USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
Meanwhile the Committee of Twelve were busy in maturing a plan for establishing at Manhattan the popular form of government that pre- vailed in Holland. Kieft was alarmed, for he perceived that a scheme was on foot to abridge the absolute power with which he was clothed. He suggested a compromise, and the confiding representatives of the people, who met early in 1642, put their trust in his promises. He offered concessions of popular freedom on the condition of being allowed to chastise the Westchester Indians for the murder of Schmidt. A reluctant consent was finally given. When the perfidions governor had procured this consent he dissolved the Committee of Twelve, in Feb- ruary, 1642, by an arbitrary. order, telling them that the business for which they had been convened was completed. This done, he forbade
48
THE EMPIRE STATE.
any popular assemblages thereafter. Thus ended the first attempt to establish popular sovereignty in New Netherland.
Kieft now sent an armed force into Westchester to chastise the Weck- quaesgeeks, the tribe of the murderer. The expedition was fruitless, and was followed by concessions and a treaty which prevented bloodshed. The governor was disappointed, but his bloodthirstiness was partially slaked not long afterward. The River Indians were tributary to the Mohawks, and at midwinter in 1643 a large war-party of the latter came down from near Fort Orange to collect tribute of the Weckqnaesgeeks in lower Westchester and the Tappans on the west side of the Hudson River.
The terrified Algonquins-men, women, and children, fully five hun- dred strong-fled before the dreaded Iroquois, and sought refuge with the Dutch. The latter now had a rare opportunity to win the sincere and lasting friendship of their barbarian brethren around them by exer- cising the virtues of hospitality, common humanity, and a Christian spirit. Such a course De Vries and Bogardus strongly advised ; but there were other leading spirits bent on war and revenge who advised the very willing governor to improve the occasion for avenging the murder of Schmidt. Three of the ex-senators, speaking falsely in the name of the Twelve, urged the governor to " fall upon them." The governor was delighted, and at once ordered Sergeant Rudolf to lead eighty well-armed men across the river and attack the fugitive Tappans, who had taken refuge with the Hackensaeks at Pavonia or Hoboken, near the Dutch settlement of Vriesdael.
De Vries, representing the majority of the citizens, vainly tried to dissuade the governor from his bloodthirsty purpose. He warned him that he would bring dire calamity upon the province. The fiery magis- trate spurned the captain's advice and admonitions, saying : " The order has gone forth ; it cannot be recalled." In that order he impiously said the work had been undertaken " in the full confidence that God will erown our resolutions with success."
At the middle of a cold night late in February, 1643, Sergeant Rudolf and his men fell upon the defenceless Tappans at Hoboken, who were sleeping in fancied seeurity. At the same time Sergeant Adriaensen smote the Weckquaesgeeks, who had taken refuge with the Dutch on Manhattan at Corlear's Hook, now the foot of Grand Street He killed forty of them. Rudolf made the deep snows at Hoboken red with the blood of about a hundred unoffending pagans, sparing neither age nor sex in the execution of his cowardly master's will. " Warrior and squaw, sachem and child, mother and babe," says Brodhead, " were
49
RESULTS OF A CRUEL POLICY.
alike massaered." The next morning, when the armed Hollanders returned to Fort Amsterdam-a ghastly train-with thirty prisoners and the heads of several Indians on pikes, Kieft shook their bloody hands with delight, and gave them presents.
This massaere and other ontrages committed by order of Kieft aroused the fiery hatred of all the surrounding tribes. A fierce war was kindled. Villages and farms were desolated. The white people were butchered wherever found by the enraged barbarians." The Long Island Indians, hitherto friendly, joined their dusky kindred, and the very existence of the colony was imperilled.
The fierce blaze kindled by the folly and wickedness of Kieft appalled him. He again called upon the " Commonalty" to appoint a committee to consider propositions which he would lay before them. They choose eight Frame. Alexton - men, one of whom was Isaae Allerton, a passenger in the Mayflower, who was then a prosperous merchant SIGNATURE OF ISAAC ALLERTON. at Manhattan. The Coun- eil of Eight counselled peace with the Long Island tribes and war upon the Westchester Indians, who had desolated settlements and planta- tions there. It was done.
* Among the victims was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who was an advocate of the right of . private judgment in religious matters, and had been banished from Boston because it was said she was " weakening the hands and hearts of the people toward the ministers," and was " like Roger Williams, or worse." She went to Rhode Island, but found hier abode there undesirable, so she sought the protection of the more tolerant Dutch for the exercise of soul liberty. In the summer of 1642 she removed, with all her family, to Pel- ham Neck, in Westchester County, within the Dutch domain. It was near New Rochelle, and the spot was called " Annie's Hoeck." The Dutch named Westchester " The Land of Peace." In the fierce war of 1643 the widowed Anne Hutchinson and all her family, excepting a little granddaughter, eight years old, were murdered by the Indians. The child was made a captive, and was ransomed by the authorities at Manhattan.
Lady Deborah Moody, an Englishwoman, who, like Mrs. Hutchinson, had fled from persecution at Salem, established herself at Gravesend, on the western end of Long Island. She had scarcely become settled before the Indians attacked her plantation. Forty resolute colonists bravely defended it, and drove the assailants away. Gravesend escaped the fate that befell all the neighboring settlements on Long Island. Two years afterward Kieft granted Lady Moody, her son, Sir J. Henry Moody, and others a patent for land adjoining Coney Island, now known as Gravesend. She and other inhabitants were allowed to nominate their magistrates. Her home was again attacked by the bar- barians during the excitement while Stuyvesant was on his expedition against the Swedes, in 1655.
50
THE EMPIRE STATE.
War raged fearfully again, and the colony, after a dreadful struggle, was on the verge of ruin. At length a company of Englishmen under Captain John Underhill, a brave and restless soldier of New England then living at Stamford, Conn., was called to the assistance of the Dutch. The Indians were subdued, and peace was partially restored. Yet the dreadful war-cloud hung ominously over the Hollanders, charged with the lightnings of suppressed wrath. Kieft trembled at the aspect, and again convoked the Council of Eight. The people had lost all con- fidence in the governor-nay, they despised and hated him. Their hopes in this hour of their distress rested solely upon their representatives, the Council of Eight. But that council possessed no legal executive power, and the stubborn governor seldom followed their advice. Retrievement seemed almost hopeless. Distant settlements remained desolated. Dis- order everywhere prevailed. The Swedes were building up a strong empire on the southern borders of New Netherland, and the Puritans
John hinderfull
SIGNATURE OF JOHN UNDERHILL.
were not only claiming absolnte title to undoubted Dutch territory, but many of them were becoming citizens under the liberal charter of the company, and were wielding much influence in social life at Manhattan.
At this juncture, and in order to invoke wholesome interference with Kieft's destructive policy, the Council of Eight addressed a memorial to the States-General, giving a full account of public affairs in the province, and asking the recall of the obnoxious governor. At this juncture also De Vries, one of the best and most useful citizens, who had been ruined financially by the war, left the province forever and returned to Hol- land .* On taking leave of Kieft his last words addressed to the governor
* De Vries had accepted an invitation from a Rotterdam skipper to pilot his vessel, laden with Madeira wine, from Manhattan to Virginia. They stopped on the way at the capital of New Sweden, where De Vries was hospitably entertained by the governor (Printz) for five days, while the skipper traded wine and confectionery for beaver-skins. De Vries spent the winter in Virginia, and reached Amsterdam in June, 1644. He seems never to have revisited America. His story of his Voyages was published at Alckmaer, in 1655, with a portrait of him. It was translated into English by the late Henry C. Murphy, of Brooklyn, and has been of essential service in the preparation of this volume.
51
MEMORIAL OF THE COUNCIL OF EIGHT.
uttered the awful prophecy : "The murders in which you have shed so much innocent blood will yet be avenged upon your own head."
The people endured the rule of Kieft until it could not be longer borne with safety to the colony, and the Council of Eight, representing the commonalty, addressed a second memorial to the States-General and the College of Nineteen, in which they set forth in detail the causes which threatened the absolute ruin of New Netherland .* They said in conclusion :
" This is what we have, in the sorrow of our hearts, to complain of : That one man, who has been sent out, sworn and instructed by his lords and masters, to whom he is responsible, should dispose here of our lives and property according to his will and pleasure, in a manner so arbitrary that a king would not be suffered legally to do." They asked for a better governor for the colonists or permission to return with their " wives and children to their dear Fatherland."
The Dutch West India Company was then nearly bankrupt. Immediate action was necessary to avert the absolute rnin of New Netherland and to prevent the colonists " returning with their wives and children to their dear Fatherland." The company resolved to recall Kieft, and SIGNATURE OF CORNELIS MELYN. Van Dincklagen, Van Twiller's disgraced schout-fiscal, was made provisional governor. The people at Manhattan were greatly delighted when they heard of the intended change. Some pugnacious burghers threatened Kieft with personal chastisement when he should "take off the coat with which he was bedecked by the lords his masters."
During Kieft's administration the Swedes had obtained a firm foot- hold on the Delaware. They claimed territorial jurisdiction on the right side of the Delaware Bay and River from Cape Hinlopen to the falls at Trenton.
* It was written by Cornelis Melyn, one of the Eight Men, who came to Manhattan in 1640 to see the country, and was so much pleased with it that he hastened to Antwerp to bring his family to America. He afterward rose to prominence in New Netherland. He was President of the Council of Eight. He had become a patroon of Staten Island, and began. a colony there. He suffered much in body and estate under Kieft, and brought his grievances before the States-General. He was a stubborn subject under Stuyvesant, and resisted the director's arbitrary power. He finally (1661) surrendered his manor into the hands of the Dutch West India Company for a consideration, and returned to Amsterdam.
52
THE EMPIRE STATE.
Governor Minuit died at Fort Christina in 1642. His lieutenant, Peter Hollandare, at the end of a year and a half afterward returned to Sweden, when the queen commissioned John Printz, a lieutenant of cavalry, governor of New Sweden, and furnished him with officers and soldiers to support his authority.
Printz arrived at Fort Christina early in 1642. He was instructed to maintain and cultivate friendship with the Dutch at Fort Nassau and Manhattan and the English in Virginia, and not to disturb the Dutch settlers within his domain in their forms of divine worship. He made Tinieum Island, near Chester, about twelve miles below Philadelphia, the capital of New Sweden, built a fort upon it of hemlock logs, which he named " New Gottenburg," and erected a dwelling, which was called " Printz Hall." He was instructed not to allow any trade in peltries excepting by the agents of the Swedish Company, and to secure all the Indian trade against the competition of the Dutch.
The attitude of the Swedes very much disturbed the authorities at Manhattan. They were then powerless in regard to the intruders. Added to this cause of irritation was the absurd claim of a British baronet (Sir Edmund Plowden) to nearly all the territory of New Jersey by virtue of a charter granted to him by the Viceroy of Ireland ! The New Eng- landers, too, annoyed the Dutch by persistent efforts to participate in the profitable fur trade which the Hollanders were determined to monopolize.
Impelled by the force of public opinion and a stern voice of warning from the Amsterdam Chamber, Kieft had consented to treat for peace with the Indians. Representatives of the surrounding tribes of bar- barians had come to Manhattan, and in front of the fort on the spot now known as the " Bowling Green" they had sat and smoked the calumet, or pipe of peace, and agreed to a treaty of amity between the Dutch and themselves. That treaty was signed on the last day of summer, 1645. Then a proclamation went forth from Manhattan for the observ- ance of September 6th as a day of thanksgiving throughout New Netherland. This great Indian treaty was ratified at Amsterdam.
Kieft exercised his waning power and indulged his petty spite and tyranny a little longer. When it was known that he was to be recalled, the people became more outspoken in their utterances of contempt for him. Dominie Bogardus was foremost in boldness and plainness of speech. " What are the great men of the country," he exclaimed from the pulpit one Sunday, " but vessels of wrath and fountains of woe and trouble ! They think of nothing but to plunder the property of others, to dismiss, to banish, to transport to Holland." The enraged governor,
53
STUYVESANT SUCCEEDS KIEFT.
who was present, never entered the church again. He retaliated by encouraging the officers and soldiers to practise all sorts of noisy games about the church, and even to beat drums and fire cannons during preaching.
After a little more strife with the Swedes and New Englanders, and falsely accusing the people of Manhattan of instigating the late disastrous war with the Indians, Kieft ended his inglorious sojourn in America forever by leaving the shores of New Netherland in August, 1643, in the ship Prin- cess bound for Holland, and carry- ing. with him more than $100,000 of ill-gotten wealth. Dominie Bogardus sailed in the same ship, and with about fourscore others perished with Kieft when the vessel was wrecked. The prophecy of De Vries was fulfilled.
The College of Nineteen had changed the mode of government in New Netherland to conform PETER STUYVESANT. more nearly to that of Holland. All power for the management of the concerns of the colony was vested in a Supreme Council composed of a director-general or governor, a vice- director, and fiscal or treasurer. At that time Peter Stuyvesant," a Frieslander, a scholar, and a brave soldier in the service of the Dutch West India Company, and who had lost a leg in an attack upon the Portuguese island of St. Martin, was at Amsterdam receiving surgical treatment. He had been governor of. the company's colony of Curaçoa, in which capacity he had shown great vigor and wisdom. He was then forty-four years of age ; strong in physical constitution ; fond of official
# Peter Stuyvesant was born in Triestan, in 1602. He became a brave soldier in the Dutch military service, in the West Indies, and was appointed Governor of Curaçoa. He was a strong-headed and sometimes a wrong-headed official, but ruled with equity and fidelity to his country. Made governor of New Netherland in 1645, as "redressor general " of all abuses, he became conspicuous for his energy and patriotism. Compelled to surrender the province to the English in 1664, he retired to private life. The next year he went to Holland to report to his superiors. Returning, he spent the remainder of his days at his seat on Manhattan Island, near the East River, where he died in August, 1682. His remains rest in St. Mark's Churchyard, New York City.
54
THE EMPIRE STATE.
show ; admiring the arbitrary nature of military rule, under which he had been educated ; aristocratie in all his notions ; haughty in his deportment toward subordinates ; a thorough disciplinarian ; a stern, inflexible patriot, and a just and honest man. He was appointed governor of New Netherland. He was not fitted to govern a simple people with republiean tendencies, yet his administration of the affairs of New Netherland for about seventeen years contrasted most favorably with those of his predecessors in office, and he became the most renowned of the officials of the Dutch West India Company.
Owing to a disagreement concerning some of the details of policy in the management of New Netherland. Stuyvesant did not arrive at Man- hattan until late in May, 1647. He bore the commission of director- general over New Netherland and "adjoining places" (New Sweden and the Connecticut Valley), and also of the islands of Curaçoa, Buenaire, Aruba, and their dependencies. He was accompanied by Lubbertus van Dineklagen, Van Twiller's dismissed schout-fiscal (who had been instru- OR S. PET mental in causing the recall of that governor and also of Kieft), as vice - director or lieutenant-governor. With him also came SANT'N.BE the fiscal, Hendriek van Dyck, and Com- SNI : missary Adriaensen. They came with a little os squadron of four ships, bearing "free colo- nists" and private traders.
CVR
. ET
STUYVESANT'S SEAL." The new director-general was received at Manhattan with great joy. The arrival was on a clear and warm May morning. The whole community turned out under arms, and almost exhausted the breath and gunpowder of the town in shouting and firing. Stuyvesant marched to the fort in great pomp, displaying a silver-mounted wooden leg of fine workmanship. After keeping several of the principal inhabitants who went to welcome him waiting some hours bareheaded in the sun, while he remained covered, " as if he were the Czar of Muscovy," he ad- dressed the people. He told them that he should govern them "as a father his children, for the advantage of the chartered Dutch West India Company and these burghers and their land," and he declared that every one should have justice done him. The people went to their homes with hopeful anticipations. Yet a few of the more thoughtful
* Stuyvesant's official seal was made of silver. The engraving is of the exact size of the original. As it was his private property, having had it struck at his own expense, he carried it with him to New Netherland.
55
STUYVESANT'S ENERGETIC RULE.
ones shook their heads in doubt, for they somewhat feared that his haughty carriage denoted a despot's will rather than a father's tender and affectionate indulgence.
Stuyvesant was too frank and honest to conceal his opinions and inten- tions. At the very outset he asserted the prerogatives of the director- ship, and frowned upon every expression of republican sentiment. He regarded the people as his subjects, to be obedient to his will. In this he was not a whit behind his predecessors. On one occasion he declared it to be " treason to petition against one's magistrates, whether there be cause or not." He defended Kieft's conduct in rejecting the interfer- ence of " The Twelve" in public affairs, and plainly told the people : " If any one during my administration shall appeal I will make him a foot shorter and send the pieces to Holland, and let him appeal in that way." With such despotic sentiments he began his iron rule.
Stuyvesant was despotic, and yet honesty and wisdom marked all his acts. He truly described New Netherland as in " a low condition" on his arrival. Excepting the Long Island settlements, scarcely fifty bouweries or cultivated farms could be counted ; and the whole province could not furnish more than three hundred men capable of bearing arms. He set about reforms with promptness and vigor. The morals of the people, the sale of liquor to the Indians, the support of religion, and the regulation of trade commanded lis immediate attention and became snb- jects for numerous proclamations and ordinances. It was not long before he infused his own energy into the community, and very soon the life-blood of enterprise began to circulate freely through every vein and artery of society.
With the same energy Stuyvesant applied himself to the adjustment of his " foreign relations." He despatched a courier to Governor Printz, of New Sweden, with a decided protest against his occupation of a por- tion of the domain of New Netherland without the consent of the Dutch West India Company, and he made arrangements to meet commissioners of New England in council to determine the mutual rights of the Dutch and English. He treated the surrounding Indians with the utmost kindness. Because the new director won the warm friendship of those who were lately brooding in sullen hate over the murder of sixteen hundred of their people, the foolish story got abroad in the east that Stuyvesant was forming a coalition with the Indians to exterminate the English !
Financial embarrassments in New Netherland at this time were favor- able to the implantation and growth of representative government in the colony. Since 1477 Holland had maintained the just principle that
56
THE EMPIRE STATE.
" Taxation and representation are inseparable." The denial of this principle as applied to the English-American colonies at near the middle of the last century led to a war which dismembered the British Empire and gave politieal independence to the United States. They formulated the Holland principle in the grand political postulate : "Taxation with- out representation is tyranny," and fought successfully in its defence.
Stuyvesant dared not tax the colonists without their consent for fear of incurring the censure of the States-General. It could be done in only one way, and that way he adopted. He called a convention of the people and directed them to choose eighteen proper men, nine of whom he might appoint as the representatives of the "commonalty" to form a co-ordinate branch of the local government. Although their preroga- tives were hedged round by provisos and limitations, and the first Nine chosen by the governor were to nominate their successors without the voice of the commonalty thereafter, this was an important advance toward the popular government of later times.
THE NINE formed a salutary check upon the director, and kept his
power within due bounds. They were heard with respect in the Fatherland, and they were ever the habitual guardians of SIGNATURE OF GOVERT LOOCKERMANS. the rights of the peo- ple. They had far more power than THE TWELVE or the EIGHT under Kieft. They nourished the prolific germs of democracy which burst into vigorous life in the time of Leisler, nearly fifty years later. These senators were Angustine Heermans, Arnoldus van Hardenburg, and Govert Loockermans from among the merchants ; Jan Jansen Dam, Jacob Wolfertsen van Couwenhoven, and Hendrick Hendricksen Kip from the citizens, and Michael Jansen, Jans Evertsen Bont, and Thomas Hall from the farmers.
Soon after his inauguration Stuyvesant sent letters to the governors of neighboring colonies expressing his desire to cultivate friendly relations with them, at the same time stating the nature of the territorial claims of the Dutch, the prolific cause of irritation since the administration of Governor Minuit, when the Dutch West India Company elaimed juris- dietion over the whole valley of the Connecticut, and Dutch trappers and traders were seen on the waters of Narraganset and Cape Cod bays.
When Minuit made overtures to the " Pilgrims" at Plymonth for the
57
DUTCH EMBASSY AT NEW PLYMOUTH.
establishment of friendly intercourse, Governor Bradford expressed his willingness to do so, but warned the Dutch not to occupy or carry on trade in the country north of the fortieth degree of latitude, as it belonged to the Council of Plymouth. This excluded the whole of New England and more. Minuit, in reply, claimed the right of the Dutch to trade with the Narraganset Indians as they had done for years. Brad- ford made no response. Finally Minnit sent a deputation (1627) to New Plymouth to confer with the authorities there. At their head was Rassieres, the Secretary of New Netherland, an accomplished gentleman of French blood. They entered New Plymouth with the sound of a trumpet which heralded their approach from the little vessel which had brought them to that shore. They were kindly received and entertained for several days. The special object of the mission was not attained, but the deputies made a profitable study of the political and social policy of the' Puritans. They carried back to Manhattan ideas which, diffused among the people there, led in time to an enlargement of their liberties. The embassy were accompanied to their vessel by an escort of Puritans.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.