THE DIRECTORS
The first Director-General of the colony, Captain Cornelis May, was
removed by only a generation from those "Beggars of the Sea" whom the
Spaniard held in such contempt; but this mendicant had begged to such
advantage that the sea granted him a noble river to explore and a cape
at its mouth to preserve his name to posterity. It is upon his
discoveries along the South River, later called the Delaware, and not
upon his record as Director of New Netherland, that his title to fame
must rest. Associated with him was Tienpont, who appears to have been
assigned to the North River while May assumed personal supervision of
the South. May acted as the agent of the West India Company for one
year only (1624-1625), and was followed in office by Verhulst
(1625-1626), who bequeathed his name to Verhulsten Island, in the
Delaware River, and then quietly passed out of history.
{52}
Neither of these officials left any permanent impress on the history of
the colony. It was therefore a day of vast importance to the dwellers
on the North River, and especially to the little group of settlers on
Manhattan Island, when the _Meeuwken_ dropped her anchor in the harbor
in May, 1626, and her small boat landed Peter Minuit, Director-General
of New Netherland, a Governor who had come to govern. Minuit, though
registered as "of Wesel," Germany, was of Huguenot ancestry, and is
reported to have spoken French, Dutch, German, and English. He proved
a tactful and efficient ruler, and the new system of government took
form under the Director and Council, the _koopman_, who was commercial
agent and secretary, and a _schout_ who performed the duties of sheriff
and public prosecutor.
Van Wassenaer, the son of a _domine_ in Amsterdam, gives us a report of
the colony as it existed under Minuit. He writes of a counting-house
built of stone and thatched with reeds, of thirty ordinary houses on
the east side of the river, and a horse-mill yet unfinished over which
is to be constructed a spacious room to serve as a temporary church and
to be decorated with bells captured at the sack of San Juan de Porto
Rico in 1625 by the Dutch fleet. {53} According to this chronicler,
every one in New Netherland who fills no public office is busy with his
own affairs. One trades, one builds houses, another plants farms.
Each farmer pastures the cows under his charge on the _bouwerie_ of the
Company, which also owns the cattle; but the milk is the property of
the farmer, who sells it to the settlers. "The houses of settlers," he
says, "are now outside the fort; but when that is finished they will
all remove within, in order to garrison it and be safe from sudden
attack."
One of Minuit's first acts as Director was the purchase of Manhattan
Island, covering some twenty-two thousand acres, for merchandise valued
at sixty guilders or twenty-four dollars. He thus secured the land at
the rate of approximately ten acres for one cent. A good bargain,
Peter Minuit! The transaction was doubly effective in placating the
savages, or the _wilden_, as the settlers called them, and in
establishing the Dutch claim as against the English by urging rights
both of discovery and of purchase.
In spite of the goodwill manifested by the natives, the settlers were
constantly anxious lest some conspiracy might suddenly break out. Van
Wassenaer, reporting the news from the colony as {54} it reached him in
Amsterdam, wrote in 1626 that Pieter Barentsen was to be sent to
command Fort Orange, and that the families were to be brought down the
river, sixteen men without women being left to garrison the fort. Two
years later he wrote that there were no families at Fort Orange, all
having been brought down the river. Only twenty-five or twenty-six
traders remained and Krol, who had been vice-director there since 1626.
Minuit showed true statesmanship by following conciliation with a show
of strength against hostile powers on every hand. He had brought with
him a competent engineer, Kryn Frederycke, or Fredericksen, who had
been an officer in the army of Prince Maurice. With his help Minuit
laid out Fort Amsterdam on what was then the tip of Manhattan Island,
the green park which forms the end of the island today being then under
water. Fredericksen found material and labor so scarce that he could
plan at first only a blockhouse surrounded by palisades of red cedar
strengthened with earthworks. The fort was completed in 1626, and at
the close of the year a settlement called New Amsterdam had grown up
around it and had been made the capital of New Netherland.
During the building of the fort there occurred {55} an episode fraught
with serious consequences. A friendly Indian of the Weckquaesgeeck
tribe came with his nephew to traffic at Fort Amsterdam. Three
servants of Minuit fell upon the Indian, robbed him, and murdered him.
The nephew, then but a boy, escaped to his tribe and vowed a vengeance
which he wreaked in blood nearly a score of years later.
Minuit's preparations for war were not confined to land fortification.
In 1627 the hearts of the colonists were gladdened by a great victory
of the Dutch over the Spanish, when, in a battle off San Salvador,
Peter Heyn demolished twenty-six Spanish warships. On the 5th of
September the same bold sailor captured the whole of the Spanish
silver-fleet with spoils amounting to twelve million guilders. In the
following year the gallant commander, then a lieutenant-admiral, died
in battle on the deck of his ship. The States-General sent to his old
peasant mother a message of condolence, to which she replied: "Ay, I
thought that would be the end of him. He was always a vagabond; but I
did my best to correct him. He got no more than he deserved."
It was perhaps the echo of naval victories like these which prompted
Minuit to embark upon a {56} shipbuilding project of great magnitude
for that time. Two Belgian shipbuilders arrived in New Amsterdam and
asked the help of the Director in constructing a large vessel. Minuit,
seeing the opportunity to advertise the resources of the colony, agreed
to give his assistance and the result was that the _New Netherland_, a
ship of eight hundred tons carrying thirty guns, was built and launched.
This enterprise cost more than had been expected and the bills were
severely criticized by the West India Company, already dissatisfied
with Minuit on the ground that he had favored the interests of the
patroons, who claimed the right of unrestricted trade within their
estates, as against the interests of the Company. Urged by many
complaints, the States-General set on foot an investigation of the
Director, the patroons, and the West India Company itself, with the
result that in 1632 Minuit was recalled and the power of the patroons
was limited. New Netherland had not yet seen the last of Peter Minuit,
however. Angry and embittered, he entered the service of Sweden and
returned later to vex the Dutch colony.
In the interval between Minuit's departure and the arrival of Van
Twiller, the reins of authority {57} were held by Sebastian Krol, whose
name is memorable chiefly for the fact that he had been influential in
purchasing the domain of Rensselaerswyck for its patroon (1630) and the
tradition that the cruller, _crolyer_ or _krolyer_, was so called in
his honor. The Company's selection of a permanent successor to Minuit
was not happy. Wouter Van Twiller, nephew of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer,
must have owed his appointment as Director to family influence, since
neither his career nor his reputation justified the choice.
David de Vries, writing on April 16, 1633, notes that on arriving about
noon before Fort Amsterdam he found there a ship called the _Soutbergh_
which had brought over the new Governor, Wouter Van Twiller, a former
clerk in the West India House at Amsterdam. De Vries gives his opinion
of Van Twiller in no uncertain terms. He expressed his own surprise
that the West India Company should send fools into this country who
knew nothing except how to drink, and quotes an Englishman as saying
that he could not understand the unruliness among the officers of the
Company and that a governor should have no more control over them.
For the personal appearance of this "Walter {58} the Doubter," we must
turn again to the testimony of Knickerbocker, whose mocking
descriptions have obtained a quasi-historical authority:
This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry month
of June.... He was exactly five feet six inches in height and six feet
five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere and of
such stupendous dimensions that Dame Nature, with all her sex's
ingenuity would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of
supporting it: Wherefore she wisely declined the attempt and settled it
firmly on the top of his backbone just between the shoulders.... His
legs were short but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to
sustain so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer
barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind,
presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines which
disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression.... His
habits were regular. He daily took his four stated meals,
appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight
hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty.
A later historian, taking up the cudgels in behalf of the Director,
resents Knickerbocker's impeachment and protests that "so far from
being the aged, fat and overgrown person represented in caricature Van
Twiller was youthful and inexperienced, and his faults were those of a
young {59} man unused to authority and hampered by his instructions."[1]
In his new office Van Twiller was confronted with questions dealing
with the encroachment of the patroons from within and of the English
from without, the unwelcome visit of Eelkens, of whom we shall hear
later, and massacres by the Indians on the South River. Such problems
might well have puzzled a wiser head and a more determined character
than Van Twiller's. We cannot hold him wholly blameworthy if he dealt
with them in a spirit of doubt and hesitation. What we find harder to
excuse is his shrewd advancement of his own interests and his lavish
expenditure of the Company's money. The cost of building the fort {60}
was more than justifiable. To have neglected the defenses would have
been culpable; and the barracks built for the hundred and four soldiers
whom he had brought over from the Fatherland may also be set down as
necessary. But when the Company was groaning under the expenses of the
colony, it was, to say the least, lacking in tact to build for himself
the most elaborate house in New Netherland, besides erecting on one of
the Company's _bouweries_ a house, a barn, a boathouse, and a brewery,
to say nothing of planting another farm with tobacco, working it with
slave labor at the Company's expense, and appropriating the profits.
In the year 1688, after he had been five years in office, the outcry
against Van Twiller for misfeasance, malfeasance, and especially
nonfeasance, grew too loud to be ignored, and he was recalled; but
before he left New Netherland he bought Nooten or Nut Island, since
called Governor's Island, and also two other islands in the East River.
At the time of his marriage in 1643, Van Twiller was in command of a
competence attained at the expense of the West India Company, and there
is much excuse for the feeling of his employers that he had been more
active in his own affairs than in theirs.
{61}
The principal service which he had rendered to the Company in his term
of office was the establishment of "staple right" at New Amsterdam,
compelling all ships trading on the coast or the North River to pay
tolls or unload their cargoes on the Company's property. But on the
reverse side of the account we must remember that he allowed the fort
to fall into such decay that when Kieft arrived in 1638 he found the
defenses, which had been finished only three years before, already in a
shamefully neglected condition, the guns dismounted, the public
buildings inside the walls in ruins, and the walls of the fort itself
so beaten down that any one might enter at will, "save at the stone
point."
The hopes of the colonists rose again with the coming of a new
governor; but the appointment of Kieft reflected as little credit as
that of Van Twiller upon the sagacity of the West India Company. The
man now chosen to rule New Netherland was a narrow-minded busybody,
eager to interfere in small matters and without the statesmanship
required to conduct large affairs. Some of his activities, it is true,
had practical value. He fixed the hours at which the colonists should
go to bed and ordered the curfew to be rung at nine o'clock; {62} he
established two annual fairs to be held on the present Bowling Green,
one in October for cattle and one in November for hogs; and he built a
new stone church within the fort, operated a brewery, founded a
hostelry, and planted orchards and gardens. But on the other side of
the account he was responsible for a bloody war with the Indians which
came near to wrecking the colony.
His previous record held scant promise for his success as a governor.
He had failed as a merchant in Rochelle, for which offense his portrait
had been affixed to a gallows. Such a man was a poor person to be put
in control of the complicated finances of New Netherland and of the
delicate relations between the colonists and the Indians--relations
calling for infinite tact, wisdom, firmness, and forbearance.
The natives in the region of New Amsterdam were increasingly irritated
by the encroachments of the whites. They complained that stray cows
spoiled their unfenced cornfields and that various other depredations
endangered their crops. To add to this irritation Kieft proposed to
tax the natives for the protection afforded them by the Fort, which was
now being repaired at large expense. The situation, already bad
enough, was {63} further complicated by Kieft's clumsy handling of an
altercation on Staten Island. Some pigs were stolen, by servants of
the Company as appeared later; but the offense was charged to the
Raritan Indians. Without waiting to make investigations Kieft sent out
a punitive expedition of seventy men, who attacked the innocent
natives, killed a number of them, and laid waste their crops. This
stupid and wicked attack still further exasperated the Indians, who in
the high tide of mid-summer saw their lands laid bare and their homes
desolated by the wanton hand of the intruders.
Some months later the trouble between the whites and the red men was
brought to a head by an unforeseen tragedy. A savage came to Claes
Smits, _radenmaker_ or wheelwright, to trade beaver for duffel cloth.
As Claes stooped down to take out the duffel from a chest, the Indian
seized an axe which chanced to stand near by and struck the wheelwright
on the neck, killing him instantly. The murderer then stole the goods
from the chest and fled to the forest.
When Kieft sent to the tribe of the Weckquaesgeecks to inquire the
cause of this murder and to demand the slayer, the Indian told the
chief that he had seen his uncle robbed and killed at the fort {64}
while it was being built; that he himself had escaped and had vowed
revenge; and that the unlucky Claes was the first white man upon whom
he had a chance to wreak vengeance. The chief then replied to the
Director that he was sorry that twenty Christians had not been killed
and that the Indian had done only a pious duty in avenging his uncle.
In this emergency Kieft called a meeting at which the prominent
burghers chose a committee of twelve to advise the Director. This took
place in 1641. The Council was headed by Captain David de Vries, whose
portrait with its pointed chin, high forehead, and keen eyes, justifies
his reputation as the ablest man in New Netherland. He insisted that
it was inadvisable to attack the Indians--not to say hazardous.
Besides, the Company had warned them to keep peace. It is interesting
to speculate on what would have been the effect on the colony if the
Company's choice had fallen upon De Vries instead of on Kieft as
Director.
Although restrained for the time, Kieft never relinquished his purpose.
On February 24, 1643, he again announced his intention of making a raid
upon the Indians, and in spite of further {65} remonstrance from De
Vries he sent out his soldiers, who returned after a massacre which
disgraced the Director, enraged the natives, and endangered the colony.
Kieft was at first proud of his treachery; but as soon as it was known
every Algonquin tribe around New Amsterdam started on the warpath.
From New Jersey to the Connecticut every farm was in peril. The famous
and much-persecuted Anne Hutchinson perished with her family; towns
were burned; and men, women, and children fled in panic.
On the approach of spring, when the Indians had to plant their corn or
face famine, sachems of the Long Island Indians sought a parley with
the Dutch. De Vries and Olfertsen volunteered to meet the savages. In
the woods near Rockaway they found nearly three hundred Indians
assembled. The chiefs placed the envoys in the center of the circle,
and one among them, who had a bundle of sticks, laid down one stick at
a time as he recounted the wrongs of his tribe. This orator told how
the red men had given food to the settlers and were rewarded by the
murder of their people, how they had protected and cherished the
traders, and how they had been abused in return. At length De Vries,
like the practical man that he was, {66} suggested that they all
adjourn to the Fort, promising them presents from the Director.
The chiefs consented to meet the Director and eventually were persuaded
to make a treaty of peace; but Kieft's gifts were so niggardly that the
savages went away with rancor still in their hearts, and the war of the
races continued its bloody course. It is no wonder that when De Vries
left the Governor on this occasion, he told Kieft in plain terms of his
guilt and predicted that the shedding of so much innocent blood would
yet be avenged upon his own head. This prophecy proved a strangely
true one. When recalled by the States-General in 1647, Kieft set out
for Holland on the ship _Princess_, carrying with him the sum of four
hundred thousand guilders. The ship was wrecked in the Bristol channel
and Kieft was drowned.
The evil that Kieft did lived after him and the good, if interred with
his bones, would not have occupied much space in the tomb. The only
positive advance during his rule--and that was carried through against
his will--was the appointment of an advisory committee of the twelve
men, representing the householders of the colony, who were called
together in the emergency following {67} the murder of Claes Smits, and
in 1643 of a similar board of eight men, who protested against his
arbitrary measures and later procured his recall.
After the departure of Kieft the most picturesque figure of the period
of Dutch rule in America appeared at New Amsterdam, Petrus or Pieter
Stuyvesant. We have an authentic portrait in which the whole
personality of the man is writ large. The dominant nose, the small,
obstinate eyes, the close-set, autocratic mouth, tell the character of
the man who was come to be the new and the last Director-General of New
Netherland. As Director of the West India Company's colony at Curacao,
Stuyvesant had undertaken the task of reducing the Portuguese island of
St. Martin and had lost a leg in the fight. This loss he repaired with
a wooden leg, of which he professed himself prouder than of all his
other limbs together and which he had decorated with silver bands and
nails, thus earning for him the sobriquet of "Old Silver Nails."
Still, so the legend runs, Peter Stuyvesant's ghost at night "stumps to
and fro with a shadowy wooden leg through the aisles of St. Mark's
Church near the spot where his bones lie buried." But many events were
to happen {68} before those bones were laid in the family vault of the
chapel on his _bouwerie_.
When Stuyvesant reached the country over which he was to rule, it was
noted by the colonists that his bearing was that of a prince. "I shall
be as a father over his children," he told the burghers of New
Amsterdam, and in this patriarchal capacity he kept the people standing
with their heads uncovered for more than an hour, while he wore his
hat. How he bore out this first impression we may gather from _The
Representation of New Netherland_, an arraignment of the Director,
drawn up and solemnly attested in 1650 by eleven responsible burghers
headed by Adrian Van der Donck, and supplemented by much detailed
evidence. The witnesses express the earnest wish that Stuyvesant's
administration were at an end, for they have suffered from it and know
themselves powerless. Whoever opposes the Director "hath as much as
the sun and moon against him." In the council he writes an opinion
covering several pages and then adds orally: "This is my opinion. If
any one have aught to object to it, let him express it!" If any one
ventures to make any objection, his Honor flies into a passion and
rails in language better fitted to the fish-market than to the
council-hall.
{69}
When two burghers, Kuyter and Melyn, who had been leaders of the
opposition to Kieft, petitioned Stuyvesant to investigate his conduct,
Stuyvesant supported his predecessor on the ground that one Director
should uphold another. At Kieft's instigation he even prosecuted and
convicted Kuyter and Melyn for seditious attack on the government.
When Melyn asked for grace till his case could be presented in the
Fatherland, he was threatened, according to his own testimony, in
language like this: "If I knew, Melyn, that you would divulge our
sentence [that of fine and banishment] or bring it before Their High
Mightinesses, I would cause you to be hanged at once on the highest
tree in New Netherland." In another case the Director said: "It may
during my administration be contemplated to appeal; but if anyone
should do it, I will make him a foot shorter, and send the pieces to
Holland and let him appeal in that way."
An answer to this arraignment by the burghers of New Netherland was
written by Van Tienhoven, who was sent over to the Netherlands to
defend Stuyvesant; but its value is impaired by the fact that he was
_schout fiscaal_ and interested in the acquittal of Stuyvesant, whose
tool he was, {70} and also by the fact that he was the subject of
bitter attack in the _Representation_ by Adrian Van der Donck, who
accused Van Tienhoven of continually shifting from one side to another
and asserted that he was notoriously profligate and untrustworthy. One
passage in his reply amounted to a confession. Who, he asks, are they
who have complained about the haughtiness of the Director, and he
answers that they are "such as seek to live without law or rule." "No
one," he goes on to say, "can prove that Director Stuyvesant has used
foul language to or railed at as clowns any respectable persons who
have treated him decently. It may be that some profligate person has
given the Director, _if he has used any bad words to him_, cause to do
so."
It has been the fashion in popular histories to allude to Stuyvesant as
a doughty knight of somewhat choleric temper, "a valiant, weather
beaten, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited, old governor";
but I do not so read his history. I find him a brutal tyrant, as we
have seen in the affair of Kieft _versus_ Melyn; a narrow-minded bigot,
as we shall see later in his dealing with the Quakers at Flushing; a
bully when his victims were completely in his power; and a loser {71}
in any quarrel when he was met with blustering comparable to his own.
In support of the last indictment let us take his conduct in a conflict
with the authorities at Rensselaerswyck. In 1646 Stuyvesant had
ordered that no building should be erected within cannon-shot of Fort
Orange. The superintendent of the settlement denied Stuyvesant's right
to give such an order and pointed to the fact that his trading-house
had been for a long time on the border of the fort. To the claim that
a clear space was necessary to the fort's efficiency, Van
Slichtenhorst, Van Rensselaer's agent, replied that he had spent more
than six months in the colony and had never seen a single person
carrying a sword, musket, or pike, nor had he heard a drum-beat except
on the occasion of a visit from the Director and his soldiers in the
summer. Stuyvesant rejoined by sending soldiers and sailors to tear
down the house which Van Slichtenhorst was building near Fort Orange,
and the commissary was ordered to arrest the builder if he resisted;
but the commissary wrote that it would be impossible to carry out the
order, as the settlers at Rensselaerswyck, reenforced by the Indians,
outnumbered his troops. Stuyvesant then recalled his soldiers and
ordered Van {72} Slichtenhorst to appear before him, which the agent
refused to do.
In 1652 Stuyvesant ordered Dyckman, then in command at Fort Orange, not
to allow any one to build a house near the fort or to remain in any
house already built. In spite of proclamations and other bluster this
order proved fruitless and on April 1, 1653, Stuyvesant came in person
to Fort Orange and sent a sergeant to lower the patroon's flag. The
agent refusing to strike the patroon's colors, the soldiers entered,
lowered the flag, and discharged their guns. Stuyvesant declared that
the region staked out by posts should be known as Beverwyck and
instituted a court there. Van Slichtenhorst tore down the
proclamation, whereupon Stuyvesant ordered him to be imprisoned in the
fort. Later the Director transported the agent under guard to New
Amsterdam.
Stuyvesant's arbitrary character also appears in his overriding of the
measure of local self-government decreed by the States-General in 1653.
Van der Donck and his fellows had asked three things of their High
Mightinesses, the States-General: first, that they take over the
government of New Netherland; second, that they establish a better city
government in New Amsterdam; and third, {73} that they clearly define
the boundaries of New Netherland. The first of these requests, owing
to the deeply intrenched interest of the West India Company, could not
be granted, the last still less. But the States-General urged that
municipal rights should be given to New Amsterdam, and in 1652 the
Company yielded. The charter limited the number of _schepens_ or
aldermen to five and the number of burgomasters to two, and also
ordained that they as well as the _schout_ should be elected by the
citizens; but Stuyvesant ignored this provision and proceeded to
appoint men of his own choosing. The Stone Tavern built by Kieft at
the head of Coenties Slip was set apart as a _Stadt-Huys_, or City
Hall, and here Stuyvesant's appointees, supposed to represent the
popular will, held their meetings. It was something that they did hold
meetings and nominally at least in the interest of the people. Another
concession followed. In 1658 Stuyvesant yielded so far to the
principles of popular government as to concede to the _schepens_ and
burgomasters of New Amsterdam the right to nominate double the number
of candidates for office, from whom the Director was to make a choice.
In 1655, during the absence of Stuyvesant on the South River, the
Indians around Manhattan {74} appeared with a fleet of sixty-four war
canoes, attacked and looted New Amsterdam, then crossed to Hoboken and
continued their bloody work in Pavonia and on Staten Island. In three
days a hundred men, women, and children were slain, and a hundred and
fifty-two were taken captive, and the damage to property was estimated
at two hundred thousand guilders--approximately eighty thousand
dollars. As usual the Dutch had been the aggressors, for Van Dyck,
formerly _schout fiscaal_, had shot and killed an old Indian woman who
was picking peaches in his orchard.
It must be set down to Stuyvesant's credit that on his return he acted
toward the Indians in a manner that was kind and conciliating, and at
the same time provided against a repetition of the recent disaster by
erecting blockhouses at various points and by concentrating the
settlers for mutual defense. By this policy of mingled diplomacy and
preparation against attack Stuyvesant preserved peace for a period of
three years. But trouble with the Indians continued to disturb the
colonies on the river and centered at Esopus, where slaughters of both
white and red men occurred. Eight white men were burned at the stake
in revenge for shots fired by Dutch soldiers, and an Indian chief was
{75} killed with his own tomahawk. In 1660 a treaty of peace was
framed; but three years later we find the two races again embroiled.
Thus Indian wars continued down to the close of Dutch rule.
In spite of these troubles in the more outlying districts, New
Amsterdam continued to grow and thrive. In Stuyvesant's time the
thoroughfares of New Amsterdam were laid out as streets and were named.
The line of houses facing the fort on the eastern side was called the
Marckveldt, or Marketfield, taking its name from the green opposite,
which had been the site of the city market. De Heere Straat, the
principal street, ran north from the fort through the gate at the city
wall. De Hoogh Straat ran parallel with the East River from the city
bridge to the water gate and on its line stood the _Stadt-Huys_. 'T
Water ran in a semi-circular line from the point of the island and was
bordered by the East River. De Brouwer Straat took its name from the
breweries situated on it and was probably the first street in the town
to be regulated and paved. De Brugh Straat, as the name implies, led
to the bridge crossing. De Heere Graft, the principal canal, was a
creek running deep into the island from the East River and protected
{76} by a siding of boards. An official was appointed for the care of
this canal with orders to see "that the newly made _graft_ was kept in
order, that no filth was cast into it, and that the boats, canoes, and
other vessels were laid in order."
The new city was by this time thoroughly cosmopolitan. One traveler
speaks of the use of eighteen different languages, and the forms of
faith were as varied as the tongues spoken. Seven or eight large ships
came every year from Amsterdam. The Director occupied a fine house on
the point of the island. On the east side of the town stood the
_Stadt-Huys_ protected by a half-moon of stone mounted with three small
brass cannon. In the fort stood the Governor's house, the church, the
barracks, the house for munitions, and the long-armed windmills.
Everything was prospering except the foundation on which all depended.
There was no adequate defense for all this property. Here we must
acquit Stuyvesant from responsibility, since again and again he had
warned the Company against the weakness of the colony; but they would
not heed the warnings, and the consequences which might have been
averted suddenly overtook the Dutch possessions.
The war which broke out in 1652 between {77} England and the
Netherlands, once leagued against Catholic Spain but now parted by
commercial rivalries, found an immediate echo on the shores of the
Hudson. With feverish haste the inhabitants of New Amsterdam began to
fortify. Across the island at the northern limit of the town, on the
line of what is now Wall Street, they built a wall with stout palisades
backed by earthworks. They hastily repaired the fort, organized the
citizens as far as possible to resist attack, and also strengthened
Fort Orange. The New England Colonies likewise began warlike
preparations; but, perhaps owing to the prudence of Stuyvesant in
accepting the Treaty of Hartford, peace between the Dutch and English
in the New World continued for the present, though on precarious terms;
and, the immediate threat of danger being removed by the treaty between
England and Holland in 1654, the New Netherlander relaxed their
vigilance and curtailed the expense of fortifications.
Meanwhile Stuyvesant had alienated popular sympathy and lessened united
support by his treatment of a convention of delegates from New
Amsterdam, Flushing, Breuckelen, Hempstead, Amersfort, Middleburgh,
Flatbush, and Gravesend who had gathered to consider the defense and
{78} welfare of the colonies. The English of the Long Island towns
were the prime movers in this significant gathering. There is an
unmistakable English flavor in the contention of _The Humble
Remonstrance_ adopted by the Convention, that "'tis contrary to the
first intentions and genuine principles of every well regulated
government, that one or more men should arrogate to themselves the
exclusive power to dispose, at will, of the life and property of any
individual." As a people "not conquered or subjugated, but settled
here on a mutual covenant and contract entered into with the Lord
Patroons, with the consent of the Natives," they protested against the
enactment of laws and the appointment of magistrates without their
consent or that of their representatives.
Stuyvesant replied with his usual bigotry and in a rage at being
contradicted. He asserted that there was little wisdom to be expected
from popular election when naturally "each would vote for one of his
own stamp, the thief for a thief, the rogue, the tippler and the
smuggler for his brother in iniquity, so that he may enjoy more
latitude in vice and fraud." Finally Stuyvesant ordered the delegates
to disperse, declaring: "We derive our authority from God and the
Company, not from a {79} few ignorant subjects, and we alone can call
the inhabitants together."
With popular support thus alienated and with appeals for financial and
military aid from the States-General and the West India Company denied
or ignored, the end of New Netherland was clearly in sight. In 1663
Stuyvesant wrote to the Company begging them to send him
reenforcements. "Otherwise," he said, "it is wholly out of our power
to keep the sinking ship afloat any longer."
This year was full of omens. The valley of the Hudson was shaken by an
earthquake followed by an overflow of the river, which ruined the
crops. Smallpox visited the colony, and on top of all these calamities
came the appalling Indian massacre at Esopus. The following year,
1664, brought the arrival of the English fleet, the declaration of war,
and the surrender of the Dutch Province. For many years the English
had protested against the Dutch claims to the territory on the North
and South rivers. Their navigators had tried to contest the trade in
furs, and their Government at home had interfered with vessels sailing
to and from New Amsterdam. Now at length Charles II was ready to
appropriate the Dutch possessions. He did not {80} trouble himself
with questions of international law, still less with international
ethics; but, armed with the flimsy pretense that Cabot's visit
established England's claim to the territory, he stealthily made
preparations to seize the defenseless colony on the river which had
begun to be known as the Hudson. Five hundred veteran troops were
embarked on four ships, under command of Colonel Richard Nicolls, and
sailed on their expedition of conquest. Stuyvesant's suspicions,
aroused by rumors of invasion, were so far lulled by dispatches from
Holland that he allowed several ships at New Amsterdam to sail for
Curacao ladened with provisions, while he himself journeyed to
Rensselaerswyck to quell an Indian outbreak. While he was occupied in
this task, a messenger arrived to inform him that the English fleet was
hourly expected in the harbor of New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant made haste
down the river; but on the day after he arrived at Manhattan Island, he
saw ships flying the flag of England in the lower harbor, where they
anchored below the Narrows. Colonel Nicolls demanded the surrender of
the "towns situate on the island commonly known by the name of
Manhattoes, with all the forts thereunto belonging."
{81}
Although the case of New Amsterdam was now hopeless, Stuyvesant yet
strove for delay. He sent a deputation to Nicolls to carry on a
parley; but Nicolls was firm. "When may we visit you again?" the
deputation asked. Nicolls replied with grim humor that he would speak
with them at Manhattan. "Friends are welcome there," answered
Stuyvesant's representative diplomatically; but Nicolls told them
bluntly that he was coming with ships and soldiers. "Hoist a white
flag at the fort," he said, "and I may consider your proposals."
Colonel Nicolls was as good as his word and, to the consternation of
the dwellers in New Amsterdam, the fleet of English frigates, under
full sail and with all guns loaded, appeared before the walls of the
useless old Fort Amsterdam. Stuyvesant stood on one of the angles of
the fort and the gunners with lighted matches awaited his command to
fire. The people entreated him to yield. "Resistance is not
soldiership," said one of them. "It is sheer madness." Stuyvesant,
who with all his faults was a brave soldier, felt to the quick the
humiliation; but he saw also that resistance meant only useless
bloodshed. At last he submitted, and the English vessels sailed on
their way unmolested, {82} while Stuyvesant groaned, "I would much
rather be carried to my grave."
Without firing a shot the English thus took possession of the rich
country which the States-General had not thought worth defending, and
New Netherland became New York.
[1] Van Twiller's advocate, W. E. Griffis, quotes the Nijkerk records
in proof that Van Twiller was born on May 22, 1606, which would fix his
age at twenty-seven when he was sent out to the colony. The editor of
the Van Rensselaer-Bowier manuscript states that Kiliaen Van Rensselaer
was born in 1580, that his sister, Maria, married Richard, or Ryckaert,
Van Twiller and that the Wouter of our chronicles was their son and
therefore Van Rensselaer's nephew. We are the more inclined to accept
the year 1606 as the true date of Van Twiller's birth because the year
1580, previously accepted by historians, would have been the same as
that of the birth of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer himself, and because,
according to the author of the _Story of New Netherland_, Maria Van
Rensselaer was betrothed in 1605. Otherwise we should find it almost
beyond credence that a youth of twenty-seven should have been so
suddenly promoted from the counting-house at Amsterdam to the
responsible post of Director of New Netherland.
{83}