USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The history of the city of Albany, New York : from the discovery of the great river in 1524, by Verrazzano, to the present time > Part 10
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1 Vide Doc. hist. N. Y. vol. xiii. pp. 35, 36.
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The aggressive belligerence of the Mohawks not in- frequently endangered the safety of their palisaded villages. In June, 1657, the fear of an assault by the warriors of the Seneca nation caused the Mohawks to send a number of their sachems or chiefs to Fort Orange to ask Vice-director La Montagne1 "to accommodate them with a few horses to haul palisades from the woods to repair their castles," and to shelter their wives and children in the village of Beverswyck "should they go to war with the Sinnekes." They further desired their Dutch friends to "assist each of their palisaded villages with a cannon," and to haul the cannon from the fort to the flats, "a distance of eight miles," for, as was said by the chiefs, the three villages belonged to the same tribe, and they were bound to help one another in time of need, which could be done only with difficulty if they had no cannon to alarm them in time of distress. The answer of the magistrates to the first request of the Mohawk chiefs was "that they had no horses of their own, but if they wished to hire a number of horses then the court would try to induce some of the inhabitants to help them." They also told them that they were willing to take care of their wives and children for the sake of their old friendship, but hoped that it would not be necessary. In answer to the request for cannon, the officers of the court informed the sachems "that the cannon did not belong to them, but to their chief," who had given them for the defense of the fort, so that they could not give them away nor lend them without his consent, but that they would write to the director-general and await his answer. "2
The Mohawks in their predatory forays along the
1 Johannes de la Montagne was appointed vice-director September 28, 1656, and held this office until October, 1664.
2 Doc. hist. N. Y. vol. xiii. pp. 72, 73.
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borders of Canada had so often reduced to ashes the dwellings and barns of the toiling settlers and had so repeatedly massacred and subjected to cruel captivities the unprotected inhabitants of the wide territory, that the French determined to revenge themselves upon their crafty, ruthless, and bloody-minded enemy. Early in the fall of 1659 the Mohawks began to be alarmed by the intimations that the maltreated French intended to invade their country. Aware of the exposed condition of their villages they sent a delegation of their chiefs to Fort Orange again to ask their Dutch friends to assist the tribe in planting palisades and to mend the unservice- able muskets of their warriors. In the conference of the Mohawk chiefs with the magistrates of the courts of Fort Orange and Beverswyck and Rensselaerswyck, the Indian orator said : "The Dutch call us brothers and declare that we and they are joined together with chains, but that lasts only as long as we have beavers ; after that no attention is paid us. We have heard of the coming of our enemies, the French. If we drink too much liquor we cannot fight. We therefore desire you not to sell any brandy to our people, but to put the bung in our casks. When we go away now, we shall take away a considerable quantity of brandy, and after that no more, for we will. burn our kegs. * We desire that the smiths should repair our things, even when our people have no money, or let them have much or little wampum. * * We ask that the gunmakers shall hurry making the guns and not let us wait so long and lose time. When we come from the country and the muskets are all repaired, we have no powder. You must therefore give us some powder, and when the enemy comes you must be willing to help us. You are too timid. Send fifty or sixty men to assist us. Look at
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the French and see what they do for their savages when they are in distress. Do as they do and help us to repair our palisades. * * * Come to us with thirty men and with horses to chop and carry wood to our stockades and assist in repairing them. The Dutch can drag their wood- sleds into the country.".
This appeal was accompanied with gifts of peltry, beaver-coats, and wampum, for which the anxious solicitants said they wished no presents in return. Fifty guilders in wampum were nevertheless distributed among the indigent Mohawks by the discreet magistrates. The importuning chiefs were told by the Dutch officials that they could not take any action in answer to their requests until the same were made known to the director-general. After the Wilden had departed it was determined that a number of the principal men of Beverswyck and Renssel- aerswyck should visit the disquieted Mohawks, at their first village, called Kaghnuwage, about forty miles west of Fort Orange, on Cayadutta creek, near its confluence with the Mohawk river. Twenty-five men were there- fore delegated to go on horseback to the village and to enter into a new treaty with the alarmed Mohawks while such favorable circumstances existed to ratify one. Among the persons composing the deputation were Jeremias van Rensselaer,1 Arendt van Curler, Philip Pieterse Schuyler, Volckert Jansen,2 Francois Boon, Dirck Jansen Croon, Johannes Provoost, 3 Adrian Gerrit- sen, Andries Herbertsen, and Jan Tomassen. On the
1 Jeremias van Rensselaer, the second son of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, succeeded his brother, Jan Baptiste, as director of the manor in 1658.
2 Volckert Jansen Douw settled in Rensselaerswyck about the year 1638. At a very early date he purchased the plot of ground, then the southwest corner of Jonker and Handelaar Streets, now that of Broadway and State Street, which property is still in the possession of his descendants.
3 Johannes Provoost was a clerk at Fort Orange during Vice-director Johannes de la Montagne's term of office.
8
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twenty-fourth of September the chiefs of the three Mohawk villages lighted a council-fire and gathered around it to listen to the words of the Dutch delegates. The speaker said :
"Brothers, we have come here only to renew our old friendship and brotherhood. You must tell it to your children. Ours will know it for all time to come, and will be reminded of it by the writings which we shall bequeath to them. We shall die, but these will remain, and from them they will learn that we have lived with our brothers in peace.
"Brothers, we could not bring any cloth, for we could not get men to carry it. Merchandise cannot buy friendship. Our heart has always been good and still continues to be. If that is of no value to you, then we come not to purchase friendship even if the land were full of merchandise and beavers. * * *
"Brothers, sixteen years have passed since you and the Dutch made the first treaty of friendship and broth- erhood that joined us together with an iron chain.1 Since that time it has not been broken either by us or by our brothers, and we have no fear that it will be broken by either of us. We will, therefore, not speak of it any
* more, but will always live as if we had one heart. * *
"Brothers, eighteen days ago you were with us and made your proposals to your Dutch brothers. We did not give you a definite answer then for we were expect- ing Chief Stuyvesant and we promised to inform you when he should have arrived. He is now sick and can not come. What we now say is ordered by Chief Stuyvesant, by all the other. chiefs, and by all the Dutch and their children.
1 Evidently the treaty made by Director Kieft, in July, 1645, at Fort Orange."
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"Brothers, we speak for this and all future time, in our own behalf and in behalf of all the Dutch now in the country or who may yet come, and in behalf of all the children, for we cannot come here every day, as the roads are very bad for traveling. Hereafter you must have no doubt of our remaining always brothers. When- ever some tribe or any savages, whoever they be, come to incite you to war and say that the Dutch intend to fight against you, do not regard them, do not believe them, but tell them they lie. We shall say the same of you if they tell the same of our brothers. We shall not believe any prattlers, neither shall we fight against you, nor will we leave you in distress if we are able to help you. But we cannot compel our smiths and gunmakers to repair the muskets of our brothers without pay, for the gunsmiths must earn food for their wives and chil- dren, who otherwise would perish from hunger. If the smiths were to receive no wampum for their work they would remove from our country, and then we and our brothers would be much embarrassed. *
"Brothers, eighteen days ago you requested us not to sell brandy to your people and to bung our casks. Brothers, do not allow your people to come to us for brandy and none shall be sold them. Only two days ago we met twenty to thirty kegs on the road all going to obtain brandy. Our chiefs are very angry because the Dutch sell brandy to your people, and always forbid our people to do it. Now forbid your people to buy brandy. If you desire that we should take the brandy and the kegs containing it from your people, say it before all these people, and if we afterward do it you must not be angry.
"Brothers, we now give you a present of powder and lead, which you must not waste if you want to attack
ยท
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your enemies. Rightly use it and divide it among your young men. *
"Brothers, we see that you are very busy cutting wood to build your fort. You asked us for horses to haul wood, but horses cannot do it, for the hills are too high and steep, and your Dutch brothers cannot carry the wood because they have become too weak in marching to this place, as you may perceive by looking at them. Inasmuch as our brothers sometimes break their axes in cutting wood, we now present you with fifteen axes.
"Brothers, as some of your people and some Mahi- canders and Sinnekus sometimes kill our horses, cows, pigs and goats, we ask our brothers to forbid their people to do it."
The gifts presented to the Mohawk chiefs were eleven boxes of wampum, seventy-five pounds of powder, one hundred of lead, fifteen axes, and some knives valued at two beaver-skins. The friendly declarations of the dele- gates accompanied with these valuable presents were gratefully received by the needy sachems, who consented that the brandy-kegs in their villages should be taken from them by their Dutch brothers.
At the close of the conference a letter was received from Vice-director La Montagne, informing the commis- sioners that some of the River Indians had attacked the settlers at Esopus, and had burned their dwellings, barns, and grain. When this information was given to the Mohawks they with one accord declared that should any of the Esopus or other River Indians come to them with presents and ask them to fight against the Dutch that they would kick them and say : "Begone you beasts, you pigs, depart from us, we will have nothing to do with you." Satisfied that the Mohawks would faith-
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fully honor their renewed covenants of friendship and amity, the delegates returned to Fort Orange on the twenty-fifth of September. 1
The hostile attitude of the River Indians filled the minds of the people of Beverswyck and Rensselaerswyck with many disturbing apprehensions of impending evil. Ignorant of the designs of the savages the inhabitants of Beverswyck determined to inclose the village with a fence of planks and palisades. The alarmed people vigorously prosecuted this undertaking, and in the spring of 1660 completed the defensive works (deffentie). The fence according to present metes and bounds extended northwardly along the bank of the river from the foot of Hudson Avenue to the site of the passenger-depot of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's railroad. Thence it ran westwardly to the southwest corner of the Delavan House. Slightly de- flected it passed to a point in North Pearl Street, about one hundred and ninety-two feet north of Maiden Lane. Its extension up the hill terminated at a point on State Street, near Lodge Street. Descending, the fence reached a point on South Pearl Street, near Beaver Street, thence it extended to Green Street, about seventy-five feet north of Hudson Avenue, thence to the intersection of Broadway and Hudson Avenue, and thence to the bank of the river, near the mouth of the Fuyck kill. Gates were placed at the ends of the different streets and a number of guard-houses built outside them. The expense incurred in the erection of these defenses was partly
1 The following memoranda form a part of the history of the treaty with the Mohawks: "For the hire of a horse for Johannes Provoost, the com- pany's servant, 25 florins. Spent by the committee for French wine when they departed and returned, 15 florins. To Rutger Jacobsen, for nine cans of brandy to be delivered to the delegates as presents to the savages, 36 florins. For presents to the Maquaas, 656,10 florins."-MSS. of Rensselaers- wyck. Doc. hist. N. Y. vol. xiii. pp. 112, 113.
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liquidated by an annual tax of three guilders on each chimney in the village. 1
When summer came the fears of the settlers respect- ing an attack from the River Indians were quieted by a treaty of peace made on the fifteenth of July, at Esopus, with the chiefs of the disaffected savages.
The active competition to obtain peltry from the Indians led many of the traders and settlers to employ a class of middle-men called boschloopers (wood-runners) to frequent the trails and villages of the Wilden. These unscrupulous agents used all the means at their command to induce the Indians to sell their peltry to them. Watched, intercepted, importuned, pulled about and maltreated, the harrassed Indians began to complain to the Dutch authorities, declaring that whenever any one of their number was seen with a beaver-skin he was im- mediately surrounded by ten or twelve runners, each of whom did his best to get him into his possession by taking hold of him and saying, "Come with me, that and that person has nothing to buy furs with," and that at such times they were often kicked, cuffed and thrown down by the contending competitors, The court, therefore, published a placard prohibiting the employment of run- ners and forbidding the settlers to lure Indians having peltry to their houses. On the publication of this order eighty of the inhabitants of Beverswyck petitioned the magistrates to rescind it, asserting that those who favored it were "a few individuals who, swayed by an inordi- nate love of money and jealousy in trade, imagined to improve it in this manner," and wished, by using "a frivolous pretext, to appropriate under this cloak the whole trade to themselves." The petitioners, therefore,
1 Fort Orange Ordinance, July 25, 1660. Vide Laws and ordinances of New Netherland, 1638-1674. By E. B. O'Callaghan. Albany, 1868.
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requested that every one might "be permitted to exert himself to the utmost, through the agency of Christians or savages, to save themselves and enable them to pay to every one his due, to love their neighbors and promote their own eternal happiness."
The magistrates complied and rescinded the restrictive resolution, "protesting meanwhile to be innocent of any calamities " that might befall the people, " since some of the petitioners had declared that it was their determina- tion to do what they had asked whether or not it were granted them." The action of the vacillating magistrates was annulled shortly afterward by Director Stuyvesant.
The attention of the director-general was called to the evil consequences likely to result from the reprehen- sible practices of the wood runners not only by some of the less mercenary inhabitants of Beverswyck, but also by the Seneca Indians in their conference with him, at Fort Orange, on the twenty-fifth of July, 1660. The latter made a special request that they might be pro- tected from the rough usage of the boschloopers. Their interpreter said : " They request that they may barter their beavers at pleasure and may not be locked up by the Dutch, but may go with their beavers where they please, without being beaten. They say : 'When we are sometimes in a trader's house and wish to go to another's to buy goods which suit us, then we get a good beating, so that we do not know where our eyes are. This conduct ought not to continue ; each ought to be allowed to go where he pleases and where the goods suit him best.' They say : 'The Dutch send so many brokers into the woods from one house that they do not know where to go with their beavers. Each trader ought to have some of their peltry.'"
The director-general in reply to these complaints of
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the Senecas said : "Our brothers inform us that their beavers are locked up when they come into the houses. We forbade our people to do so three days ago, and our brothers may go with their beavers where they please.
"Brothers, if any Dutchman beats you, come to the sachems and make a complaint ; and if any Dutch trader keeps or locks up your beavers they will see that you get them back.
"Brothers, it is well that each one goes now with his beavers where he likes, and no brokers shall henceforth be sent into the woods. * * You need not listen any longer to these runners, but beat them on the head until it can no longer be seen where their eyes were."1
The possession of fire-arms had given the Mohawks an acknowledged dominance over many of the other Indian tribes of New Netherland. This acquired power made the former very arrogant. The tribal imperious- ness of the Mohawks did not escape the observation of the Dutch. When the directors of the West India Company suggested the use of the Mohawk warriors to punish and reduce the Esopus Indians, Director Stuyve- sant wrote them that it would be a dangerous experi- ment, for the Maquaas were "a vain-glorious, proud and bold tribe, made quite haughty by their continued victories and advantages over the French themselves and the French Indians in Canada. If we were to ask them to aid us and they consented and success followed, they would exalt themselves to our belittlement in the eyes of the other Indians ; and if we did not afterward reward them in a manner satisfactory to their greedy appetites and did not continue our gifts, we would hear ourselves constantly upbraided ; and if we retorted, it might lead
1 Albany records. vol. vi. fol. 236-238, 254, 257-261, 270-283 ; vol. xxiv. fol, 348-352.
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to an embroilment. For these and many other considera- tions," said the sagacious director, "it is best to stand as long as possible on our own feet and to pray the good God for a happy deliverance." 1
In the spring of 1662, about three hundred Mohawks made a foray along the upper waters of the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers. At Fort Penobscot they surprised a party of Albenaquis, and afterward killed a number of cattle belonging to the English and committed other depredations. The governors of Boston and Nova Scotia in August sent two commissioners to Fort Orange, who in the presence of Director Stuyvesant held a conference with some of the chiefs of the Mohawks. When the latter were asked why their warriors had broken the covenants which the English had made the previous year with the tribe, they answered that they had not entered into any treaty with the Northern Indians, and that they were willing to pay the English for the property des- troyed. The Mohawks, having made these answers with considerable surliness, huffishly left the room, and after- ward, in conversation with some of the inhabitants of Beverswyck, declared that the English commissioners were no better than hogs, and that they did not care for the English, and if they did not at once accept their overtures that "they would in three weeks go to the frontier plantations of Connecticut and pillage them, and dividing themselves into companies of ten, or twelve, rove through the country setting fire to remote houses and destroying what they could." At the afternoon con- ference the Mohawk chiefs were more tractable, and agreed to indemnify the English for their losses, to treat with the Northern Indians, and to take into consideration the release of the captured Albenaquis.
1 Albany records. vol. iv. fol. 331 ; vol. xvi. fol. 101, 103, 105, 107 ; vol. viii. fol. 54-60, 69, 102, 103. MSS. of Rensselaerswyck.
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It was about this time that three Frenchmen escaped from a war-party of Mohawks and Oneidas, who had attacked an outpost near Montreal, and killed fourteen French soldiers and eighty Indians. The three famished Frenchmen, having had no other food for nine days than the bark of trees and wild vegetables, reached Bevers- wyck, where they were kindly cared for, secreted for a number of days, and then sent in a vessel to Canada. 1
A number of the inhabitants of Beverswyck and Rensselaerswyck conceiving that they would be more advantageously situated, as farmers and traders, were they to occupy the Groote Vlachte (Great Flat), as the site of Schenectady was then called by the Dutch, dele- gated Arendt van Curler to obtain from the West India Company the privilege of purchasing the tract from the Indian owners and of settling upon it. Van Curler went to New Amsterdam and presented to the director-general and council of New Netherland the petition. On the twenty-third of June, 1661, the request of the petitioners was formally granted, on the condition that the land when purchased should be transferred and conveyed, as was customary, to the director-general and council repre- senting the directors of the West India Company, and that whatever the petitioners should pay for the land should "in due time be refunded to them or be credited to them against the taxes." Willing to comply with this provision, the petitioners, with Arendt van Curler, pur- chased on the twenty seventh of July, at Fort Orange, the parcel of land which the Indians called Schonowe. 2.
1 True relation of the Maques coming to Penobscot fort. Albany records. vol. xx. fol. 178, 184-189, 191-194, Hol. doc. vol. xi. fol. 211. Relation 1660-1665.
2 Three of the Mohawk chiefs conveying the land to Arendt van Curler (Sieur Arent van Corlear, as it is written in the instrument), respectively drew the figures of a bear, a turtle, and a wolf, as their marks to the docu- ment, to designate the particular family to which they severally belonged.
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The fur traders of Beverswyck and of Renssselaers- wyck perceiving that the people of the new settle- ment intended to intercept the Indians coming from the west with peltries, petitioned, in 1662, the director- general and council not to allow the settlers of the Groote Vlachte to trade with the Indians. To protect not only the interests of the petitioners but also those of the fur factors of the West India Company stationed at Fort Orange, the director-general and council required the people of the Great Flat "to bind themselves and to promise not to carry on any trade with the Wilden under whatever name or pretext it might be, neither directly nor indirectly." To enforce the requirements of this order, Jacques Corteljon, the company's engineer, was instructed in 1663 not to survey any land for the settlers who would not subscribe their names to the following pledge : "We, the undersigned, proprietors of land on the flat, *
* * promise herewith that we will have no dealings with the savages, whatever name they may have, on the said flat or thereabouts, nor will we permit such trade under any pretext whatsoever, neither directly nor indirectly, under the penalty that if we or any of us should hereafter happen to forget this, our promise, we shall pay as a fine, without any resistance whatever, the first time fifty beavers, the second time one hundred, and the third time forfeit the land allotted to and ob- tained by us on the aforesaid flat.
This we confirm by
* year 1663." our signatures at Fort Orange, the
The people of the Great Flat formally refused to pledge this obedience, saying : "We bought the land with our own money for the company (to be repaid at a convenient time), took possession of it with much expense, erected buildings on it, and stocked it with horses and cattle. If the proprietors are to be treated in a different manner or
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with less consideration than the other inhabitants, then all their labor has been unrewarded and they are com- pletely ruined. * Inasmuch as the surveyor is now here, but has no order to survey the land unless this pledge is signed, we request that the surveyor be author- ized to survey the land in order to prevent differences and disputes among us, else we shall be compelled to help ourselves as best we can."1 To this communication the director-general and council, on the eighteenth of June, 1663, replied, that they must be obeyed for they did not intend to further the interests of one place and ruin those of another. To enforce their commands, they ordered that no Indian goods or any merchandise should be con- veyed to "Schanechtade," much less bartered there, on pain of forfeiting the Indian goods and merchandises, "one-half to be given to the informer, the other half to the officer, either of Fort Orange or the colony of Rens- selaerswyck, by whom the complaint shall be instituted." They also commanded that the commissary of the West India Company and the magistrates of the court of Fort Orange and of Beverswyck "should repair to the newly- begun settlement of Schanechtade and there take up the goods and merchandises already carried there, contrary to the act of concession " of the sixth of April, 1662.2
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