel was built

THE COLONY OF VIRGINIA.

The infant colony of Virginia had, meanwhile, suffered CHAP. II. strange vicissitudes. Under the second charter of King James, which passed the great seal early in 1609, Thomas Lord Delawarr was appointed governor for life ; Sir Thomas Gates, lieutenant governor ; Sir George Somers, admiral ; and Christopher Newport, vice-admiral. An expedition, consisting of nine vessels, was equipped and dispatched for Virginia, with five hundred emigrants, a few days before the charter was actually sealed. Lord Delawarr himself 15 May. did not leave England with the expedition ; but he dele- gated the command, in the interim, to Gates, Somers, and Newport .*

When near the end of their voyage, a hurricane sepa- rated the ship in which the three commissioners had em- barked from the rest of the squadron, and wrecked it on Shipwreck Bermuda.t The remnant of the fleet reached Virginia to- da. on Bermu- ward the end of the summer ; and to avoid anarchy, John 11 August. Smith, who had now been two years in the colony, assumed the chief command, in the absence of the newly-commis- sioned officers, whose fate was yet unknown. But the new colonists consisted of "many unruly gallants, packed hither by their friends to escape ill destinies." Against every pos- sible discouragement, Smith resolutely maintained his au- thority, and his influence introduced something like order among the unruly emigrants. At length, an accidental ex- plosion of gunpowder, which mangled his person, disabled him from duty, and obliged him to return home for surgical aid. Disgusted at the opposition he had met with in the Smith re- colony, which owed him so much, the " Father of Virginia" England. turns to delegated his authority to George Percy, and embarked for October. England, a few weeks after Hudson had set sail for Eu- rope with the news of his grand discovery.#

In the mean time, Gates and his companions, who had been cast away on Bermuda, had subsisted upon the nat-

1609. Virginia af- fairs. 23 May.

during the winter of 1613, and was finished and used in the spring of 1614, seems also cer- tain from Hol. Doc., i., 47, 53.

* Smith, i., 233 ; Purchas, iv., 1729.

t Strachey's account of this shipwreck in Purchas, iv., 1734, is supposed by Malone to be the foundation of Shakspeare's " Tempest." This opinion, however, has recently been controverted.

# Smith, i., 239 ; ii., 102.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. II. ural products of that fertile island, the luxuriance of which afterward won from Waller the matchless panegyric,

1609. Gates sails from Ber- muda to Virginia.

" Heaven sure has left this spot of earth uncurs'd, To show how all things were created first."

During the autumn and winter, with admirable persever- ance they constructed two small pinnaces out of the wreck of their old ship and the cedars which they felled on the island. After a nine months' sojourn in their delightful abode, they embarked in these vessels, in the spring of 1610. 1610, and in a few days arrived safely at Jamestown. 23 May. But instead of a happy welcome, they met a scene of mis- The "starv- ery, and famine, and death. The four hundred and ninety ia Virginia. persons whom Smith had left in the colony, had, in six ing time" months, through vice and starvation, dwindled down to sixty. In their extremity of distress, they all now determ- ined to desert Virginia, and seek safety and food among the English fishermen at Newfoundland. Embarking in 6 June. four pinnaces, the colonists bade adieu to Jamestown. " None dropped a tear, for none had enjoyed a day of hap- piness."*

Arrival of Lord Dela- warr.

6 June. 7 June.

8 June.

But unexpected relief was at hand. After nearly a year's delay in England, Lord Delawarr embarked at Cowes on the first of April, 1610, and set sail for Virginia with three vessels laden with supplies. . The squadron fol- lowed the old route, by the roundabout way of Terceira and Gratiosa; and, early in June, Lord Delawarr first made the land "to the southward of the Chesapeake Bay." Running in toward the shore, he anchored over night at Cape Hen- ry, where he landed and set up a cross. The next morn- ing he sailed up the Chesapeake to Point Comfort, where he heard the sorrowful tale of "the starving time." At that very moment, the pinnaces conveying the remnant of the dispirited colony were slowly falling down the James River with the tide. The governor instantly dispatched a boat with letters to Gates announcing his arrival. The next day, the pinnaces were met descending the river ; and

* Chalmers, 30; Bancroft, i., 137-140.

ARGALL AT DELAWARE BAY.

Gates immediately putting about, relanded his men the CHAP. II. same night at Jamestown.

1610.

Lord Delawarr soon arrived before the town with his 10 June. ship; and, after a sermon by the chaplain, commenced the task of regenerating the colony. A council was sworn in; " the evils of faction were healed by the unity of the ad- ministration, and the dignity and virtues of the governor ;" and the rejoicing colonists now began to attend to their duties with energy and good-will. To supply pressing 19 June. want, Sir George Somers was promptly dispatched with Somers and Argall dis- Samuel Argall, "a young sea-captain of coarse passions atched to and arbitrary temper," in two pinnaces, to procure fish and Bermuda. turtle at Bermuda .*

After being a month at sea, the pinnaces parted com- pany in a fog ; and Argall, despairing of rejoining his com- 27 July. rade, made the best of his way back to Virginia. Falling in with Cape Cod, he sailed to the southward, and in a 19 August. week found himself again within twelve leagues of the shore. Early the next morning, he anchored "in a very 27 August. great bay," where he found "a great store of people which chors in Argall an- were very kind." The same evening, Argall sailed for the warr's " Dela- Chesapeake, after naming the southern point of the bay in Bay." which he had anchored, " Cape La Warre." This Cape is now known as Cape Henlopen. The bay itself, which Hudson, in the Half Moon, had discovered just one year before, was soon commonly called by the English "Dela- warr's Bay," in honor of the Governor of Virginia ; but, notwithstanding received statements, there is no evidence Lord Dela- warr never that Lord Delawarr himself ever saw the waters which there him- now bear his name.t self.

Prosperity at length began to smile on Virginia. But Lord Delawarr, finding his health sinking under the cares of his office and the effects of the climate, sailed for En- 28 March. gland in the spring of 1611; and Gates having previously returns to Delawarr returned to London,# the administration of the colonial gov- England.

* Lord Delawarr's letter of 7th of July, 1610, in MS. Harl. Brit. Museum, 7009, fol. 58, printed by the Hakluyt Society ; Purchas, iv., 1754; Bancroft, i., 141.

t Argall's Journal, in Purchas, iv., 1762 ; Strachey's Virginia Britannia, 43 ; De Vries, 109, 110. See Appendix, note D. # Winwood's Memorial, iii., 239.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. II. ernment was committed, during his absence, to Captain 1611. George Percy. Soon after Delawarr's departure, Sir Thom- as Dale, " a worthy and experienced soldier in the Low Countries," to whom, at the request of the Prince of Wales, 20 January. the States General had just granted a three years' leave of absence from their service to go to Virginia,* arrived at 20 May. Jamestown, and assumed the government. Finding that the colony needed more assistance, he wrote at once to England. Lord Delawarr, on his return home, confirmed Dale's accounts ; and, with unusual promptness, the coun- cil at London dispatched six ships to Virginia, with three hundred new emigrants and large supplies.

Adminis- tration of Gates. Sir Thomas Gates, who, like Dale, had served in the Netherlands, and, in 1608, had been allowed by the States General to resign the commission he held in Holland, " to take command in the country of Virginia, and to colonize the same,"t was now sent out with the new expedition, invested with full authority as lieutenant governor, and August. arrived safely at Jamestown in August. Under his care- ful administration, the English settlements on the Chesa- peake rapidly prospered, and soon appeared to be firmly 1613. established. In the summer of 1613, Captain Argall, who had been sworn by Lord Delawarr one of the colonial council, while on a fishing voyage from Virginia to Nova Argall on the coast of Maine. Scotia, was overtaken by a storm, and driven ashore on the coast of Maine. Here he learned from the Indians that some French colonists had just arrived at the island of Mount Desert, a little to the eastward of the Penobscot. On this island, the Jesuit missionaries in the company, aft- er giving thanks to the Most High, had erected a cross, and celebrated a solemn mass. The island itself they had His piratic- named "Saint Sauveur." Ascertaining the weakness of the French, Argall hastened to their quiet retreat, and soon overpowered them by his superior force. De Thet, one of the Jesuit fathers, was killed by a musket-ball ; several others were wounded ; " the cross round which the faith- ful had gathered was thrown down;" and Argall returned * Hol. Doc., i., 6. t Ibid., i., 5. See also ante, page 45, note.

al proceed- ings against the French mission- aries.

ARGALL ON THE COAST OF MAINE.

to Virginia with eighteen prisoners, and the plunder of a CHAP. II. peaceful colony, which the pious zeal of Madame de Guercheville had sent to America to convert the savages 1613. to Christianity.

Gates no sooner received the report of this piratical ad- Argall venture of his subordinate, than, by the advice of his coun- Maine and again at cil, he determined to undertake a new enterprise against tia. Nova Sco- the French in Acadia, and destroy all their settlements south of the forty-sixth degree of latitude. Three armed vessels were immediately dispatched, under the command of Argall ; who, returning to the scene of his former out- rage at Mount Desert, set up the arms of the King of En- gland, in place of the broken cross of the Jesuits. Argall next visited St. Croix, and destroyed the remnants of De Monts' former settlement. Thence he sailed to Port Roy- al. Meeting no resistance there, Argall loaded his ships with the spoil of the ruined town ; and having thus effect- 9 Nov. ed all his purposes, he returned to Virginia about the mid- dle of November .*

The pretext under which Argall had been dispatched to Pretexts for gather inglorious laurels on the coasts of Acadia, was the al proceed- his piratic- alleged encroachment of the French settlers there upon the ings. territory comprehended within James's sweeping grant, in 1606, to the London and Plymouth adventurers. Gates naturally leaned toward the most grasping interpretation of an instrument in which he was named first among the original grantees of an enormous monopoly. But James's patent, nevertheless, distinctly excepted from its purview all lands "possessed by any other Christian prince or peo- ple ;" and the French had unquestionably been in quiet possession of the neighborhood of Acadia two years before the first English charter passed the great seal. By his second charter of 1609, James had also expressly restrict- ed the Virginia Company's northern boundary to a line two hundred miles north of Point Comfort, or about the fortieth parallel of latitude. The predatory proceedings of Gates and Argall were, therefore, entirely unwarranta-

* Champlain, 101-109 ; Lescarbot ; Bancroft, i., 148.

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. Il. ble ; and they were promptly resented by the court of

1613. France. As soon as intelligence of the outrage reached

of the

Complaints Europe, the French ambassador at London made a formal French am- bassador at London. complaint to the English government. The privy council immediately demanded explanations from the Virginia 1614. Company ; who excused themselves by stating in reply, that they had received no information from Virginia " of any such misdemeanors."*

23 January.

1613.

On his return voyage from Acadia to Virginia, late in November. November, Argall is said to have "landed at Manhatas Alleged vis- Isle, in Hudson's River," where, finding " four houses it of Argall to Manhat- tan.

built, and a pretended Dutch governor," he forced the Hol- landers to submit themselves to the King of England and to the government of Virginia. But this favorite story is very suspicious ; it is inconsistent with authentic state papers ; it has been deliberately pronounced to be "a pure fiction ;" and it certainly needs to be sustained by better authority than any that has yet been produced, before it can be received as an historical truth.t

1614. Progress of Dutch dis- covery.

In the spring of 1614, explorations began to be vigor- ously prosecuted around Manhattan, by the several trading vessels which had been dispatched from Holland. De Witt, sailing up the Mauritius River, in the "Little Fox," gave his name to one of the islands near Red Hook. May, in the " Fortune," coasting eastward, beyond the Visscher's Hook, or Montauk Point, visited a large "white and clay- ey" island, around which Gosnold had sailed twelve years before. This island, the Indian name of which was Ca- packe, the Dutch for awhile called " the Texel;" but it is now known as Martha's Vineyard.#

By this time, it was perceived that, to secure the larg- est return from the peltry trade, a factor should reside per- manently on the Mauritius River, among the Maquaas, or Mohawks, and the Mahicans, at the head of tide-water.

* Champlain, 112 ; Lond. Doc., i., 1, 3 ; N. Y. Colonial Manuscripts, iii., 1, 2.

t See Appendix, note E. ,

# De Laet, book iii., cap. viii. On Visscher's and Van der Donck's maps of New Neth- erland, there is an island in the North River, marked "Jan de Witt's Eylant," just north of Magdalen Island, Jan de Witt's Island is the small one just south of Upper Red Hook landing, or Tivoli ; Magdalen Island is the larger one next below.

THE YACHT RESTLESS, OF MANHATTAN.

Hendrick Christiaensen, who, after his first experiment in CHAP. II. company with Adriaen Block, is stated to have made " ten voyages" to Manhattan, accordingly constructed a trading house on " Castle Island," at the west side of the river, a little below the present city of Albany. This building,

1614. Christiaen- sen builds · " Fort Nas- sau," at the upper part which was meant to combine the double purposes of a of the river. warehouse and a military defense for the resident Dutch traders, was thirty-six feet long, by twenty-six feet wide, inclosed by a stockade fifty-eight feet square, and the whole surrounded by a moat eighteen feet in width. To compliment the family of the stadtholder, the little post was immediately named "Fort Nassau." It was armed with two large guns, and eleven swivels or patereros, and garrisoned by ten or twelve men. "Hendrick Christiaen- sen first commanded here ;" and, in his absence, Jacob Eelkens, formerly a clerk in the counting-house of an Am- sterdam merchant .*

It has been confidently affirmed that the year after the No fort at erection of Fort Nassau, at Castle Island, a redoubt was also thrown up and fortified " on an elevated spot," near the southern point of Manhattan Island. But the assertion does not appear to be confirmed by sufficient authority.t

Adriaen Block had, meanwhile, completed the building of his yacht, which he appropriately named the Onrust, or " Restless." With this small vessel, about sixteen tons in burden, and the first ever constructed by Europeans at Manhattan,# Block proceeded to explore the bays and riv- ers to the eastward, into which the larger ships of the Dutch

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History of the state of New York Vol I, Part 7

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n Publication date: 1871 Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers Number of Pages: 844

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n
Publication date: 1871
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Number of Pages: 844