USA > New York > Westchester County > Origin and History of Manors in the Province of New York and in the County. > Part 3
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2 I. Brod. 97.
& N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d Series. Vol. I. 347. I. Brodhead, 97.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
with a guard of fifty men, who being well satisfied with what my savage and I discoursed unto them-be- ing desirous of novelty-gave me content in whatever I demanded, where I found that former relations were true.
"Here I redeemed a Frenchman, and afterwards, another at Mastachusit, who three years since escaped shipwreck at the north-east of Cape Cod."
Patuxet was the very place where on the 21st of December, 1620, eighteen months later, the Pilgrims from Leyden landed from the Mayflower, and which Captain John Smith six years before had called " Plymouth," a name which will ever be famous in New England history. Strange are the historic facts, that slaves were its first export, and those slaves Indians, that its first foreign visitors, after its dis- covery by Smith, were Frenchmen, the two redeemed by Dermer, who was the first to point out its advantages for a town, and that the coming there of the Pilgrims afterward was the merest accident of an accident, they having sailed for New Netherland.
Dermer reached Monhegan on his return, on the 23d of June, 1619, and after despatching his ship back to England, prepared to sail on a voyage to Virginia in his pinnace. "I put," he says, "most of my . provisions aboard the Sampson of Captain Ward, ready bound for Virginia from whence he came, taking no more into the pinnace than I thought might serve our turns, determining with God's help to search the coast along, and at Virginia to supply ourselves for a second discovery if the first failed." He then sailed along the coast to Virginia arriving there on the 8th of September, 1619. Squanto terribly disappointed at finding all his people dead, remained with Dermer, till he touched on this second pinnace voyage, at Sawah-quatooke (an Indian town in the present township of Brewster on Cape Cod) "where," in Dermer's words, " he desired to stay with some of our savage friends." Subsequently Squanto, from the knowledge of English he had picked up, became of great assistance to the Pilgrims as an in- terpreter and his later career is well known.
Dermer stopped at Martha's Vineyard, and thence as he says, shaped his voyage "as the coast led me till I came to the most westerly part where the coast began to fall away southerly. (This was the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound.) In my way I dis- covered land about thirty leagues in length hereto- fore taken for main, where I feared I had been em- bayed, but by the help of an Indian I got to sea again, through many crooked and straight passages. I let pass many accidents in this journey occasioned by treachery, where we were twice compelled to go together by the ears; once the savages had great advantage of us in a strait, not above a bow-shot, [wide], and where a great multitude of Indians let fly at us from the bank ; but it pleased God to make us victors. Near unto this we found a most danger- ous cataract amongst small, rocky islands, occasioned
by two unequal tides, the one ebbing and flowing two hours before the other." This was Hellgate, and the place were the Indians " let fly " at them was in the neighborhood of Throg's Point. Such was the voy- age of the first Englishman who ever sailed through Long Island Sound, and the first who ever beheld the southern and eastern shores of Westchester County. This was five years after the Dutch skipper Block had sailed through the same Sound from the Man- hattans, and ten years after Hudson's discovery of " the Great River of the Mountains." Very singular it is, that fights with the Indians, both, on the Hud- son, and on the Sound, and at points nearly opposite each other, were the beginning of civilization in Westchester County; and that the first was with the Dutch and the second with the English, the two races of whites, which, in succession, ruled that county, and the Province and State of New York.1
Dermer spent the succeeding winter (1619-20) in Virginia, went back to New England the next sum- mer, again visited Plymouth in June, and described its advantages for a town settlement in his letter of the 30th of that month, went again to Virginia, and there died.
On this return voyage from Virginia, Dermer, in the words of the " Brief Relation " of the Plymouth Company's proceedings from 1607 to 1622, "met with certain Hollanders, who had a trade in Hudson's river some years before that time, with whom he had a conference about the state of that coast, and their proceedings with those people, whose answer gave him good content."
This visit of Dermer to " certain Hollanders " was the first visit of an Englishman to Manhattan Island, and he was the first man of that race who trod its soil. Hudson never landed on the island, and they who first did so, and those whom Dermer found there, were Dutchmen. This voyage, however, was the basis of one of the most famous myths of American and New York history. Twenty-nine years after Dermer's visit, in the year 1648, there appeared in England a pamphlet, under the nom de plume of "Beauchamp Plantagenet, Esq.," entitled, " A Description of the Province of New Albion," in which it is stated, that Capt. Samuel Argall, on his return to Virginia from Acadia in 1613, "landed at Manhatas Isle, in Hud- son's river, where they found four houses built, and a pretended Dutch Governor under the West India Company of Amsterdam," and that he (Argall) forced the Dutch to submit themselves to the King of Eng- land and to the government of Virginia.2
This story, often and often repeated, is not sup- ported by any official document of the English, Virginia, or Dutch governments yet discovered to this day, and is believed by modern scholars to have been
1 This letter of Dermer reprinted from Purchas with a learned preface, ia in I. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll. 2d Series, 343. Also in 26 Mass. Hist. Coll., p. 63.
? I. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d Series, 335.
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THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
based by " Plantagenet " on Dermer's account of his voyages, somewhat dressed up. In 1613 the Dutch West India Company had not only not been incorpo- rated. but it was not formed till 1621. That eminent American historical scholar, the late Hon. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, a great lawyer, a practiced statesman, in the Dutch language profoundly skilled, and who had been minister to Holland, after a thorough investigation of this story of Argall's visit, placed in a note to his translation of Van der Donck's "Vertoogh," or "Representation," of New Nether- land, published in 1849, the following emphatic opinion,-" This story is a pure fiction, unsustained by any good authority-though some writers have heaped up citations on the subject-and as fully sus- ceptible of disproof as any statement of that character at that early period can be." 1
It is clear that from Hudson's Discovery to the chartering of the West India Company the Dutch considered New Netherland as a colony for commer- cial purposes only, and maintained it simply for the profits of the fur trade with the Indians. Its true colonization, as a land to be settled by their own people, for its agricultural and other resources, and as a possible market for the productions of Holland, was gradually forced upon them by their experience of its constantly increasing value, and pleasant, and pro- ductive, climate and soil.
The first step in this direction was the chartering of the West India Company by the States General of the United Netherlands on the third of June 1621. Such an organization as an armed military trading com- pany to Africa and Virginia, was suggested by William Usselinx, a merchant of Antwerp, in 1606, as a means of aiding the Government in the war with Spain, then raging. Some preliminary measures were taken, but before any practicable ones could be adopted, the truce of 1609 was agreed upon for the term of twelve years, and the scheme fell to the ground.
The charter of 1621 was not put into immediate operation, but was held for further consideration and discussion, during the next two years. Finally the interests of all parties were harmonized, certain amplifications and amendments were fully agreed upon, and were embodied in an "ordinance" of the States-General, which passed the seals on the 21st of June 1623, containing twelve " Articles," and which closes in these words :-
" We having examined and considered the aforesaid articles, and being desirous to promote unity and con- cord between the directors and principal adventurers, and the advancement of the West India Company, have with the advice of the Prince of Orange,2 thought fit to agree to, and approve of, and do hereby agree
to, and approve thereof, and direct that the same shall be punctually attended to and observed, by the direc- tors, members, and every person concerned therein, in the same manner as if they were inserted in the charter; because we find them proper for the service of the West India Company.""
While these modifications were being considered the States-General authorized many special voyages to New Netherland, each under a special license, which also contained a proviso obliging the parties in interest to return with their ships by the first of July 1622. This was to avoid any interference with the West India Company, or any anticipation of the commencement of their business."
The Charter of the Dutch West India Company was modeled after that of the Great Dutch East India Company, and like it was intended to promote trade, colonization, and the breaking down by armed fleets of the power and pride of the kingdom of Spain.
Both were armed commercial monopolies with most extensive powers and enormous capital. Both were established on the basis of the public law of Holland, which was simply the " Roman Law," with slight modifications. And both were supported by the assistance and strength of the Government of the United Provinces.
The West India Company's Charter consists of a preamble and forty-five articles, together with the preamble and twelve articles of the final agreement of the 21st of June 1623 above-mentioned. The central power of this vast association, as O'Callaghan states, " was divided, for the more efficient exercise of its functions, among five branches or chambers, established in the different cities of the Netherlands, the managers of which were styled 'Lords Direct- ors.' Of these, that of Amsterdam was the principal, and to this was intrusted the management of the affairs of New Netherland. The general supervision and government of the Company, were, however, lodged in a board, or Assembly of Nineteen delegates [briefly termed the Assembly of XIX.]; eight-(changed to nine in 1629) of whom were from the Chamber at Amsterdam ; four from Zealand; two from Maeze; and one from each of the chambers of Friesland and Groeningen (forming the North Department). The nineteenth was appointed [as their own representa- tive] by their High Mightinesses, the States General of the United Provinces."
Apart from the exclusive trade of the coast of Africa, from the tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and of the coast of America, from the Straits of Magellan to the extreme North [Terra Nova or Newfoundland], this Company was authorized to form alliances with the chiefs of the Indian tribes, and obligated to advance the settlement of their posses- sions, encourage population, and do everything that
1 II. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d Series, 326 ; see also I. Brodhead, 51, and note E., p. 754.
2 Prince Maurice.
8 I. O'Call., Appendix "B," 408.
1 1. Col. Hist. N. Y., 22-27.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
might promote the interests of those fertile countries and increase trade.
To protect its commerce and dependencies, the Company was empowered to erect forts and fortifica- tions; to administer justice and preserve order; main- tain police, and exercise the government generally of its transmarine affairs ; declare war and make peace, with the consent of the States-General; and, with their approbation, appoint a Governor or Director- General, and all other officers, civil, military, judicial, and executive, who were bound to swear allegiance to their High Mightinesses, as well as to the Company itself.
The Director-General and his Council were invested with all powers judicial, legislative, and executive, subject, some supposed, to appeal to Holland; but the will of the Company, expressed in their instructions, or declared in their marine or military ordinances, was to be the law of New Netherland, excepting in cases not especially provided for, when the Roman Law, the imperial statutes of Charles V., the edicts, resolutions, and customs of Patria-Fatherland- were to be received as the paramount rule of action.1
" The States General engaged, among other things, to secure to the Company freedom of navigation and traffic,'within the prescribed limits, and to assist them with a million of guilders, equal to nearly half a million of dollars; and in case peace should be dis- turbed, with sixteen vessels of war and four yachts, fully armed and equipped; the former to be at least of three hundred, and the latter of eighty, tons bur- then ; but these vessels were to be maintained at the expense of the Company, which was to furnish, un- conditionally, sixteen ships and fourteen yachts, of like tonnage, for the defence of trade and purposes of war, which, with all merchant vessels, were to be commanded by an admiral appointed and instructed by their High Mightinesses." ?
Such were the great and extensive powers under which New York was colonized. And such was the basis of the legal system under which civil rule and civil law was first established within its borders; and under which it flourished and was governed, till the close of the Dutch dominion, a period of more than half a century.
4.
The Colonization by the West India Company.
In the same year, 1623, the West India Company began the colonization of New Netherland, which was then erected into a Province, by the States- General and invested with the armorial bearings of a Count;3 the shield being, argent, a pale sable charged with three crosses saltire, argent, paleways; the crest a Beaver couchant proper.4
1 I. O'Call. Hist., 89.
: Ib, 91.
8 I. Brod., 148 ; I. O'Call., 99.
4 These arms, in 1654, appear on the first seal of the Province, which
To the Chamber of Amsterdam was committed its direction and management. That body despatched the first expedition in March, 1623, under Cornelis Jacobsen May 5-from whom the northern cape at the mouth of the Delaware is named-as the first Direc- tor-General of New Netherland. It consisted of the ship "New Netherland " of 266 tons burthen, with a cargo of supplies and tools, and thirty families of colonists, who were Protestant Walloons. These Wal- loons were the inhabitants of the frontier between France, and Flanders, from the river Scheldt to the river Lys, their language was the old French, and their religion the Reformed Faith of the Huguenots. Associated with this expedition, as the captain of the ship, was Adrian Joris, who had made several prior voyages to the coast of America, although he is some- times erroneously styled "Director."" After a two months' voyage by way of the Canaries and the West Indies May and his colonists arrived in the bay of New York. He divided the Walloons into several parties, sending some to Albany, some to the Del- aware, some to Hartford, some to Staten Island, some to Long Island-where the name of the Wallabout bay still denotes the place of their settlement-and retained others on the island of Manhattan. Thus began the real colonization of New Netherland, a region out of which was to be formed four of the Middle States and one of the New England States of the American Union. The first colonists of this region spoke no English, and knew no English law, and they were brought here by the nation which first discovered and occupied the land,7 a nation likewise ignorantof English law and of the English tongue. The Roman law, with a few Batavian customs engrafted upon it, was the first legal system established in the entire region, and it not only governed the foundation of European rule and civilization in New Netherland, but maintained their continuous existence there, for half a century; and even then only yielded to another tongue and another legal system by the force of arıns.
May administered the affairs of the new colony about a year, and was succeeded by William Verhulst as second Director-General, whose administration likewise continued only a year, when he resigned and returned to Holland. It was marked however by the arrival and introduction of the first wheeled vehicles and first domestic animals into this State. Peter Evertsen Hulst, a merchant, and a director of the Amsterdam Chamber, despatched to "The Man- hadoes" three ships of 280 tons each, at his own expense and risk, in April 1625, with supplies, tools,
1
in those days was also the seal of "New Amsterdam," surmounted by a mantle having in its centre the letters G. W. C., the initials of "Geoctroyeede West Indische Compagnie," the Dutch appellation of the West India Company .- III. Doc. Hist , 396. 6 Wassenaer, III. Doc. Hist., 43.
6 I. Brod., 156.
" Cabot, whose voyage along the coast of North America was the basis of the English claim to New Netherland, never landed upon nor took possession of any part of it for the King of England.
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THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
and wagons, and one hundred and three head of animals, consisting of stallions, mares, bulls, cows, swine and sheep; " each beast," says Wassenaer, in his account of the voyage, "had its own separate stall," arranged on a flooring of sand three feet deep, which was laid upon a deck specially constructed in the vessel, beneath which were stowed 300 tuns (casks) of water. Only two beasts died at sea. The rest on arriving were landed on "Noten," now Governor's, Island, then covered by a dense forest of nut trees, so thick that the pasturage was insufficient, and two days later all the animals were transferred to Man- hattan Island where they throve well. These ships also brought six more families of Walloons, and a few single people, forty-five persons in all.1
To Verhulst succeeded, as third Director-General, Peter Minuit, of Wesel, in Westphalia, who was of French Huguenot origin. He sailed from the Texel on the ninth of January, 1626, in the ship Sea-Mew, and reached " the Manhadoes " on the fourth of the succeeding May.
The second and third articles of the Charter of the West India Company conferred upon it the power of appointing the Directors-General, and other officers, of all colonies it might establish. The Amsterdam Chamber, to which had been committed the care of New Netherland, under these powers proceeded to organize the first civil government in the new Prov- ince. The grant in the West India Company's charter is very extensive. The operative words are, "and also build any forts and fortifications there, to appoint and discharge governors, people for war, and officers of justice, and other public officers, for the preservation of the places, keeping good order, police, and justice, and in like manner for the promoting of trade; and again others in their place to put, as they, from the situation of their affairs shall see fit."
By virtue of these powers, and of the vote of the Company placing New Netherland under its sole control and management, the Amsterdam Chamber of the Company appointed Peter Minuit Director- General, and the following persons as his council, viz., Peter Bylvelt, Jacob Elbertsen Wissinck, Jan Jansen Brouwer, Symon Dirksen Pos and Reynert Harmensen. To these were added Isaac de Rasieres as Provincial Secretary, and Jan Lampo as "Schout- Fiscaal," (pronounced as if spelled "Skowt"), who was an executive officer, combining the powers of a sheriff and an attorney-general. These formed the first organized civil government in what is now this State of New York-and collectively were styled "The Director-General and Council of New Netherland." The Schout-Fiscaal was entitled to sit with the Coun- cil but had no vote. The Secretary was the officer next in importance to the Director, and was also "Opper-koopman," or book-keeper and treasurer.
This Council had supreme executive and legislative
authority in the colony. It was also the sole tribunal for the trial of all civil and criminal cases, and all prosecutions before it were instituted and conducted by the Schout-Fiscaal. In taking informations, he was bound to note as well those points which made for the prisoner as well as those against him, as the Roman law provides, and after trial to see that the sentence was lawfully executed. He was also chief custom-house officer and had power to inspect vessels and their cargoes, sign their papers, and confiscate all goods introduced in violation of the Company's regu- lations. This most responsible of all the offices in the new government was held during Director Minuit's entire administration by the above-named Jan Lampo who was a native of Cantelberg. It should be stated also, that when the Schout-Fiscaal acted as prosecut- ing officer he retired from the bench. It will be seen that this Council acted in a twofold capacity, as an Executive Council, and as a Court of Justice. When, later, inferior tribunals were established, its members were not amenable to them. On extraordinary occasions it was usual to adjoin some of the principal inhabitants, or Public Servants, pro hac vice, to the Council by its own vote, who then had an equal voice in the decision of the matter in question.2
Such was the nature of the body by which execu- tive, legislative, and judicial authority was exercised, not only on Manhattan Island, and in the County of Westchester, but in all parts of New Netherland.
The new government began vigorously. The Governor and Council first laid out and commenced the erection of a regular fortification on the extreme southern point of Manhattan Island. The engineer was Krijn Frederickje, and it was begun in 1626, was not finished in July 1627, as de Rasières tells us, but was probably completed at the end of 1627. Its pred- ecessor, though called a fort, was simply a stock- aded trading house. This, however, was a regular work of four bastions, entirely faced with stone.3
Isaac de Rasières, the writer of the letter mentioned, arrived in the ship "Arms of Amsterdam " on July 27th, 1626. He was a Huguenot Walloon, an agent of Blommaert an Amsterdam merchant, and a mem- ber of the West India Company, to whom his letter is addressed. He was made by Minuit Provincial Secretary, and as such, opened a correspondence with Gov. Bradford of Plymouth, for a friendly trade, visited that celebrated place, as a New Netherland envoy in 1627, and has left us an account of it in this letter, discovered at the Hague in 1846, and first printed in II. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2 Series, 339.
On the 23d of September, 1626, this ship, the " Arms of Amsterdam," sailed again on her return voyage to Holland, with a very valuable cargo of furs.
? I. O'Call., 101 ; N. Netherland Register, 2.
8 Wassenaer, III. Doc. Hist. N. Y., 47 ; Brodhead's Early Colonization of N. Netherland, II. N. Y. Hist. Coll., 2d Series, pp. 363-365.
1 III. Doc. Hist. N. Y., 41-43.
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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
She also carried out the official account of the most important event that had yet happened in New Netherland, the result of a treaty held by Director Minuit and his Council with the natives of Man- hattan, the first ever held by the Dutch with the Indians in America. This event was the purchase of the Island of Manhattan by the West India Com- pany, which is the foundation of title to all the real estate on the Island of New York, and by which the city holds all the land that it still possesses at this day, south of the Harlem River. She had a compara- tively rapid passage, reaching Amsterdam on the fourth of November following, a little over six weeks. The very next day, the delegate of the States- General in the "Assembly of the XIX.," then in session, advised that august body of the arrival, and the news, by letter. Unfortunately Minuit's official despatch has not been preserved, but the letter of Pieter Schagen, the States-General's representative, is still in the Royal Archives at the Hague, and proves the fact. It is, in full, as follows ;-
"High and Mighty Lords :- Yesterday arrived here the ship 'the Arms of Amsterdam,' which sailed from New Netherland out of the River Mauritius,1 on the 23d of September. They report that our people are in good heart and live in peace there; the Women have also borne some children there. They have purchased the Island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders; 'tis 11,000 morgens in size.' They had all their grain sown by the middle of May, and reaped by the middle of August. They send thence samples of summer grain ; such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, beans, and flax. The cargo of said ship is ;-
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