Island. Although the evidence has been attacked, it is not at all
unlikely that May did promptly put some of the _New Netherland’s_
passengers ashore at Manhattan to begin the replacement of any
temporary works there. There must have been a truck house or two, huts
and possibly even palisades in need of rehabilitation for permanent,
year-round occupancy. The immediate occupation of such a strategic
location at the mouth of the river could hardly have been neglected
anyway, especially as it was necessary at the time to escort from the
harbor a poaching French ship whose captain seemed bent on going
ashore to set up the arms of his king and take possession of the
country.
In any case, some eighteen families were conveyed up the Hudson to a
previously selected site a few miles above the redoubt at Norman’s
Kill. In this more convenient location a new fort was built, while
the Walloons settled around it. Fort Orange, as they called this
plantation, was within the limits of present-day Albany, New York. Here
the Mohegans, as well as the Iroquois, came immediately with presents
of beaver and other peltry to confirm their alliance with the Dutch,
and the old trade continued to flourish under the new management of the
West India Company.
It would appear that about this time a group of May’s people also went
up the Connecticut River to establish a trading post near the present
site of Hartford and to begin the construction of Fort Good Hope there.
But the building of this outpost lagged. It was some years before the
fort was completed and manned. When that came about, in 1633, Fort Good
Hope had become a focal point of rivalry between the Dutch and the
New Englanders for the beaver meadows of the Connecticut valley and a
question mark in the matter of resolving jurisdiction over the country.
* * * * *
At the time of the planting of Fort Orange another part of May’s
expedition, including some of the Walloon families, was dispatched
to the Delaware, or South River, as the Hollanders now called it to
distinguish it from the Hudson, their great North River.
Up the South River, on its east bank, at a strategic trading site also
previously selected by Captain May, a new Fort Nassau was built. It was
opposite the confluence of the Schuylkill River and the Delaware, the
tongue of land on which Philadelphia was later founded by William Penn
but which at the time of the Dutch arrival was the seat of probably
the largest Lenni Lenape community in the valley. There, at Passyunk,
lived the great chief of all the lower river Indians. Fort Nassau, the
new Dutch trading post across the Delaware River, stood at the mouth of
Timber Creek within the present limits of Gloucester, New Jersey.
Some soldiers and traders, together with a few of the Walloon farmers
and their families who were originally to have settled a farming
plantation on the lower west side of Delaware Bay, were eventually
installed at Fort Nassau. There, they established trade relations with
the natives. Others, it is said, with the addition of new recruits from
Holland the following spring, were sent still higher up the river to
build a house and operate a trading station on Verhulsten Island, near
the present site of Trenton. This island, at the head of navigation
just below the falls, was named for Captain May’s successor in 1625,
William Verhulst, who made his headquarters on the South River. The
site of the falls was an important Indian crossing from the valley of
the Hudson, where the Lenni Lenape traditionally traded with other
tribes.
The Lenni Lenape Indians, later called the Delaware by the English,
were an Algonquin nation that inhabited all the immense valley of
the Delaware. Tribal relatives occupied important villages even in
the lower valley of the Hudson River. Relatively peaceful, the Lenni
Lenape made their homes beside placid streams, in grass-matted huts
thatched with the bark of cedar, the men fishing and hunting while
their women tilled gardens of corn, beans, tobacco and squash. The men
hunted fur-bearing animals whose pelts would be useful for winter body
coverings. The women scraped the pelts with stone tools and dried them
on wooden stretching racks, rubbing the animals’ brains and livers into
the skins to help in the suppling process.
All was not quiet and peace for the Lenape however. They were subject
to terrifying raids by the Susquehannocks (Minquas, the Dutch called
them) as well as by the Iroquoian relatives of the Susquehannocks who
lived farther up the valley of the Susquehanna River. These fearsome
marauders stole their women, burnt their houses and devastated their
gardens. Trapping beaver and muskrat for blankets or hunting the
raccoon too far away from native grounds was a precarious venture
for Lenape braves. In fact, some tribes had fled their more isolated
villages for the safety of Passyunk on the Schuylkill before the white
men came. Others, on the west bank of the lower river, had crossed over
the Delaware to settle on the safer east bank.
So it was that at the coming of the Dutch these river Indians welcomed
the Europeans’ guns. And the deliberative Hollanders bought land and
made trade treaties with them while, at the same time, probing for
avenues of trade with the Lenapes’ enemies, too. Although there were
muskrat, mink, ordinary otter and some brown beaver on the South River,
the Dutch well knew from previous dealings with the Iroquois that there
were vast stores of the finer black pelts, both beaver and otter, and
valuable “lion skins” cached in the “forts” of the Susquehannocks
and their northern relatives. However, on the lower Delaware, it was
principally muskrat that the Lenape had to offer, the market value of
which was but a fraction of other pelts.
The muskrat, a bushy-furred member of the rodent family, resembles
nothing so much as a big wharf rat. This was something with which the
seagoing Dutchmen were only too familiar. As a matter of practice they
referred to the kindred fur bearers in America simply as “rats.” Like
the Englishmen they also marketed both the pelts and the musky cods,
the fluids of which were useful for perfumes and as demothing agents.
Muskrats frequent tidewater marshlands and swamps. Their hind feet
are oar-like, being slightly webbed and set obliquely to the legs,
permitting a swivel action that propels them through the water. They
steer themselves with their tails which are flattened sidewise. The
Indians hunted and trapped these animals along their waterside runs
very much as they did the beaver. And they often dumped the skinned
carcasses of the “rats” into the communal stew pot, much to the disgust
of the traders who had to partake of the feast which always preceded
barter.
In the early days of the Dutch occupation on the South River, as it
turned out, the Hollanders were not too successful in opening up trade
with the Susquehannocks and their Iroquois relatives of the hinterland.
The Susquehannocks were too busy subjugating the Lenni Lenape. By the
time things settled down, after most of the lower river Indians had
taken flight or been made tributary, the Susquehannocks were bartering
in a more convenient market. They were selling pelts at the mouth of
their own river among the English in the Chesapeake Bay.
On the other hand, the furs of the lower Delaware River Indians were
not hard to come by, even when they were good. Brown beaver by the
bundle, when the Lenape had it, might be taken for a white clay pipe
worth a mere pittance. To an Indian who had not yet learned the true
value of such a tobacco pipe, with its smoothly beautiful bowl and
straight stem, it was a treasure to accompany him to his grave. And,
as for the Dutchman’s iron and his colored cloth, his liquor, his
firearms, and especially the clothes he wore, these all represented
unbelievable wealth to the savage. Quick to learn that he could acquire
such amazing riches for a few animal skins, he would risk traffic with
his aboriginal enemies if necessary to get the kinds of pelts the white
men wanted.
But it was entirely different when it came to the food for which the
Dutch in their early occupation of the Delaware valley had to depend
on their native neighbors. Although the Lenape were perfectly willing
to part with their own furs, and sometimes took extraordinary risks to
get more of them, it was another matter when it came to corn and beans.
With the Minquas constantly raiding, no treasure could tempt a Lenape
chief to give up what little corn he might have to keep his people from
starving.
It was this difficulty, coupled with the squeeze put on New Netherland
by greedy directors of the West India Company, that soon brought about
the recall of the South River settlers to Manhattan. One small yacht,
the directors contended, would adequately take care of the South River
trade at much less cost than maintaining garrisons there under the
conditions with which they had to contend.
Anyway, it was asserted, the need for formal occupation of this distant
outpost was less necessary now that England had joined the Netherlands
in the war against Spain. All ports of each country were open to
merchantmen and warships of the other, and both were committed to
maintain fleets that were finally to rid the world of Spanish might.
Under the circumstances the English would hardly risk offending their
ally by disturbing any part of the Netherlands’ province in America.
So, after the government of New Netherland was formally taken over
in 1626 by Peter Minuit, who forthwith installed a “Battery” on the
southern tip of Manhattan Island for protection against the Spaniards
and named the place “Fort Amsterdam,” the South River was all but
abandoned as a plantation. Now and then Dutch factors put ashore at
Fort Nassau to occupy it temporarily as a trading post, but by 1628 all
the Walloon farmers had returned to the North River.
There, at Fort Amsterdam, the company now concentrated its own
colonists and centralized the control of its fur trade, while promoting
another scheme for the permanent planting of the outlying districts
with farmers at no expense to itself.
* * * * *
The no-expense colonizing scheme was not a new one among the colonial
powers of Europe, except for its dressing.
Members of the West India Company who at their own expense planted the
unoccupied provinces of New Netherland were to become “patroons,” that
is, proprietors of little colonial principalities with feudalistic
“privileges and exemptions.” By transporting and settling a specified
number of colonists, black slaves qualifying as such, a rich if
otherwise undistinguished merchant of Amsterdam could elevate himself
to the worshipful status of a feudal lord. Of course he had first to
purchase his land from the Indians in conformance with Dutch policy. A
little _aqua vitae_ and a few jackets sufficed usually to keep that a
relatively minor expense however.
There was only one hitch. A patroon could not engage in the fur trade.
He had freedom of trade in any merchandise “except beavers, otters,
minks, and all sorts of peltry.” The commerce in pelts was to remain
the company’s monopoly.
Because of this restriction the early patroonships were destined to
failure. Trade in furs was needed to help root a new plantation in the
soil, as had already been proved so often on the wild American coasts.
Only one of the early patroonships survived, Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s
colony in the Albany area. And it was the illegal pursuit of private
fur trade that suckled Rensselaerwyck through its infancy.
The earliest patroonship for which land was chosen in New Netherland
was patented on the “South River” in 1630. Samuel Godyn and Samuel
Blommaert, leading members of the company, were original partners in
this venture which later included Captain David Pieters de Vries among
others. Their original manor tract, called Swanendael, lay west of Cape
Henlopen in Delaware Bay, but the proprietorship was later extended
to the opposite shore including Cape May. The bay, reportedly, was a
favorite haunt of whales, many having been sighted there in the past.
It was decided that whaling would be a profitable enterprise in lieu of
fur trading to support the plantation in its infancy.
The first colonizing expedition to Swanendael arrived in the spring of
1631 and planted at Whorekill, on present-day Lewes Creek, just above
Cape Henlopen. Although the whaling proved a failure that year, the
ship that brought over the colonists returning to Amsterdam with no
more than a sample of oil taken from a dead whale found on the beach,
it was said that the settlers did seed their land and had a fine crop
by July. But then, as the story goes, a piece of tin was the instrument
of their undoing.
They had emblazoned a small sheet of this metal with the arms of
Holland and attached it to a pillar which was erected to proclaim
their possession of the land. An Indian chief, happening along,
appropriated the tin, probably with the idea of converting it into a
shiny tobacco pipe. That savage whim, it was claimed, set off a chain
of misunderstanding that ended in his own death and the massacre of the
Dutch. Only one of the thirty-three settlers survived the carnage.
The Hollanders had built a brick house which should have served
them well as a fort. They were also supposed to have surrounded
the house with palisades, a requirement of the time, and to have
had an Indian-fighting mastiff handy for just such an emergency.
However, according to those who later argued with the company over
responsibility for the failure of the Swanendael patroonship, the
settlers at Whorekill were caught and butchered individually one
day while laboring in the fields, unable to reach the safety of the
palisades reportedly erected--while their fierce dog was unfortunately
chained at the house.
If Whorekill, which may be translated as Harlots’ Creek, acquired its
name as indicated, one cannot resist wondering whether playful Indian
squaws, too much _aqua vitae_ and vengeful braves might have had
something to do with the demise of the Dutchmen. Certain it is that
these first Europeans “left other reminders of their brief sojourn on
the bay besides their skeletons,” for later Dutchmen who visited in
this vicinity “with their goods where they traded with the Indians ...
got the country dutyes, otherwise called the Pox.”
When Captain David de Vries came over as patroon in the winter of
1632-33 he built a lodging hut ashore, constructed “sloops” for whaling
and set up a kettle for rendering oil. But although his harpooners
killed a few whales, they were small and almost worthless for oil. The
whale fishery was an economic failure.
Meanwhile, for some reason, Captain De Vries made peace with the
savages who had slaughtered the original settlers on the Whorekill.
There was no retaliation, surprisingly enough, for whatever happened
on the creek the previous year. De Vries explained that the natives
promised to provide him with food. But apparently they didn’t do so.
The Dutch patroon ascended the South River to barter for corn and
beans. Twice during the winter he visited abandoned Fort Nassau where
many Indians congregated on the news that he was in the river. However
there was the usual difficulty about food. The Lenape were anxious
to trade skins for his merchandise, even pausing in flight from the
terrible Minqua to do so, but few of them were willing to part with
corn.
De Vries did buy some of their pelts, though without much enthusiasm.
Under an ambiguous agreement the company had recently made with the
patroons, they were permitted to barter for pelts where no company
factories were maintained. However, all skins taken under this
arrangement had to be delivered at Fort Amsterdam for processing and
shipment by the company to Holland. Such transactions were therefore
not too satisfactory from an overall profit standpoint.
With the coming of spring, the Patroon of Swanendael went down the
coast to call on the neighboring English at Jamestown for enough
supplies to evacuate his people. The small profit on the pelts he had
taken represented the only gain from the patroonship. It wasn’t too
long afterward that the continuing wrangle over fur trading privileges,
and other contentions, ended in the proprietors of Swanendael selling
out their interests to the company, without having made any further
attempt at colonization.
At the time of De Vries’ visit to the old Dutch works at Fort Nassau,
he learned much to his surprise that an English shallop with seven or
eight traders from Virginia had preceded him there. All the Virginians
had been killed by the Lenape. Some of the chief men among the savages
were jauntily wearing their victims’ jackets when they came to call on
the Dutch patroon aboard his yacht that winter.
On the subsequent visit to Jamestown, which may have been prompted as
much by curiosity concerning this invasion of the South River as by the
need of supplies, Captain De Vries was told by Governor Harvey that
these Virginians had indeed gone on an exploring voyage in those parts.
And, although Harvey said there was no reason for Virginia traders to
disturb the Hollanders, he nevertheless maintained the English claim to
the Delaware valley and intimated that other countrymen of his would be
going there too.
Shortly after this, when De Vries stopped off at Fort Amsterdam with
his furs and the alarming news about the English, the Dutch provincial
council dispatched an expedition once more to occupy Fort Nassau. A
new house was built there and other improvements were made during the
summer. Arendt Corssen, who went along at this time as the company’s
commissioner in charge, also purchased from the Lenape a tract of land
across the Delaware from Fort Nassau. There, probably on the west
bank of the Schuylkill River and within the limits of present-day
Philadelphia, he built a house and established a trading post.
This post of course promoted a more convenient trade with the western
Minquas. It was also designed, no doubt, to serve as added evidence of
the company’s maintenance of factories in the South River valley.
However, no English having appeared on the river during the summer
and the Swanendael patroonship being inactive, these lonely outposts
of the company were again deserted during the winter of 1633-34. A
fur trader’s life in the winter wilderness, cooped up in a house
surrounded by snow and unpredictable savages, must have been anything
but enviable. The Hollanders on the South River could hardly be blamed
for preferring their warmer and gayer quarters on Manhattan.
But then, in the summer of 1634 when no Dutch were about, an Englishman
named Thomas Young sailed up the Delaware and planted the arms of his
king ashore. He had come directly from England to trade in “Virginia,”
under a license from the king, with special designs on the valley of
the Delaware. Governor Harvey of Virginia lent all possible assistance
to him when he stopped off in the Chesapeake to build trading shallops
and gather information for his venture.
Captain Young traded extensively for beaver, otter and lesser furs,
and he was much impressed by the abundance of elk and deer skins
available in the Delaware valley. However, his ambition was to discover
a northwest passage to the South Sea and he had secret instructions
authorizing him to explore the Delaware, challenge any Dutch
encroachment there, and plant forts to occupy the land if he wished to
do so. He was stopped of course by the falls. Although he established
an English post at Eriwoneck, where his lieutenant recorded that “we
sate down,” the adventure was given over after a year or two.
Young himself was later captured by the French of Canada when, in his
continuing quest for the elusive passage to the Orient, he ascended the
Kennebec River, portaged to headwaters of streams that took him to the
St. Lawrence and found himself unexpectedly before Quebec!
The English post that Captain Young established on the Delaware at
Eriwoneck was opposite present-day Philadelphia. It is frequently
mentioned as having been on Pennsauken Creek. However, since the
Eriwoneck tribe appears to have been living close by if not at the site
of Fort Nassau, it is more likely that the English captain simply “sate
down” in the deserted Dutch fort. In view of his mission any other
course would appear to have been inexpedient.
Captain Young discreetly makes no mention of Dutch works on the river,
probably to avoid any perplexity over the Elizabethan theory about
occupation proving right of possession. But his report admits of two
contacts with Dutch traders. First he ran into a trading vessel from
Manhattan which he accosted and chased from the river. Then a fresh
expedition from Fort Amsterdam, which he reported had been sent to
“plant and trade heere” by the Hollanders, was similarly forced to
retire by the English captain.
Although the Dutch traders didn’t put up any fight in the face of
Thomas Young’s well-gunned ship that summer, it was a different matter
the next year when an English deserter brought word overland to Fort
Amsterdam that a party of Virginia traders was occupying Fort Nassau.
An armed bark was immediately dispatched to the South River. It
recaptured the fort and made prisoners of the Englishmen, about fifteen
altogether including their leader, George Holmes. These captives, after
being transported first to Fort Amsterdam where no one could decide
what to do with them, were finally returned to Kecoughtan in Virginia.
The New Netherlanders then installed and maintained a permanent
garrison of traders at Fort Nassau under the management of Jan Jansen
with Peter May as his assistant. All of which so discouraged other
Virginians, who at the time were planning to follow in Holmes’ track,
that they abandoned the project.
However, across the ocean, venturers of still another nationality were
preparing to invade New Netherland’s South River. The Swedish people,
aroused to territorial expansion by their late King Gustavus Adolphus,
wanted a bridgehead in America. Profit-minded merchants, with the fur
trade uppermost in their minds, were moving eagerly to accommodate
them.
XIV
_Swedish Interlude On the Delaware_
Peter Minuit, erstwhile governor and chief fur trader of New
Netherland, was a man of energy and special talent for colonial
administration. Although he had been discharged from his post in
Dutch America after a disagreement with his employers, the directors
of the West India Company, his administration there had been virile
and efficient. It was therefore quite natural that he should be a bit
vindictive toward the people who had treated him so unfairly. And,
because of his driving energy, it would have been quite as unnatural
for him to remain idle for long.
So it was that he sought out Samuel Blommaert who, embittered by
the failure of his Swanendael patroonship, also felt he had reason
for complaint against his former associates in the West India
Company. According to Blommaert, it was their parsimonious policies
on such matters as the fur trade and military protection for new
plantations that had caused the fiasco at Whorekill. Anxious now
to show up the stupidity of their management, he was attempting to
form a Dutch-Swedish opposition company under Swedish protection for
operations in the “West Indies.”
When Minuit came on the scene, with his firsthand knowledge of New
Netherland, things began to happen fast. Blommaert’s project quickly
crystallized into a fur trading company with the specific intent of
colonizing the valley of the South River where the patroon himself had
formerly adventured. It remained only for Minuit to offer his expert
services as leader of such an expedition to the Swedish crown, and
royal sanction and assistance were forthcoming for the venture.