USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 9
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Stuyvesant came himself, in May, 1658, to inspect the situa- tion on the Delaware, especially to investigate charges of smug- gling, and complaints of various sorts. At Tinicum he con-
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ferred with the head men of the Swedes-their sheriff, Van Dyck; their magistrates, Olaf Stille, Mathys Hanson, Pieter Rambo, and Peter Cock; the captain, Sven Schute, and others. These took the oath of allegiance to the Dutch authority, and pre- ferred a number of requests, most of which Stuyvesant granted. A further petition that if war should occur between Sweden and the Dutch Republic, they might remain neutral, and not be obliged to serve against their mother country, he acceded to, like- wise.
As already said, the Dutch settlers had made slow progress in agriculture. The winter of 1658-9 set in early, and contin- ued long, causing "great distress." The excessive rains in the autumn "prevented the collection of fodder for the creatures," and the prevalent fever "curbed us down," says Alrich's letter to Stuyvesant, "so that all the labor in the field was abandoned." "From the first," he adds, "of the few Netherland settlers who actually lived here at our arrival, scarce one has obtained during our residence one schepel of grain. . . The time the first year, of those who came with us, was spent in building houses and making gardens. . . The summer passed without having thrown much seed into the ground."1
Just before the winter began, the colony's "galiot" was sent to Manhattan for food, but was frozen in there, and, to crown all misfortunes, a yacht that had been dispatched by Stuyvesant, laden with "pork, beef, maize, etc .. " had a treacherous skipper, who ran away with the ship on a voyage of privateering. Altogether, "a large number of men, and not a small number of cattle" died. "We will de- voutly pray our Lord," writes Alrich, "and hope that our sins may cease, and then the chastisements may also diminish."
With Alrich there had arrived, in April, 1657, as a member of the colony, one who deserves special mention, as the first schoolmaster on the Delaware. This was Evart Pietersen. Our
1"Not yet being able to go to Virginia or
to the North." he adds, "our granary, and
larder, and trust has been only at the Man- . hattans."
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knowledge of him is scanty, but he was sent out to be the "school- master, comforter of the sick, and setter of the psalms." He found, he wrote, twenty families at New Amstel, all Swedes but five or six. In August of that year he reported that he had a school of twenty-five children. This was the germ of the schools and colleges of Delaware and Pennsylvania-the beginning of them all.
There is frequent mention of commerce in bricks. They were brought from brickyards at Manhattan to New Amstel for the chimneys of the new houses, there and at Altona. The ship De Meulen (The Mill), which had brought from Holland the ill- provided company at the end of September, 1658, had bricks as part of her cargo. But earlier than that, 1656, we find Jacobus Crabbe presenting a petition concerning a plantation near New Amstel, "where brick and tile are made and baked." The live stock increased slowly. Many allusions are made to the subject in the reports. Horses and cattle were sent from Manhattan, or bought in Virginia, and it was a practice to place them among the farmers-mostly the Swedes-to be kept for their use and part of the increase. Cattle appear to have been driven over- land from Manhattan, in at least one instance. Goats are men- tioned, at one time, with a demand that they have a keeper. At another, the swine are to be yoked, or may be in default killed by the soldiers. Alrich writes, 1657, that they are "few in number and wild;" also that he has himself but two cows which give milk. Oxen and horses are much needed, he says, those he has being "feeble and weak." Three persons have arrived, he re- ports in a later letter, with about forty cows, and these he has bought at 128 to 130 guilders apiece.
The fur-trade is not much mentioned, but it was probably vigorously maintained, and of importance. In 1657 there was a "general meeting" of settlers at Fort Casimir, and the prices to be paid for furs were agreed upon and signed by about thirty persons : for a "merchantable beaver" two fathoms of seawan
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(wampum) ; for a "good bear's hide, to the value of a beaver," the same; for an "elant's hide" the same; for a deer skin, 120 seawan ; and smaller amounts for skins of foxes and other ani- mals. An official placard complains that the settlers were too eager for trade, and "ran after" the Indians. They were warned not to coax them or give them gifts, but to let them bring in their furs and receive the pay appointed. In September, 1660, Beek- man writes that the ship De Groene Arent (Green Eagle) took out 21 bear skins and 106 deer-skins. A year later he remarks upon the war between the Minquas and Senecas that it "makes
Signature of William Penn, founder of l'ennsylvania; born 1644; died 1718
the trade bad," and in a letter in February, 1662, he says the war continues, and that "the river savages here are also in great fear, so that they have not undertaken their usual hunting, which is the cause of a poor trade."
Besides furs and skins, other exports were as yet few. Not enough grain was raised, as a rule, for home use, though in No- vember, 1662, Beekman writes: "Next summer we shall most likely be compelled to get our bread-stuffs from the Manhattans, as at present all the grain is bought up by the merchants and sent there." In March, 1658, a vessel for Manhattan was loaded partly with hickory wood at Altona, and partly with rye straw at Tinicum. Later, we hear of a cargo of lumber-"clap- boards"-loaded on Upland kill to go by the ship De Eycken- boom (The Oak Tree) to Holland.
In July, 1658, William Beekman, who had been a schepen (magistrate) at Manhattan since 1656, was appointed by Stuy- vesant to represent the West India Company on the Delaware, as
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its commissary and Vice-Director. He was sent to Altona (Christina) to reside-though his duties in connection with the prevention of smuggling and the collection of customs took him much to New Amstel-and he remained at Altona throughout the Dutch period, his letters and reports forming the most valu- able material extant for a study of the colony, especially that part within the Pennsylvania limits. Most of the Swedish settlers, being north of the Christina, on the company's land, came under his supervision, and his relations with them were friendly.
One of the earliest of Beekman's duties was to purchase from the Indians the land from Bombay Hook to the Delaware capes. It had been feared that the English "from Virginia" might seize the mouth of the river. The usual agreement was made with the complaisant natives, and in May, 1659, a log "fort" was built at the Hoorn-kill by Beekman and D'Hinoyossa-the latter the lieutenant of Alrich at New Amstel. A small company of soldiers was placed in the fort. It is worthy of note that this was the first reoccupancy of the place by white men since the de- struction of Swanendael, in 1631.
No enemies from Virginia appeared, but in the summer and autumn of 1659 trouble threatened from Maryland.
The Maryland colony was now a quarter of a century old. Its charter had been granted by Charles the First of England, in April, 1632, to George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, but he dying, it was actually issued to his son, Cecil Calvert, the second Baron, on June 20 of that year. By its terms this grant was for lands uncultivated and unoccupied-hactenas inculta is the Latin phrase of the document-and the question was to recur after- ward many times, as we shall see, whether the west shore of the Delaware was unoccupied by white men in the year 1632. Lord Baltimore sent out two ships, the Ark and the Dove, in the au- tumn of 1633, under the command of his brother, Leonard Cal- vert, whom he appointed Governor, and in March, 1634. they landed at St. Mary's, on the Potomac, and began the settlement.
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We should remind ourselves at this point of the great events which had occurred in England during the time we have been tracing the struggling life of the white men's colonies on the west side of the Delaware, from the day of DeVries and Swanendael down to the supremacy of the Dutch flag under Stuyvesant. The Civil War in England had endured from 1642 onward to the execution of King Charles in 1649. Cromwell had ruled Eng- land to his death in 1658, and now, in 1659, as the settlers at New Amstel began to be concerned about the Maryland government's designs, the "restoration" of Charles the Second was impending.
In the course of their petty troubles a particularly vexatious experience of both Dutch and Swedes on the Delaware had been the "desertion" not only of colonists, but of enlisted soldiers and "servants," to the Maryland settlements along the Chesapeake. In June, 1659, Governor Alrich and his Council at New Amstel decided to address a letter to the Maryland government, asking the rendition of six soldiers who had recently absconded in that direction. This letter they sent to Colonel Nathaniel Utie, an Englishman who occupied the island in Chesapeake Bay, opposite the mouth of Elk river, known as Spesutia. Utie had located there to trade with the Indians, and had been accorded a place in the Governor's Council in Maryland, and besides had been ap- pointed captain in the military force of the province. The Dutch apparently recognized him as the most important of their Mary- land neighbors.
The immediate outcome of the letter to Colonel Utie was not at all what Governor Alrich had designed. It stirred up the Maryland authorities to claim that the whole of the Delaware settlements were within the Maryland grant. The Calverts had long held this view, but an opportune moment to insist upon it had not before appeared. Colonel Utie now told the New Am- stel messenger that Lord Baltimore had commanded that the lands within his boundaries "should be reviewed and surveyed, and when ascertained be reduced under his jurisdiction," and that
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he himself had a commission to go to New Amstel on this busi- ness.
The Governor of Maryland at this time was Josias Fendall, for whom even the historians of that colony and state have few words of praise. Fendall and his Council, at Anne Arundel, (Annapolis), on the 3d of August (1659), directed Colonel Utie to repair to "the pretended governor of a people seated in Delaware Bay, within his lordship's province," and "to require them to depart." He was to "insinuate" to them, however, if he found an opportunity, that if they would come to Maryland to settle they would find "good conditions" and "have protection in their lives, liberty and estates."
It resulted, therefore, that on the 6th of September, Colonel Utie and a party of five companions and attendants, with four of the Dutch deserters, came riding into New Amstel. Alrich was already nerve-shaken, and this cavalcade may well have alarmed him. Besides the droughts, the floods, the scarcity of food, the weakness of the fort, the slender force of soldiers, his wife had recently died. Though the veil of the future was not rent for him, his own death lay but a few weeks distant.
Colonel Utie presented the Maryland demands in a letter from Fendall. Beekman, summoned from Altona, joined with Alrich in receiving them. The Dutch made the best reply they could to so imperious a summons : that they were not subject to the King of England, but to the States-General of the Nether- lands; that their colony dated back many years, to a time before Lord Baltimore's grant had been heard of; and that they had no authority to surrender lands or make agreements, and must refer · the whole subject to Stuyvesant, for which purpose a reasonable time, say three weeks, must be granted. Utie, according to the Dutch officials' report to Stuyvesant, was blustering and irritat- ing; he told them their weakness was evident, and that it would suit him best to seize the place now, when the tobacco crop was mostly gathered. Finally, however, he agreed to grant the
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three weeks' time, and after a stay of five days he and his suite departed.
Stuyvesant, at Manhattan, received news of these doings with characteristic rage. He denounced Utie and his "friv- olous, fabricated instructions ;" he almost equally rated Alrich and Beekman and their advisers for their "not less frivolous answers and proceedings," permitting Utie "to sow his seditious and mutinous seed" at New Amstel "during four or five days." Such conduct showed, he said, "unquestionable proofs of want of prudence and courage." They had earnestly asked for help, so he sent some at once, sixty soldiers-though he could ill spare them-under command of the valiant Captain Martin Krygier, a burgomaster of New Amsterdam. Also he sent "the beloved, (liscreet and faithful" Cornelius Van Ruyven, his secretary, who with Krygier should make a commission to sift thoroughly the situation on the South river. Still further, he commissioned two others, Augustine Heermans, (or Herman) and Resolved Waldron to go forthwith on an embassy to Maryland. Herman was a well known figure later as the "lord" of Bohemia Manor, on the Chesapeake; Waldron was the "under schout" at New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant directed them to see the Maryland authorities, request the surrender of fugitives, maintain the valid- ity of the Dutch claims on the Delaware, and demand reparation for the "frivolous demands and bloody threatening" of Utie.
It resulted that nothing further of importance came of the Maryland demonstrations. Utie did not return at the end of the three weeks, or at all. The five hundred men whom it was re- ported he would bring to subdue New Amstel and Altona never appeared before those places. Instead, however, Van Ruyven . and Krygier, Stuyvesant's commissioners, did come, and insti- tuted an inquiry into Alrich's management, the outcome of which was an acrimonious dispute between him and them, which had hardly subsided when Alrich died, at the end of December, 1659. Herman and Waldron proceeded at once to Maryland, and the
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journal of their trip, written by Herman, is an interesting and valuable document. They left New Amstel on the 30th of Sep- tember, overland, with Indian guides, and a few soldiers. Reach- ing the heads of Elk river they procured a boat and paddled down that stream to Chesapeake bay, and carefully avoiding the neigh- borhood of Spesutia island-on which sounds of a "frolic" were heard-reached Kent island on the 3d of October. On the 4th they were at Severn river, and on the 6th they reached the Pa- tuxent. On the 8th they met Philip Calvert, the provincial secretary, and after some delay a formal meeting was arranged, with Governor Fendall and his Council, "at Mr. Bateman's, at Patuxent." This was held at last on the 16th, and was the first of a series of conferences in which, naturally, the principal theme of discussion was the question of superior claim on the Dela- ware. There was plenty of good cheer, after the Maryland manner then and since, and in the intervals of eating and drink- ing the debates grew earnest. At one time the Maryland people said that Lord Baltimore's right, being that of the English crown, rested upon the discoveries of Sir Walter Raleigh, whereupon the Dutch envoys said their rights came still earlier from ex- plorers sent out by the King of Spain, to which the United Netherlands, by the treaty of peace with him, had succeeded.
On the 17th of October, Gov. Fendall exhibited the patent of King Charles to Lord Baltimore, and showed that it granted him land from Watkins Point, on Chesapeake bay, "northward unto the fortieth degree of latitude, and from the Atlantic ocean and Delaware bay on the east to the Potomac river on the west." The envoys were, no doubt, quite prepared to learn this, for in a con- versation earlier with Secretary Calvert he had told them that Maryland extended to the limits of New England, and being asked, "Where then, would New Netherland come in?" calmly answered he did not know!
Herman and Waldron, however, inspected the patent care- fully, and were not long in fastening upon one of its weak points.
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In a memorandum which they drew up they pointed out the hac- tenas inculta clause, the recital that Baltimore had asked the King for land "not cultivated or planted, but only inhabited as yet by barbarous Indians," whereas, they said, their people had before 1632 been settled upon the South river. The Maryland claim, they said, went back but twenty-seven years, whereas the Dutch had been in possession for forty years-a statement which could hardly be justified unless the supposed voyage of Hendrick- sen in 1616, in the Onrust, could be established. That De Vries had planted his colony at Swanendael in the early part of 1631, a full year before Lord Baltimore's grant, there was no doubt, but it was equally beyond question-as the Swedes had insisted -that that settlement had been abandoned almost as soon as be- gun.
The result of the conferences, however, evidently was to im- press the Maryland officials with a doubt of the complete validity of their claims upon the Delaware. Colonel Utie declared that he would like an opportunity to repeat his visit to New Amstel with a fresh commission, but Secretary Calvert and others of the Council were more conciliatory. What Fendall thought did not much matter, as he was nearing the end of his service as Gov- ernor. On the 20th of October Waldron departed for Manhat- tan, "with the reports, papers, and documents," while Herman proceeded to Virginia to try to make friends with the Governor there, in case of a possible future conflict with Maryland.
No disturbance, therefore, of the peace of New Amstel was caused by the Maryland government. Nor did any other enemy appear for five years. The colonists on the Delaware continued much as before. At the death of Alrich, Alexander d'Hino- yossa succeeded as Deputy-Governor, and though his abilities tended much more to distraction than order, and he pleased ap- parently no one but himself-certainly not Beekman, or Stuy- vesant, as their letters and reports abundantly show-he held his place to the end of the Dutch rule in 1664. Few events in
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1660-63 demand extended notice. D'Hinoyossa's arbitrary con- duct, which Stuyvesant could not control because the City of Am- sterdam owned the New Amstel colony, made no small part of Beekman's letters. Even worse was D'Hinoyossa's behavior to the Indians. The sale of liquor to them went on almost .un- checked. Beekman's letters abound in details of this. In May, 1660, he quotes the testimony of several persons that for a long time no regard had been paid by the Governor "to the sale of strong drinks to the savages, so that they run about with it in the daytime, and discharge their guns near the houses," etc. A few weeks later, June 30, he writes to Stuyvesant :
"Sir, I cannot omit to inform your honor that I see many drunken savages daily, and I am told that they sit drinking pub- licly in some taverns. On the 14th inst., when I went with Capt. Jacop and Mons. Schreck to the house of Foppe Janssen (a tavern) to salute Mr. Rendel Revel, who had come overland from Virginia, while we were there several drunken savages came be- fore the windows, so that it was a disgrace in presence of strangers. Likewise our soldiers and others have told me that the savages had an entire anker of anise-liquor on the strand near the church, and sat around it drinking. One Gerret, the smith, came also at the same time complaining ; he lives in the back part of the town near the edge of the forest, and says that he is much annoyed by drunken savages every night."
One of the worst offenders in the liquor selling was an offi- cial at Altona, the "clerk and reader" for the Fort, Jan Juriaens Becker. Despite his semi-clerical character, he was a bold of- fender, and supplied both soldiers and Indians with brandy in the face of Beekman's protests. Finally he was brought to trial at Manhattan, and then accused others of the same thing. He declared, indeed, that it would be hard to find many persons on the South river who did not sell liquor to the Indians, "because without it it is hard to get provisions"- a statement which finds some support in a letter of Beekman himself, a little later, in
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which he says to Stuyvesant, "I need also two ankers of brandy or distilled water to barter it next month for maize for the garri- son, as it is easier obtained for liquor than for other goods." Becker submitted the affidavits of three persons in his defense, who declared not only that liquor was "openly sold to the sav- ages in the Colony and in and near Fort Altona," but that if the "poor inhabitants" did not sell or barter liquor to the Indians for "maize, meat, and other things, they would perish from hunger." And another affidavit submitted by Becker declared that Alrich had once sent the deponents "with several ankers of brandy and Spanish wine in a sloop to the savages, to trade them for Indian corn, or wampum or whatever they could best obtain."
Becker was convicted and fined, but upon his earnest pleading that the fine would ruin him, and that the liquor traffic "was car- ried on so openly by high and low officers of the state," that he thought it a venial matter for him occasionally to trade some brandy "for Indian corn and deer meat," the main penalty was remitted.
The Indians themselves were well aware of the ruin brought upon them by the "fire-water." Beekman writes in March, 1662, that at Tinneconck some of the "river" chiefs had "addressed themselves to Mr. Hendrick Huyghen," and had "proposed and requested that no more brandy or strong drink should be sold" to their people. They presented three belts of wampum to support the petition, and Beekman remarks that "the request was a proper one," agreeing with Stuyvesant's orders, and the placards posted about. D'Hinoyossa acted upon it by threatening a fine of 300 guilders on any trader caught selling liquor to the natives, and also authorizing the Indians themselves "to rob those who bring liquors."
The consequences of the liquor traffic, open or illicit. were quarrels and bloodshed. The drunken Indian, equally with the drunken white man, was capable of every mischief, and it was the pitiable experience of the little hamlets at New Amstel and Al-
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8 9º ano
DIEV . ET -MONA DROITS
CHARLES R.
Derras Is Majedy, in confiberanon of the great Derit and Faithtut Services of Sor William Pern Deceafed, and toz Bibers other good Caufes Lint thereunto mobing, bath born Granoufly pleated by Letters pa- tents bearing Date the Fourth Day of March taft paft, to Gibr and Grant unto William Penn Efquire, Son and bert of the faid Sir William Penn, ca all that Erad of Landin America, called by the name of Pennfilvania, as the fame is 2Sounded on the Caft by Delaware River, from Embetbe Sites Dittance Rotinbaros of Newcalle Foibn, unto the Char and fourtieth Degree of Rozthern Latitude, if the faid River borhertenD fofar Roth= Wards, and if the faid River mhall not ertend fo far Rothbard, then by the faid River fo far as it both ertend : And from the brad of the faid Biber. the Gafteri, Sounds to be Determined by : Meridian Line to be Deamon from r.,. Dead of the faid fiber, unto the faid Ebeer and fourtith Degree, the faid 10: vince to ertend colefibaro Five Degrees in Longitude, to be Computed from the faid Catrern Sounds, and to be Mounted on the Rozth, by the Beginning of the Elere and fourtitth Degree of Rozthern Hatitude, and on the South by a Circle Drain at Elbelbe Miles Diftance from Newcaftle Rozthibares, and cciettibaros unto the Beginning of the Fourtieth Degree of northern Mati: tube, and then by a fraisot Mine cartbaros to the lot of Longitude above mentioned, together Quithall Polbers, DieDrimennes and Jurisdictions neerfary for the Government of the faid pro. vince, as by the faid Letters Patents, Reference being thereunto had, both more at large appear.
Dis Majetty both therefore hereby publith and Declare tis Bopal COhill and pleafure, That all Perfons Settled o: Unhabiting Within the Limits of the faid province, Do yield all Ene Obedience to the fait William Penn, his heirs and Hmgns, as abfolute Proprietaries and Governours thereof,. asalfo to the Deputy os Deputies, Agents of Lieutenants, Lawfully Commuthionated by him or thein, according to the Polbers and Minthoutus Granted by the faid Letters patents; cabere: With his Majesty Erpeas and Requires a trady Complyance from all perfons whom it may con= cern, as they tender ins Dajetties Difpieafure.
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