TRADERS AND SETTLERS
As he was returning to Holland from his voyage to America, Hudson was
held with his ship at the port of Dartmouth, on the ground that, being
an Englishman by birth, he owed his services to his country. He did
not again reach the Netherlands, but he forwarded to the Dutch East
India Company a report of his discoveries. Immediately the enthusiasm
of the Dutch was aroused by the prospect of a lucrative fur trade, as
Spain had been set aflame by the first rumors of gold in Mexico and
Peru; and the United Provinces, whose independence had just been
acknowledged, thereupon laid claim to the new country.
To a seafaring people like the Dutch, the ocean which lay between them
and their American possessions had no terrors, and the twelve-year
truce just concluded with Spain set free a vast energy to be applied to
commerce and oversea {18} trading. Within a year after the return of
the _Half Moon_, Dutch merchants sent out a second ship, the crew of
which included several sailors who had served under Hudson and of which
the command was given, in all probability, to Hudson's former mate.
The vessel was soon followed by the _Fortune_, the _Tiger_, the _Little
Fox_, and the _Nightingale_. By this time the procession of vessels
plying between the Netherlands Old and New was fairly set in motion.
But the aim of all these voyages was commerce rather than colonization.
Shiploads of tobacco and furs were demanded by the promoters, and to
obtain these traders and not farmers were needed.
The chronicle of these years is melancholy reading for lovers of
animals, for never before in the history of the continent was there
such a wholesale, organized slaughter of the unoffending creatures of
the forest. Beavers were the greatest sufferers. Their skins became a
medium of currency, and some of the salaries in the early days of the
colony were paid in so many "beavers." The manifest of one cargo
mentions 7246 beavers, 675 otters, 48 minks, and 36 wildcats.
In establishing this fur trade with the savages, the newcomers
primarily required trading-posts {19} guarded by forts. Late in 1614
or early in 1615, therefore, Fort Nassau was planted on a small island
a little below the site of Albany. Here the natives brought their
peltries and the traders unpacked their stores of glittering trinkets,
knives, and various implements of which the Indians had not yet learned
the use. In 1617 Fort Nassau was so badly damaged by a freshet that it
was allowed to fall into ruin, and later a new stronghold and
trading-post known as Fort Orange was set up where the city of Albany
now stands.
Meanwhile in 1614 the States-General of the United Netherlands had
granted a charter to a company of merchants of the city of Amsterdam,
authorizing their vessels "exclusively to visit and navigate" the newly
discovered region lying in America between New France and Virginia, now
first called New Netherland. This monopoly was limited to four
voyages, commencing on the first of January, 1615, or sooner. If any
one else traded in this territory, his ship and cargo were liable to
confiscation and the owners were subject to a heavy fine to be paid to
the New Netherland Company. The Company was chartered for only three
years, and at the expiration of the time a renewal of the charter was
refused, although the {20} Company was licensed to trade in the
territory from year to year.
In 1621 this haphazard system was changed by the granting of a charter
which superseded all private agreements and smaller enterprises by the
incorporation of "that great armed commercial association," the Dutch
West India Company. By the terms of the charter the States-General
engaged to secure to the Company freedom of traffic and navigation
within prescribed limits, which included not only the coast and
countries of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope
but also the coasts of America. Within these vague and very extended
bounds the Company was empowered to make contracts and alliances, to
build forts, to establish government, to advance the peopling of
fruitful and unsettled parts, and to "do all that the service of those
countries and the profit and increase of trade shall require."
For these services the States-General agreed to grant a subsidy of a
million guilders, or about half a million dollars, "provided that we
with half the aforesaid million of guilders, shall receive and bear
profit and risk in the same manner as the other members of this
Company." In case of war, which {21} was far from improbable at this
time, when the twelve years' truce with Spain was at an end, the
Company was to be assisted, if the situation of the country would in
any wise admit of it, "with sixteen warships and four yachts, fully
armed and equipped, properly mounted, and provided in all respects both
with brass and other cannon and a proper quantity of ammunition,
together with double suits of running and standing rigging, sails,
cables, anchors, and other things thereto belonging, such as are proper
to be used in all great expeditions." These ships were to be manned,
victualed, and maintained at the expense of the Company, which in its
turn was to contribute and maintain sixteen like ships of war and four
yachts.
The object of forming this great company with almost unlimited power
was twofold, at once political and commercial. Its creators planned
the summoning of additional military resources to confront the hostile
power of Spain and also the more thorough colonization and development
of New Netherland. In these purposes they were giving expression to
the motto of the House of Nassau: "I will maintain."
Two years elapsed between the promulgation of the charter and the first
active operations of the {22} West India Company; but throughout this
period the air was electric with plans for occupying and settling the
new land beyond the sea. Finally in March, 1623, the ship _Nieu
Nederlandt_ sailed for the colony whose name it bore, under the command
of Cornelis Jacobsen May, of Hoorn, the first Director-General. With
him embarked some thirty families of Walloons, who were descendants of
Protestant refugees from the southern provinces of the Netherlands,
which, being in general attached to the Roman Catholic Church, had
declined to join the confederation of northern provinces in 1579.
Sturdy and industrious artisans of vigorous Protestant stock, the
Walloons were a valuable element in the colonization of New Nether
land. After a two months' voyage the ship _Nieu Nederlandt_ reached
the mouth of the Hudson, then called the Mauritius in honor of the
Stadholder, Prince Maurice, and the leaders began at once to distribute
settlers with a view to covering as much country as was defensible.
Some were left in Manhattan, several families were sent to the South
River, now the Delaware, others to Fresh River, later called the
Connecticut, and others to the western shore of Long Island. The
remaining colonists, led by Adriaen Joris, voyaged up the {23} length
of the Mauritius, landed at Fort Orange, and made their home there.
Thus the era of settlement as distinguished from trade had begun.
The description of the first settlers at Wiltwyck, on the western shore
of the great river, may be applied to all the pioneer Dutch colonists.
"Most of them could neither read nor write. They were a wild, uncouth,
rough, and most of the time a drunken crowd. They lived in small log
huts, thatched with straw. They wore rough clothes, and in the winter
were dressed in skins. They subsisted on a little corn, game, and
fish. They were afraid of neither man, God, nor the Devil. They were
laying deep the foundation of the Empire State."[1]
The costume of the wife of a typical settler usually consisted of a
single garment, reaching from neck to ankles. In the summer time she
went bareheaded and barefooted. She was rough, coarse, ignorant,
uncultivated. She helped her husband to build their log hut, to plant
his grain, and to gather his crops. If Indians appeared in her
husband's absence, she grasped the rifle, gathered her children about
her, and with a {24} dauntless courage defended them even unto death.
This may not be a romantic presentation of the forefathers and
foremothers of the State, but it bears the marks of truth and shows us
a stalwart race strong to hold their own in the struggle for existence
and in the establishment of a permanent community.
From the time of the founding of settlements, outward-bound ships from
the Netherlands brought supplies for the colonists and carried back
cargoes of furs, tobacco, and maize. In April, 1625, there was shipped
to the new settlements a valuable load made up of one hundred and three
head of live stock--stallions, mares, bulls, and cows--besides hogs and
sheep, all distributed in two ships with a third vessel as convoy. The
chronicler, Nicholaes Janszoon Van Wassenaer, gives a detailed account
of their disposal which illustrates the traditional Dutch orderliness
and cleanliness. He tells us that each animal had its own stall, and
that the floor of each stall was covered with three feet of sand, which
served as ballast for the ship. Each animal also had its respective
servant, who knew what his reward was to be if he delivered his charge
alive. Beneath the cattle-deck were stowed three hundred tuns of {25}
fresh water, which was pumped up for the live stock. In addition to
the load of cattle, the ship carried agricultural implements and "all
furniture proper for the dairy," as well as a number of settlers.
The year 1625 marked an important event, the birth of a little daughter
in the household of Jan Joris Rapaelje, the "first-born Christian
daughter in New Netherland." Her advent was followed by the appearance
of a steadily increasing group of native citizens, and Dutch cradles
multiplied in the cabins of the various settlements from Fort Orange to
New Amsterdam. The latter place was established as a fortified post
and the seat of government for the colony in 1626 by Peter Minuit, the
third Director-General, who in this year purchased Manhattan Island
from the Indians.
The colony was now thriving, with the whole settlement "bravely
advanced" and grain growing as high as a man. But across this bright
picture fell the dark shadow of negro slavery, which, it is said, the
Dutch were the first to introduce upon the mainland of North America in
1625 or 1626. Among the first slaves were Simon Congo, Anthony
Portuguese, John Francisco, Paul d'Angola--names {26} evidently drawn
from their native countries--and seven others. Two years later came
three slave women. In a letter dated August 11, 1628, and addressed to
his "Kind Friend and Well Beloved Brother in Christ the Reverend,
learned and pious Mr. Adrianus Smoutius," we learn with regret that
Domine Michaelius, having two small motherless daughters, finds himself
much hindered and distressed because he can find no competent maid
servants "and the Angola slave women are thievish, lazy, and useless
trash." Let us leave it to those who have the heart and the nerves to
dwell upon the horrors of the middle passage and the sufferings of the
poor negroes as set down in the log-books of the slavers, the _St.
John_ and the _Arms of Amsterdam_. It is comforting to the more
soft-hearted of us to feel that after reaching the shores of New
Netherland, the blacks were treated in the main with humanity. The
negro slave was of course a chattel, but his fate was not without hope.
Several negroes with their wives were manumitted on the ground of long
and faithful service. They received a grant of land; but they were
obliged to pay for it annually twenty-two and a half bushels of corn,
wheat, pease, or beans, and a hog worth eight dollars in {27} modern
currency. If they failed in this payment they lost their recently
acquired liberty and returned to the status of slaves. Meanwhile,
their children, already born or yet to be born, remained under
obligation to serve the Company.
Apparently the Dutch were conscious of no sense of wrong-doing in the
importation of the blacks. A chief justice of the King's Bench in
England expressed the opinion that it was right that pagans should be
slaves to Christians, because the former were bondsmen of Satan while
the latter were servants of God. Even this casuist, however, found
difficulty in explaining why it was just that one born of free and
Christian parents should remain enslaved. But granting that the
problems which the settlers were creating in these early days were
bound to cause much trouble later both to themselves and to the whole
country, there is no doubt that slave labor contributed to the
advancement of agriculture and the other enterprises of the colony.
Free labor was scarce and expensive, owing both to the cost of
importing it from Europe and to the allurements of the fur trade, which
drew off the _boer-knecht_ from farming. Slave labor was therefore of
the highest value in exploiting the resources of the new country.
{28}
These resources were indeed abundant. The climate was temperate, with
a long season of crops and harvests. Grape-vines produced an abundant
supply of wines. The forests contained a vast variety of animals.
Innumerable birds made the wilderness vocal. Turkeys and wild fowl
offered a variety of food. The rivers produced fish of every kind and
oysters which the letters of the colonists describe as a foot long,
though this is somewhat staggering to the credulity of a later age. De
Vries, one of the patroons, or proprietors, whose imagination was
certainly of a lively type, tells us that he had seen a New
Netherlander kill eighty-four thrushes or maize-birds at one shot. He
adds that he has noticed crabs of excellent flavor on the flat shores
of the bay. "Their claws," he says naively, "are of the color of our
Prince's flag, orange, white and blue, so that the crabs show clearly
enough that we ought to people the country and that it belongs to us."
When the very crabs thus beckoned to empire, how could the Netherlander
fail to respond to their invitation?
The newly discovered river soon began to be alive with sail,
high-pooped vessels from over sea, and smaller _vlie booten_
(Anglicized into "flyboats"), {29} which plied between New Amsterdam
and Fort Orange, loaded with supplies and household goods. Tying the
prow of his boat to a tree at the water's edge, the enterprising
skipper turned pedler and opened his packs of beguiling wares for the
housewife at the farm beside the river. Together with the goods in his
pack, he doubtless also opened his budget of news from the other
settlements and told the farmer's wife how the houses about the fort at
Manhattan had increased to thirty, how the new Director was
strengthening the fort, and how all promised well for the future of New
Netherland.
For the understanding of these folk, who, with their descendants, have
left an indelible impression on New York as we know it today, we must
leave the thread of narrative in America, abandon the sequence of
dates, and turn back to the Holland of some years earlier. Remembering
that those who cross the sea change their skies but not their hearts,
we may be sure that the same qualities which marked the inhabitants of
the Netherlands showed themselves in the emigrants to the colony on the
banks of the Mauritius.
When the truce with Spain was announced, a few months before Hudson set
sail for America, {30} it was celebrated throughout Holland by the
ringing of bells, the discharge of artillery, the illumination of the
houses, and the singing of hymns of thanksgiving in all the churches.
The devout people knelt in every cathedral and village _Kerk_ to thank
their God that the period of butchery and persecution was over. But no
sooner had the joy-bells ceased ringing and the illuminations faded
than the King of Spain began plotting to regain by diplomacy what he
had been unable to hold by force. The Dutch, however, showed
themselves as keenly alive as the Spanish to the value of treaties and
alliances. They met cunning with caution, as they had met tyranny with
defiance, and at last, as the end of the truce drew near, they flung
into the impending conflict the weight of the Dutch West India Company.
They were shrewd and sincere people, ready to try all things by the
test of practical experience. One of their great statesmen at this
period described his fellow-countrymen as having neither the wish nor
the skill to deceive others, but on the other hand as not being easy to
be deceived themselves.
Motley says of the Dutch Republic that "it had courage, enterprise,
intelligence, faith in itself, the instinct of self-government and
self-help, {31} hatred of tyranny, the disposition to _domine_er,
aggressiveness, greediness, inquisitiveness, insolence, the love of
science, of liberty, and of money." As the state is only a sum of
component parts, its qualities must be those of its citizens, and of
these citizens our colonists were undoubtedly typical. We may
therefore accept this description as picturing their mental and
spiritual qualities in the pioneer days of their venture in the New
World.
[1] See the monograph by Augustus H. Van Buren in the _Proceedings of
the New York Historical Society_, vol. xi, p. 133.
{32}