USA > New York > History of the state of New-York : including its aboriginal and colonial annals, vol. pt 1 > Part 32
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The States engaged to defend the company against every person in the freedom of navigation and traffic within those limits, and assist them with a million of guilders.§ They delegated the prerogative of resolving on peace or warlj --- and if the company should be driven to hostilities by any vio- lent and continued interruption to their commerce, the States engaged to assist with sixteen ships of war --- the least of the burden of three hundred tons, T with four yachts-the least of eighty tons, all armed and equipped ; to be supported at the expense of the company, and commanded by an admiral appointed with their advice by the States, to act in obedience to their mutual commands and resolutions .** Bat the com- pany were to supply, unconditionally, sixteen ships and four-
Twenty-four years ;- but at the end of that term the charter was renewed.
i Art. xvii. # Art. i.
( Art. xsix.
|! Art, xix.
' " 150 las !.. " ** Art. xl.
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teen yachts of like tonnage, 'for the defence of trade and all exploits of war,' which, with all merchant vessels, was to be commanded by an admiral appointed and instructed as above .*
The government of the company was vested in five cham- bers or departments of managers or directors. The chamber of Amsterdam having the direction of four ninth parts, was represented by twenty directors : that of Zealand, two ninths, by twelve directors : that of Maeze, of North Holland, of Friesland with the city and country,; each one ninth, and cach by fourteen directors : provinces and cities without chambers might have as many directors divided among them, as they should be entitled to by the respective deposits of one hundred thousand guilders in the funds.į
All general meetings of chambers were composed of an assembly of nineteen directors, eight of the department Am- sterdam, four of Zealand, two of each of the other cham- bers : the nineteenth director represented the States-General, who might depute an additional number if they should deem it advisable, " to assist in directing the meetings of the com- pany."§ This college or assembly of the nineteen were to manage, and finally settle all the business of the company, excepting when ' resolving on war they should ask the ap- probation of the States.'||
The company might enter into ' contracts and alliances with the princes and natives of the land ;' and were obligated to advance the settlement, encourage population, and ' do . all that the service of those fruitful countries and the profits and increase of trade would require.'T To protect their
* Art. xl. As to prizes, see art. xlii .- The States received one tenth, after paying the admiral, one tenth to officers and soldiers and all expenses of troops, fortifications, &c.
i Stadt en Lande.
# Art. xi. xii. and the amplification of the charter in Feb. 1643. By art. xiii. each director of Amsterdam should have interest of 6000 guil- ders, and each of the others, 4000. As to commission to directors, sce art. xxviii-ix.
¿ Art. xviii. # Art. xix. 5 Art. ii. ili.
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trade and possessions, they might erect and garrison forts and fortifications. To distribute justice, preserve order, maintain police, and administer the general, civil, and military govern- ment of their transmarine affairs, they might appoint a go- vernor in chief or director-general, commanders and all offi- cers civil and military, judicial and executive -- who should take an oath of allegiance to the States as well as to the com- pany .* But having chosen a governor in chief and prepared instructions, he was to be commissioned and his instructions approved by the States. | -
The charter was amplified in some respects unimportant to notice, in Jane 1622 and February 1623. On the 20th June, 1623, the managers and principal adventurers adopted arti- cles, approved y the States, of internal regulation, and the same year closed their books of subscription.
During the interim, the Greenland company was created, (1622) and the charter of the East-India company renewed, (1623.) Thus the northern seas, Asia, Africa, and America, were partitioned to three armed associations, possessing powers nearly coextensive with those of the republic. The States- General, thus relieved from the unpopularity of forced means to protect commerce, had the unembarrassed direction of all Jand and naval operations ; the Greenland company was to defend the northern fisheries against any future molestation by England or Denmark ; the East-India company was to com- plete its magnificent empire in Asia ; and the great national society was to cherish and extend commerce, found colonies, crush piracy, and while it was to strike a blow fatal to the power and pride of the Spaniards and Portuguese in Africa and America, its daring enterpises were to signalise the names of the gallant heroes who should direct them, vindicate the cause of civil and religious liberty, and reflect upon the Uni- ted Provinces an imperishable glory.
Art. ii. v. vi. xl. + .1:1. ii.
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The society did not commence' operations until 1623 .* One of its earliest objects of attention was the Great river, which had been visited during fourteen years, and occupied nine years. To continue possession of the country, desig- nate its boundaries, and promote trade in peltry, a ship with some settlers and necessary materials and supplies for forts, houses, troops, and residents, sailed from Holland, under the command of Kornelis Jacobse MIcy.+ Never was the arrival of a vessel more anxiously desired. Two years had elapsed since the last ship departed from Manhattan. The licensed company having been merged in the general society, and the operations of this suspended by protracted preparation, the settlers had awaited in vain the return-ship for the customary supplies of necessaries from Holland. Their condition, there- fore, became destitute. They had no communication with any American colonies, and if they possessed any knowledge of the existence and condition of the latter, they might have found objects of sympathy without the means of relief. Vir- ginia had just suffered a massacre of four hundred men, wo- men, and children. New-France, feeble and dispirited, trem- bled at its very gates upon a late irruption of the incensed Iroquois. New-Scotland, i recently patented to Sir William Alexander, had but one Scotch resident. Weston's colony in Massachusetts's was saved from extermination through the vi- gilance of their more discreet and wary neighbours at Ply- mouth. These, though not excluded like the Dutch, from all intercourse with the parent country, | were enfeebled and
* De Laet Beschryvingh, &c. b. iii. chap. 11. This is further evident from De Laet's History of the Company, which begins in 1623. Historie ofte Jaerlyk Verhael van, &c. West-Indische Company, &c. Tot Leyden, 164-1.
i See note (159.)
Į Nova Scotia.
$ Or, Mais-Tchuscag, equivalent to the two Tartar words, Mas-Tchudi. that is, the Country on this side of the hills.
|| See Winslow's Journal 1623, or, Good News from New-England, (published in Purchas and in Mass. Hist. Collection, viii. 237.) See Chris- topher Levett's Voyage into New-England, begun in 1623, and ended iss 1604. London. 1029.
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wasted by sickness, dependent on the Indians for corn, and so recently settled in the country, that they believed New -. England was like Old England, an island. *
Such was the condition of the North American colonies, and such the hopelessness of relief, had even the knowledge and means to seek it been possessed by the Dutch of Manhat- tan. Their friends were the Indians, whose magnanimity, when deserved, was seldom appealed to in vain; and whose hospitality, though sometimes ungratefully requited, was as free, if not unbounded, as the natural bounties of the waters, the air and the forests. f Secure in their friendship, the Dutch may have sometimes enjoyed in the calumet, the true nepenthe to dispel the loneliness and solitude of their weary hours; and if education and habit, parents of artificial necessities, had not rendered certain comforts and luxuries indispensable, they might have ranged the forest with the bounding elastici- city of the natives, and robed in the simple garb of furs, have lived with them in contented forgetfulness of every artificial want, if not of every other country. But the Dutch had no thought of such an amalgamation. On the contrary, as we are informed, į some of those who had located on Staten Isl- land, and often sailed thence in their little boats to visit their friends at Manhattan, were partly obliged, by the necessity of
* See the first sermon, &c. by Elder Cushman, in Hazzard's state pa- pers, 1. 147.
{ " When you, (exclaimed an agrieved Indian Orator to the proposals of peace offered by Gov. Kieft) when you first arrived on our shores, you were sometimes in want of food. We gave you our beans and corn, and! let you eat oysters and fish, and now for recompense you murdered our people." (He put down one little stick -- this was one'point of accusation.) " The men whom you in your first trips left here, to barter your goods till your return, were treated by us as we would have treated our eye-balls. We gave them our daughters to sleep with," &c. &c. De Vries' voyages, manuscript, in the Philadelphia manuscripts of the Library committee. Translated by Doct. G. Troost.
: " From Staten Island they went to Capscy, at the the old Battery at York, with little boats with sails, which afterwards served them for shirts. as the first shipping went back and was gone two years before they re- turned, which distressed the settlers exceedingly," &c. Tradition by Judge Mersereau. N. Y. Hist. MISS. Dr. Miller.
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New Netherland. 365
converting their sails into wearing apparel, and partly induced by the sympathy which in solitude and destitution endears the social tie, to remove to that island. Here month after month passed away in alternate hope and disappointment, and they might have sometimes foreboded the fate of that early Virgi- nian colony, which perished through the neglect of the parent country. But their fears, their hopes, and their disappoint- ments were at last ended. The first ship of the West Indian company arrived-and conjectural history, without any extra- vagance of fancy, might say that the roar of the signal gun, and the blast of the trumpet, as they resounded along the broken shores and elevated summits of the Manhattan, were to its anxious occupants more grateful than 'the gale of spring that sighs on the hunter's ear, when he wakens from dreams of joy, and has heard the spirits of the hill.'
The name of New Belgium, or New Netherland, * now be- stowed upon the country, indicated in some degree the opinion of its comparative equality to the United Netherlands, in climate, soil, and navigable facilities, or its superior adaptation for a Netherland colony. The name was intended to com- prehend the country discovered by Hudson ; and though its boundaries became involved in doubt and controversy, yet as
* It was so called about this time, for De Laet in 1625, describes it un- der the name of " Nieuw Nederlundt." . " Nova Belgica sive Nieuw Mid- erlandt," is the title inscribed on Vander Donck's map in his Beschryvinge van Nieuw Nederlandt, &c. and in Blauw's Atlas. The inscription on the map in De Laet. (Latin edition 1633) is " Nova Anglia, Norum Beigivm el Virginia." The next in 1638, appears under the same title in " Ge- rardi Mercatoris Atlas or Geographick Description," &c. translated by Hexham. The first improved map of New Netherland, it is said, (by Du Simitiere in MS. notes in the Philadelphia Library) was by Nicolas J. Vis- scher, published in Amsterdam, entitled " Novi Belgii nove que Anglia," &c. from which Vander Donck took his. The same with a few English names superadded, was copied by Ogilby in History of America 1671, in his map of New Netherland, New England, &c. inscribed " Novi Belgii quod nunc Novi Jorck vocatur," &c. See also, Montanus, Dancker, Ot- tens, Lambrechtsen, &c. from all which it appears that the limits of New Belgium were undefined, and consequently a fruitful source of controversy with neighbouring colonies, as will appear in the sequel.
Vor. I.
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apparently understood by the first director or governor, who will presently be mentioned, extended from the South river,* to the New Holland of the Dutch, or the Delaware to Cape Cod of the English. Hudson was certainly not the discoverer of this Cape, for Gosnold had named it seven years before. He discovered the bay of the South river, however, one year before Lord De la War saw it; and the various names which Dutch navigators afterwards gave to the coasts, bays and rivers, from the South Bay to New Holland, furnish presump- tive proof that the Dutch were the earliest and most frequent visitors.
Upon the arrival of Captain Mey, with supplies and orders for crecting new fortifications, the bay of Manhattan was, in compliment to him, denominated Port May. This naviga- for, pursuing the track of Blok, appears to have examined the sea-hoard as far as the bays of Manomett and Nassau, # and thence retrograding, judiciously selected for his own resi- dence the fruitful banks of the South riverg as the finest part of New Netherland. The bay of that river, though usually denominated South bay, | became known as New Port May, T its northern cape as Cape May, and its southern as Cornelius, from the name of that navigator. It is uncertain whether he settled here this year or the next, but fort Nassau was erected on this river (called also Nassau river) in 1623, and it is probable that he superintended its construction. The fort was on the eastern bank, at a point called Tekcacho, ** a
* Zuydt rivier.
¡ Buzzard's Bay.
# Narraganset. Quere-Was Mey's ship the one which here went ashore in a storm, but was afterwards floated, to which Winslow in his Journal of this date, alluded? De Laet says Mey gave the name of Texel to the large island subsequently named Martha's Vineyard.
+ Zuydt rivier, also Nassau river, and afterwards Prince Hendrick's ri- ver. The English always called it the Delaware-the Swedes named it New Sweedland stream-the Indians Lennapewihittuck.
Il Zuydt Baai -- the Delaware.
5. Nicwn Port Mey.
** Glocester Point. Acrelius Nya Sverige, Stockholm. 1759. Eve.
lings Der Staat New-Jersey, Hamburgh. 1796.
New Netherland. . 367
few miles from Kucquenaku,* or the grove of the tall pine trees. 'The native residents of this fertile country, were the Lenni Lenape ouce numerous and formidable, but conquered in the beginning of this century by the five confederate na- tions, and compelled to submit to the humiliating condition of the female nation, or, in the figurative style of the Indians, to have their legs shortened, to be dressed in female apparel, to be adorned with ear-rings, to carry in one hand the calabash of oil and medicines, and hold in the other the seed corn and hoc. | With this people, whose national characteristic was that of peace-preservers, Captain Mey resided in uninterrupt- ed harmony and mutual good will.i
'I'wo other forts were also commenced, if not finished this year-fort New Amsterdams and fort Orange. || The first was on the Manhattan, south of the original redoubt, upon an ele- vated and commanding spot, near the confluence of the two rivers. T It was a mere block house, surrounded with red cedar palisades .** It is saidjt that it was built under the su- perintendence of Hendrick Christiaanse, the carly pioneer of the settlement, whose authority terminated with the political extinguishment of the licensed trading company, and of whom we have no historical information after this period. ##
Either at this time, or when this fort was subsequently re- modelled, an occurrence happened, which in the absence of established and well regulated government, may have been passed by with impunity if not overlooked with indifference,
* Sounded Koo-ek-wen-aw-koo, (John F. Watson, Esq. MSS.) the In- dian name of Philadelphia.
i See the curious ceremony on this occasion, in the Supplemental Histo- ry of the five nations.
# See Note 160.
& "T"' Fort Nieuw . Ansterdam op de Manhattans. See view.
|| T' Fort Oranje, or (as De Laet renders it) "' Fort can Oragnien.
T Directly south of the Bowling Green in New-York, on the side of the former government house.
** Many of these were dug up under the ruins of the oll fort, in 1790-1, and led to this supposition of the materials of the original structure. Jobn N. Abeel, MISS. of the N. Y. Hist. Society.
fi By Lambrechtsen, Kurt Verhuel van Nieuw Nederlandt, &c. Sed yut #1 Note 1€1.
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but which, from the implacable nature of Indian revenge, tended eventually to involve the colony in great calamities. An Indian was murdered by a lawless bandit, and robbed of his beavers. A youth, the nephew of the unfortunate victim, witnessed the murder, and resolved to take vengeance of the Dutch when he should arrive at years of manhood. This he did effectually, as will be seen hereafter.
Fort Orange, so named from respect to the Prince of Orange, was erected on the west bank of the Hudson, about four miles north of the redoubt built in 1617 at Nordtman's kill. The river was named Mauritius, in honour of Prince Maurice, and North River" in contra-distinction to South river. The fort was on the bendt of the shore at Skaghneghtady, }: It is supposed to have been originally constructed like Fort Amsterdam, and improved afterwards upon a similar, though less extensive model. It was surrounded by a moat, and mounted the same number of guns, which in 1614 had consti- tuted the ordnance of Castle Island.
Jaques Elekens was here retained in command, by the West Indian Company, and succeeded Christiaanse in authority as chief.§ The garrisons in forts Orange, Amsterdam and Nas- sau were cach limited at first to a sergeant|| and his guard. Ti
* Noordt rivier.
+ Called Fuyk, i. c. hoop or bow-net. The house of Simeon De Witt, Esq. Surveyor General of the State of New-York, is upon the original site of the fort. Fuyk was the first name of the settlement around the fort, and Beaverwyck the second. Rensclacrwyck MSS.
1 (Albany) Skaghneghtady or Schenectadea.
4 Or, Opper hoofdt. || Or, Wacht meester.
Some authors (Smith's New-York : Ebeling's Staats New-York : A short account of the first Settlement of Virginia, Maryland, New-York. New-Jersey and Pennsylvania, by the English. London, 1735, &c.) have adopted an error in saying that another fort was this year erected on the Connecticut or Fresh river. (See under date of 1633.) As to the forts in 1623, see Dutch Records; Gov. Stuyvesant's letter to Boston, &c. ; Re- presentation of the Commons in New Netherland, 1650, quoted in Kort Verhaal van Nienw Nederlandts, 1662. 4to. Hague, (a manuscript traus- .lation of the last very scarce work is in the hands of the author, through the favour of Joseph P. Norris, Esq. Philadelphia) ; Rev. John N. Abcel's MS. Notes in MSS. of N. Y. Hist. Society ; De Laet, Lambrechtsen, Neal's Hist. of New England, &c.
New Netherland. 369
1
CHAPTER IV.
From 1623 to 1629. The first Governor and his officers. First emigrants, Waaloons. Settlement of Wal-bocht. First child born in New Nether- land. Policy of West India Company. Slow progress of the Colony ; exports from it. Slaves introduced. Reflections. Policy of the Company; their success; their imports to New Netherland ; its trade and articles of' Indian traffic. New Plymouth. The first commercial treaty and inter- course between that Colony and New Netherland; its benefits; the dependence of New Netherland upon the success of the West India Com- pany ; its famous capture of the silver fleet tends to the immediate colo- nization by the adoption of a charter of liberties and privileges, &c.
THE wisdom of these precautions, to secure the possession and trade of the country, was accompanied by the valour which was to ensure their stability. The West Indian Com- pany in 1623 and 4 realized, by the capture of sixty-nine rich prizes from the public enemy, a reimbursement for all outfits, and additional means for the vigorous prosecution of their warlike and commercial operations. The college of XIX. assigned the management of the New Netherland com- merce to the chamber of Amsterdam. This department now freighted two ships, in one of which arrived in New Nether- land, its first Governor or Director, Peter Minuit .* Ap- pointed by the college, sworn to the allegiance which was re- quired by the charter to the company, instructed expressly or directed by the peculiar policy of his immediate principals, his administration was to be, what the names of his subor- dinate officers and the current of his affairs, evince it to have been, purely that of commercial government. As even this could not be conducted successfully without some local power, legislative, judicial and executive, the director and his officers of council, were to possess this power under the appellate supervision of their principals, whose immediate will, as expressed in their instructions, or declared in their marine and military ordinances, was to be the supreme law of New Netherland, excepting in cases not thus specifically pro-
* See note ( 162.)
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vided for, when the imperial statutes of Charles V, the edicts, resolutions, and customs of the father-land, were to be re- ceived as the paramount rule of action.
The gradation of subordinate authority and rank were --- Ist. Opper Koopman, or Opper Commis* : 2. Onder Koop- man, or Onder commis : 3. Koopman or Commis : 4. Assis- tant. The duties of the Upper merchant, or chief commis- sary, combined under Governor Minuit, those also of book- keeper of monthly wages or secretary of New Netherland, and these offices were vested in Isaac de Razier, who is de- scribed by one of his contemporaries, as " a person of a fair and genteel behaviour.f He may have been of that class of French protestants, whose fathers fied from persecution and settled on the river Waal in Guelderland. The first emi- grants under Minuit appear to have been from that famous province, and under the name of Waaloons, founded in 1625 the first permanent settlement beyond the immediate protec- tion of the cannon of Fort Amsterdam. It is worthy of re- mark, that thus the first emigrants, and the majority of those who subsequently colonized New Netherland, came from that province, distinguished in the page of history, as the last that submitted to the Romans, and the first who threw off their yoke on the decline of the Roman empire.
The Waaloons settled on Long Island at a bend of the shoref opposite to Manhattan. They were the first who professionally pursued agriculture. Temporary locations for other purposes had been made at other places. But though the North river had been thoroughly examined, its courses,
* Upper merchant, or chief ,commissary, the words, as qualifying each other, explain themselves. Koopman literally is merchant, but it was here equivalent to a commissary for managing trade for others.
i Governor Bradford of New Plymouth in his letter book.
# Wal-bocht, near Murechkawieck (or Brooklyn). Some respectable writers render the name Waaloon bend. Hal-bocht is the name as giren invariably in ancient Dutch records. (See Indian and Dutch maps and notes to this history.)
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islands, al. Kinderhoeck . , - set jul., ystroo,* Klevcrack, i. merely topographical names. The limited extent of the age, single condition,
and peculiar pursuit- had arrived previously to he fact, that in the month
1625, may be partly of June of that year was born in New Net !!
of European parentage,
The West Indian Company may not have been entirely in- attentive to that provision of their charter, which required them to people and consult the interests of these fertile re- gions ; but in their policy, commerce was paramount, agri- culture subordinate, and manufactures incongruous, except as the latter supplied New Netherland with the materials for domestic consumption and of profit to the company. Circum- stances arising from the peculiar condition and character of the Hollanders, still operated to retard colonization, and very few persons except those employed and paid by the company, in a civil and military capacity, had been induced to settle in New Netherland. De Laet, an enterprising director of that company, attracted the attention of the inhabitants of the United Provinces, by the publication this year, of his descrip- tion of the New World. ||
* Oat-straw.
f Clover-reach. See Introduction, 450. p. 956.
1 Children's-corner.
$ Sarah Rapaelje, daughter of Jan Joris Rapaelje, June 9th, 1625. (See family record in manuscripts of New-York Historical Society.) Accord- ing to Judge Mersereau (MISS. N. Y. H. S.) Rapaelje had resided on Staten Island. He was the founder of Wal-bocht, and Sarah was the ma- ternal ancestor of several families of Hansens and Bogerts. (Sce Furman's Brooklyn. Wood's first settlements of Long Island.) At the age of 31, she was a widow by the name of Sarah Forey, with seven children. Go- vernor Stuyvesant and council, in consideration of her situation, and birth as the first child, granted the valley adjoining her patent. Dutch Records, letter P. or vol. xi. p. 332, in the office of Secretary of the State of New- York.
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