NEW NETHERLANDS; NEW SWEDEN.
We have already related how, in the year of our Lord 1609, Henry Hudson,
on his second voyage of discovery, coasted America from Acadia to
Delaware Bay; and how, on the 3rd of September, he anchored within Sandy
Hook; after which, passing the Narrows, he entered New York Bay, and
leaving the island of Manhattan, proceeded up the great river. His ship
entering Sandy Hook Bay, the first European vessel which had ploughed
those waters, was a wonderful object of curiosity to the natives, who
assembled on the shore. Hudson ascended the river, still the same cause
of wonder to the natives, who treated him well, and are reported by him
to be “a very loving people.” Arriving at shallows in the river on the
19th, Hudson anchored at Schenectadea, now called Albany, and received
pumpkins and grapes, as well as otter and beaver-skins, from the
Indians, to whom, in return, he presented hatchets, beads and knives. On
this occasion, too, they tasted for the first time the fatal fire-water,
which was destined to have so disastrous an effect on the downfall of
their kindred tribes over the whole continent of America.
The Iroquois Indians retain to this day the tradition of this wonderful
event, although they differ as to the locality, some placing it at
Albany, others at New York; but the substance of the incident occurred,
not only at these two places, but wherever the white man set his foot.
“A long time ago,” say they, “before men with white skins had ever been
seen, some Indians, fishing at a place where the sea widens, espied
something at a distance moving on the water. They hurried ashore, called
together their neighbours, and all stood to watch this wonderful
apparition. They could not tell what it was; some thought it was a large
fish, others a large wigwam floating. As it appeared to approach the
land, runners were sent in all directions with the news to their
scattered chiefs, that they might send off for their warriors and wise
men. In a short time all were there, and the conclusion was, that it was
the Manitou, or Great Spirit, who was about to visit them. They were not
afraid that the Great Spirit would hurt them; nevertheless a great awe
fell upon them.
“The chiefs assembled to consult how Manitou could be best received, and
meat was prepared for sacrifice. The women, in the meantime, prepared
the best of victuals, and the conjurers tried all their arts to discover
what the marvel portended. The idols were put in order, and a grand
dance was held, which, in case he might be angry, it was hoped would
please him.
“Whilst all this was going on, other runners arrived, who had also
perceived the strange apparition, and now thronged to that part of the
shore at which it appeared to be aiming. As it neared the shore, it was
declared to be a great canoe, full of living creatures, and all were now
convinced that it was indeed Manitou, ‘bringing some new kind of game.’
“The vessel, now within ear-shot of the shore, hails the natives in a
language they had never heard before; and they answer by a yell and a
shout. The great canoe stops; a smaller canoe comes on shore, bearing a
man clothed in red, who had been observed standing on the great canoe;
the chiefs and the wise men form a circle, and the red man and two
attendants approach. He salutes them with a friendly countenance, and
they return his salutation in the same manner. They are amazed at his
appearance, and believe all the more that it is the Great Manitou,
though the white skin is a sign which they had not expected.
“The servants of the supposed Manitou produced a large bottle, and a
liquor was poured into a small glass, which the Manitou emptied, and
which, on its being refilled, he handed to the chief nearest to him. The
chief took it, smelt it, and passed it on to the next, who did the same;
and so it went round the circle, and was about to be returned to the
Great Manitou in red, when one of their great warriors, feeling it was a
mark of disrespect, took the glass, saying to the Indians, that such
conduct might provoke the stranger, who meant kindly by them, and that
if no one else would, he would drink it himself, happen what might.
“He smelled again at the liquor, bade his friends adieu, and drank it
off, all eyes being fixed on him. Scarcely had he swallowed it when he
began to stagger; the women cried; he rolled on the ground, and all
bemoaned him as dying; he fell asleep, and they would have thought him
dead, but that they perceived him still to breathe. He awoke, jumped up,
declared he never felt so happy before, asked for more, and the whole
company now being eager to drink, drank, and all became drunk.
“In the meantime the white men went to their vessel, and the next day
the man in red returned, and gave them beads, axes, hoes, and stockings.
They were soon all very good friends. They conversed by signs, and the
strangers made them understand, that the next year they would return,
and bring them more presents, but, as they could not live without
eating, they should then want a little land, on which to grow herbs for
their broth.
“The next year they came back, and they were very glad to see each
other; but the white men laughed when they saw the axes and hoes
hanging, like ornaments, round their necks, and the stockings used as
tobacco-pouches. The whites now put handles in the axes, and cut down
trees before their eyes, and showed them the use of stockings. The
strangers asked for land, and the Indians gave it, being amazed at the
cunning manner in which they obtained more land than was expected. The
white strangers and the red men lived contentedly together for a long
time, but the former were constantly asking for more, and still more,
land, which the Indians gave them. And in this way, they gradually
advanced up the Mahicannittuck, or Hudson river, until they began to
believe that they would want all their country, which proved true in the
end.”
Hudson descended the glorious river which bears his name, and, on the
4th of October, set sail on his return to Europe. The report which he
carried back of the land he had discovered, though of the most brilliant
description, did not, as we have already said, immediately induce the
Dutch either to found a settlement or to pursue the discovery. Hudson
never returned to these beautiful shores, but the following year
perished miserably, in the ice-bound seas of a higher latitude, as we
have already related.
Although the country around the Hudson was claimed by the Dutch by right
of Hudson’s discovery, still several years elapsed before they took
formal possession; nevertheless, in 1610, a company of merchants of
Amsterdam sent out a ship laden with merchandise, to trade with the
natives, of whom Hudson had reported so favourably; and this first
speculation proving lucrative, a regular traffic was established, and a
few huts and trading-houses erected on Manhattan, the promontory on
which New York stands. It was this early Dutch settlement which Captain
Argall, the kidnapper of Pocahontas, compelled to acknowledge the
authority of the English, when he returned from his piratical expedition
against the French at Port Royal, and the Dutch, too weak to offer
resistance, submitted, but hoisted again their flag as soon as he had
disappeared.
Unlike the early colonists of New England, the first Dutch settlers kept
no records of their movements, so that it is impossible to follow them
with any accuracy. All that is known is, that in 1614, the
States-General volunteered to any adventurous company four years’
monopoly of traffic with all newly-discovered lands; on which a number
of merchants fitted out five ships for trade and exploration. The head
of this expedition was Hendrik Christiaanse, who with three vessels went
northward as far as Cape Cod, and the other two, commanded by Adrian
Blok, advanced to New York Bay. Here his ship accidentally taking fire,
he built a yacht, and sailing through East River, discovered the insular
position of Long Island, giving his name to an island east of the Sound,
which it still retains. Blok is supposed to have discovered the
Housatonic and Connecticut rivers, and to have explored the Narragansett
Bay, after which, meeting with Christiaanse, they returned to New York
harbour, and in the autumn of the same year, probably, a small rude fort
was erected on the southern point of Manhattan.
While Christiaanse and Blok were thus engaged, May steered southward,
and exploring the Delaware Bay, conferred his own name on the southern
cape of the present State of New Jersey. The following year Hendrikson
ascended the Schuylkill in the yacht built by Blok; a small fort was
built at Albany on the Hudson, and Jacob Elkins, formerly a merchant’s
clerk, received from Christiaanse the appointment of commissary of these
fortified trading establishments.
Colonisation was here a slow operation. The Dutch as yet appeared in
America merely as traders, and even in 1620 the United Provinces had put
forth no claim to territory. In 1617 a treaty was concluded between the
Dutch and the Iroquois, in which, the Delawares and Mohegans were also
parties. This was the treaty with the Five Nations, which was maintained
with good faith for many years, and by opposing a barrier of friendly
Indians between themselves and the French, prevented the encroachments
of the latter.
We are now arrived at the period of the emigration of the Pilgrim
Fathers from Holland to New England; yet, although at this very time
religious controversy ran high in Holland, and liberty was outraged in
the persons of her best and noblest citizens, Grotius and Olden
Barneveld, the former of whom was imprisoned for life, and the latter an
old man of threescore and twelve, perished on the scaffold, we do not
find that any great impetus, as in England, was given to emigration. The
Dutch were traders, and nothing short of trade could make them move. As
yet their American settlements had been formed under the auspices of the
Dutch East India Company; but in 1621 a Dutch West India Company was
incorporated, which held a charter for four-and-twenty years, conferring
upon it the exclusive privilege of trafficking and planting colonies
“from the straits of Magellan to the remotest north.” There was here
scope wide enough to satisfy the most enterprising adventurers. All who
now were disposed to leave Holland, from whatever cause it might be, had
an opportunity, and accordingly emigration began on a more systematic
plan than formerly. In 1623, a number of settlers went out under the
command of Cornelius May, who not only visited Manhattan, but entering
the Bay of Delaware, ascended the river of that name, which was then
called South River. May took possession of the country for the Dutch,
built Fort Nassau in the present State of New Jersey, and being strictly
just to the natives, left a memory behind him which was long respected
by them. The country from the southern shore of the Delaware to Cape Cod
was now designated New Netherlands. A colony was established on
Manhattan, called New Amsterdam; the Dutch had now homes in the New
World, and in 1625, the first child of Dutch parentage was born here.
In 1625, Peter Minuits arrived at Manhattan as governor of New
Netherlands, which office he held for six years. It must not be
imagined, however, that these settlers, like those of New England,
brought with them an inborn spirit of political organisation; all power
remained in the hands of the company, and this colony was for many years
merely an establishment of trade, where European goods were exchanged
for the peltries of the Indian.
In 1627, the governor of the infant Dutch plantation, wishing to be on
friendly terms with the Pilgrim settlers of New Plymouth, who had by
that time established themselves firmly and were extending their
borders, wrote a letter of congratulation to them, on “their prosperity,
praiseworthy undertakings, and the government of their colony; offering
them good will and service in all friendly kindness, and good
neighbourhood;” and very characteristically closing the letter by an
offer of “any of their goods for any wares which they might be pleased
to deal for.” In return, the Pilgrims expressed their thankful sense of
the kindnesses they had received in Holland, and their grateful
acceptance of this offered friendship. The following year, therefore, De
Rasier, the second in command, arrived at a trading establishment which
the Plymouth people had built for their convenience, twenty miles south
of Cape Cod, bringing with him divers commodities; and a boat was sent
to fetch him to the old colony, where he came “honourably attended by a
noise of trumpeters.” A league of friendship and commerce was proposed;
but the New England settlers, who doubted the right of the Dutch to the
territory they held, which was claimed by England by right of Cabot’s
previous discovery, demurred, recommending rather that a treaty should
be entered into by their respective nations. Still the utmost harmony
prevailed; De Rasier offered the aid of troops, if necessary, against
the French; and advised them to leave the barren soil of Plymouth for
the fine pasture land on the banks of the Connecticut. When he departed,
a number of the colonists accompanied him to his vessel and made
considerable purchases from him; and the New England chronicle records
that they traded together for several years, to their great mutual
benefit. The greatest benefit, however, being, that the Dutch taught the
English settlers the value of the trade in wampum: “they told us,” says
this old record, “how vendible it is at their fort Orania, and assure us
we shall find it so at Kennebeck;” for the Plymouth people had already a
trading station on that river: and so in the end it proved, they very
soon being hardly able to supply the demand, making great profit by it.
The Pilgrims seem to have been very plain-spoken on this occasion, and
even while expressing all kind of good wishes for the prosperity of
their friends the Dutch, they requested that their ships might not
interfere with their trade for beaver-skins in Narragansett Bay.
In 1629, the West India Company being desirous of promoting
colonisation, a charter was obtained by what was styled “the College of
Nineteen,” which offered to any one who would emigrate as much land as
he could cultivate; and any person who should within four years plant a
colony of fifty souls, to become lord of the manor, or patron, with
absolute possession of all land so colonised, to the extent of sixteen
miles, or if on a river, eight miles on each bank, and as far interior
as the situation might require; all lands, however, were to be purchased
from the Indians; towns and cities were to depend upon the patron for
the form of government; yet it was recommended that a schoolmaster and
minister should be provided. No manufactures of linen, woollen, or
cotton, were permitted, lest the mother-country should suffer. The
company, as a sort of boon, engaged to furnish the manors with negroes,
provided—stipulated the wary traders—that the “traffic should prove
lucrative.”
This charter favoured the appropriation of the best situations for trade
by speculative individuals, rather than colonisation. Nevertheless, one
of the patrons having purchased the southern portion of the present
state of Delaware, a colony was taken out by De Vries, the historian of
the voyage, and settled on Staten Island. The Dutch now occupied
Delaware, and their claim extended from Cape Henlopen to Cape Cod. After
a year’s residence, De Vries returned to Holland, leaving Osset as his
deputy; but the new commandant having excited the resentment of the
Algonquins, De Vries, on his return, found the fort deserted, the
scattered bones of his murdered countrymen testifying of Indian
vengeance; and De Vries himself would have perished, had not an Indian
woman warned him of his danger. Delaware was once more in the hands of
the natives, and before the Dutch could re-assert their claim, they
found a competitor in Lord Baltimore, who claimed it under his patent.
De Vries, leaving the melancholy scene of his former labours and hopes,
proceeded to Virginia for provisions, and the following spring, on
arriving at New Amsterdam, found Peter Minuits, in consequence of
quarrels which had broken out, superseded as governor by Wouter van
Twiller. A few months before the arrival of Van Twiller, the Dutch had
purchased land from the natives on the Connecticut, and as we have
already mentioned, established there their trading station of the House
of Good Hope. The English, however, claiming the country, colonists from
New England poured in, and in defiance of the Dutch, settled themselves
down at Windsor and Hartford. The Dutch company retained for many years
a feeble hold on the Connecticut, but finally were overwhelmed by the
New Englanders, who, carrying with them the very principles of
organisation, took forcible and natural root wherever they planted
themselves. And now another competitor was within their borders.
As early as the year 1624, the great Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the
hero of his age, and the champion of the Protestant faith in Europe,
entertained a design of extended colonisation in the New World. A
commercial company, under the patronage of the king, was incorporated in
Sweden, the monarch himself pledging 400,000 dollars of the royal
treasure for the purposes of its advancement. “Men of every rank were
invited to engage in the enterprise, and colonists from all countries of
Europe.” Perfectly comprehending the soundest principles of
colonisation, the scheme of this emigration rejected slaves, “which,”
said they, “cost a great deal, labour with reluctance, and soon perish
from hard usage. The Swedish nation, on the contrary, is laborious and
intelligent, and we shall gain more by a free people with wives and
children.” The thirty years war was then raging, and the great
protestant hero looked forward to his proposed colony becoming an
“asylum for the wives and daughters of those whom wars and bigotry had
made fugitives; a blessing to the common man throughout the whole
protestant world.” This noble plan occupied almost the last thoughts of
Gustavus; shortly before his death, at the battle of Lutzen, he
recommended it to the people of Germany.
When protestantism and humanity lost at Lutzen one of their greatest
ornaments, the scheme from which he had hoped so much was not allowed to
perish. The great and good Oxenstiern extending, as his master had
desired, its benefits to Germany, the charter was confirmed by deputies
from the four upper circles at Frankfort.
In 1637, Peter Minuits, the former governor of New Amsterdam having
offered his services and his experience to Sweden, conveyed over from
that country a company of Swedes and Finns in two vessels, the Key of
Calmar and the Griffin, furnished by government with a religious
teacher, provisions and merchandise for traffic with the natives. Early
the following spring they arrived in Delaware Bay; and so beautiful did
the country appear to these natives of a rigid clime, that they called
the southern cape Paradise Point. From this cape to the falls of the
Delaware near Trenton, the whole territory was purchased from the
natives, and called New Sweden; and Christiana Fort, so designated from
the youthful queen of their native land, was built.
The Dutch, by no means well pleased to see this new settlement of
strangers on a coast which had so lately been in their own possession,
asserted their claim, and might have proceeded to enforce it, but that
the fame of Swedish valour in Europe was yet too great for them to
venture more than a protest. The happy Scandinavians sent to their
northern friends such attractive reports of the beautiful land, with its
fine pasture grounds and affluent rivers, which was now the home of
their adoption, that the desire for emigration was kindled on all hands,
especially among the agricultural population of Sweden and Finland.
Settlement after settlement extended itself; and finally, in order to
maintain their ascendancy over the Dutch, who, to restrict their
advance, had rebuilt their fort of Nassau on the Delaware, the Swedish
governor, Printz, established himself, and built a fort on Trinicum
island, a few miles below Philadelphia. Europeans had now planted
themselves on the soil of Pennsylvania. The whole extent of the Delaware
banks from the falls to the sea formed the province of New Sweden; and
such emigrants from New England as had already penetrated thus far,
either were driven out or submitted to the Swedish jurisdiction.
Sir William Kieft was now and had been for two years, governor of New
Netherlands, but the country did not flourish under him any more than it
had done under his predecessor. On all hands difficulties surrounded
him, and he was not of a character to overcome them. On the north, the
English were gradually and steadily advancing; they had usurped
Connecticut, till the Dutch alone could claim thirty acres round their
trading station; the Swedes were on the south, and even Long Island was
now occupied under a grant from an English earl. In vain did Kieft
remonstrate and threaten; nobody seemed either to regard him or to
respect the province of which he was the ruler—nay, even on one
occasion, the arms of the Dutch were overthrown, and, in a spirit of
derision, a fool’s head was placed in their stead.
Meantime a tempest of another and more formidable kind was brooding and
gathering strength over the fated New Netherlands. Quarrels had
repeatedly occurred between unprincipled Dutch traders and intoxicated
Indians. The vengeance of the Algonquins had, as we have seen,
annihilated the little settlement on Staten Island, and now it was
gathering its might for a feller swoop. An Indian boy of the Raritan
tribe, who had witnessed the murder and robbery of his uncle by one of
Peter Minuit’s people, vowed to avenge his death when he grew to man’s
estate. And now he was a man grown, and thirsted to accomplish his vow.
In 1641, the first onslaught was made, but with little effect; the
Raritans were outlawed, and ten fathoms of wampum offered for every
scalp.
Kieft summoned the people to deliberate on the public danger. Twelve men
were chosen, De Vries being at their head, but recommending lenient
measures, which not being in accordance with the governor’s ideas, were
disregarded. At this juncture, the son of a chief having been made drunk
and then robbed, shot, in revenge, the first Dutchman he met. Alarmed at
this untoward incident, a deputation of chiefs immediately waited on
Kieft, and offered, as a fine and indemnity, two hundred fathoms of
wampum; urging with great reason, “You yourselves are the cause of this
evil; you ought not to craze the young Indians with brandy. Your own
people, when drunk, fight with knives and do foolish things; and you
cannot prevent mischief till you cease to sell strong drink to the
Indians.”
Reasonable as was the remonstrance, Kieft would not listen to it;
nothing but the surrender of the young man would satisfy him, and that
the chiefs refused. Whilst this question was pending, a small armed
party of Mohawks, allies of the Dutch, came down from the neighbourhood
of Fort Orange, and claimed the Raritans as their tributaries. At the
approach of these formidable enemies, the weaker, though more numerous,
Raritans threw themselves at once on the mercy of the Dutch. Kieft,
considering this opportunity too favourable to be lost, spite of the
remonstrances and entreaties of De Vries and many of the more
influential inhabitants of New Amsterdam, determined on a general
massacre.
In the dead of the night on the 25th of February, 1643, two armed
parties, accompanied by an Indian guide, crossed the Hudson, and fell
upon the Indian encampments, when not the slightest suspicion of the
Dutch existed. Taken thus by surprise, amid the repose of night,
scarcely any resistance was made; the noise of musketry and the cries of
the murdered reached Manhattan. By daybreak above a hundred were slain,
nor then did the slaughter cease. No mercy was shown—men, women, and
children all perished alike. “Infants, bound in their bark-cradles, were
flung into the icy river; and the poor frantic mothers, who had plunged
into the water to their rescue, were mercilessly forced back from the
shore, and both were drowned. This fearful massacre continued through
the day.”
Kieft gloried in this detestable slaughter, and welcomed back his troops
as from a great victory; the colonists, however, with sentiments of
common humanity, held it in abhorrence, and finally deposed their
governor, and sent him back to Holland. But before they performed this
act of justice, the consequences of his barbarity had fallen terribly on
the colony. As soon as it was perceived that the midnight slaughter was
not caused by the Mohawks, but by the Dutch, every Algonquin tribe
around Manhattan joined in a league of vengeance. They thronged in from
all sides; and, making swamps their hiding-places, rushed forth for
sudden attacks, equally remorseless and wholesale as that of the Dutch
had been. Every village was destroyed; every plantation laid waste; men
and women murdered, and children carried off captive. Long Island was a
desert; “from the shores of the Jersey to the boundaries of Connecticut
not a bowery (farm) was safe.” It was in this awful Indian war of
reprisals that that noble woman, Anne Hutchinson and her family,
perished. Total ruin threatened New Netherlands. Numbers fled. “Mine
eyes,” says Roger Williams, “saw the flames of their towns, the frights
and hurries of men, women, and children, and the present removal of all
who could to Holland.”
Kieft, who was a coward as well as a ruffian, threw the blame of this
Indian massacre on an old freebooter named Adriensen, and he, enraged at
the accusation, drew his cutlass and would have killed the governor, but
that he was disarmed and sent prisoner to Holland. The remains of the
colonists were enrolled into service, and a solemn fast was appointed.
Happily for them the vengeance of the tribes was satisfied, and a
deputation of the Dutch, headed by De Vries, met a convention of sixteen
sachems in the woods of Rockaway, on the 5th of March, to treat of
peace. De Vries was led into the centre of the group, when one of the
chiefs arose, and holding in one hand a bundle of sticks, thus addressed
him: “When you first arrived on our shores, you were destitute of food;
we gave you our beans and our corn; we fed you with oysters and fish;
and now for our recompence you murder our people.” This was his first
accusation, and laying down one stick he proceeded: “The traders whom
your first ships left upon our shore to traffic till your return, were
cherished by us as the apple of our eye; we gave them our daughters for
their wives; among those whom you murdered were children of your own
blood.” Here he laid down a second stick, and so continued his
accusations till the whole bundle was exhausted.
A truce was finally agreed upon; but it is doubtful if this could have
been arranged but for the fortunate presence of Roger Williams, then on
his way to England, and who not being permitted to sail from Boston, was
now at Manhattan for that purpose. Beloved and respected by all the
Indian tribes, his mediation was accepted, and a covenant of peace with
the Dutch was entered into by all the River Indians.
But peace was only of short duration. As the Indians saw the vacant
places in their wigwams, and as one counted up his father or mother
slain, and another his sons, or when but one member was left to deplore
all the rest gone, an old chief spoke only the voice of a whole tribe,
when he said that the price of blood had not yet been paid.
In the autumn the war broke out afresh, and John Underhill, a veteran
soldier, the leader of the Massachusetts force in the Pequod war, though
now a fugitive from New England, was appointed commander of the Dutch
forces. But now as regards Underhill we must say a few words, though we
delay the course of the narrative, as to the cause of his leaving
Boston, which was so singularly characteristic of puritan manners.
Underhill had not only the courage, but somewhat of the lax morality of
the old soldier of those days, and this latter circumstance brought him
into trouble. Spite of the good service which he had rendered to
Massachusetts in his martial character, he was compelled “to make his
appearance before the whole congregation of Boston on lecture day, at
the close of the sermon, and standing on a form in his worst clothes—he
who was so fond of brave apparel—without a band, and with a linen cap
pulled over his eyes, to do penance for his wicked courses, and with
sighs and tears and tokens of sorrow of heart, beseech the compassion of
the congregation for one who, like him, had yielded to the temptations
of Satan.” Having thus satisfied the offended morals of Boston, he
removed to New Netherlands, of which, at the head of 120 men, he now
became the protector. The war continued for two years, and then the
Indians sued for peace, which the Dutch—who had suffered equally with
themselves, and in which their European neighbours, unwilling to embroil
themselves, refused to aid them—were no less willing to grant.
The Mohawks, who were friendly to the Dutch, sent an ambassador to
Manhattan to negotiate peace, and on the 30th of August, 1645, according
to the custom of the Indians, the delegates of both parties met in the
open air; and in front of New Amsterdam, the sachems of the various
tribes of River Indians, the Mohegans, and those of Long Island, with
the chiefs of the Five Nations as witnesses, and the director and
council, and the whole population of New Netherlands standing round,
signed a solemn treaty of peace; or, to use the figurative and beautiful
language of the Indians, “there, in presence of the sun and the ocean,
planted the tree of peace and buried the tomahawk beneath its shade.”