USA > New York > History of the state of New-York : including its aboriginal and colonial annals, vol. pt 1 > Part 36
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Dutch vessels came before 1630, as appears from the purchase made in
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A place was selected, a house erected and surrounded with palisadoes, without the precaution of parapets This was their fort, house of counmerce, and place of rendezvous The climate during the winter was so mild, they suffered no incon- venience .* In the spring and summer they erected shelters, prepared fields, and commenced their cultivation. This set- tlement extended to a fertile valley some distance from their fort,t and the whole plantation, as included within the limits of Goodyn's purchase, reaching to The Little Trees Cornert received no other denomination than Swaenendael, or valley of swans.§
No other Europeans now occupied the river. The little fort Nassau had been abandoned, and was in possession of the Indians. || Captain May had departed the country, and what
1629, (see note ante.) In 1628 the little Fresh Water river (Schuyl kili, that is, hidden creek) was discovered, says Stuyvesant's letter to Nicolls, in 1664. The Dutch no doubt visited this river often after they built fort Nassau ; but it is very doubtful whether any other fort was at Hoar kill than that which De Vries's colony erected, if it was at Hoar kill, in 1630. It may be that when he retured in the fall of 1631, and concluded a peace with the natives at Swaenendael, he there built a fort to protect his fishery ; or if bis first fort was here erected, it could not have been, ac- cording to the received opinion, (in Kort Verbacl, &c. ; Smith's New Jer- sey, p. 22, &c, and Proud's Pennsylvania, p. 113-114, &c. ) at the spot where Lewis town, or Loces, was built. Swaenendael and Boompjes Hoch, (not Bompt, Bumpo, Bomkey, nor Bombay Hook) have been considered by some to be the same spot. Its Indian name was Cannaresse. Acrelius, the Swedish historian of New Sweden, says the Dutch had a fort at Hoer kill (now Lewis) about the year 1638.
* De Vries says, except the wind blew from mountains supposed to be covered with snow at the west, they could " unshirt themselves" in the woods without inconvenience, and vegetables may be raised if protected in the night. Professor Kalm (in Travels) confirms the accounts of the mild- ness of the Delaware, from Swedish traditions. Sce also De Laet, b. 3 ch. 7. 11. and Kort Verbael van Nieuw Nederlandt.
i It is conjectured as far as Slaughter creek in Sussex county, state of Delaware.
# Boompjes Hoeck. corrupted into Bombay Hook. Sec note ante.
§ This was in Sussex and Kent counties, state of Delaware.
Il De Vries, after his colony was exterminated, sailed up the river, and arrived, he says, " before the little fort Nassau, where formerly lived some families of the West Indian Company," &c.
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was rare in the first intercourse of Europeans with the natives, had gained their esteem, and secured a traditionary fame to his memory.
It has, however, been affirmed that a colony of Swedes and Finns settled this year (1631) on the west bank of the river ; that on their arrival at Cape Henlopen, they were so delight- ed with the country, they named it Paradise point, and that they bought of the Indians the land from that cape to Santick- an .* This is an error in respect to the period of their arri- val, as will be exhibited when the actual settlement of the co- lony of Nya Sweriget shall be mentioned. The mistake, perhaps, arose from an ignorance of the nativity of De Vries and his colonists.j "The Swedes had long intended to found there a colony. Wilhelmn Usselinx, a Hollander, who had some connexion with the Dutch West Indian company soon after its organization, and had become an eminent merchant at Stockholm, proposed as early as in 1624, to King Gusta- vus Adolphus, the plan of a Swedish trading company, (simi- lar to the privileged Dutch West Indian company) the opera- tions of which should extend to Asia, Africa, and Ameri- ca. Gustavus approving a plan which would give to the com- meree of his kingdom a scope and an activity highly condu- cive to the interests of his subjects, granted a commission at Stockholm, on the 21st day of December, 1624, authorising Usselins to proceed in his project .. Articles were drawn by him in the Dutch language, for the approbation and signature of a company. His design being to found a colony on the South river, he illustrated his project, by superadding to the proposed articles of incorporation an address, in which he described the fertility, conveniences, and advantages of the country, and exhorted the Swedes with great earnestness to · favour by engaging in its colonization. The principal reasons which he urged upon them were : 1st. That the Christian religion would thereby be propagated among the heathen.
* Falls of Trenton.
; Or. Vien Suecia-New Sweden.
: See note anta, page 106,
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2d. That his Majesty would enlarge his dominions, enrich his treasury, and lessen the public dues. 3dly. That it would be generally very advantageous to the people. The pri- vileges proposed in the articles were liberal to the members of the company, and Usselinx himself' was to reserve the one thousandth part of all the goods which the company should buy and sell. In consideration of these exertions, Gustavus issued a proclamation from Stockholm, July 2d, 1626, exhort- ing his subjects to contribute to the formation of such a com- pany. The plan was recommended by the King to the States, and confirmed by them in the diet of 1627. Many persons of every rank, from the king to common subjects, subscribed. An admiral, a vice admiral, merchants, assistants, commissa- ries, and a military force were appointed, and the company received the denomination of the South company .* In the
Thus far Swedish and other writers substantially agree, particularly Thomas Campanius in Beskrifning om Nya Swerige, Stockholm, 1702, and Isracl Acrelius in Beskrifning om de Svenske Forsamlingars Fordna. och Navaranda Tilstand uti det sa Kallade Nya Swerige Sedan Nya Ne- derland, &c. Stockholm, 1759. These are the two original authorities upon which most writers have founded their statements respecting New Sweden: statements more or less correct in proportion to the reliance which has been placed upon the one or the other. Thomas Campanius Ilolm, in his description of New Sweden, is probably very nearly correct with regard to the progress of the projected company, up to the period re- ferred to in the text. These facts he may have derived from authentic sources. Ilis observations respecting the aspect of the country, local names, &c. may be generally correct, as he resided on New Sweedland stream, (as the Swedes called the Delaware) where his grandfather had been a Swedish minister. He does not directly say when the Swredes first came. He observes that soon after this (viz. after the subscription in 1627) " the Swedes and Finns went to South river, and as their writers assure us, purchasad the land from Cape Henlopen to the falls of Delaware." At another place he observes incidentally, " that Christiana fort was the first built when the Swedes arrived in 1631," &c. In another part he says, that in 1631, the Swedish Ambassador obtained a quit claim from King Charles of England, of his title by discovery, and the Swedes purchased also from the States General their right to the river, on account of having built three forts before the Swedes arrived. In these and many other statements he is loose, incoherent, and inaccurate. (See a part of his work translated in N. Y. Uist. Collections, vol. II.) It is agreed that the fort Christina was
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following year (1628) it was concluded to gather the subscrip- tions, cause the money to be paid in March and May, and foreclose the further admission of members.
named in honour of the Queen, who did not ascend the throne till after 1631. The settlement of De Vries's colony in 1630-31, and his visit the next year and following winter, when he explored the river, and finally De Vries's statement made several years afterwards, when in the time of Kieft he visited the Swedish Governor Printz, and expressly says that now the Swedes bad three forts, whereas when he was on the river before, there were no Swedes, is a satisfactory evidence that Campanius was mistaken.
But on this loose authority, several American as well as European wri- ters have placed the arrival of the Swedes in 1631, and some of them as early as 1627, See Proud's Pennsylvania ; Smith's Nova Casaria, or New Jersey ; Holmes's Annals ; Catteau's view of Sweden ; Sprengel. Geschi- chte der Europeers in America. Raynal, who places their arrival about the year 1836, approaches nearest to the truth. But the authority of Acreli- us is the most uuquestionable on this point, and consequently the Swedes arrived in 1633. This also agrees with the time when the Dutch protested against the erection of their first fort, viz. in May 1633. The protest was one of the first measures of Gov. Kieft, and is in the Dutch records.
Acrelius wrote his work (Description of the Swedish Congregations, their former and present condition in the so called New Sweden. afterwards New Netherland, &c.) at a period auspicious for correct investigation. He was provost of the Swedish congregations in America and rector of Christina, but it 1759, (the date of his book) provost and rector of Fell- ingsbro. Ilis work is in possession of the venerable Swedish Minister Nicholas Collin, at Philadelphia, who translated Acrelius at the request of Dr. Miller in 1799. The Rev. Mr. Collin observed that he had consulted many of the authorities cited by Acrelius and found them correct, but that " Acrelius himself was a sufficient voucher." (This manuscript is in MSS. of New- York Hist. Soc.) Professor Ebelings' Geschichte der Staats New Jersey, relies upon Acrelius as his authority for a very brief account of the arrival of the Swedes. The acute and learned investigator Peter S. Du Ponceau, in a discourse on the first settlement of Pennsylvania, places the arrival of the Swedes in 1638, and says that they were destined as a colony to continue only till the year that closed the reign of Christina, and the life of Oxenstierna. A contemporary authority with the Swedes, Andries Huddie, one of Van Twiller's officers, and a commissary on the South river, or Delaware, in the time of Governor Kieft, made an official report respecting the Swedes, (recorded in the Dutch records) in which Huddic says that John Printz (the Governor of New Sweden) " openly declared at his table, on the 3d June, 1647, in presence of Huddie and his wife," that "the company (Dutch West Ind in Company) had no right whatever on this
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But the intervention of the German war suspended all ope- rations, and the death of the king proved fatal to the main project. The subordinate plan of a colony on the south river was not revived until several years after Gustavus fell, in the arms of victory, at the head of his cavalry, on the plains of Lutzen : it was during the minority of his daughter, the vir- gin queen of Sweden, but under the sanction of her chancel- ' lor, the renowned Axel Oxenstierna, that the scheme was re- vived, from intervening causes and through agents different from those of its projection. For while the death of Gusta- vus (1632) arrested the progress of all operations, the fate of De Vries's colony, the same year, was to prepare the country for the reception of the Swedes ; and as the first plan had been conceived by one native of Holland, so the last was to be executed by another.
As yet, (1631-2) the Dutch were, however, in tranquil pos- session at Swan-valley. They deduced their right, not only from the legitimate source, the purchased consent of the na- tives, but from the discovery of the bay by Hudson in 1609, and the occupation of the river as early as 1623. The Eng- lish also claimed it, as having been discovered by Lord De la War in 1610. Whether he took such formal possession* of the bay, as did away the right of the Dutch in consequence of the informal visit of Hudson ; whether the undefined disco- very of the Cabots precluded the force and validity of either, or whether the United Provinces at that time were so far ad- mitted into the community of nations, as to be entitled to de- rive any right by discovery, are speculative problems, which it is not necessary at present to discuss. It is certain, that the patent to Virginia covered this district, but equally so
river-that he (Gov. Printz) purchased the land in behalf of the crown of Sweden-that the company could not trust on their old uninterrupted pos- session -- the devil was the oldest possessor of hell, but he sometimes admitted a younger one," &c. Dutch records. Vol. XVII. This adds to the other proof that the Dutch were the first settlers on the Delaware.
* Hume. (in reign of king James I.) says, that if a pirate or sea-adven- turer stuck a stick or stone on a coast, it was considered the foundation of a title to a whole continent, regardless of the rights of the natives.
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that the Dutch in their occupation, were so far recognised, that Governor John Harvey and his council of Virginia, by whose orders every part of their patented limits had been ex- plored, did, in March (1631-2) grant to William Cleyborne a license to traffic " into the adjoining plantations of the Dutch."* It is also true, that King Charles in the dismnem- berment of Virginia, by a patent this year (1632) to the sou of Lord Baltimore, as far as the Estuaryt of the Delaware, was influenced by the prior suggestion of Lord Baltimore, that the country was uninhabited by christians - a suggestion which, though true when made, had, when the patent was granted, become nugatory in effect, by the intervening colony of the Dutch.}
* See Chalmers' Political Annals, 907-9. Had Dr. Chalmers known of the existence of the colony of Swaenendael, he would have probably yielded to the natural import of these words, and spared the imputation upon the English Commissioners, of their acting under the influence of passion, or from the suggestions of an interested man, when they decided in the controversy between William Penn and Lord Baltimore, that the western banks of the Delaware had been settled upon by Europeans before his patent.
i See the patent and limits described in a short description of the first settlements of Pennsylvania, Virginia, &c. See also, Bosman's Maryland.
# The Hon. James Logan, deceased, in a letter in 1717, to John Page, Esq. an eminent member of the English bar, whom the trustees of the province of Pennsylvania had employed to defend their right against the endeavours of the Earl of Southerland, to obtain from the crown a grant of the counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex, on the Delaware; to prove that these counties were always esteemed a part of New-York colony, and embraced within the charter to William Penn from the Duke of York, says : " In that ' state of the claims of the two proprietors Lord Balti- more and William Penn,' though the title is not expressly mentioned, yet the story of those counties is faithfully related to the best of my knowledge. It is there shown froin D. Heylin's Cosmography, whose first editions are ancient, that New Netherlands extended to the westward and southward of Delaware river and bay ; that the Dutch had planted the western side of it, and built two towns, viz. Hoar Kill, (now Lewis) and Sandy Hook, (now Newcastle) ; that this river and the North, being taken, Sc. came under the government of the Duke] of York," &c. &c. (This letter is among other manuscripts of the late Mr. Logan, in possession of his vene- rable aud learned widow. )
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The Dutch, not unapprised, however, of the controversial nature of their pretensions, and yielding to the prevailing opinion that some sign of a formal possession was necessary, erected, at Swan-valley, a pillar, with a piece of tin affixed to it, on which was figured the emblem of Holland. This was a substitute for the arms of their High Mightinesses, and a commemoration of their title over that of other christian powers. The cabalistic properties of these emblematic figures were incomprehensible to the Indians. They had not been initiated in the refined subtelty of a theory, which, in practice, was to give one European nation a greater right than another, over a territory which neither could justly claim, without the permission of the natives. One of their chiefs, therefore, one day, very innocently and very uncere- moniously, took away the figured tin in order to manufacture it into tobacco pipes. The officers of the colony were in a rage. The act was viewed as much in the double light of a national insult and a theft, as if the Indians bad known the prevailing refinement of European theory, or appreciated the sacredness of distinct rights of property. They viewed the soil as their common heritage, derived as a gift from the Great Spirit to their fore-fathers : in its enjoyment, or in that of the fruits of the forest that covered its surface, and of the streams that diversified its scenery, all was a unity of inte- rest, and one common board of hospitality.
At this unfortunate crisis, (1632) De Vriez had gone to Holland, leaving in his absence, Gillis Osset, as opper-hooft, or commander. His ignorance, unenlightened by the expe- rience -- and his rashness, undisciplined by the discretion of the founder of the colony, hastened its lamentable catastro- phe. Nothing. ou the part of the Indians, could appease the anger of the commander. So much jan-ling took place, and so much dissatisfaction was expressed, that the Indians, not knowing how to reconcile matters otherwise, cut off the head of the offending chief, and brought a token of the deed to Osset. He now perceived his error ; but as one error has usually its associates, and rasluces when habitual, is sel- dom succeeded by the prudence necessary to repair its ras VOL. I. 52
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vages, lie took no precaution to prevent the consequences of so unequal and exasperating a punishment for so trifling an injury. He merely told the Indiaus that they had done wrong ; they should have brought the chief to be repri- manded, and then he would have been dismissed. But In- dians were tanght from childhood to esteem revenge as a vir- tue. The law of retaliation existed in full vigour. It was their inalieuable right -- it constituted the moral force of their union and government -- the source of their wars and tri- umphs, and not unfrequently the cause of their domestic woes and national calamities. If the venerable elders, or the con- gregated chiefs and counsellors, interposed their authority in cases of private revenge, it was to assuage the vindictive feel- ings by advice, by persuasion, and by presents, to save per- haps the threatened extermination of a whole tribe or family. If they themselves came forward as avengers, they did so to vindicate the honour of their nation, by sanctioning the ope- rations of war parties, or by sitting in judgment when the sacred right of the calumet of peace had been violated, or retorting the blow, when the wound had been given to them, through the person of one of their head men or sachems. In such a case as this, not only the surviving relatives of the de- ceased, and the particular friends with whom, according to the Indian custom, he had formed the league of inviolable fide- lity, but the members of his clan, were all interested to en- force the law of revenge.
If, as appears to have been the fact in the present instance, the members of the chieftain's clan, had doomed him to his fate, the retributive punishment which was still claimed as the right of his immediate relations and friends to inflict, recoil- ed from the direct agents to the supposed principals in the act. Accordingly, the friends of the beheaded chief now resolved to inflict upon the colony of the valley a vengeance, so am- ple in its scope, that not one white man should breathe on their territory, or escape to recount the fate of his comrades. The opportunity for this purpose was not distant, nor, in the unsuspecting state of the colonists, was the execution to be difficult. The season of tillage had arrived, and thes
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were sedulously engaged in the cultivation of tobacco and grain upon their fields, at some distance from the fortified house. The colony consisted of thirty-four persons. The Indians having concerted measures-a sufficient party of their resolute men were designated, and they selected as the most favourable period, that when the colonists to the number of thirty-two were thus engaged, while the commander and one sentinel only remained at the house. To surprise them, and possess the fort, was the first object. The house had no pro- tecting ramparts, but being merely surrounded with palisa- does, the defence would have proved powerless against a mul- titude of exasperated Indians, even had not cunning and strata- gem, instead of open force, been resorted to, and among them considered, perhaps, more than they were among the ancient Spartans, a fair substitute for courage. Indeed, on this occa- sion, a resort to open force would have been useless, for the entrance to the fortification was thrown open, especially to those Indians that came, as was usual, to trade away their pel- try. ' 'The hostile party having placed themselves in ambush, three of their boldest warriors were detached to perpetrate the first act of their purpose. Armed with their custo- mary weapons, bows, arrows, tomahawks, or axes, they sal- lied forth like so many huntsmen from the chase, and with their arms filled with parcels of beaver skins, proceeded to the fort.
Passing the sentinel without interruption, but cautiously avoiding and fearfully eyeing a large bull dog, which was · chained outside of the house, they advanced towards the commander who stood near the door, and with countenances, in which their horrid secret was effectually disguised by the smile of treacherous friendship and obsequiousness, offered to him their beavers to barter, and made signs of request to en- ter the house. He went in with thein to transact the busi- ness, which having finished, he proceeded to the garret where the public goods were kept, in order to obtain the equivalent promised in the exchange. In his absence, the Indians posted themselves near the staircase, and awaited, with fiend .like impatience, the reappearance of the commander. The mon
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ment he descended, one of them cleft his head with an axe, and he fell dead on the floor. At the same instant, they rushed on the sentinel, and murdered him in like manner. Their next attention was directed to the bull dog, which, though chained, they viewed as the most formidable obstacle. So much, indeed, was their terror in beholding this animal, that they avoided him at such a distance, that at least twenty- five arrows were discharged before they killed him. Having accomplished the possession of the fort, they now hurried for- ward to execute the remaining and most difficult part of their plan. The colonists, however, were busily engaged, as before observed, and were unarmed, unsuspecting, and scattered. To them the appearance of parties of Indians would excite no fear, for they were surrounded by numerous tribes, and they had been accustomed, without any molestation, to be- hold parties of warriors and hunters pass and repass their settlement. The Indians having united their full force, has- tened to the fields-but leisurely advanced towards the colonists, with the careless air of idle curiosity, and friendly salutation, as if they had been attracted thither barely to wit- ness the white man's patient and superior skill, in obtaining subsistence from their common mother, the carth Circum- spectly watching the signal of their concerted movement, they suddenly fell upon the unwary victims, and butchered, one after another, until all were massacred. The bodies of the murdered were left on the ground, the store-house was rased, the palisadoes torn up and burnt, and the Indians became once more sole monarchs of the country.
In December," De Vriez returned from Holland. Here-
* " Dec. 1st, (1632.) We sounded at 39º, had 57 fathoms, sand, and smelled land, (the wind being N. W.) occasioned by the odour of the un- derwood, which in this time of the year is burned by the Indians, in order to be less hindered in their hunting ; we smell therefore the land before we can see it ; at 15 or 14 fathom, we saw land-from 34º to 40°. The 3d we saw the opening of the south-bay or south river-we went the 5th in the bay. We had a whale near the vessel. We promised ourselves great things -- plenty whales and good land for cultivation." De Vriez' Voyage, MS. copy, translated by Dr. G. Troost of Philadelphia-the ori- ginal in the library of the library committee of that city,
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