of the Senate and House of Representatives) was the legislative body of
the Netherlands, and in June, 1621, granted a charter to the Dutch West
India Company, giving it the exclusive privileges, for a period of
twenty-four years, as follows: To traffic on the coast and in the
interior of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope;
in America and the West Indies with the power to make engagements,
contracts, and alliances with the rulers and people designated in the
charter; to build forts, to appoint and discharge officers, to advance
the settlement of unoccupied territory, to enlarge the channels of
commerce, and to multiply the sources of revenue.
The company was required to report, from time to time, its doings, and
in the appointment of civil and military officers and instructions given
to them the Lords States General were to be consulted and the
commissions must bear their seal. If troops were needed the Lords States
General would furnish them but the company must pay all the expenses.
The charter intrusted the government of the company to five chambers of
managers consisting of nineteen members, eight from the Amsterdam
Chamber, four from the Zealand, two from the Maas, two from North
Holland, two from the Frieland, and the government one.
This company, under its charter, introduced the Patroon system granting
certain rights and privileges (very liberal ones and in some respects
extraordinary) and reserving the traffic in furs and peltry and in
manufactured goods and in the carrying trade, except along the Atlantic
coast, in which the Patroons might engage, paying a fixed tribute.
The colonists might, with the permission of the Patroon and of the
director of the Dutch West India Company, take up what unoccupied land
they could work, paying an annual rent to the Patroon. That rent was
based upon the value of land primarily and was to be paid in so many
bushels of wheat, rye, etc., so many pounds of butter, so many eggs and
so many chickens, etc. Everything the colonists had to sell must first
be offered to the Patroon. The Dutch West India Company was to furnish
the Patroons troops if needed as against the colonies, the expense to be
met by the landlords. The colonists couldn't leave the Patroon's service
during the term fixed. The value of the land before cultivation and
buildings ranged usually from ten cents to two dollars per acre. The
tenant improved the land, built house and barn to live comfortably, and
what was called "the Quarter Sale" seemed the most unreasonable,
intolerable. To illustrate: Suppose the tenant occupied a farm
originally valued at $2 an acre for 200 acres, say $400. He had improved
it by cultivation, buildings, etc., until it became worth and he sold it
for $4,000. Then the Patroon demanded $1,000. Four sales would give the
Patroon the whole. The rent, of course, was paid annually, or should
have been, and if there were arrears the Patroon claimed that that must
come out of the remaining $3,000.
The Netherlands primarily based their claim for the territory called New
Netherlands on Henry Hudson's discovery (so called) of five degrees of
north latitude, viz.: from 40° to 45° or from Delaware bay and river to
Cape Cod, where he touched or explored in 1609. Great Britain claimed
under the Cabots' discoveries, in 1497 and 1498, the whole stretch of
the North Atlantic coast from Florida to Newfoundland. The French
claimed a portion of northern Florida, which subsequently became a part
(the sea coast) of Georgia, and the Spanish the rest of Florida.
Virginia, under the English, late in the sixteenth and early in the
seventeenth centuries, extended from Cape Fear up to what later became
the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and New England extended from
Virginia to Nova Scotia. From 1609 until 1664 the Dutch held the New
Netherlands and then were compelled to surrender the territory to the
English under the grant of Charles II to James, his brother, the Duke of
York and Albany, who, in 1685, became King of England under the title of
James III. Great Britain never recognized the Dutch claim--always
protested against it--but being engaged in wars almost constantly did
not use force to obtain possession before. "It had become important to
dislodge the Dutch to prevent the smuggling of Virginia tobacco into
England at a loss to that government of some $50,000 in customs, and
also to have an unbroken line of English colonies from Florida to Nova
Scotia." The Dutch did not rely solely on Hudson's voyage on the Hudson,
but none of their claims had validity and the colony of New Netherlands
passed under British rule and the Patroon took the oath of allegiance to
the English King, and English laws instead of Dutch henceforth prevailed
in the colony.
As soon as the Patroons began to plant colonies in New Netherlands the
directors of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company
became jealous and opposed the Patroon system. In 1634 they bought off
the two Patroons, Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert (partners of Kiliaen
Van Rensselaer), who had secured a tract on the shore of the Delaware
bay making a territory of sixty-four miles in circumference, and also
Michael Pauw, who had obtained Staten Island, Jersey City, and Harsimus,
with the lands adjacent. An effort was made to buy off Patroon Van
Rensselaer, but he refused to sell.
While the New England colonies were rapidly increasing in population and
prosperity, the New Netherlands was not. In 1647 the population of the
New Netherlands was only about 1,000 or 2,000 less than in 1643. A new
policy was ordered by the Lords States General so liberal that settlers
could buy as few acres as they wished to and enjoy civil and religious
freedom as did the English colonies north and south of them. Under the
Patroon régime the Dutch colonists had less freedom, the enjoyment of
fewer rights, and greater hardships to endure than in Holland. They
were, as they saw things, imposed upon and serving masters who regarded
them as slaves.
The gulf between the classes and the masses seemed to widen and
deepen--on one side, lords and masters, and on the other side, subjects
and serfs. The Patroon family of the Van Rensselaers by marriage and
intermarriage were related to the Van Cortlands, Schuylers, Livingstons,
and other wealthy families, not only in New Netherlands but also in
Virginia, and although they had not castles, as the barons along the
Rhine, they had spacious mansions on their country estates where they
spent their summers and in the winters went to Manhattan Island and in
their places there gave royal entertainments to the élite. They had a
retinue of black servants (slaves) in livery to attend them. The
transplanting of the feudal system, even though somewhat modified, to
the western world, where the very spirit of freedom, liberty, and
equality prevailed, was doomed to failure and disaster. The principal
cause was in the system itself, though the Van Rensselaer Patroons'
course hastened its abrogation, terminating in blood. The most of the
Van Rensselaer Patroons were liberal, lenient, and indulgent, permitting
the rents to remain unpaid until they amounted to a sum equal to, or in
some cases exceeding, the value of the leased land. It needed not the
wisdom of a prophet to predict trouble from this course. When
primogeniture was abolished the eldest son was no longer the inheritor
of the estate, but all the children shared in it. Stephen (3d) Van
Rensselaer, the seventh Patroon, born in 1764 and died in 1839, was in
fact the last of the Van Rensselaer Patroons. He was graduated in
Harvard in 1782, a doctor of laws, the recipient of many and
distinguished civil and military honors, and a devoted patriot, called
"the good old Patroon," as soon as the law of primogeniture was
abolished sought to dispose of the most of the Rensselaerwyck estate
(which had been somewhat lessened by grants and sales) under a peculiar
form of deed or conveyance to actual tillers of the soil. This title
deed was called by some "a lease in fee" and by others "a sale in fee,"
reserving to himself in the conveyances and to his heirs and assigns all
mines and minerals and all streams of water for mill purposes; and then
certain old-time feudal returns, denominated rents payable annually at
the manor house in Watervliet, such as a specified number of bushels of
good clean wheat, four fat fowls, one day's service with carriages and
horses, and finally the one-quarter part of the purchase price on every
sale of land. The aim and intent was to perpetuate, if possible, and as
far as possible, the interest of the Van Rensselaers in the estate. The
estate remaining was divided by the two eldest sons, Stephen 4th getting
that on the west side and William Patterson Van Rensselaer that on the
east side of the Hudson river, and each all the reservations of rents in
their respective territories. "In 1839, when the said Stephen and
William Patterson began to push their claim against the landholders and
demand immediate payment of back rents, etc., the landholders, called
'anti-renters,' held a convention and appointed a committee to wait on
Stephen Van Rensselaer and ascertain if an amicable settlement of the
manor claims for rents in arrears could not be made and to learn on what
terms a clear and absolute title to the land could be had. The
committee, men of character, went to the manor office in 1839 to see and
converse with Mr. Van Rensselaer, but the latter refused to recognize or
even see the committee. He did, some time subsequently, send a letter to
the chairman of that committee declining to sell on any terms. Great
excitement was created in Albany county. The rent collectors were
roughly treated and they were told that no rents would be paid. Sheriffs
were called upon to discharge their duties and they were resisted and
driven back by men masked and dressed in Indian costumes. The sheriff
called to aid him the 'posse comitatus,' or power of the county, and
marched 600 strong into the anti-rent district, where they were turned
back by 1,500 anti-renters. The sheriff reported the state of affairs to
Governor William H. Seward, who immediately ordered out eight companies
of militia under the command of Major Bloodgood. They met no resistance.
"The Patroon interest hoped the military ordered out by the Governor of
the State would bring the anti-renters to their senses and induce them
to pay up. The landholders or anti-renters hoped that their display of
strength and resistance would induce the Van Rensselaers to offer terms
of compromise which they could accept. Neither hope was realized. Then
some lawyer who had dug into old English law books said the Patroon
patent was invalid and the matter must go to the court for settlement.
It became a political question at once. The anti-renters elected
representatives in the Legislature from eleven counties and the new
Governor favored them. The decisions of the courts seemed to alternate
in favor of the Van Rensselaers and then in favor of the anti-renters.
In 1852 the counsel of the Van Rensselaers advised them to sell their
claims, for they believed they could not be sustained and that advice
was accepted. Some of the landholders or anti-renters accepted the terms
offered.
"Then appeared Walter S. Church, who bought the rest of the claims on
speculation. He spared no labor, no expense in any direction which he
thought might aid him. He magnificently entertained legislators,
lawyers, and judges. He was indefatigable, exacting, demanding the
utmost farthing. Ejectment suits were brought and several lives were
sacrificed. The final decision was against the Van Rensselaers, and thus
ended a long and bitter controversy growing out of the Patroon system."
Who can estimate and properly accredit to the different nations of
Europe their just due in the immigrants they sent to this country in its
founding and subsequently in building up the United States as the
greatest free republic on earth and the hope of the liberty-loving
world? The Dutch must be among the early named with excellent traits of
character, and the Patroons deserve credit for first colonizing them
here.
We do not want to try to conjecture what the results would have been if
Hudson's exploration of the North river had been in the interest of
France or if the Pilgrims had settled in 1620 in the New Netherlands
instead of New England.
Nearly 300 years have passed away since Henry Hudson, in the yacht "Half
Moon," sailed over the waters of the river bearing his name and whose
beauties he so greatly admired. That majestic, noble river continues to
flow on from the mountains to the sea with a great unabated pure stream
in its primeval beauty and loveliness. This statement must, however, be
qualified, for man's greed, cupidity, has caused him in some localities
to contaminate its waters and to mar and to an extent destroy its
matchless palisades. Now that the governments have taken matters in hand
it is to be hoped that these abuses will be summarily ended.
Art and architecture have embellished its banks by lovely gardens,
parterres and magnificent residences and stately buildings. Attractive
villages, great and prosperous cities crown the Hudson from the north
and terminating in that unique, wonderful, greatest, truly cosmopolitan
city of the world, New York. Nothing else did so much to produce these
results as Fulton's application of steam to navigation and the opening
up of a through water transportation route from the Atlantic to the
Great lakes. Then the application of steam as the motive power for
railroads. When the Hudson river is ice-bound the Hudson River Railroad
along its east bank and the West Shore Railroad along its west bank
transport passengers and freight as they do the year around. The Dutch
possession of the New Netherlands was short and when the English
supplanted them the Dutch names of places, very generally, were changed
to English ones. Manhattan island, called by the Dutch "New Amsterdam"
during their rule, except from July, 1673, to October, 1674, when the
Dutch recaptured and held the "New Netherlands" and called it "New
Orange," was changed to New York in honor of the Duke of York and
Albany, and has borne that name ever since--a city of many millions of
inhabitants and billions of wealth, the site of which was bought by and
for the Dutch of the Indians in 1626 for the sum of about twenty-four
dollars paid for in trinkets. Among many other good things placed to the
credit of the Dutch in New Netherlands is the fact that the Dutch West
India Company established a good school in New Amsterdam in 1633 which
still flourishes under the name of the "School of the Collegiate
Reformed Church," which is the oldest institution of learning in the
United States, "The Boston Latin School," established in 1635, being the
second, and Harvard College, established in 1636, the third.
The names of the site of Albany which, during Dutch rule, were
Rensselaerwyck and Beverwyck (the latter including Fort Orange, built
and maintained by the Dutch West India Company, and the land surrounding
it, and the former the territory outside of the fort and belonging to
the Patroon) were substituted by the name of Albany in honor of the Duke
of York and Albany, a name it has borne ever since.
In 1783 the English colonies in North America were recognized as free
and independent and formed the United States of America--the colonies
organizing State governments--but 100 years before this the colony of
New York demanded heaven-born rights and participation in making the
laws governing them as the colonists of Virginia and Massachusetts had,
and in the General Assembly of the colony of New York, held in Fort
James in the city of New York October, 1683, put on record what they
called the "Charter of Liberties and Privileges."
The ten original counties of the colony of New York were Albany, Ulster,
Dutchess, Orange, Westchester, Richmond, Kings, Queens, Suffolk, and New
York, formed under Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Dongan's administration,
and sent representatives to the General Assembly. The boundaries of
several of these counties have not been materially changed, Albany
county embraced the whole territory lying north of Ulster and west of
the Hudson river, taking in nearly the whole State. From its territory
fifty of the counties of the State have been erected and it has
appropriately been called "the mother of the counties of New York."
Albanians love their old Dutch city and will cordially join in
commemorating Henry Hudson's advent to it nearly 300 years ago. Much has
been said in this article about the Patroon system and the anti-renters,
hoping to have these matters better understood by a statement of facts.
Concerning affairs relating to Albany and vicinity, I have frequently
referred to, quoted and used "Mr. Wiese's History of the City of
Albany," 1884, and the "Bi-centennial History of Albany and Schenectady
Counties from 1609 to 1886, published by W. W. Munsell & Co., 1886."
The article on "Anti-Rentism" was written by the Hon. Andrew J. Colvin.
FRANK CHAMBERLAIN.
All rights reserved.
Albany, _September, 1907_.
Transcriber's Notes
--Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.
--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's Hudson Tercentenary, by Frank Chamberlain