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 7
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"The second night of my voluntary imprisonment the minister of the Hollanders came to tell me that the Iroquois had made much trouble, and that the Dutch settlers were afraid that they would set fire to their houses and kill their cattle. * I was taken to his house, [that of the officer who had advised him to es- cape], where he kept me concealed. These comings and goings were done by night, so that I was not discov- ered."1
"The Iroquois," he says in another letter, "came to the Dutch post about the middle of September, and made a great deal of disturbance, but at last received the. presents made by the captain who had me concealed. They amounted to about three hundred livres, which I will endeavor to repay. All things being quieted, I was sent to Manhattan, where the governor of the country resides. He received me kindly, gave me clothes and passage in a vessel which crossed the ocean in mid- winter."2
1 Father Jogues's letter, dated Rensselaerswyck, August 30, 1643. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. viii. pp. 207-214.
2 Letter of Father Jogues to Father Charles Lalemant. Rennes, January 6, 1644. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. viii. pp. 214, 215.
It is said that on his arrival in France, "honors met him on every side ; objects belonging to him were eagerly sought as relics ; the Queen Regent even requested that he should come to Paris, that she might see so illustrious a sufferer. All this was painful to him, and it was not till three times summoned that he proceeded to the capital. He longed to return to Canada ; but one thing prevented his departure. The mangled hands which had been reverently kissed by the Queen and Court of France, were an obstacle to his celebrating the holy sacrifice of the altar. A dispensation was needed. Urban VIII. then sat in the See of Peter, a pope noted especially for the stringent rules which he introduced against any symptom of public veneration to the departed servants of God until their life and virtues had been sifted and examined in the long and minute legal proceedings for canonization.
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The officers of the patroon were often at variance. Disagreements and disputes concerning the administra- tion of the affairs of the manor made them openly cen- sure one another, and, in time, each was the leader of a faction. Adriaen van der Donck, the schout-fiscaal, attempted to secure the favor of the colonists by conniv- ing at the infringement of the laws and regulations of the patroon, and by disparaging the official conduct of the commissary-general. Overtaxed by the numerous cares of the management of the manor, Van Curler was made to feel in many ways the brunt of Van der Donck's personal criticism and ill-will. The loyal commissary held the patroon in high respect. In addressing him in his letters he used the most complimentary phrases of personal courtesy. "Most honorable, wise, powerful, and . right discreet lord, my lord patroon, with submissive salutation this shall serve to greet your honor and your honor's beloved lady, who is dear to you, with wished-for good fortune, prosperity, and continued happiness."
In a letter thus addressed to Kiliaen van Rensselaer, dated "at the Manhattans," June 16, 1643, he speaks of the reprehensible conduct of the attorney-general. Informing the patroon that he had broken the contract made with the men who were to build the house for Domine Mega- polensis and that he had bought a new one from Maryn Adriaensen van Veere, he says : "Van der Donck, hearing this, began to associate with the carpenters and others, and told them that we had issued placards [proclamations]
Yet when the application of Father Jogues was presented, and he had learned the story of his sufferings, he forgot his own laws and exclaimed, as he granted it, 'Indignum esse Christi martyrem Christi non bibere sanguinem." In June, 1646, on his way to visit the tribe by whom he had been held pris- oner, he stopped at Fort Orange. In the fall of 1646 he fell into the hands of a war-party of Mohawks, who put him to death with horrible cruelties. Memoir of Father Jogues by John Gilmary Shea. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. viii. pp. 168-172.
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forbidding the colonists to trade with the residents [the traders at Fort Orange]; that those interested should mutiny, that those who had been connected with this [purchase of the house] had also drawn up the placards, and also that I had undertaken to steal the bread out of the mouths of the colonists. Some who heard him were surprised that an officer of the manor should give such counsel to the people. Some immediately conspired together to protest against me, and under the protest [written by them] drew a circle within which to place their names, so that it should not be known who had first signed it. This protest having been drawn up, some were for driving me out of the colony as a rogue, others wished to take my life. Nothing, however, resulted from these threats. Van der Donck thereafter said he would honestly and to our satisfaction, assist me and the council. But when want pressed him, he withdrew from me and the council to second them. I shall send your honor the affidavits of two persons who told me this with their own lips, so that your honor can readily form an opinion respecting this matter, and what kind of an officer you have here who causes so much trouble to a whole colony. He intends next year to return home. He has been to Katskill with some colonists to examine that place, and your honor may be assured he intends to look for partners to plant a colony there. Borger Jorissen, who has heretofore been in the lord's colony, will also live there."
When Kiliaen van Rensselaer received the informa- tion concerning Van der Donck's intention to plant a colony on the south side of his manor, he forthwith com- missioned Pieter Wyncoop, then at Amsterdam with the ship, the Arms of Rensselaerswyck, to purchase from the Indians the lands lying at Katskill. According to the
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charter of 1629, the patroon claimed that no person could settle a colony within seven or eight miles of his manor, and that he could extend the limits of his own to Katskill if he settled a proportionate number of colonists on it, which number of emigrants was then on board the Arms of Rensselaerswyck. In order to preclude Van der Donck from making such a settlement, the patroon de- clared that he had already included the new tract within his manor, from Beeren Island to Katskill. 1
He therefore instructed Arendt van Curler to con- strain Van der Donck to desist from his undertaking. He wrote : "In case Van der Donck should prove obstinate, he shall be degraded from his office and left on his bouwery to complete his contracted lease. He shall not be allowed to depart, and his office shall be conferred pro- visionally on Nicolaas Coorn till further orders, and he shall be divested of all papers appertaining to his charge. But if he will desist, then he shall be allowed to hold his office and his bouwery."?
Van Curler also wrote to the patroon concerning the evils which had sprung up in the colony by the general competition to purchase peltry. He said : "The trade heretofore has always been at six fathoms of zeewan, [for a merchantable beaver skin]. Last year the residents as well as the colonists gave seven to seven and a half fathoms. I also gave the same. As soon as they saw that. I and the West India Company's commissary gave so much, they immediately gave nine, and since this spring ten fathoms. So at last the trade ran so high that we of the colony and the commissary at the fort agreed to publish a placard as well for the colonists as
1 Letter to Arendt van Curler, dated Amsterdam, Sept. 10, 1643. MSS. of Rensselaerswyck.
2 MSS. of Rensselaerswyck. An order to Arendt van Curler and Pieter Wyncoop concerning Katskill
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the residents and the company's servants that they should not presume, on pain of heavy fine and confisca- tion of their goods, to trade with the Indians for furs at more than nine fathoms of white wampum, or four and a half fathoms of black ; and that none, on pain of con- fiscation, should go into the woods to trade, and ordered that the officer [Van der Donck] should prevent it. And he has not even once attended to this ; nor will he do so even now. When he was told that he should take notice of the frauds and abuses in order to prevent the same as much as possible, he declared that he would not con- sent to be the worst man to others, that he would not make himself suspected by the colonists as his years, as officer, were few. And it happened last year, that we agreed together respecting a placard that no residents should presume to come with their boats within the limits of the colony, on confiscation of the same. There- upon there were great complaints on the part of the colo- nists. * * * Neither I nor the company have scarcely had any trade this year. I believe the residents have conveyed fully three to four thousand furs from above. So great a trade has never been driven as this year, and it would be very profitable if your honor could bring about with a high hand that the residents should not come to the colony to trade. Otherwise your honor will never derive any profit." 1
The patroon, as suggested by Van Curler, did attempt "with a high hand" to prevent traders from coming to his colony to traffic with the settlers and Indians. He ordered Nicolaas Coorn to fortify Beeren Island and to demand of each skipper of a vessel passing up and down the river, except those of the West India Company, a
1 Letter of Arendt van Curler to the patroon, June 16, 1643. MSS. of Rensselerswyck.
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toll of five guilders (two dollars) as a staple right or tax, and also to compel each one to lower his colors in honor of the patroon. In accordance with the instructions given him, he issued a manifesto prefaced with this paragraph :
"I, Nicolaas Coorn, quartermaster (wacht-meester) of Rensselaer's castle (steyn) and for the noble lord, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, under the high jurisdiction of the high and mighty Lords States General of the United Nether- lands, and the privileged West India Company, hereditary commander of the colonies on this North River of New Netherland, and as vice-commander in his place, make known to you that you shall not presume to use this river to the injury of the acquired right of the said lord in his rank as patroon of the colony of Rensselaerswyck, the first and the oldest on this river."
The loyal wacht-meester charged the intrusive traders with the following offences :
"First, you frequent this river without his [the patroon's] knowledge. , *
"Second, you have attempted afterward to withdraw from him and allure to yourself the tribes round about, which for many years have been accustomed to trade either at Fort Orange with the company's commissary, or with his commissary especially, and if possible to divert these tribes away to his injury, and to show them other secret trading places, greatly to the prejudice of the West India Company and of him, the patroon.
"Third, that you have destroyed the trade in furs by advancing and raising the price thereof on the company's commissary at Fort Orange, as well as on his (the patroon's) commissary ; that you are satisfied if you get merely some profit from it, not caring afterward whether or not the trade be so ruined that the patroon will thereby
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be unable to meet the expenses of his colony, the same being greatly prejudicial to him, the patroon.
"Fourth, that you sought to debauch and to turn his own inhabitants and subjects against their lord and master, furnishing them among other things with wine and strong drink, and selling this to them at a usurious and high price against his will, causing yourself to be paid in peltries, which they, contrary to his orders and their own promises, trade away, or in wheat, which they purloin from their lord, of which they have given no ac- count, of which the lawful tenths were not legally drawn, of which he, the patroon, has not even received his third part or half according to contract, and of which he has not refused the right of pre-emption, compelling the patroon, who has been assisted by his people with little or no advances considering his outlay, to enter these on his books, while you go away with that, yea, with his share, whereby he is deprived of the means to provide his people with all that they require because you so ex- haust them and impoverish his colony, which is highly prejudicial to him, the patroon.
"Since he is not bound to suffer these things from any private individuals, he doth warn you to refrain from doing any of them. Protesting in the name of the said " lord, should you presume in defiance of law to attempt to pass by contrary to this proclamation, I am directed to prevent you. Under this manifesto, however, you are permitted to trade with his commissary, but not with the Indians or his particular subjects, as will be seen and read in the admonition and instruction given by him, the patroon, to Pieter Wyncoop, the commissary, and Arendt van Curler, the commissary-general, conformable to the restrictions of the regulations contained therein."1
1 Protest of the patroon, dated the eighth day of September, 1643. MSS. of Rensselaerswyck.
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While many of the traders were willing to comply with the regulations of the patroon governing their traffic in his colony, there were some who openly defied the power of his officers to prevent their traffic with the Indians and the colonists. The most humiliating require- ment was that each master of a vessel passing Beeren Island should salute the flag of the patroon.
In the summer of 1644, Govert Loockermans, the skipper of the yacht the Good Hope, sailed from Fort Orange, and when passing Rensselaer's castle contempt- uously omitted the required salute. The vigilant officer of Rensselaer's fort cried out, "Lower your colors !"
"For whom should I," demanded the imperturbable seaman.
"For the staple-right of Rensselaerswyck," replied the exasperated commander.
"I lower my colors for no one except the prince of Orange and the lords, my masters," shouted the daring skipper.
The blunt refusal to do homage to the Rensselaer ensign left no other course of action open to Wacht- meester Coorn than that of firing upon the yacht of the contumacious mariner. Quickly training the nearest cannon toward the passing vessel, the Dutch officer ap- plied a match and fired the piece. Its shot tore through the mainsail and cut away some of the rigging. The ball of a second cannon, fired too high, passed over the Good Hope. A third cannon fired by an Indian sent its missile through the colors of the prince of Orange which the in- trepid skipper was waving above his head.
When Loockermans arrived at Fort Amsterdam, on the fifth of July, he lodged a complaint against Coorn and de- manded that reparation should be made him for the damages sustained by his vessel. The director-general
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and council of New Netherland ordered that Coorn should indemnify Loockermans for the injury done to the yacht, and forbade his firing on vessels passing Beeren Island under the penalty of corporal punishment. Seem- ingly the wacht-meester of Rensselaer's fort had no fear of the authority vested in the director and council of New Netherland, for he continued to demand toll and homage as he had previously done. The attorney-general of New Netherland was therefore again directed to notify Commander Coorn that if he did not refrain from inter- dicting the free navigation of the river to the height of its navigation that he would be prosecuted to the full ex- tent of the law. Coorn replied that it was a matter which the government and the patroon might settle be- tween them, and that the step he had taken had nothing else in view but "to keep the canker of free people" 1 out of Rensselaerswyck. Although frequent protests were made against this assumed privilege of the patroon nevertheless staple-right and the prescribed salute to the Rensselaer colors were demanded and obtained for a number of years thereafter by the undaunted com mander of Rensselaer's castle. ?
In mid-summer 1645, Director Kieft to obtain pledges of amity from the Indians of New Netherland visited Fort Orange to renew the former treaties made with the Mohawks and the other Wilden of the surrounding country. While the different conferences with the chiefs of the tribes detained the director-general at the fort, the following incident related by Van der Donck occurred : "It happened on a certain morning that the Indian in- terpreter lodging in the director's house came down stairs
1 " Alsoo het gedaen wort om den kancker der vrijluijden ugt sijn colonie te weren."
2 Albany records, vol. ii. fol. 192, 234, 263, ; vol. iii. fol. 187, 188, 219. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. i. pp. 377-381.
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and in the presence of the director and myself sat down and began to streak and paint his face. The director ob- served the application of the paint and requested me to in- quire of the Indian the name of the substance he was us- ing. He handed it to me and I passed it to the director, who carefully examined it and inferred from its weight and its greasy and shining appearance that it contain- ed some valuable metal. I bargained with the Indian for it to ascertain its composition. We experimented with it according to the best of our knowledge, and gave it to be assayed to an expert doctor of medicine, named Johannes La Montagne of the council of New Netherland. The mineral was put into a crucible and placed in the fire and after it had been in the fire long enough (according to my opinion) it was taken out, when it yielded two pieces of gold worth about three guilders. This assay was kept a secret. After the treaty of peace was made, an officer and several men were sent to the mountain to which the Indian guided them for a quantity of the mineral. They returned with about a bucketful, in- termingled with stones. Experiments were made with this quantity, which proved as good as the first." The director-general desired to send a small quantity of it to the Netherlands, and dispatched a man named Arent Corsen, with a bag containing the mineral, to New Haven, who took passage in an English ship about to sail to England, whence he was to proceed to Holland. This vessel sailed at Christmas and was lost at sea. "The director-general, William Kieft, sailed from New Netherland for the Netherlands in the year 1647 on board the Princess, taking with him specimens of the assayed mineral and of several others. This ship was also lost." 1
1 Beschrijvinge van Nieuw Nederlant door Adriaen van der Donck. Coll. N. Y. Historical Soc. Second series. vol. i. pp. 161, 162.
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It was afterwards discovered that the so-called gold was nothing more than pyrites, a combination of sulphur, iron, copper, and cobalt, having a yellowish metallic luster. It is commonly called fool's gold.
To celebrate the cessation of Indian hostilities in New Netherland and the ratification of the various treaties of peace made by the director-general and his council with the different tribes, which for five years had been at war with the Dutch living in the vicinity of Fort Amsterdam and on Long Island, a general thanksgiving was ordered on the thirty-first of August, to be observed throughout New Netherland.
"Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God, in his un- bounded clemency and mercy, in addition to many previous blessings, to suffer us to reach a long-wished-for peace with the Indians ;
"Therefore is it deemed necessary to proclaim the fact to all the inhabitants of New Netherland, to the end that in all places within the aforesaid country where Dutch and English churches are established, God Al- mighty may be especially thanked, praised, and blessed, on next Wednesday forenoon, being the sixth of Septent- ber, the text to be appropriate and the sermon to be applicable thereto."
A copy of the proclamation was sent to Domine Megapolensis, in Rensselaerswyck, accompanied with this order : "Your reverence will please announce this matter to the people of the congregation next Sunday, so that they may have notice. On which we rely."1
Father Jogues, the French Jesuit missionary, who had returned to Canada, was sent in 1646, by the governor of Canada, as an embassador of peace to the Mohawks,
1 Albany records. vol. ii. fol. 312-317. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. i. pp. 275, 276, 278.
6
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with whom Father Jogues had been a prisoner. On the sixteenth of May, he set out on his mission from Three Rivers with Mr. Bourdon, a French officer, and four Mohawks and two Algonquins.1 On the twenty-ninth of May they reached Lake George, which was then called by the Indians Andiatorocte. Their arrival at the lake on the eve of the festival of Corpus Christi, instituted by the Roman Catholic Church to honor Christ's body in the holy sacrament, was commemorated by the devout mis- sionary naming the beautiful sheet of water Lac du Saint Sacrement (Lake of the Holy Sacrament). Thence they came to Ossarague, a fishing place on the Hudson. A few days afterward the party reached Fort Orange, where Father Jogues received a hearty welcome from his Dutch friends, to whom he paid the sum of money that they had so generously advanced to ransom him from the Mohawks. On his return from his visit to the Mohawks he wrote a short description of New Holland, as he de- nominated New Netherland. He had a favorable oppor- tunity at the time of his visit to inspect Fort Orange, and to obtain considerable information respecting the growth of the settlement. His statements, therefore, are not only interesting, but truthful. He writes : "There are two things in this settlement (which is called Rensselaers- wyck, or in other words the settlement of Rensselaer, who is a rich Amsterdam merchant), first, a miserable little fort called Fort Orange, built of logs, with four or five pieces of Breteuil cannon and as many swivels. This has been reserved and is maintained by the West India Company. This fort was formerly on an island in the river. It is now on the main-land toward the Iroquois, a little above the said island. Second, a colony sent here by this Rensselaer, who is the patroon. This colony is
1 The Algonquin tribe lived in Canada.
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composed of about a hundred persons, who reside in some twenty-five or thirty houses, built along the river as each one found most convenient. In the principal house lives the patroon's agent ; the minister has his apart, in which service is performed. There is also a kind of bailiff here, whom they call the seneschal, who administers justice. Their houses are solely of boards and thatched, with no mason-work except the chimneys. The forest furnishes many large pines ; they make boards by means of their mills, which they have here for the purpose.
"They found some pieces of cultivated ground, which the savages had formerly cleared, and in which they sow wheat and oats for beer, and for their horses, of which they have great numbers. There is little land fit for tillage, being hemmed in by hills, which are poor soil. This obliges them to separate, and they already occupy two or three leagues of country.
" Trade is free to all ; this gives the Indians all things cheap, each of the Hollanders outbidding his neighbor, and being satisfied, provided he can gain some little profit.
"This settlement is not more than twenty leagues from the Agniehrorons, [Mohawks] who can be reached by land or water, as the river [the Mohawk] on which the Iroquois lie, falls into that [the Hudson] which passes by the Dutch, but there are many low rapids and a fall [Cohoes falls] of a short half league, where the canoe must be carried." 1
The church, which the patroon had instructed Van Curler to build in 1642, was not erected, it seems, until 1646. The commissary, writing to the patroon in June, 1643, says : "As for the church it is not yet contracted for, not even begun. I had written to your honor that I
1 Father Jogues's description of New Netherland, written at Three Rivers in New France, August 3, 1646. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. viii. pp. 217, .218.
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had a building almost ready, namely the covenanted work, which would have been for Domine Megapolensis, but this house did not suit Domine Johannes ; in other respects it was adapted in every way to his wants. On this account I have laid it aside. The one which I in- tend to build this summer in the pine-grove will be thirty-four feet long by nineteen wide. It will be large enough for the first three or four years to preach in and can be used afterward as a residence by the sexton, or for a school. I hope your honor will not take this ill as it happened through good intentions." 1
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