USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 5
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This significant movement admonished the Dutch that the English were preparing to dispute the right of the Hollanders to a foothold within the domain embraced in the charter of the Plymouth Company. Indeed, at this juncture the British Privy Council had instructed Sir Dudley Carleton, the British ambassador at the Hague, to peremptorily demand of the States-General an immediate prohibition of any further prosecution of commercial enterprises or settlements by the Dutch within the region claimed by the English. It was done. The States-General having put the whole matter under the control of the then just chartered Dutch West India Company, paid very little attention to the demand, or to the bluster of the British monarch and his ambassador. But the company, for obvious reasons, took immediate measures for planting a colony and laying the foundations of a State at Manhattan.
Like the Plymouth Company, the Dutch West India Company found in Holland excellent and ample materials for a colony. Thousands of
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25
EMIGRATION TO NEW NETHERLAND.
Protestant refugees of French extraction, known as Walloons, had fled from fiery persecntion in the southern Belgie provinces bordering on France, and had taken refuge in Holland. They were mostly skilled artisans and industrious agri- culturists. Like the English Puritans in Holland, they were animated by a strong desire to go to America. They asked the Plymonth Com- pany for permission to settle in Virginia. It was denied. They asked the Dutch West India Company for a similar privilege. The Amsterdam Chamber of the company gladly complied, and in the spring of 1623 they equipped the New Netherland, of two hundred and sixty tons bur- den, commanded by Captain Adriaen Joris, and sent her to Manhattan, bearing thirty Walloon families numbering one hundred and ten men, women, and children.# She NEW NETHERLAND. arrived at Manhattan at the beginning of May. The superintendence of the expedition was intrusted to Captain Cornelis Jacobsen May,t of Hoorn, who was to remain in New Netherland as the first director of the colony. Captain Joris went out as his lieutenant in the management of the colony.
* The Walloons (Flemish, Waelen) were of a mixed Gallic and Teutonic blood, and most of them spoke the old Teutonic tongue. They inhabited the southern Belgic provinces and adjoining parts of France. When the northern provinces of the Nether- iands formed their political union, at Utrecht, in 1579, the southern provinces, whose in- habitants were chiefly Roman Catholics, declined to join the Confederation. Many of the people were Protestants, and against these the Spanish Government at once began the most cruel persecutions. Thousands of them fled to Holland, and were welcomed and protected. At the time of their dispersion (1580), the Walloons numbered over 2,000,000. + May was an active navigator and explorer. He went up the James River as far as Jamestown, and penetrated other streams on the coast south of Manhattan. The southern coast of New Jersey was named in his honor, and still retains the title of Cape May. He was the first director or governor of New Netherland.
26
THE EMPIRE STATE.
A French vessel had just entered Manhattan harbor, and her captain insisted upon setting up the French arms and taking possession of the country in the name of his sovereign because it was claimed that Veraz- zano, in the employment of a French monarch, had entered the harbor a century before. Now was presented the spectacle of three European nations claiming the ownership of an undefined territory in a wilderness more than three thousand miles from their respective capitals, on the plea of " first discovery"-the robber's right conferred by the mailed hands of power. The Dutch, having possession-the " nine points of the law"-held on. The Frenchman was driven out to sea by two eannons on the little yacht Mackerel, and the English were defied.
The colonists were soon dispersed and settled in permanent homes. Captain Joris, with eighteen families, sailed up the Mauritius as far as the site of Albany, where a fort was constructed and named Orange in honor of their prince. He left a few settlers at Esopus, now Kingston. The colonists built huts, " put in the spade," and began farming vigor- ously near Fort Orange. Representatives of Indian tribes came and made " covenants of friendship" with Joris. Four couples of the emigrants, with eight seamen, went to the Delaware River and settled on the left bank four miles below the site of Philadelphia, where Fort Nassau was built. Two families and six men were sent to the Connecticut River to build a fort (which was named Good Hope) near the site of Hartford, and to take formal possession of the country by virtue of Bloek's dis- eovery of that stream in 1614. The remainder of these pioneer colonists settled on the site of Brooklyn." Other emigrants from Holland soon joined them, and near the site of the Navy Yard at Brooklyn, Sarah Rapelye, the first child of European blood born in the province of New Netherland, inhaled her first breath.
In 1624 a shadow of eivil government for the Dutch colony was provided by the installation of Captain Cornelis Jacobsen May as first director of New Netherland. He ruled as an autocrat wisely for about a year, when he was succeeded by William Verhulst as second director of New Netherland. Verhulst also ruled wisely one year.
Meanwhile events in Europe were strengthening the position of IIol- land and promising increased prosperity to the Dutch West India Com- pany. The foreign relations of Great Britain had become so critical that King James found it expedient to form an alliance with the Netherlands in 1624, and he and his Privy Council wisely concluded that it would be
* Brooklyn is a corruption of its original Dutch appellation, Breuckelen-English Brookland or "marshy land"-a pretty village about eighteen miles from Amsterdam, on the road to Utrecht.
27
PURCHASE OF MANHATTAN ISLAND.
impolitic to offend the powerful commercial company by acting as cham- pions of the Council of Plymouth when they complained of aggressions upon their chartered rights. Encouraged by these circumstances, the company proceeded to strengthen the political, social, and commercial powers of the new colony by sending more families and also needed supplies of stock and implements of labor. They commissioned Peter Minuit, of Weser, one of their number, director-general, or yeter Minut Direckren! SIGNATURE OF PETER MINUIT. governor of New Netherland, and gave him as assistants in
his civil administration a council of five persons, a "koop man"' or commissary-general, who was also secretary of the province, and a "schout" or public procurator and sheriff .*
Minuit arrived in May, 1626, in the ship Sea Mew, commanded by Captain Joris, and began his administration with vigor. . He and his council were invested with legislative, judicial, and executive power, subject to the supervision and appellate jurisdiction of the Chamber at Amsterdam. They had power to fine and imprison criminals, but in cases where capital punishment was the penalty of a crime the culprit was to be sent to Amsterdam.
Hitherto the Dutch had possession of Manhattan Island only by the dubions right of first discovery and occupation. Minuit proceeded to place the right upon the sure founda- tion of justice. He called together the representatives of the barbarians BELGI of the island, and made a treaty for ION the purchase of the domain from them which was mutually satisfactory. It was a treaty as honorable, as impor- SEAL OF NEW NETHERLAND. tant, and as noteworthy as was the famous alleged treaty between William Penn and the Indians beyond the Delaware under the broad Shackamaxon Elm which has been immortalized by history, painting, and poetry. The price paid by the Hollanders for the territory, estimated at twenty-two
* The members of the first council were Peter Byveldt, Jacob Elvertsen Wissinck, Jan Janssen Brouwer, Simon Dircksen Pos, and Reynert Harmenssen. Isaac de Rassieres was the commissary and secretary, and Jan Lampo was the schout or sheriff.
28
THE EMPIRE STATE.
thousand acres in extent, was not extravagant-about twenty-four dollars. Nearly all of the island is now covered by buildings, parks, or streets.
The territory called New Netherland was created a province or county of Holland, and the armorial distinction of an earl or count was granted. The seal of New Netherland bore an escutcheon on which was the figure of a beaver, emblematic of the chief wild animal product of the region, and the crest was the coronet of an earl. The organization of a provi- sional civil government, the purchase of territory, and the erection of New Netherland into a province of Holland, in 1626, is justly regarded as the period of the germination of the fruitful seed which has expanded into the mighty Empire State of New York.
29
SETTLERS ON MANHATTAN ISLAND.
CHAPTER III.
So soon as the purchase of Manhattan was effected, Director Minuit caused a redonbt to be built at the southern extremity of the island near the site of the modern Battery and the Bowling Green. It was quadrangular in form, was constructed of earth faced with stone, and was surrounded with strong palisades of cedar. This redoubt was upon an elevation, and commanded the waters of the bay in front and of the Indson (Mauritius) and East rivers on its flanks. The work was completed in 1627, and was named Fort Amsterdam. The village that grew up near it was called Manhattan until Stuyvesant came, in 1647, when it was named New Amsterdam.
Each settler on Manhattan owned the rude house in which he lived. It was his inviolable castle. He kept cows, tilled the soil, traded with the Indians, and deposited his furs in the trading-house, which was built of stone and thatched with reeds. This was the embryo of the vast warehouses of the city of New York. There were no idlers. All were producers as well as consumers. In the year in which the fort was com- pleted Inrs of the value of nearly $20,000 were sent from Manhattan to Amsterdam. The settlers were at peace with all their dusky neighbors, and the future of the colony seemed dazzling to the seers.
But a bright morning is not always a sure harbinger of a pleasant day. While the fort was a-building an event occurred which became the pro- genitor of many fearful scenes, and of injuries to the colony. One morn- ing a chief from beyond the Harlem River, accompanied by his little nephew and a young warrior, was sanntering with a bundle of beaver skins along the shores of the little lake whose waters once sparkled in the hollow where the IIalls of Justice (the Tombs), in the city of New York, now stand. Three of the director's farm servants robbed them and murdered the chief. His nephew fled to the thick woods that bordered the East River and escaped. The lad left behind him a curse upon the white man, and solemnly vowed vengeance when mature man- hood should give him strength. We shall observe hereafter how that vow was fulfilled. The surrounding barbarians were made jealous, suspicions, and vengeful.
Trouble now appeared beyond the mountains in the north. Daniel van Krieckenbeeck had been made deputy-commissary and commander
30
THE EMPIRE STATE.
at Fort Orange (now Albany), and managed prudently and successfully until he was induced to take a foolish step. The Mohicans had a stock- aded village on the opposite side of the river (now East Albany). Enmity had suddenly appeared between them and the Mohawks. The Mohicans crossed the river and asked the Dutch commander to join them in a foray upon the Mohawks. He unwisely assented, and with six of his men marched with his dusky allies into the pine woods, where they were terribly smitten and dispersed by a band of Mohawks. Krieck- enbeeek and three of his men were slain. Distrust of the Dutch by the Indians in all that region ensued. The Dutch families fled for safety to Manhattan from Fort Orange. Only a small garrison, without wonen, remained. At the same time indications of an unfriendly feeling toward the Hollanders among the Raritans in New Jersey caused the Dutch families seated on the left bank of the Delaware River also to flee to Manhattan for safety. These unfortunate events severed the links of trustful friendship which had bound the Dutch and Indians, and many distressing scenes followed the rupture. Emigration to New Netherland was checked for a while, and the tide of its prosperity seemed to be ebbing.
Meanwhile the Dutch West India Company had been gaining great accessions of wealth and power by the success of their war-ships against Spanish merchantmen. Spain was then at war with Holland. The fleets of the two India companies which indirectly governed the State, formed the strong right arm of the Dutch naval power at that time. In 1627 low-born Peter Pietersen Heyn won the title and official position of admiral by his achievements on the coast of Cuba. There he met the Spanish " silver fleet " on its way from Yucatan with the spoils of plundered princes of Mexico and Peru. He captured the whole flotilla, and put almost $5,000,000 in the coffers of his employers. Heyn per- ished soon after this victory, and was buried with regal pomp by the side of the Prince of Orange (who died in 1625) in the old church at Delft. When the States-General sent a letter of condolence to Heyn's peasant mother, she exclaimed :
" Ay, I thought that would be the end of him. He was always a vagabond. IIe has got no more than he deserved."
Holland gained the glory of the conquests by the Dutch West India Company,, while the company itself gained the solid profits. In the space of two years their ships captured more than one hundred prizes. In 1629 the company divided fifty per cent profits. They soon added Brazil to their possessions, and gave maritime supremacy to the Nether- lands.
31
THE PATROON SYSTEM.
Wealth and power made the Dutch West India Company more grasp- ing and ambitious. The moderate profits derived from New Nether- land appeared insignificant, and they devised new schemes for increas- ing their gains.
The great want of New Netherland was tillers of the soil. A manorial plan similar to that already in operation in Holland was devised, and this feature of the old feudal system of Europe was soon transplanted into America. It was approved by the States-General. In 1629 the College of Nineteen issued a " Charter of Privileges and Exemptions," which granted to every member of the company extensive domains in New Netherland outside of Manhattan Island, with specified benefits, pro- vided he should, within the space of four years, place upon his lands so granted at least fifty adults as actual settlers, who should become his tenants. Such proprietor was constituted the feudal chief of his domain, with the title of patroon -- a patron or defender.
It was provided that the lands of each patroon should be limited to sixteen miles in linear extent along one shore of a navigable stream, or to eight miles if he occupied both shores ; but he might extend it indefi- nitely into the interior. It was also provided that if any proportionally greater number of emigrants should be settled by a proprietor, the area of his domain should be extended in the same ratio. He was to be abso- Intely lord of the manor, political and otherwise. He might hold in- ferior courts for the adjudication of petty civil cases ; and if cities should grow up on his domain he was to have power to appoint the magistrates and other officers of such municipalities, and have a deputy to confer with the governor or first director of New Netherland.
The settlers under the patroons were to be exempted from all taxation and tribute for the support of the provincial government for ten years ; and for the same period every man, woman, and child was bound not to leave the service of the patroon withont his written consent. The cole- nists were forbidden to manufacture cloth of any kind on pain of banish- ment ; and the company agreed to furnish them with as many African slaves as they " conveniently could," and also to protect them against foes. Each colony was bound to support a minister and a school-master, and so provide a comforter for the sick and a teacher for the illiterate. It was also provided that every proprietor, whether a patroon or an inde- pendent settler, should make a satisfactory arrangement with the Indians for the lands they should occupy. It recognized the right of the abo- rigines to the soil ; invited independent farmers, to whom a homestead should be secured ; promised protection to all in case of war, and encour- aged religion and learning.
32
THE EMPIRE STATE.
There was neither a settled clergyman nor a school-master in the prov- ince during Minuit's administration of six years, but provision was made for two " consolers of the sick," whose duty required them to read the Scriptures and creeds to the people gathered in a horse-mill on Sundays. A bell-tower was erected on the mill, and in it were hung some Spanish bells which the company's fleet had captured at Porto Rico.
There was some sharp practice performed by some of the members of the Amsterdam Chamber in securing valuable manors. Samnel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert, leading members, bought of the bar- barians a tract of land stretching along Delaware Bay from Cape Hin- lopen north over thirty miles and two miles in the interior, while the charter was under consideration. Soon afterward Killian van Rens- selaer, another shrewd director, a wealthy pearl merchant of Amsterdam,
Gelicin Nam Renefluen Rutrum Vardepolvourian Ring Pairs Wick
SIGNATURE OF KILLIAN VAN RENSSELAER.
informed by his friend Krol, the deputy secretary and commissary at Fort Orange, of the excellence and good situation of the country in that vicinity, instructed that friend to purchase a large tract of land of the Indians. It was done, and lands were secured on both sides of the river. Michael Pauw, another wide-awake director, seenred by purchase of the barbarians, in a similar manner, a large tract of land in New Jersey, opposite Manhattan ; also the whole of Staten Island.
This adroit forestalling in the purchase of some of the best lands in the provinee as to eligibility of situation-this " helping themselves by the cunning trick of merchants"-created much ill feeling among the members for a while ; but it was allayed by admitting other directors into partnership. This concession was necessary in order to secure the confirmation of the charter of privileges by the College of Nineteen. This done, steps were immediately taken to colonize the manors. That of Van Rensselaer was the most extensive. It included a territory on both sides of the Mauritius or Hudson River, comprehending a large
33
COLONY OF DE VRIES ON THE DELAWARE.
part of (present) Albany, Rensselaer, and Columbia counties. It was called the " Colonie of Rensselaerwyck."
These patroons-grasping, energetic men-soon gave the company great uneasiness. Their large estates once secured, they entered into competition with the company in the trade with the Indians. They were encouraged by Governor Minuit, who had assisted them in securing their estates, and found it profitable to be their friend. The company, perceiving this, recalled Minuit in 1631, and the colony remained with- out a governor more than two years.
One of the best, the clearest-headed and most liberal-minded of the directors who became a patroon was David Pietersen de Vries, an eminent navigator in the service of the Dutch East India Company, who came to Manhattan at about the time when Minuit was recalled, and for ten years occupied a conspicuous position in the pub- lic and private affairs of New Netherland. He was a friend of Patroon Godyn, and was very active in founding a col- ony near the site of Lewis- ton, on Delaware Bay, which was named Swaanendael. The Dutch took possession of the country, in the name of the States-General. There thirty emigrants, with cattle and im- DAVID PIETERSEN DE VRIES. plements, were seated, but they were murdered by the Indians the next year, and their dwellings were laid in ruins.
In the spring of 1633 Walter van Twiller, a narrow-minded clerk in the company's warehouse at Amsterdam, who had married a niece of Van Rensselaer and had served that director well in shipping cattle to his manor on the Hudson River, succeeded Minuit as governor. Accord- ing to all accounts, he was a most absurd man in person, character, and conduct. Washington Irving, in a pleasant pen caricature of him, described his person as "exactly five feet six inches in height and six feet five inches in circumference ;" his head " a perfect sphere ;" " his face a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression," and
34
THE EMPIRE STATE
his cheeks " were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a Spitzenberg apple." He " daily took four stated meals, appropriating exactly one hour to each ; smoked and doubted eight hours, and slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty."
Van Twiller was totally unfitted by nature and education for the posi- tion he was placed in. He was self-indulgent to the last degree, and was profoundly ignorant of public affairs ; yet during his administration the colony flourished in spite of him. He came attended by about one hundred and forty sol- diers, the first that ap- peared in the colony.
With Governor Van Twiller came the Rev. Everardus Bogardus, SIGNATURE OF WALTER VAN TWILLER. the first clergyman seen in New Netherland ; also Adam Roelandsen, the first school-master in the colony. Bogardus was a man of energy. He was bold and faithful, and did not hesitate to reprove the governor for his shortcomings in duty, official, moral, and religious. On one occasion he called him a " child of the devil " to his face and before high officials, and told him that if he did not behave him- self he would " give him such a shake from the pulpit"' the next Sun- day as would make him tremble like a bowl of jelly.
Trouble with the English began Everhard Bogland's Euch ManaSat with the advent of Van Twiller. A former commis- sary at Fort Or- ange (now Albany) named Eelkens, SIGNATURE OF EVERARDUS BOGARDUS. who had been dis- missed from the company's service, went to England and, in the employ of London merchants, sailed for the Hudson River in the ship William, determined to trade with the Indians in its upper waters, with whom he was acquainted. Van Twiller forbade his ascending the river. Eelkens, knowing the weakness of the governor, treated him with scorn. Van Twiller, mildly offended, caused the Orange flag to be unfurled over Fort Amsterdam and a salute of three guns to be fired in
35
1185619
TROUBLE WITH NEW ENGLANDERS.
honor of the Prince of Orange to fill the intruder with terror. Eelkens, not at all dismayed, ran up the British flag, fired three guns in honor of Charles of England, and sailed np the river.
For onee Van Twiller seemed to be really angry. He gathered the garrison at the door of the fort, tapped a cask of wine, filled capacious glasses, swore terribly in Low Dutch, and called upon the people, who stood langling in his face, to assist him in wiping out this stain upon the honor of himself and Holland. De Vries, who dined with the gov- ernor that day, told him he had acted like a fool. Van Twiller did not deny that he was a fool, and meekly assented to the demand of the fiery captain that an expedition should be sent to bring Eelkens back, and thus vindicate the honor and eourage of the State. Van Twiller hesi- tated long, but finally sent a small flotilla fairly armed, and at the end of a month from the day when the offenee was committed the William was brought back and driven out to sea. Eelkens was foiled. This was the first hostile encounter between the Dutch and English in New Netherland. . The William was the first English ship whose kcel ploughed the waters of the Hudson River.
Already a little cloud had brooded in the cast. When the Puritans of Massachusetts were assured of the beauty and fertility of the soil of the valley of the Connecticut River, they yearned for its possession. The Dutch had already assumed that right, in accordance with the British doctrine of first discovery ; for, as we have seen, Adriaen Block dis- covered the Connecticut River nearly six years before the Puritans came to Cape Cod Bay. The Dutch had obtained a more righteous title by a purchase of the whole Connecticut Valley from the barbarians. They had set up the arms of Holland on a tree at the mouth of the river, and had nearly completed the fort a little below the site of Hartford, and named it " Good Hope."
Unmindful of the claims of the Dutch, the Plymouth Company granted a charter to certain parties to settle in the lovely Connectieut Valley. During the bland Indian summer in 1633 a small company of Puritans under Captain Holmes sailed up the Connecticut in a sloop, with the frame of a house all prepared for erection, to plant a settlement on the shore of that stream. The energetic commissary, Jacob van Curler (or Corlear), was then at the fort, on which were mounted two cannons. He demanded a sight of Holmes's commission, and on his refusal to show it Van Curler forbade his going further up the river, and threatened him with destruction if he should attempt to pass the fort. The Yankee filibuster was as careless as a Turk of the shotted cannon. He sailed quietly by, while the Dutch "let the shooting
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