USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 10
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Purchase of Manhattan Island-The first act of the colonial govern- ment was the important transaction of securing the land to be acquired by purchase from its aboriginal owners. The act was an historic one, which in view of the later Titanic development of the island that on the occasion passed from one suzerainty to another, has greatly in- trigued the human sense of contrast. The small sum paid not even in the ordinary currency but in terms of barter would indeed be a drop in the ocean compared with the wealth represented by Manhattan today. "Imagination, aided by the painter's brush, has brought the scene be- fore the minds of later generations," writes one historian. "On the very edge of the land, low by the water, in a clearing of the primeval forest, stood the representatives of European civilization face to face with the 'untutored Indian'." The contact in many instances before had been ruinously destructive to the red man. Here was suppressed all consideration of the laws that were binding as between man and man
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on the other side of the Atlantic. Might, in rude contempt of right, where ignorance knew not how to assert it nor weakness how to defend it, had trampled upon the very instincts of human nature in the savage breast. The citizens of a free republic, growing stronger every day by successful commerce with numerous tribes and nations-these would show an example of acknowledging rights where none could be asserted, and of dealing fairly with savages upon a desert island. We can see the glittering trinkets, brought from the ship nearby in chests, opened upon the shore, the eager eyes of Indian men and women watching the display of contents, each article still more wonderful than that which went before. An extent of territory which Minuit and his officers es- timated at eleven thousand Dutch morgens, or more than twenty-two thousand acres, was definitely transferred, in some way doubtless mu- tually understood, as becoming henceforth the property of the strangers from Europe, ceded to them in due form, so that the Indian proprietors comprehended and appreciated that it passed out of their hands into those of the others, conveying to them an ownership as legitimate as had been their own. Exception has been taken to the inadequacy of the price paid; sixty guilders, or twenty-four dollars. Yet how was adequacy of price then to be determined? The honest Hollanders cer- tainly could not be expected to have paid its present value, estimated at two thousand millions of dollars. And what would the Indians have cared for a hundred thousand florins, at which the Dutch valued a ton of gold? But, on the contrary, the glittering beads and baubles and brightly colored cloths, great quantities of which could have been ob- tained in that day for sixty florins, filled the minds of the simple Indians with delight. These would represent untold wealth to them by reason of the attractiveness of the articles, and a more than adequate price for an island, small in the midst of the vast regions over which they were free to roam and hunt. Of this purchase, so unique and rare an episode in the history of American colonization, there fortunately exists un- assailable proof. On July 27, 1626, a vessel named the "Arms of Amsterdam" arrived at Manhattan Island. She bore as passenger Isaac de Rasieres, the secretary of the Colonial Government, and had for her captain Adriaen Jorisz, who in 1623 accompanied Captain May, and was left in charge of the colony at Fort Orange. On the 23d of September the vessel was ready to sail again for the Fatherland with a valuable cargo of furs and logs of timber, soon to be tested in Holland for its shipbuilding qualities. But more than that she carried the official announcement of the purchase of Manhattan Island, addressed to the "Assembly of the XIX" of the West India Company, in session at Am- sterdam, for the first six years of the charter were not yet passed. The
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nineteenth member, representing the States-General at this session, was Peter Jans Schaghen, Councilor and Magistrate of the city of Alkmar, in North Holland, and deputy in the States-General from the States of Holland and West Friesland. While in duty bound to report the pro- ceedings of the Assembly of the XIX to the august body who had delegated him, it would scarcely seem likely that he was required to send a report every day. It is more probable that after the adjustment of the former he would render an account of its affairs in person at a regular session of the States-General. But on November 4, 1626, so interesting an event occurred that he did not wait to report it in person. "The Arms of Amsterdam" had arrived from New Netherland and the announcement of the purchase had been presented to the Assembly. Thereupon, on the next day, Schaghen addressed to the States-General, in session at The Hague, the following historic letter :
High Mighty Sirs:
Here arrived yesterday the ship "The Arms of Amsterdam" which sailed from New Netherland out of the Mauritius River on September 23; they report that our people there are of good courage and live peaceably. Their women also have borne children there; they have bought the island Manhattes from the wild men for the value of sixty guilders; is 11,000 morgens in extent. They sowed all their grain in the middle of May, and harvested it the middle of August. Thereof being samples of summer grain, such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, small beans, and flax. The cargo of the aforesaid ship is: 7246 beaver skins, 178 1/2 otter skins, 675 otter skins, 48 mink skins, 36 wild-cat (lynx) skins, 33 minks, 34 rat skins. Many logs of oak and nutwood. Herewith, be ye High Mighty Sirs, commended to the Almighty's grace, In Amsterdam, November 5, Ao. 1626.
Your High Mighty's Obedient, P. SCHAGHEN.
And so the island of Manhattan came into the possession of the white men who were to build on it to such purpose and overrun the surface of the great continent.
Negotiations between New Netherland and the English colonies were soon inaugurated. The Indians occupying the territory lying between the Dutch and the Pilgrims, who traded their furs to representatives of both settlements, soon made them aware of one another's exact posi- tions. Minuit was the first to address letters to Governor Willianı Bradford, conveying greetings. But from the first a presage of trouble was thrown into the intercourse. Bradford, receiving Minuit's letters written in French and Dutch, early in March, 1627, replied on March 29th. He acknowledged the indebtedness incurred and the gratitude felt by the Pilgrims towards the Netherlanders for the "good and cour- teous entreaty" which they had found in their country, "having lived there many years with freedom and good content." But at the same
In this Vault lies buried PETRUS STUYVESANT Tare Captain General and Governor in Chief of Amsterdam in New-Netherland now called New-York. and the Dutch Weft-India Iflands. died Feb! A. D. 1672 aged 80 years.
PETER STUYVESANT'S TOMB. SAINT MARK'S CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY Courtesy of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society
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time he reminded the Dutch that the region where they had settled was England's by first right, offering indeed no interference on his part, but warning them against the possible assertion of that right on the part of the Virginians, or by vessels from England engaged in the fisheries on the American coast. Director Minuit hastened to assure the governor of New Plymouth Colony that there was no doubt in his own mind or in that of his countrymen as to their right to settle in New Netherland. These letters had been carried back and forth by the hands of friendly Indians. But when Minuit's last missive, sent in May, had received no reply by August, on the 9th of that month he sent the captain of a vessel then in port to carry a third communication to Gov- ernor Bradford. This was John Jacobsen, of the island of Wieringen, in the Zuyder Zee. He sailed with his ship the "Drie Koningen," or the Three Kings, into Buzzard's Bay, and landing at a point then called Manomet, now Monument Village, in the town of Sandwich he proceeded on foot to Plymouth. He was well received by Bradford, and sent back with a request for a still more formal delegation, to con- sist of a person in authority at Fort Amsterdam, with whom negotia- tions could be effected of an important nature. Director Minuit readily fell in with this request and selected for the mission the Provincial Secretary, who may be regarded as the next in command under him. The ship "Nassau," freighted with merchandise both for trading and for presentation to the Governor, was placed at his disposal and a party of soldiers with a trumpeter was sent as a guard of honor. The "Nassau" proceeded to Manomet, whence De Rasieres sent word to Bradford that he had arrived at this point, but naively remarking that he could not follow Captain Jacobsen's example and walk all the remainder of the journey. "I have not gone so far this three or four years" he added, "wherefore I fear my feet will fail me." A boat was accordingly sent up a creek falling into Cape Cod Bay from the south, whose head waters reached to within four or five miles of Manomet on the other side of the isthmus. To this short distance De Rasieres did not object, and embarking in the boat, he reached New Plymouth in due season, "honorably attended with a noise of trumpets." The principal result of these personal negotiations, besides cementing the bonds of friendship and encouraging commerce between the two colonies, was the sale to the English settlers of a quantity of wampum, and the recommendation of its use in trading with the natives. The English soon found great ad- vantages flowing from their adoption of this practical advice.
Life in New Netherland-A letter written about this time by the Rev. Jonas Michaelius, the first clergyman to settle in Manhattan, and ad- dressed to a minister in Amsterdam, gives us an interesting picture of
Bronx-6
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everyday life in the new colony and of the character of a sea voyage at that time. The voyage from Holland to New Netherland was prolonged by reason of the roundabout course pursued by way of the Canary Islands and the West Indies. Leaving Amsterdam on January 24 the ship which conveyed Michaelius and his family did not arrive at Manhattan till April 7th ; and the journey was marked by the endurance of the most disagree- able hardships. The captain was often intoxicated. He would not listen to complaints when he was in this condition, nor would he remedy mat- ters when he was sober. The minister's family, consisting of his wife, two little girls, and a boy, were subjected to great deprivations. "Our fare in the ship was very poor and scanty, so that my blessed wife and children, not eating with us in the cabin, had a worse lot than the sailors themselves." Even when they were ill other than with seasickness, from which they did not long suffer, no better fate was provided for them, because of the captain's culpable neglect of his duties. Indeed, as a result, seven weeks after landing, the worthy lady died from the effects of this dreadful experience. These facts are instructive ; if a minister's family was reduced to endure such treatment on board of a ship, what must have been the experience of the ordinary emigrants? Hence it must have required courage to undertake the settling of colonies in distant America, the test of endurance beginning even before arriving. On land every- thing was rude, tentative, in short, primitive and therefore imperfect. The privations were necessarily numerous and distressing. For daily food there was little variation from a diet of "beans and gray peas," unpalatable and not very strengthening, so that those in delicate health had little hope of gaining vigor. There was a scarcity of horses and cattle, and therefore much land which might otherwise have yielded abundance of wheat for bread was left uncultivated. Milk was not to be obtained from the farmers because there was not enough for their own use, while butter and cheese were equally unattainable luxuries. The best that could be done was to purchase, at exorbitant prices, ships' stores as vessels came into port. Nevertheless the little colony with all its hardships was very industrious. The farmers were exerting them- selves to the utmost to draw from the long-neglected soil the staples of life, but their cry was for more farm laborers. More timber was cut than the vessels could carry to the home country. Brick-making and potash- burning were tried, but without success. A sawmill was constructed to take its place by the side of the rude grist-mill worked by horse-power. Preparations were also made for the manufacture of salt by evaporation. But one signal achievement of this earliest colonial industry was ac- complished in 1630. There being a superabundance of timber it occurred to two Walloon shipbuilders to utilize it in the colony intead of sending
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it to Holland. A practical exhibition of the excellence of the wood and the remarkable length of the beams that could be obtained from the trees in this vicinity would be given if these were constructed into a vessel larger than any that then floated the seas. Director Minuit was speed- ily won over to the scheme and encouraged it, pledging the funds of the company for its execution. Parties of men scoured the woods, even to the vicinity of Fort Orange, encamping in the forests for weeks at a time, cutting timber for the great ship. As a result there was launched in the harbor of New York in 1630 a vessel larger than any that had here- tofore been produced in the shipyards of Holland or Zeeland; being of twelve hundred tons burden according to some authorities, and eight hundred according to others. It was christened the "New Netherland." In the meantime the thirty houses first built along the North River shore must have been increased in number and improved in manner of construc- tion. In 1628 Wassenaer informs us there was a population of two hun- dred and seventy souls; but all New Netherland was then concentrated at Fort Amsterdam. Troubles between the Indian tribes near Fort Orange, in the course of which several Dutch settlers had lost their lives through imprudent and unwarranted interference, had induced the careful Minuit to order all the families residing there to come to Manhattan, leaving only a garrison of men ; while for another reason the colonists on the Delaware were ordered to abandon Fort Nassau, and likewise to make their homes on Manhattan.
Privileges and Exemptions-The meagre number of inhabitants at New Amsterdam was something of a contrast to the four thousand people on the banks of the James River in 1622, and the seven hundred arriving in a single group under Winthrop at Boston in 1630. It was manifestly difficult to induce adventurers to leave Holland and the number of religious refugees was not so extensive as to cause a constant emigration to New Netherland. It was therefore determined, in 1629, to put into operation a scheme which had been tried with success in Brazil, now passing into the possession of the West India Company. Discovered and exploited in the interest of Portugal, in 1500-1501, by Americus Ves- pucius, for about thirty years thereafter, Southey inform us, the country was apparently neglected. "It had then become of sufficient importance," he continues, "to obtain some consideration at court, and in order to forward its colonization the same plan was adopted which had succeeded so well in Madeira and the Azores, that of dividing it into hereditary captaincies, and granting them to such persons as were willing to embark adequate means in the adventure, with powers of jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, so extensive as to be in fact unlimited." In this description may be seen the model for the Patroonships of New Netherland. In
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1629 the Assembly of the XIX, with the approbation of the States- General, published a Charter of Privileges and Exemptions. It addressed itself only to members of the company, even as the captaincies had been granted only to favorites at the Portuguese Court, but the restriction in the former case was a more reasonable one than the latter. "All such" of the directors, and possibly also of the shareholders, would "be acknowl- edged Patroons of New Netherland" who should "within the space of four years undertake to plant a colony there of fifty souls upward of fifteen years old." Population was therefore wisely made the sine qua non. Should that condition fail to be complied with within the allotted time, all privileges and exemptions and grants of land would at once cease and be forfeit. In consideration of the efforts to plant such colony, however, there would be given in absolute property sixteen miles of territory upon one side of any river in New Netherland, or eight miles on both sides, the extent back from the stream being left practically unlimited. For this land, title must be obtained from the aboriginal possessors by suitable purchase. When thus secured, and occupied by settlers sent thither at the expense of the patroon, all privileges of hunting and fishing were to remain in his hands, to be granted by him at will. Should cities be founded within territory so possessed, the patroon would have power and authority to establish officers and magistrates there; in which case his position would approximate to that of a feudal lord of the olden times. Within the bounds of his grant he might pursue agriculture to the furthest extent of his ability; all that the streams would yield of fish, the forests of timber, and the mountains of minerals were to be his own without restriction. But the products had to be sent to the Fatherland and almost all fruits and wares had first to be brought to Manhattan and there shipped away. Traffic might be engaged in from Florida to Newfoundland, "provided that they do again return with all such goods as they shall get in trade to the island of Manhattes." There was a strict prohibition placed on manufactures of any kind, for fear, it is to be presumed, that the industry of Holland might fail to have a market, and "pitch, tar, weed-ashes, wood, grain, fish, salt, quarry stone" had to be loaded on the company's ships only, at a fixed rate of charges. Lastly, the lucrative trade in furs had to be left wholly untouched by the patroons and their colonists; "beavers, otters, minks, and all sorts of peltry the company reserve to themselves." On the other hand, again, the favor of the company was to be extended so that the patroons and their settlers should be "free from customs, taxes, excise, imposts, or any other contributions for the space of ten years"; and they were to be protected and to the utmost defended by the troops and navies of the company "against all foreign and inland
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wars and powers." A final article engaged the company "to finish the fort on the island of Manhattes without delay," which shows that the stronghold there was incomplete at that time.
It may thus be seen that the patroon system was a rather curious mixture of privileges and restrictions. The extent of the liberties en- joyed in many directions would only make the yoke of the prohibitions more galling ; and here lay the real difficulty with the scheme, furnishing cause for endless contentions and eventual failure. Some writers trace this result, as well as the difficulties that grew out of the patroonships, to the fact that the system was an attempt to graft European feudalism upon American soil. This, however, would apply more correctly to the colonization of Maryland, concerning which Bancroft says: "To the proprietary was given the power of creating manors and courts baron, and of establishing a colonial aristocracy on the system of sub- infeudation. But feudal institutions could not be perpetuated in the lands of their origin, far less renew their youth in America. Sooner might the oldest oaks in Windsor Forest be transplanted across the Atlantic than antiquated social forms."
The Patroonships-Anyhow, if the idea was to inveigle the moneyed people in Holland with the attraction of feudal authority the scheme was a good deal of a failure. The advantages of the system for men of means who were not in possession of pedigrees or patrimonial estates, have been considered considerable by some. But the truth is that the attraction was not particularly to the Dutchmen of the time. Fewer than a score of persons with the adequate means engaged in the coloni- zation enterprise. What weighed with them was the commercial ad- vantage, and the rock on which the whole establishment suffered ship- wreck was trade, too eagerly indulged in by the patroons, and too stringently prohibited by the company. The directors who hurriedly procured for themselves territories in America before they quite knew what the provisions of the charter were to be were more than dis- appointed when the true state of their case became known; and, as one of the later patroons asserted, the conditions themselves, instead of attracting rather discouraged people from becoming patroons. It is to be noted, however, that by a proviso of the charter Manhattan Island was exempted from this experiment in colonization, and only one of the estates of the patroon came in close proximity to it. The first to avail themselves of its privileges were two merchants of Amsterdam and directors of the company, Samuel Bloemaert and Samuel Godyn. Before the States-General had seen the document, even before it had received the final revision and approval of the Assembly of the XIX these men had sent agents to America to select lands and to buy them
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from the Indians. When, therefore, in 1630, the sanction of the repub- lican congress was obtained they were ready at once to appear before the colonial government with evidences of purchase and obtained a ratification of their grant. Their territory extended thirty-two miles along the Delaware River on the southwest bank, and sixteen miles on the northeast shore, both tracts having been bought within the year. From the two documents in facsimile it is learned that earnest efforts had been made also to obtain lands around Fort Orange, for Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a pearl merchant of Amsterdam, and a director, through the officers in charge there, and agents were sent among the Indians to persuade the reluctant ones to part with their territory. As a result five or six Indian chiefs owning property along the Hudson extending several miles to the north and south of the fort, having first made a contract, appeared before the director and council at Fort Amsterdam, and formally ceded their lands. This was the beginning of the colony of Rensselaerswyck, the only one among the patroonships that proved to be a success. Ere this same year of 1630 was over a third proprietary appeared in the person of Michael Paauw, also a director, some of whose relatives had been burgomasters of Amsterdam. As he was himself lord or baron of Achtienhoven, a place in South Holland, it could not have been the opportunity of becoming a feudal lord that attracted him. His territory lay near Manhattan Island, including at first Hoboken- Hacking, the name indicating a site familiar to residents of New York. But in rapid succession there were added Staten Island and the inter- vening space between that and Hoboken called Ahasimus, now the site of Jersey City. Godyn and Bloemaert having given to their patent the name of "Swanendael" or Swan's Valley, Paauw bestowed upon his the more euphonious title of Pavonia, by translating into Latin his own name, which is the Dutch for peacock.
In this way before twelve months had passed all the patroonships that were created by the original charter had already been secured. The . first difficulties sprang out of this rather unseemly haste. There ap- peared to be nothing left for the others except in unprotected regions far from either of the three forts. The directors had evidently taken advantage of their position in the Chamber of Amsterdam to anticipate all competitors from the other chambers. Naturally jealousies and un- pleasant accusations arose between the members of the West India Company, which did not greatly advance the interests of New Nether- land. The first compromise growing out of these troubles was in the form of a co-partnership in colonizing. Several merchants were admitted to a share in each of the colonies on the Delaware and at Fort Orange, the historian, De Laet, becoming one of the proprietors in both territor-
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ies. It is worthy of notice also that while the chief proprietors of Swan- endael became copartners for Rensselaerswyck, Van Rensselaer also be- came a copartner for Godyn and Bloemaert's patent.
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