invasion of the Dutch territory, made about the time when the Swedes
first appeared on the Delaware, by Englishmen crossing over from
Connecticut to the east end of Long Island. The whole island had been
granted by the Plymouth Company to the Earl of Stirling in 1635; and
basing their claims on patents issued by Forrest, the Earl’s agent
in America, the invaders quickly settled in the present County of
Suffolk (1640), and resisted all efforts of the Dutch to drive them
off. Prejudicial to the Company’s interests as these encroachments
upon their territory were, they were calculated to call forth all the
administrative and diplomatic talents of which Kieft was supposed to
be possessed; but unfortunately by his lack of these qualities he
contrived to lay the colony open to a danger which almost destroyed
it. The trade with the interior had led to an intimacy between the
Indians and the Dutch which gave the natives many chances to acquaint
themselves thoroughly with the habits, strength, and usages of the
settlers; while the increased demand for peltries required that the
Indians should be supplied with better means to meet that demand. They
were consequently given firearms; and when thus put on the same footing
with the white inhabitants, Kieft committed the folly of exacting from
them a tribute as a return for aiding them in their defence against
their enemies by the building of forts and by the maintenance of a
military establishment. He even threatened to use forcible measures
in cases of non-compliance. The war resulting from this policy lasted
until 1645, and seriously impaired the finances of the Company and the
development of the colony. Equally arbitrary and devoid of common-sense
was Kieft’s administration of internal affairs. Before the beginning of
the Indian war, upon which he was intent, circumstances compelled him
to make a concession to popular rights, which he might use as a cloak
to protect himself against censure. He directed that the community at
large should elect twelve delegates to consult with the Director and
Council on the expediency of going to war, and when fairly launched
into the conflict he quickly abolished this advisory board,—the first
representative body of New York,—but only to ask for an expression
of the public opinion by another board a few months later in 1643.
This, at last disgusted with Kieft’s tyranny and folly, set to work
to have him removed in 1647. The people had not forgotten that in the
Netherlands they had been self-governing, and had enjoyed the rights of
free municipalities. Although all the minor towns had acquired the same
privileges almost at the beginning of their existence, New Amsterdam,
the principal place of the colony, was still ruled by the Company
through the Director and Council. The opposition which he met from the
burghers of this place was the principal cause of his recall.
The relations of New Netherland with its English neighbors during
Kieft’s administration were in the main the same as under his
predecessors. He continued to complain of the grievous wrongs and
injuries inflicted upon his people by New Haven, but had no means to do
more than complain. The stronger English colonies kept their settlement
on the Connecticut, and established another within the territory
claimed by the Dutch at Agawam, now Springfield, Mass.
The arrival of the new director-general was celebrated by the
inhabitants of New Amsterdam with all the solemnity which circumstances
afforded; and they were pleased to hear him announce that he “should
be in his government as a father to his children for the advantage of
the Company, the country, and the burghers.” They had good reasons
to be hopeful. Petrus Stuyvesant, the new director, had gathered
administrative experience as governor of the Company’s Island of
Curaçao, and while in Holland on sick leave, in 1645, he had proved his
knowledge of New Netherland affairs by offering acceptable suggestions
for the better management of this and the other transatlantic
territories of the Company. His views, together with instructions drawn
up by the Assembly of the Nineteen for the guidance of the director,
were embodied in resolutions and orders for the future government of
New Netherland, which revolutionized and liberalized the condition of
the colony. It was henceforth to be governed by the Director-General
and a Council composed of the vice-director and the fiscal. The right
of the people to be heard by the provincial government on the state
and condition of the country, through delegates from the various
settlements, was confirmed; and the carrying trade between the colony
and other countries, which the reform of 1639 had still left in the
hands of the Company and of a few privileged persons, was now opened to
all, although under certain rather onerous restrictions.
[Illustration]
The first few months of the new administration fully justified the hope
with which Stuyvesant’s arrival had been accompanied. The state in
which Kieft had left the public morals compelled Stuyvesant to issue
and enforce such orders, that within two months of his assuming the
new duties the director of the Patroons’ Colony at Albany wrote home:
“Mynheer Stuyvesant introduces here a thorough reform.” What the state
of things must have been may be inferred from Stuyvesant’s declaration
that “the people are without discipline, and approaching the savage
state,” while “a fourth part of the city of New Amsterdam consists of
rumshops and houses where nothing can be had but beer and tobacco.”
Unfortunately for his own reputation and for the good of the colony,
he used his energies not solely to make provisions for future good
government, but he allowed his feudal notions to embroil him in
the quarrels of the late administration, by espousing the cause of
Kieft, who had been accused by representatives of the commonalty of
malfeasance in office. This grave error induced the home authorities to
consider Stuyvesant’s recall; but he was finally allowed to remain, and
in the end proved the most satisfactory administrator of the province
sent out by the Company. It was his and the Company’s misfortune that
he was appointed when the resources of the Company were gradually
diminishing in consequence of the peace with Spain. He was thus
constantly hampered by a lack of means; and when the end came, he had
only from one hundred and fifty to two hundred soldiers, scattered in
four garrisons from the Delaware forts to Fort Orange, to defend the
colony against an overwhelming English force.
During the seventeen years of his administration Stuyvesant endeavored
to cultivate the friendship of the Indians; and in this he was in the
main successful, save that the tribes of the Mohegan nation along
the Hudson refused to become as firm friends of the Dutch as their
suzerain lords, the Mohawks, were. While Stuyvesant was absent on
the South River, in 1655, to subdue, in obedience to orders from
home, the Swedish settlements there, New Amsterdam was invaded by the
River Indians and almost destroyed. The Colony and the Company had
not yet recovered from the losses sustained by this invasion, nor
from the draft made upon their financial resources by the successful
expedition against the Swedes, when a few tribes of the same River
Indians reopened the war against the Dutch. They first murdered some
individuals of the settlement on the Esopus (now Kingston, Ulster
County), and later destroyed it almost completely. With an expense at
the time altogether out of proportion to the means of the Government,
Stuyvesant succeeded in 1663 in ending this war by destroying the
Esopus tribe of Indians.
The negotiations with the New England colonies for a settlement of
the boundary and other open questions fall into the earlier part of
Stuyvesant’s administration. Although he could flatter himself that
he had obtained in the treaty of Hartford, 1650, as good terms as he
might expect from a power vastly superior to his own, his course only
tended to separate the two factions of New Netherland still farther.
His espousal of Kieft’s cause had, as we have seen, alienated him from
the mass of his countrymen, whose anger was now still more aroused
when he selected as advisers at Hartford an Englishman resident at
New Amsterdam and a Frenchman. He was accused of having betrayed his
trust because he had been obliged to surrender the jurisdiction of the
Company over the Connecticut territory and the east end of Long Island.
Listening to these accusations, coming together as they did with the
Kieft affair, the Company increased the difficulties surrounding their
director by an order to make Dutch nationality one of the tests of
fitness for public employment.
The people had already in Kieft’s time loudly called for more
liberty,—a desire which Stuyvesant in the strong conservatism of his
character was by no means willing to listen to. As, however, liberal
principles gained more and more ground among the population, he at
last gave his consent to the convocation of a general assembly from
the several towns, which was to consider the state of the province.
It was too late. The power of the Dutch in New Netherland was waning;
Connecticut had been lost in 1650; Westchester at the very door of the
Manhattans, and the principal towns of western Long Island were in the
hands of the English; and a few months after the first meeting of the
delegates the English flag floated over the fort, which had until then
been called New Amsterdam.
The magnitude of the commerce of the United Provinces had long been
a thorn in the side of the English nation; for years Cato’s _Ceterum
censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam_ had been the burden of political
speeches. Differences arising between the two governments, Charles
II., only lately the guest of Holland, allowed himself to be persuaded
by his chancellor, Shaftesbury, that this commerce would make Holland
as great an empire as Rome had been, and this would lead to the
utter annihilation of England. There was apparently no other motive
reflecting “honor upon his prudence, activity, and public spirit,”
to induce him to order the treacherous expedition which seized the
territory of an unsuspecting ally.
When the English fleet appeared off the coast of Long Island the Dutch
were not at all prepared to offer resistance, their small military
force of about two hundred effective men being scattered in detachments
over the whole province. Nevertheless Stuyvesant would have let the
issue be decided by arms; but the people failed to support him, and
insisted upon a surrender, which was accordingly made. They had not
forgotten how he had treated their demands for greater liberty, and
they expected to be favorably heard by an English government. New
Amsterdam, fort and city, as well as the whole province were named by
the victors in honor of the new proprietor, the Duke of York; while the
region west of the Hudson towards the Delaware, given by the Duke to
Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, received the name of New Jersey
in compliment to the latter’s birthplace. Fort Orange and neighborhood
became Albany; the Esopus, Kingston, and all reminiscences of Dutch
rule, so far as names went, were extinguished, only to be revived less
than a decade later.
[Illustration]
Although the treaty of Breda, July 21, 1667, had given to Holland
(which by it was robbed of her North American territory) the colony
of Surinam, the States took advantage of the war brought on by the
ambitious designs of England’s ally, France, against Holland in
1672, to retake New Netherland in 1673. Again the several towns and
districts changed their names,—New York to New Orange; Fort James
in New York to Willem Hendrick; Albany to Willemstadt, and the fort
there to Fort Nassau,—all in honor of the Prince of Orange. Kingston
was called Swanenburg; and New Jersey, Achter Col (behind the Col).
During the first few months after the reconquest the province was
governed by the naval commanders and the governor, Anthony Colve,
appointed by the States-General. The passionate character of the new
governor may have induced the commanders to remain until matters were
satisfactorily arranged under the new order of things. The different
towns and villages were required to send delegates to New Orange
with authority and for the purpose of acknowledging their allegiance
to the States-General of Holland. All submitted promptly, with the
exception of the five towns of the East Riding of Yorkshire on Long
Island, which, however, upon a threat of using force if they would not
come with their English colors and constables’ staves, also declared
their willingness to take the oath of allegiance. A claim upon Long
Island, petitions from three of its eastern towns to New England for
“protection and government against the Dutch,” and an arrogant attempt
made by Governor Winthrop of New Haven to lecture Colve, forced the
latter into an attitude of war, which resulted in a bloodless rencontre
between the Dutch and the English from Connecticut at Southold, Long
Island, in March, 1674. “Provisional Instructions” for the government
of the province, drawn up by Colve, estranged and annoyed its English
inhabitants, who were declared ineligible for any office if not in
communion with the Reformed Protestant Church, in conformity with
the Synod of Dort. Therefore, when, after the failure of receiving
reinforcements from home, New Netherland was re-surrendered to England
(February, 1674), the States-General being obliged to take this step
by the necessity of making European alliances, the English portion of
the population were glad to greet (November, 1674) again a government
of their own nationality, and the Dutch had to submit with the best
possible grace.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
OUR sources for the history of New Netherland are principally the
official records of the time, which must be considered under two heads:
the records of the governments in Europe which directly or indirectly
were interested in this part of the world; and the documents of the
provincial government, handed down from secretary to secretary, and
now carefully preserved in the archives of the State of New York. Of
the former we have copies, the procuring of which by the State was one
of the epoch-making events in the annals of historiography. A society,
formed in 1804[786] in the city of New York for the principal purpose
of “collecting and preserving whatever may relate to the natural,
civil, or ecclesiastical history of the United States in general
and the State of New York in particular,” having memorialized the
State Legislature on the subject, a translation was ordered and made
of the Dutch records in the office of the Secretary of State. This
translation—of which more hereafter—undoubtedly threw light upon the
historical value and importance of the State archives, but proved also
their incompleteness; and another memorial by the same society induced
the Legislature of 1839 to authorize the appointment of an agent who
should procure from the archives of Europe the material to fill the
gaps. Mr. John Romeyn Brodhead, who by a residence of two years at the
Hague as Secretary of the American Legation seemed to be specially
fitted for, and was already to some extent familiar with, the duties
expected from him, was appointed such an agent in 1841, and after
four years of diligent search and labor returned with eighty volumes
of manuscript copies of documents procured in Holland, France, and
England, which were published under his own and Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan’s
supervision[787] as _Documents relating to the Colonial History of New
York_, eleven volumes quarto, including index volume. The historical
value of these documents, which the State procured at an expense of
about fourteen thousand dollars, can not be estimated too highly. When
made accessible to the public, they removed the reproach that “New York
was probably the only commonwealth whose founders had been covered
with ridicule” by one of her sons, by showing that the endurance,
courage, and love of liberty evinced by her first settlers deserved a
better monument than _Knickerbocker’s History of New York_.[788]
Mr. Brodhead was unfortunately too late by twenty years to obtain
copies of the records of the East and West India companies; for what
would have proved a rich mine of historical information had been sold
as waste paper at public auction in 1821. These lost records would have
told us what the Dutch of 1608-1609 knew of our continent; how Hudson
came to look for a northwest passage under the fortieth degree of north
latitude; and how, where, and when the first settlements were made on
the Hudson and Delaware,—information which they certainly must have
contained, for the States-General referred the English ambassador, in
a letter of Dec. 30, 1664, to the “very perfect registers, relations,
and journals of the West India Company, provided with all the requisite
verifications respecting everything that ever occurred in those
countries” (New Netherland). We cannot glean this information from the
records of the provincial government, consisting of the register of
the provincial secretary, the minutes of council, letter-books, and
land papers, for they begin only in 1638, a few land patents of 1630,
1631, and 1636 excepted. Even what we have of these is not complete,
all letters prior to 1646 and council minutes for nearly four years
having been lost. Where these missing parts may have strayed, it is
hard to say. Article 12 of the “Capitulation on the Reduction of New
Netherland, subscribed at the Governor’s Bouwery, August 27, O. S.,
1664,” insured the careful preservation of the archives of the Dutch
government by the English conquerors. In June, 1688, they were still
in the Secretary’s office at New York; a few months later “Edward
Randolph, then Secretary of ye Dominion of New England, carried away
[to Boston] ye severall Bookes before Exprest,” says a Report of
commissioners appointed by the Committee of Safety of New York to
examine the books, etc., in the Secretary’s office, dated Sept. 23,
1689. Why he carried them off, the minutes of the proceedings
against Leisler would probably disclose, if found. They remained in
Boston until 1691, when Governor Sloughter, of New York, had them
brought back. Comparing the inventory of June, 1688 (which states that
there were found in “Presse no. 3 a parcell of old Dutch Records and
bundles of Papers, all Being marked and numbred as y^{ey} Lay now in
the said presse,”[789] which, to judge from the number of books in the
other presses, must have been large) with an inventory and examination
of the Dutch records made in June, 1753, under the supervision of the
commissioners appointed by an act of the General Assembly to examine
the eastern boundaries of the province, I come to the conclusion
that the missing Dutch and English records were lost either in their
wanderings between New York and Boston, or during the brief Dutch
interregnum of 1673-74,[790] or perhaps in the fire which consumed Fort
George in New York on the 18th of April, 1741, although Governor Clarke
informs the Board of Trade that “most of the records were saved and I
hope very few lost, for I took all the possible care of them, and had
all removed before the office took fire.”
The inventory of 1753 shows that up to the present day nothing has
since been lost, with the exception of a missing account-book and of
some things which time has made illegible and of others which the
knife of the autograph-hunter has cut out. It is difficult to say how
much has gone through the latter unscrupulous method into the hands of
private parties. The catalogues of collections of autographs sold at
auction occasionally show papers which seem to have belonged to the
State archives, but it is impossible to prove that they came thence.
An examination, hurriedly made a few years ago, of the 103 volumes
of Colonial Manuscripts of New York, showed that about three hundred
documents had been stolen since Dr. O’Callaghan published in 1866 the
_Calendar_[791] of these manuscripts. The then Secretary of State, Mr.
John Bigelow, published the list of missing documents, calling upon
the parties in possession of any of them to return the property of
the State; and a month later he had the gratification of receiving a
package containing about sixty, of which, however, only twenty were
mentioned in the published list, while the loss of the others had not
then been discovered. A thorough examination would probably bring the
number of missing or mutilated papers to nearly one thousand. It is
equally remarkable and fortunate, that during the war of the Revolution
the records became an object of solicitude both to the royal Governor
and the Provincial Congress.
The latter, fearing that the destruction of the records would “unhinge
the property of numbers in the colony, and throw all legal proceedings
into the most fatal confusion,” requested, Sept. 2, 1775, Secretary
Bayard, whose ancestor, Nicolas Bayard, also had them in charge when
the English retook New York in 1674, to deposit them in some safe
place. Bayard, struggling between his duties as a royal officer and
his sympathies as a born American, hesitated to take the papers in
his charge from the place appointed for their keeping, but packed
them nevertheless in boxes to be ready for immediate removal. Sears’s
_coup de main_ in November, 1775, and the intimation that he intended
speedily to return with a larger body of “Connecticut Rioters” to
take away the records of the province, induced Governor Tryon to
remove “such public records as were most interesting to the Crown”
on board of the “Dutchess of Gordon” man-of-war, to which he himself
had fled for safety. When called upon, Feb. 7, 1776, by order of the
Provincial Congress, to surrender them, he offered to place them on
board a vessel, specially to be chartered for that purpose, which was
to remain in the harbor. He pledged his honor that they should not
be injured by the King’s forces, but refused to land them anywhere,
because they could not be taken to a place safer than where they were.
“Shortly afterwards,” he writes to Lord Germain in March, 1779, “the
public records were for greater security (the Rebels threatening to
board in the night and take the vessel) put on board the ‘Asia,’ under
the care of Captain Vandeput. The ‘Asia’ being ordered home soon after
the taking of New York, Captain Vandeput desired me to inform him
what he should do with the two boxes of public records. I recommended
them to be placed on board the ‘Eagle’ man-of-war.” The records not
“most interesting to the Crown” (most likely including the Dutch
records) were taken with Secretary Bayard to his father’s house in the
“Out Ward of New York,” where a detachment of forty-eight men of the
First New York City Regiment, later of Captain Alexander Hamilton’s
Artillery Company, was detailed to guard them. In June of the same
year, 1776, they were removed to the seat of government at Kingston,
N. Y. Almost a year later two hundred men were raised for the special
duty of guarding them, and when the enemy approached Kingston this
body conveyed them to a small place in the interior (Rochester, Ulster
County), whence they were returned to Kingston in November, 1777.
From that date they followed the legislature and executive offices
to New York in 1783, and finally in 1798 to Albany, where they have
since remained. In New York the records which were carried off by
Governor Tryon, and had been in the mean time transferred from the
“Eagle” to the “Warwick” man-of-war and then returned to the city in
1781, were again placed with the others. At the instance of the New
York Historical Society, the Dutch part of the State records were
ordered to be translated; and this duty was entrusted by Governor De
Witt Clinton to Dr. Francis A. van der Kemp, a learned Hollander, whom
the political dissensions in the latter quarter of the eighteenth
century had driven from his home. Unfortunately, Dr. van der Kemp’s
knowledge of the English tongue was not quite equal to the task;
nor was his eyesight, as he himself confesses in a marginal note to
a passage dimmed by age, strong enough to decipher such papers as
had suffered from the ravages of time and become almost illegible.
This translation, completed in 1822, is therefore in many instances
incorrect and incomplete; grave mistakes have been the consequence,
much to the annoyance of historical students. Some of the errors were
corrected by Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan, who published in 1849-54, under
the authority of the State, four volumes of _Documents relating to the
History of the Colony_ (1604-1799), selected at random from the copies
procured abroad, from the State archives, and from other sources. In
1876 the Hon. John Bigelow, Secretary of State, directed the writer
of this paper to translate and prepare a volume of documents relating
to the Delaware colony, which was published in 1877; another volume,
containing the records of the early settlements in the Hudson and
Mohawk River valleys, translated by the writer, followed in 1881; this
year will see a third, on the settlements on Long Island; and a fourth,
to be published later, will contain the documents relating to New York
city and the relations between the Dutch and the neighboring English
colonies. These four volumes contain everything of a general and public
interest, so that the parts not translated anew will refer only to
personal matters.
These being the official sources of information for the history of New
Netherland, it is proper to inquire whether they are trustworthy beyond
doubt. The charge made by Robert Thorne, of Bristol, in 1527[792]
against the “Portingals,” of having “falsified their records of late
purposely,” might be repeated against the Dutch wherever the claim of
first discovery of the country is discussed.
I have already stated that one of the motives, and perhaps the
principal one, for establishing the West India Company was of a
political nature. The destruction of Spain’s financial resources was to
lead to an honorable and satisfactory peace with Holland. Spain relied
for the sinews of war on its American colonies; and we must inquire
how much of the information relating to location and extent of these
colonies had reached the Dutch notwithstanding the Spanish efforts to
suppress it.
Hakluyt says:[793] “The first discovery of these coasts (never heard
of before) was well begun by John Cabot and Sebastian his son, who
were the first finders out of all that great tract of land stretching
from the Cape of Florida unto those Islands which we now call the
Newfoundland, or which they brought and annexed to the Crown of England
[1497].”
[Illustration: RIBERO’S MAP, 1529.
[This is a section of the Carta Universal of the Spanish cosmographer,
Diego Ribero. It needs the following key:—
1. R. de St. iago.
2. C. de Arenas (Sandy Cape).
3. B. de S. _Χρō-a_l.
4. B. de S. Atonio.
5. Mōtana Vde.
6. R. de buena madre.
7. S. Juā Baptista.
8. Arciepielago de Estevā Gomez.
9. Mōtanas.
10. C. de muchas yllas.
11. Arecifes (reefs).
12. Medanos (sand-hills).
13. Golfo.
14. R. de M[=o]tanas.
15. Sarçales (brambles).
16. R. de la Buelta (river of return).
A. “Tiera de Estevā Gomez, la qual descrubrio
por mandado de su mag^t el año de 1525: ay
en ella muchos arboles y fructas de los de españa
y muchos rodovallos y Salmones y sollos: no han
alla do oro.”
The map, which is described more fully in another volume, has been the
theme of much controversy, it being usually held to be the result of
Gomez’s explorations; but this is denied by Stevens. References upon
it by the Editor will be found in the Ticknor _Catalogue_, published
by the Boston Public Library. It is of interest in the present
connection as being one of the current charts of the coast, though
made eighty years earlier, which Hudson could and did take with him.
How he interpreted it is not known. In our day there is much diverse
opinion upon its points. Mr. Murphy, for instance, in his _Voyage of
Verrazzano_, puts the Hudson River at 5, and Cape Cod at 10. Sprengel,
who published a memoir on this map in 1795, thought Hudson’s river was
the one between 10 and 11. Asher, in his _Henry Hudson_, p. xciii,
takes the same view. Kohl, in his _Discovery of Maine_, p. 304, and
in his _Die beiden ältesten General-Karten von America_, p. 43, makes
the river between 10 and 11 the Penobscot, and the hook near 2 Cape
Cod, though he acknowledges some objections to this interpretation of
the latter landmark, because the names between 2 and 8 are those that
in later maps are given to the New Netherland coast. It seems to the
Editor, however, as it does to Kohl, that Ribero had fallen into a
confusion of misplacing names, common to early map-makers, and that
we cannot keep the names right and accept the strange geographical
correspondences which, for instance, Dr. De Costa imposes on the map in
his _Verrazano the Explorer_, when he makes the hook near 2 to be Sandy
Hook, at New York Bay, and the bay between 10 and 11 the Penobscot,
which he thinks “clearly defined,” while “Ribero gives no hint of
the region now embraced by Long Island, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
and Massachusetts.” It is difficult to accept Dr. De Costa’s “wildly
exaggerated” Sandy Hook, or his notion of “Dr. Kohl’s confusion” in
regarding the great gulf of these early maps, shown between 2 and
10, as the Gulf of Maine. With all the difficulties attending Kohl’s
interpretation, it presents fewer anomalies than any other. There is so
much uncertainty at the best in the interpretation of these early maps,
that any understanding is subject to change from the developments now
making in the study of this early cartography.—ED.]]
I will not assert that the Cabots actually saw and explored the whole
coast from Florida to Newfoundland, but they must have brought away
the impression that the land seen by them was a continent, and that
no passage to the East Indies could be found in these latitudes, but
should be looked for farther north. A map in the collection of the
General Staff of the Army at Munich;[794] supposed to have been made
by Salvatore de Pilestrina about 1517, shows that the cartographers
of that period had accepted this Cabot theory as a fact. The voyage
of Esteban Gomez in 1524, sent out “to find a way to Cathay” between
Florida and the Baccalaos,[795] resulted only in discovering “mucha
tierra, continuada con la que se llama de los Baccalaos, discurriendo
al _Occidente y puesta en XL. grados y XLI_.”[796]
The next voyage along the coast of North America, made in 1526 by Lucas
Vasquez de Aillon and Matienzo, must be considered of importance for
the cartography of the first half of the sixteenth century; for their
discoveries, although of no direct benefit to them or to Spain, proved
to Spanish map-makers and their imitators that North America was not,
like the West Indies, an archipelago of islands, but a continent. Even
though Ramusio, in the preface to vol. iii. of his work, published in
1556, declares it is not yet known whether New France is connected
with Florida or is an island, the maps made shortly after Aillon’s
voyage[797] show that the cartographers had decided the matter in
_their_ minds.
This knowledge was not confined to the map-makers and officials, who
might have been forbidden to divulge such information. A contemporary
writer says, in 1575:—
“La forme donc de la Floride est en peninsule et come triangulaire,
ayant la mer qui la baigne de tous costez sauf vers le Septentrion....
Au Septentrion luy sont Hochelaga [Canada] et autres terres.... Or
ce pays Floridien commence à la grande rivière, que les mondernes
ont appelé de St. Jean [Cape Fear River?], qui le separe du pays de
Norumbeg en la nouvelle France.” [798]
And I refer further to the divers _Descriptiones Ptolemaicæ_[799]
published during the sixteenth century,—books accessible to the public
of that day, and most likely known to and read by every navigator of
the Atlantic.
To bring this information still nearer home to Henry Hudson, I mention
the map made by Thomas Hood, an Englishman, in 1592,[800] and the
work of Peter Plancius, published in 1594.[801] Hudson, an English
navigator, could hardly have been ignorant of his countryman’s
production, which shows under 40° north latitude the mouth of a river
called Rio de San Antonio, the name given to Hudson’s River by the
earlier Spanish discoverers. Before starting on his voyage in the “Half
Moon,” Hudson had been in consultation with Dr. Peter Plancius, who
adds to his chapter on “Norumberga et Virginia” a map, incorrect, it is
true, as to latitudes and other details, but nevertheless showing an
unbroken coast-line.
[Illustration: DUTCH VESSELS, 1618.
This cut is a fac-simile of one in the title of Schouten’s _Journal_,
Amsterdam, 1618. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, ii. 87.]
When, therefore, it is stated that Hudson abandoned the plan of
seeking for a northeast passage, in the hope of finding, under 40°
north latitude, a passage to the Western Ocean, as advised by his
friends Captain John Smith, of Virginia, and Dr. Plancius, we are asked
to accept as true a statement made and spread about for political
purposes. These will be understood when we recall the motives for the
establishment of the West India Company,—a project in which Plancius,
a minister of the Reformed Church, and as such driven from his Belgian
home by the Spaniards, gave his hearty and active co-operation to
Usselinx. International law gave possession for his sovereign to any
one who discovered a new land not formerly claimed by any Christian
prince or inhabited by any Christian nation. To have a base for their
operations in America against Spain, Holland required territory not so
claimed, and the shrewd projectors undoubtedly deemed it most advisable
to establish this base not only in an unclaimed but also in a hitherto
unknown country. Therefore it was necessary to claim for Hudson the
discovery of the river bearing his name, as the West India Company did
in 1634,[802] although a few years before, in 1632, they had admitted
by inference[803] that Hudson’s River was known to other nations under
the name of Rio de Montañas, and of Rio de Montaigne, before Hudson saw
it.[804] In the following decade the statement of 1634 was forgotten,
and the company in 1644 claimed title by the first discovery of the
Hudson and Delaware rivers, through ships of the Greenland Company
in 1598.[805] Still later, in 1659, by the mouth of their diplomatic
agents in Maryland and Virginia, it is asserted that Holland derived
its title to New Netherland through Spain as “first discoverer and
founder of that New World,” and through the French, who, by one Jehan
de Verrazano[806] a Florentine, were in 1524 the second followers and
discoverers in the northern parts of America.[807] Falsification in
politics was evidently then, as it is now, a venial sin; the statements
made for political purposes, although emanating from official sources,
must, therefore, be accepted with due caution.[808]
As the history of New Netherland is closely connected with that of the
West India Company, and as the West India Company was one of the great
political factors in the United Provinces, the Dutch State-Papers[809]
and the writings of contemporaneous authors[810] must be duly
considered by the student of this period of our history.
Most prominent among contemporaneous writers is Willem Usselinx, the
originator of the Dutch West India and Swedish South Companies, even
though his writings have not always a direct bearing upon the history
of New Netherland. We know little of the life of this remarkable
man, beyond the facts that he was a native of Belgium and a merchant
at Antwerp, whom the political and religious troubles of the period
had compelled to leave his fatherland and to seek refuge in Holland;
that, inspired by hatred against Spain, he conceived the plan of the
West India Company; that for some unexplained reason the West India
Company lost his services, which were then, about 1626, offered to
King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the establishment of the South
Company.[811] As Usselinx chiefly wrote before the West India Company
was organized, and as its advocate, his books and pamphlets, instead
of being historical, are of a more or less polemical character. He
never forgets what he had to suffer through Spain, and points out
constantly how important to Holland is the commerce of the West Indies,
and that in their peace negotiations with Spain the States-General
must by all means preserve the freedom of trading to America. These
writings date from before Hudson’s voyage in 1609, and Usselinx
disappears from the list of writers after the publication of the
patent granted by Sweden to the South Company in 1627, unless we admit
the above-quoted _West-Indische Spieghel_ to be his work. Asher, in
his _Bibliographical Essay_, gives as the latest of his works the
_Argonautica Gustaviana_,[812] and had evidently no knowledge of the
_Advice to Establish a new South Company_, written by Usselinx in 1636.
[Illustration]
The next writer to be considered had exceptional facilities in
gathering his material. As director of the West India Company, Johannes
de Laet[813] had of course ready access to the records, while as
co-patroon of Rensselaerswyck he had an especial interest in the
country where his daughter and son-in-law[814] had made their home.
Two manuscript volumes in folio, written by De Laet himself, and now
in the collection of Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, give us an idea of the
painstaking diligence with which De Laet collected the matter of the
books which he intended to write. These two volumes contain no material
relating specially to New Netherland, but he made undoubtedly as
extensive preparations for the chapter on the Dutch colony in North
America in his _Nieuwe Wereld_,[815] as he had made for the others, by
copying from the most authentic works on the subject, by talking with
seafarers returned from the transatlantic colony, and by transcribing
letters from private persons residing there. His intention to give
to his fellow-citizens as perfect a description of the New World as
circumstances would allow, was carefully carried out. It would have
been difficult to produce anything better at the time when he wrote;
and we must accept this book as the standard work on New Netherland of
the seventeenth century, even though he makes in the book, as well as
on its accompanying map, a few slight errors; saying, for instance,
that “Manhattan Island is separated from the mainland by the Hellgate,”
or that “Fort Orange stood [at the time of his writing, 1625] on an
island close to the left [western] shore of [Hudson’s] river.”
The title of De Laet’s next work[816] is very misleading, for one
would naturally expect to find the history of the first settlement
on the soil of New York in all its details;[817] but the name of New
Netherland is only mentioned, as it were, by accident. Still the book
has its value for the student of the philosophy of American history,
for in the preface the author frankly admits that the object of the
West India Company was war on Spain, and he congratulates the country
upon the successes so far obtained; and he further shows how the
Company, organized for warlike purposes, could not give any attention
to a country which, under the circumstances, required the utmost care
for its profitable development. Considering that De Laet was personally
interested in New Netherland as co-patroon of Rensselaerswyck and
through the marriage of his daughter to an inhabitant of the province,
it is astonishing to find so little said by him of the actual
occurrences there. It may be that reasons of policy and prudence
restrained him from baring to the public eye many things for which
the Company could be called to account. The new race, however, with
which his countrymen had come in contact, had sufficiently excited
his interest to induce him to study their habits and speculate upon
their origin, so that when the learned Grotius published a treatise
on the American Indians,[818] De Laet rushed into the field combating
Grotius’s theories.
While De Laet reports the events in New Netherland up to a given date
as a member of the Government saw them, we have two authors before
whose eyes some of these events took place, and who in writing about
them criticise them in the manner of subjects and citizens. To the
first of these, David Pietersen de Vries, _Artillerie-Meester van
d’ Noorder Quartier_, Mr. Bancroft gives the credit of being the
founder of the State of Delaware.[819] How far the abortive attempt of
establishing the colony of Zwanendael, mentioned in the narrative, and
the voyage bringing over the colonists may be called “the cradling of a
state,” I leave others to decide. De Vries published in 1655 an account
of his voyages[820] made twenty years before, and tells us in his book,
in the most unvarnished manner and with the bluntness of a sailor,
how badly New Netherland was being governed under the administration
of Minuit and Van Twiller. No doubt as to the veracity of his
statements can be entertained, as in his case there could be no motive
for “divagation.” He views the loss of his Delaware colony with the
proverbial equanimity both of a Dutchman and of a sailor, and stands
so far above the coarseness of manners and life in his time, that he
considers officials addicted to drink not much better than criminals.
Where he speaks of matters not seen by himself, and of the Indians and
their mode of life, he follows closely the best authority to be found;
namely, the work of Domine Johannis Megapolensis.
[Illustration]
The other author, Jonker[821] Adrian van der Donck, Doctor of Laws and
Advocate of the Supreme Court of Holland, has done more to give to his
contemporaries a full knowledge of the country of his adoption, and
to implant in the country itself better institutions, than any other
man. Sent over in 1642 as Schout (sheriff) of the Patroons’ Colony
of Rensselaerswyck, he in 1647 left this service in consequence of a
quarrel with the vice-director, and purchased from the Indians the
colony of Colen Donck, now Yonkers, for which he received a patent in
1648.[822] A controversy arose about this time between the Government
and several colonists, among whom was Van der Donck, which led to a
remonstrance being drawn up, to be laid before the States-General for
a redress of certain grievances which they had so far failed to obtain
either from the provincial governor or the West India Company.[823]
It is a contemporaneous relation of events in New Netherland signed
by eleven residents of New Amsterdam. Its probable author was Van der
Donck; at least his original journal was the source from which this
“Remonstrance” was derived. The form in which Governor Stuyvesant
seized it[824] is, however, different from the one in which it was
published. In the latter it is divided in three parts: 1. A description
of the natives and of the physical features of the country; 2. Events
connected with the earliest settlements of the country; 3. Remonstrance
against the policy of the West India Company. The tone and character
of such a document must be necessarily aggressive; but, even though the
reply to it by the provincial secretary, Van Tienhoven,[825] denies
most of its allegations, it certainly contains valuable and trustworthy
information.
Van der Donck’s next work, acknowledged by him as his own,[826] is
an improvement on De Laet’s similar description. The time which had
elapsed since De Laet’s publication had taught different lessons,
and Van der Donck’s personal experience in the country described by
him could not fail to give him a better insight than even the best
written reports afforded to De Laet. But, with the latter, this
author falls into the error of ascribing to the Indians a statement
that the Dutch were the first white people seen by them, and that
they did not know there were any other people in the world. This
assertion is contradicted by the Long Island Indians, who talked with
a later traveller, telling him that “the first strangers seen in
these parts were Spaniards or Portuguese, who did not remain long,
and afterwards the Dutch came.”[827] The so-called “Pompey Stone,” in
the State Geological Museum, might be taken for another contradiction
of De Laet’s and Van der Donck’s statements. Still more apparently
contradictory evidence might be the similarity of some so-called
Indian words with words of the Latin tongues.[828] Nor is Van der
Donck correct in the relation of the discovery of the country by
Hudson, and the map accompanying his work has several grave errors. The
description of the physical features of the country, of the animals,
and of the Indians is followed by a discourse between a patriot and a
New Netherlander on the conveniences of the new colony, in which the
questions are asked and answered, whether it is to the advantage of
Holland to have such a flourishing colony, and whether this colony will
ever be able to defend itself against foreign enemies.
[Illustration]
Another resident of New Netherland, the Reverend Johannis Megapolensis
(van Mekelenburg), one of the few educated men who came to this country
at that early date, has given us a book which, though not strictly
referring to the history of the country, must yet be considered as
one of the collateral sources, and finds its most appropriate place
here, following the _Descriptions_. As minister of the Reformed Church
at Rensselaerswyck, whither he was called by the patroon in 1642, he
came soon in close contact with the Indians; and having learned the
difficult Mohawk language, he became, several years earlier than the
New England preacher, John Eliot, a missionary among the Indians. The
result of his labors was an account of the Mohawks, their country,
etc.[829] This account was closely followed by De Vries, as mentioned
above, and by most of the other writers on the Indians.
[Illustration]
A large share of the material for this work Megapolensis must have
received from Father Jogues, a Jesuit missionary whom the Dominie
rescued from captivity among the Mohawks. The letters of this
courageous and zealous servant of the Church to his superiors teem
with information concerning the Indians, whom he endeavored to
Christianize,[830] and at whose hands he died.
Either the financial success of De Laet’s works, whose copyright had in
the mean time expired, or else the interest in New Netherland affairs
which had been newly aroused by the presentation to, and discussion
before, the States-General of the _Vertoogh_, led to the compilation in
1651[831] of a book on New Netherland by Joost Hartgers, a bookseller
of Amsterdam, which is nothing more than a clever arrangement of
extracts from De Laet’s _Description_, second edition, the _Vertoogh_,
and Megapolensis’ Indian treatise. Of much greater importance and value
to the historical student is an anonymous publication of 1659, the
title of which gives no idea of its real contents. Like most popularly
written works of the day discussing topics of public interest, it is
in the form of a conversation between a countryman, a citizen, and a
sailor, who discuss the deplorable depression of commerce, navigation,
trade, and agriculture in Holland, and speculate on the best means
to improve this state of affairs.[832] The author speaks of New
Netherland matters with a positiveness which puts it beyond a doubt
that he had been in that country.[833] Only a few pages are given to
the description of New Netherland, but the propositions advanced on
colonization, self-government of colonies, free-trade, and slavery
are all aimed at the West India Company and its American territories.
These propositions are of such a broad and liberal character, that they
would do credit to any writer of our more enlightened times. A similar
feeling of hostility against the West India Company and New Netherland,
both then (1659) in a condition to invite criticism, pervades the work
of Otto Keye,[834] who advocates the colonization of Guiana as being
more rational and profitable than that of New Netherland. Starting with
the argument that a warm climate is preferable to a colder one, on
account both of physical comforts and of greater commercial advantages,
he gives a description of the two countries, the bias being of course
in favor of Guiana.
The most remarkable of all the contemporary Dutch books appeared also
anonymously in 1662.[835] The description of the country given in this
work adds nothing new to our store of information, and the book itself
has therefore been ranked by American historians with such compilations
as the works of Montanus, Melton, and others, who simply reprinted De
Laet, Van der Donck, etc. It is, however, of great value, for through
it we obtain an insight into the Dutch politics of the day, which had
so far-reaching an influence on the history of New Netherland and on
its colonization. The fight between the Gomarian (Orangist) and the
Arminian[836] (Liberal) parties, which had so long prevented the first
organization of the West India Company, had never been settled and was
now revived. The De Witts, as leaders of the Arminians, were as much
opposed to this organization as Oldenbarnevelt had been. Whether the
ulterior loss of New Netherland, to which this opposition finally led,
embarrassed them as much as is stated[837] or not, it was certainly at
this time (1662) in the programme of the Arminian party to destroy the
West India Company, and by reforming the government of New Netherland
build up the country. This seems to have been the motive for writing
the _Kort Verhael_, which, according to Asher,[838] was written by
a journalist, opposing the third ultra-radical and the Orangist
parties, in conjunction with a Mennonist. It will be remembered that
in 1656-1657 part of the South River (Delaware) territory had been
surrendered, for financial reasons, to the authorities of Amsterdam,
and had ceased to be in the jurisdiction of the Governor-General of
New Netherland. The plan[839] submitted to the burgomasters in the
Requests and Representations, etc., aimed at a further curtailing of
the Company’s territory in that region by planting there a colony of
Mennonists, with the most liberal self-government, under the supreme
jurisdiction of the city of Amsterdam; while the vehemence with
which Otto Keye and his work favoring Guiana at the expense of New
Netherland are attacked shows that the Anti-Orangists, though bent
upon ruining one of the principal factors of the Orange party, were
by no means inclined to give up New Netherland as a colony. A work
from which copious extracts are given in the _Kort Verhael_, and
called _Zeker Nieuw-Nederlants geschrift_,—“A Certain New Netherland
Writing,”—seems to be lost to us; also a work, _Noort Revier_,—“North
River,”—mentioned by Van der Donck.
The works of Montanus,[840] Melton,[841] and a few others[842] deserve
no more mention than by title, as being compilations of extracts from
books already referred to; and with these closes the list of such
contemporary and almost contemporary Dutch works on New Netherland as
are either purely descriptive or both descriptive and historical.
Of the contemporary Dutch works of purely historical character, not
one treats of New Netherland alone; but the Dutch historians of the
time could not well write of the _res gestæ_ of their nation without
referring to what they had done on the other side of the Atlantic.
The first of them in point of time, Emanuel van Meteren,[843]
gives us in his _Historie van de Oorlogen en Geschiedenissen der
Nederlanderen_,[844] a minute description of the discoveries made by
Hudson, and must be specially consulted for the history of the origin
of the West India Company. Although credulous to such an extent that
the value of his painstaking labors is frequently endangered by the
gross errors caused by his credulity, he had no chance of committing
mistakes where, as in the case of the West India Company, everything
was official. His information regarding Hudson’s voyage of 1609, we may
assume, was derived from Hudson himself on his return to England, where
Van Meteren lived as merchant and Dutch consul until 1612, the year of
his death.
The next Dutch historian whose work is one of our sources, Nicolas
Jean de Wassenaer,[845] takes us a step farther; but he too fails to
give us much more than a record of the earliest years of the existence
of the West India Company. His account of how this Company came to be
organized differs somewhat as to the motives from all others.[846]
With the works of Aitzema,[847] _Saken van Staat en Oorlogh in ende
omtrent de Vereenigde Nederlanden_, 1621-1669, and _Herstelde Leeuw_,
1650,[848] and with Costerus’s _Historisch Verhael_, 1572-1673, we
come to the end of the list of Dutch historians giving us information
of the events in New Netherland. But I cannot allow the reader to take
leave of these Dutch books without a few words concerning the first
book printed which treated of New Netherland. The _Breeden Raedt aende
Vereenichde Nederlandsche Provintien ... gemaeckt ende gestelt uijt
diverse ... memorien door I. A. G. W. C._, Antwerpen, 1649,[849] is
neither purely historical nor descriptive, but its polemic character
requires such constant allusion both to the events in, and to the
geography of, New Netherland, that we must class it among the most
important sources for our history. Its authorship is unknown, and has
been subject to many surmises.
It may cause astonishment that the writers of Holland, a country then
renowned for its learning, should not have thought it worth their while
to write a history of their transatlantic colonies. But we must bear
in mind, first, that the settlement of New Netherland was neither a
governmental nor a popular undertaking; second, that in the beginning
the West India Company had no intention of making it a colony, and that
the people, who came here under the first governors as the Company’s
servants, and also those who later came as freeholders, were hardly
educated enough, even if they had not been too busy with their own
affairs, to pay much attention to, or write of, public matters. The
few educated men were officers of the Company, and did not care to
lose their places by speaking with too much frankness of what was
going on. Whatever they desired to publish they had to submit to the
directors of the Company, and it is not likely that any unpleasant
information would have passed the censor. Third, the Company did not
desire any information whatever concerning New Netherland, except what
they thought fit, to be given to the public,[850]—hence the obstacles
which prevented Adrian Van der Donck from writing the history of New
Netherland in addition to his _Description_,[851] and the scanty
information which the contemporary historian has to give us.
Subsequent Dutch writers found a good deal to say about the Dutch
colonies on the Hudson and Delaware rivers. The most trustworthy among
them is Jean Wagenaar,[852] who, beginning life as a merchant’s clerk,
felt a strong desire for acquiring fame as an author. He studied
languages and history, and at last wholly devoted himself to Dutch
history. His _Vaderlandsche Historie_ is held in Holland to be the best
historical work written, although his political bias as an opponent of
the House of Orange is evident. Wagenaar is, however, more an annalist
than a historian. As official historiographer, and later Secretary of
the City of Amsterdam, he had free access to the archives; hence his
statements are not to be discredited. His account of the circumstances
under which Hudson was sent out in 1609 differs materially from all
other writers. “The Company,” he says, “sent out a skipper to discover
a passage to China by the _northwest_, not by the northeast.” A
resolution of the States of Holland, quoted by Wagenaar, proves that
previous to Hudson’s voyage the Dutch knew that they would find _terra
firma_ north of the Spanish possessions, and contiguous to them.[853]
The scantiness of information concerning New Netherland in Dutch
books explains why we can learn still less from the writings of other
nations; for sectional or national feeling caused either a complete
silence on colonial affairs, or incorrect and contradictory statements,
leading many to rely on hearsay, unsupported by records.
Among the earliest works (not in Dutch) speaking of New Netherland,
we have the work of Levinus Hulsius (Hulse), a native of Ghent,
distinguished for his learning, and after him his sons, who published,
at Nürnberg, Frankfort, and Oppenheim, a _Sammlung von 26 Schiffahrten
in verschieden fremde Landen_,—“Collection of twenty-six Voyages
in many Foreign Countries,”—between the years 1598 and 1650; the
twelfth part of this work chronicles the attempts of the English and
Dutch to discover a passage by way of the North Pole, and includes
Hudson’s voyage.[854] The twentieth part refers likewise to voyages
to this continent, and specially to our coast. Other German works of
this early period can only be mentioned by their title, because for
the above reasons they are not sufficiently correct to be considered
trustworthy sources of information.[855] Their titles show them to be
not much more than “hackwork,” with little value to the contemporary
or any later reader. But when we find that a celebrated geographer of
the time, Philipp Cluvier (born at Dantzic, 1580, died 1623), omits
all mention of the existence of such countries as New England and New
Netherland, we can well understand how difficult it must have been to
gather material for a universal geography.[856] Later editors of the
same work, writing in 1697, had then apparently only just learned that
up to 1665 a part of North America was called Novum Belgium. Hardly
less ignorant, though he mentions Virginia and Canada in describing the
bounds of Florida, is Gottfriedt in his _Neuwe Archontologia Cosmica_,
Frankfort, 1638; yet he too was a distinguished geographer.[857]
Turning to the English, we find a few credible and a great many
very fantastic and unreliable writers, treating either specially or
incidentally of New Netherland. The first mention of the Dutch on the
Hudson is made in a little work, republished in the _Collections_ of
the Massachusetts Historical Society,[858] in which it is stated that
an English sea-captain, Dermer, “met on his passage [from Virginia
to New England] with certain Hollanders who had a trade in Hudson’s
River some years before that time (1619).” This is probably the first
application of Hudson’s name to the river. In a letter[859] from the
same traveller, dated at a plantation in Virginia, December, 1619, he
describes his passage through Hellgate and Long Island Sound, but does
not say anything about the settlement on Manhattan Island.
This letter of Dermer and the _Brief Relation_ first informed the
English that “the Hollanders as interlopers had fallen into ye middle
betwixt the plantations” of Virginia and New England.[860] The
_Description of the Province of New Albion_[861] informs us that “Capt.
Samuel Argal and Thomas Dale on their return [from Canada in 1613]
landed at Manhatas Isle in Hudson’s River, where they found four houses
built, and a pretended Dutch governor under the West India Company’s of
Amsterdam share or part, who kept trading-boats and trucking with the
Indians;” but the official correspondence[862] between the authorities
of Virginia and the Home Government proves that Argal and his party
never went to New Netherland, although they intended to do so in 1621;
for, hearing that the Dutch had settled on the Hudson, a “demurre
in their p^{r}ceding was caused.”[863] The motive for making the
above-quoted statement concerning Argal’s visit in 1613 is apparent.
The imposing pseudonym under which the _Description of New Albion_
appeared was probably assumed by Sir Edmund Ploeyden (Plowden), to whom
in 1634 Lord Strafford, then viceroy of Ireland, had granted the patent
of New Albion[864] covering the Dutch possession, and who therefore had
an obvious interest adverse to the Dutch title. Its publication at the
time, when the right of the Dutch to the country was being discussed
between England and the States-General of Holland, was intended to
influence the British mind. It contains a queer jumble of fact and
fancy, and it is not necessary to say more about its claims to be an
historical authority than has already been published in the _Memoirs_
of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.[865]
Considering that, according to Van der Donck, Sir Edmund Ploeyden had
been in New Netherland several times, it seems almost incredible that
he should have made such astonishing statements, if he was the author
of the book. A perusal of a work published a few years previous to the
_Description of New Albion_ would have set him right, at least so far
as the geography of the country was concerned.[866] The author of the
_Short Discovery_ has very correct notions of the hydrography of New
Netherland, acquired apparently by the study of Dutch maps; but the
distances and degrees of latitude are as great a puzzle to him as to
many other geographers and seamen of that day. As he wrote before the
Dutch title to New Netherland was disputed, he is of course silent
concerning the English claims to the territory.
The historian writing of New Netherland to-day has the advantage of
being able to consult the journal of a governor of Massachusetts,
John Winthrop, who took an active part in the occurrences which he
describes.[867] Although it does not cover the whole of the Dutch
period of New York, and his puritanical bias is occasionally evident,
we have no more reliable source for the history of the relations
between the colonies.
The few historical data given in the next book to be considered[868]
are of interest, as the author endeavors to “assert the rights of
the English nation in vouching the legal interest of England in
right of the first discovery or premier seizure to Novum Belgium.”
They show, however, also how in so short a period as a man’s life
even contemporary history can be distorted. According to Heylin, who
takes Sir Samuel Argal as his source, Hudson had been commissioned
by King James I. to make the voyage of 1609, and after making his
discoveries sold his maps and charts to the Dutch. The Dutch were
willing to surrender their claims to Sir Edmund Ploeyden, he says, for
£2,500, but took advantage of the troubles in England, and, instead of
surrendering, armed the Indians to help them in resisting any English
attempt to reduce New Netherland. Leaving aside Plantagenet’s _New
Albion_, we meet here, in a work which the author’s high reputation
must immediately have placed among the standard works of the day, a
most startling falsification of facts and events which had occurred
during the lifetime of the author. It is impossible to account for
it, even if we suppose that these statements were made for political
effect; for the men who read Heylin’s book had also read the correct
accounts of Hudson’s voyages, and knew that Heylin’s statements
were false. The learned prelate is only little less at fault in his
geographical account. Although he tells us that Hudson gave his name
to one of the rivers, he mentions as the two principal ones only
the _Manhates_ or _Nassau_ or _Noort_ and the _South_ rivers, being
evidently in doubt which is the Hudson. Heylin had studied geography
better than his contemporary Robert Fage, who published about the
same time _A Description of the whole World_, London, 1658, but he
is utterly silent as to New Netherland. In 1667, when he published
his _Cosmography, or a Description of the whole World, represented
by a more exact and certain Discovery_, he had learned that “to
the Southwest of New England lyeth the Dutch plantation; it hath
good ground and good air, but few of that Nation are inhabiting
there, which makes that there are few plantations in the land, they
chiefly intending their East India trade, and but one village, whose
inhabitants are part English, part Dutch. Here hath been no news on
any matter of war or state since the first settlement. There is the
Port Orange, thirty miles up Hudson’s River,” etc. This was written
three years after New Netherland had become an English colony, when New
York city numbered almost two thousand inhabitants, and some ten or
twelve villages were flourishing on Long Island.
The best description, or rather the most ample, written by an
Englishman, is that of John Josselyn, who published his observations
made during two voyages to New England in 1638-1639 and 1663-1671.[869]
Although he had been in the country, his notions concerning it
are somewhat crude. New England, under which name he includes New
Netherland, is thought to be an island formed by the “spacious” river
of Canada, the Hudson, two great lakes “not far off one another,” where
the two rivers have their rise, and the ocean. His account of the
Indians, of their mode of living and warfare, is highly amusing, and
at the same time instructive, although no philologist would probably
accept as correct his statement that the Mohawk language was a dialect
of the Tartar. Nor would the botanist place implicit faith in the
statement that in New England barley degenerated frequently into oats;
and the zoölogist would be astonished to learn of “frogs sitting upon
their breeches one foot high.” His credulity has led this eccentric
_raconteur_ into describing many similar wonderful details; but his
work is nevertheless of value, as giving, I believe, the first complete
description of the fauna and flora of the Middle Atlantic and New
England States. In some of his historical data he follows Plantagenet,
probably at second-hand through Heylin, and is so far without credit.
Religion, which had already done so much to increase the population
of the colony on the Hudson, was to cause a new invasion by the Dutch
into their old possessions. While Arminians and Gomarists, Cocceians
and Vœtians, were continuing the religious strife in Holland, a new
sect, the Labadists, sprang up. The intolerance with which they were
treated compelled their leaders to look out for a country where they
might exercise their religion with perfect freedom. An attempt at
colonization in Surinam, ceded to Holland by England in the Treaty
of Breda, 1667, having failed, they turned their eyes upon New York,
then under English rule, and in 1679 sent two of their most prominent
men—Jasper Danckers and Peter Sluyter—across the ocean to explore
and report. The account of their travels was procured, translated,
and published by Mr. Henry C. Murphy in the _Collections_ of the Long
Island Historical Society.[870] It tells in simple language, showing
frequently their religious bias, what the travellers saw and heard.
The drawings with which they illustrated their journal give us a
vivid picture of New York two hundred years ago. As they talked with
many of the men who had been prominent in Dutch times, their account
of historical events acquires special interest. The tradition then
current at Albany, that the ruins of a fort on Castle Island indicated
the place where Spaniards had made a settlement before the Dutch, is
discredited by them; but the discovery of the so-called Pompey Stone,
an evident Spanish relic, at not too great a distance from the Hudson
River, makes it desirable that this tradition should receive special
investigation. It is true the Indians in Van der Donck’s time who were
old enough to recollect when the Dutch first came, declared that they
were the first white men whom they saw;[871] but their descendants told
these travellers “that the first strangers seen in these parts were
Spaniards or Portuguese; but they did not remain long, and afterwards
the Dutch came.” The Spaniards under Licenciado d’ Aillon had made
landings and explored the country south and east of New York, and may
not one of their exploring parties have come to Albany and fortified
themselves?
While Aitzema gives us, in his _Saken van Staat_, the Dutch side of
the public affairs in the seventeenth century, Thurloe,[872] in his
_Collection of State Papers_, uncovers English statesmanship and
diplomacy. His official position as secretary to the Council of State
under Charles I., and afterwards to the Protector and his son, gave him
a thorough insight into the workings of the public machinery, and makes
his selection of papers extremely valuable. Among them will be found
a document of the year 1656 on the English rights to New Netherland,
which is highly interesting. I can refer only by title to other works
of the seventeenth century speaking of New Netherland, as they are only
either more or less embellished and incorrect repetitions of former
accounts, or because they are beyond my reach.[873]
Skipping over a century, we come to the work of a native of New York,
the _History of the Province of New York from its first Discovery to
the Year 1732_, by William Smith, Jr. Considering that it was written
and published before the author had reached his thirtieth year,[874]
and that he had to gather his information from the then rare and
scanty libraries of America and the official records of the province,
the work reflects no small credit on its author. For the discovery
by Hudson, he follows the accepted version,—that Hudson in 1608,
under a commission from King James I., first landed on Long Island,
etc., and afterward sold the country, or rather his rights, to the
Dutch. Smith’s knowledge of law should have prevented his repeating
this statement, for he ought to have been aware that Hudson could
not have had any _individual_ claim to the country discovered by
him. Another statement, repeated by Smith on the authority of elder
writers,—namely, that James I. had conceded to the Dutch in 1620 the
right to use Staten Island as a watering-place for their ships going
to and coming from Brazil,—a careful perusal of the correspondence
between the authorities of New Netherland and the Directors of the
West India Company, then within easy reach, would have told him to be
untrue or incorrect. If there were any truth in this statement, for
which I have not found the slightest foundation, it would only prove
that, with their usual tenacity of purpose, the Dutch, having once
determined to settle on Manhattan’s Island, could not be deterred from
carrying out their project. Although admitting that, in the long run,
it would have been impossible for the Dutch to preserve their colony
against the increasing strength of their English neighbors, he condemns
the treachery with which New Netherland was wrested from the Dutch. It
is to be regretted that with so many official Dutch documents as Smith
found in the office of the secretary, he did not write the history of
the Dutch period of the province with more detail, and that he studied
those which he consulted with hardly sufficient care.
Before a proper interest in the history of New York had been reawakened
after the exciting times of the Revolution and of 1812, it revived in
the European cradle of New York to such an extent as to bring forth a
valuable contribution to our historical sources from the pen of the
learned Chevalier Lambrechtsen.[875] Its value consists principally
in the fact that the author had access to the papers of the West
India Company, since lost, and that it instigated research and called
attention to the history of their State among New Yorkers, several
of whom now set to work writing histories.[876] Not one of them is
of great value now, the documents procured in the archives of Europe
having thrown more and frequently a different light on many facts.
Many statements are given as based on tradition, others are absolutely
incorrect,[877] and none tell us anything about New Netherland that
we have not already read in De Laet, Van der Donck, and other older
writers.
To the anti-rent troubles in this State and to the researches into the
rights of the patroons arising from them, we are indebted to the best
work on New Netherland which has yet been written. Chancellor Kent’s
assertion, that the Dutch annals were of a tame and pacific character
and generally dry and uninteresting,[878] had deterred many from their
study. Now it became an absolute necessity to discover what privileges
had been held by the patroons under the Dutch government, and, upon
examining the records, Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan was amazed to find a vast
amount of historical material secluded from the English student by an
unknown language. The writing of a history of that period, which had
been a dark page for so long a time, immediately suggested itself;
and as about the same time the papers relating to New York, which the
State had procured abroad, were sent home by Mr. Brodhead, the agent of
the State, the plan was carried into effect, and the _History of New
Netherland, or New York under the Dutch_, by E. B. O’Callaghan, New
York, 1846, vol. ii. 1850, made its appearance.[879]
It is perhaps beyond the possibilities of the human mind to write
history, not simply annals, from a thoroughly objective point of view;
but the historian must try to suppress his individuality as far as
he can, or at least to criticise only the events of a remote period
from the standpoint of that period, and not from his own, which is
more modern and advanced. Dr. O’Callaghan followed no philosophy of
history. He tried to suppress his individuality as Irishman, Canadian
revolutionist, and devout Romanist; but occasionally it was stronger
than his will, and impaired the objectivity and fairness of his
judgment. Yet the descendants of the settlers of New Netherland owe
to him a greater debt than to any of their own race, for he, first of
any historian, has shown us the colony in its origin—the steadiness,
sturdiness, and industry of the colonists, who were men as religious
as the New England Puritans, but more tolerant towards adherents of
other creeds. Notwithstanding this historian’s desire to be accurate in
his statements, his unqualified reliance upon previous writers has on
several occasions led him into errors, the gravest of which is perhaps
the repetition of Plantagenet’s story of Argal’s invasion. I have tried
to show above that the English documents disprove this statement, which
O’Callaghan repeats on the authority of Heylin.
J. Romeyn Brodhead, the collaborator of Dr. O’Callaghan in editing the
documents procured for the State by his agency, was the next to enter
the field as a writer on the history of New York. While Dr. O’Callaghan
in a few instances allows his inborn prejudices to make him criticise
the actions of the Dutch too harshly, and without due allowance for
the times and circumstances, Mr. Brodhead, a descendant both of Dutch
and English early settlers, fails on the other side, and becomes too
lenient. Generally, however, his _History of New York_ is written with
great independence of judgment and with thorough criticism of the
authorities. It is to be regretted that death prevented the completion
of the work, which does not go farther than 1691; but what Mr. Brodhead
has given us must, for its completeness and accuracy of research, and
for the genuine historical acumen displayed in it, rank as a standard
work and a classical authority on the subject.[880]
There are many additional works to be consulted by those who desire
reliable information on the early history of New York,—the more
general histories (like Bancroft’s, chap. xv.), monographs,[881] and
local histories, the _Transactions_ of the various historical societies
of the State, etc.; but the passing of them in review has been in some
degree relegated to notes.
* * * * *
When the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras said that man was born to
contemplate the heavens, the sun, and the moon, he might have added
also the earth and its formation in all its details, and enjoined
on his disciples the necessity of representing the result of such
contemplations by maps and charts. We require a map fully to understand
the geography and chorography of a country; hence a study of the maps
made by contemporaneous makers becomes the duty of the writer of New
Netherland history. I have already stated that the coast of New York
and the neighboring districts were known to Europeans almost a century
before Hudson ascended the “Great River of the North,” and that this
knowledge is proved by various maps made in the course of the sixteenth
century. Nearly all of them place the mouth of a river between the
fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, or what should be this
latitude, but which imperfect instruments have placed farther north.
The configuration of the coast-line shows that they meant the mouth of
the Hudson. Only one, however, of these sixteenth-century maps, made by
Vaz Dourado at Lisbon, in 1571, gives the Hudson River in its almost
entire course, from the mountains to the bay. A copy of this map, made
in 1580, which found its way to Munich, was probably seen by Peter
Plancius, who induced Hudson to explore that region of the New World,
so little known to Europeans at that time. Although Vaz Dourado’s map
enlightens us so very little, I mention it because his map must lead to
the investigation of the question whether the Dutch under Hudson were
the first to navigate the river.
[Illustration: FROM THE FIGURATIVE MAP, 1616.
[Brodhead’s statements regarding the finding of this map are in _N.
Y. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 1845, p. 185; compare also his _New York_, i.
757. The original parchment map measured 2 × 2 feet, and showed the
country from Egg Harbor, in New Jersey, to the Penobscot, 40° to 45°.
The paper map covered the territory from below the Delaware Capes to
above Albany, and is three feet long. The original is in colors, which
are preserved in the chromolithograph of it issued at the Hague in 1850
or thereabout. (Asher’s _List_, no. 1; Muller’s 1877 _Catalogue_, no.
2,270.) There is a reduction of it in Cassell’s _United States_, i.
247.—ED.]]
The oldest map of the territory now comprising the States of New York,
New Jersey, and Delaware, and known as “The Figurative Map,” was found
by Mr. Brodhead in the archives at the Hague. It is on parchment, and
is beautifully executed. A fac-simile copy, taken by Mr. Brodhead, was
deposited in the State Library at Albany, and reproductions have been
published in the _New York Colonial Documents_, vol. i., also in Dr.
O’Callaghan’s _History of New Netherland_. It purports to have been
submitted to the States-General of Holland in 1616, with an application
for a charter to trade to New Netherland, but it was probably produced
then a second time, having done duty before on a similar occasion in
1614, with a map exhibiting the Delaware region on a larger scale.
This 1614 map was on paper, and was found by Mr. Brodhead in the same
place, and may be seen in similar reproductions, accompanying those
of the 1616 map. Who the draughtsman of either was, is unknown. An
inscription on the latter refers to draughts formerly made, which were
consulted, and to the report of some men, who had probably been the
Dutchmen captured by the Mohawks and mentioned in Captain Hendricksen’s
report (_New York Colonial Documents_, i. 13). De Laet seems to
have had these maps before him when he wrote his _Novus Orbis_, and
to have constructed the map accompanying his work from these two.
Notwithstanding the great care and detail exhibited in them, they are
necessarily inaccurate, but highly interesting and instructive, as
they indicate the location of the several Indian tribes at the time of
the arrival of the Dutch and of the Spaniards before them. The names
given on these maps to some of the Indian tribes are so unmistakably
of Spanish origin, that it is hard to believe they were not first
applied by the Spaniards, and afterwards repeated by the Indians to
the before-mentioned three Dutch prisoners among the Mohawks. We
find one tribe called “Capitanasses,” while in colloquial Spanish
_capitanázo_ means a great warrior; another, whom the Dutch later knew
as Black Minquas, is designated by the name of “Gachos,” the Spanish
word _gacho_ being applied to black cattle. Still another is called
the “Canoomakers;” _canoa_ being a word of the Indian tongues of South
America,[882] the North American Indian could only have learned it from
the Spaniards, and in turn have taught its meaning to the Dutch. Even
the Indian name given to the island upon which the city of New York now
stands, spelled on the earliest maps “Monados, Manados, Manatoes,” and
said to mean “a place of drunkenness,” points to a Spanish origin from
the colloquially-used noun _moñas_, drunkenness, _moñados_, drunken
men. If to these indications of Spanish presence on the soil of New
York before the Dutch period we add the evidence of the so-called
Pompey Stone,[883] found in Oneida County, with its Spanish inscription
and date of 1520, and the names of places given in their corruption by
the Dutch in a grant covering part of Albany County (“Semesseerse,”
Spanish _semencera_, land sown with seed; “Negogance,” place for trade,
Spanish _negocio_, trade), we can no longer hesitate to believe that
the traditions reported by Danckers and other writers mentioned before
had some foundation, and that the Spaniards knew and had explored the
country on the Hudson long before the Dutch came, but had thought, as
Peter Martyr expresses it, after the failures of Esteban Gomez and
the Licenciado d’ Aillon, “To the South, to the South, for the great
and exceeding riches of the Equinoctial; they that seek gold must
not go to the cold and frozen North.” The Spaniards never considered
North America as of any value in itself; they looked upon it only as a
barrier to the richer fields of Asia.
Dr. O’Callaghan had in his collection[884] a copy, on vellum, of a
map entitled “Americæ Septentrionalis Pars,” from the _West-Indische
Paskaert_, which he added to the maps in the first volume of the _New
York Colonial Documents_. The maker of it was A. Jacobsen, and, to
judge from the fac-simile of the West India Company’s seal exhibited
on it, he made it for that company in 1621. It bears internal evidence
that Jacobsen had as model one of the elder Spanish and English maps,
as he retains some Spanish and English names for places, which on the
Dutch maps just mentioned have Dutch names. No attempt is made to give
details of interior chorography. The coast-line is fairly correct, and
the rivers named are indicated by their mouths.[885]
The next in the order of date is also a manuscript map, of which
a reduced copy was published by Dr. O’Callaghan in his _History_.
Although it is only a delineation of part of New Netherland, the manor
of Rensselaerswyck,[886] it is of importance to the historian, who in
consulting it has to exercise his judgment to the utmost. Made in 1630
by Gillis van Schendel at the expense of six dollars, which paid also
for four copies on paper, it shows, in the very year in which the land
was purchased from the Indians and patented to the patroons, such a
large number of settlements on both sides of the river, as to create
the suspicion that it was made to induce emigration from Holland, where
the four copies on paper were sent. De Laet, whose share of the land,
as one of the patroons, is designated by De Laet’s Burg, De Laet’s
Island, De Laet’s Mill Creek and Waterfall, makes no reference to this
map.
The first printed map of New Netherland accompanies De Laet’s _Novus
Orbis_, under the title of “Nova Anglia, Novum Belgium, et Virginia.”
In outline it resembles the map of 1621 by Jacobsen, while the details
are taken from the maps presented to the States-General. It is very
vague, however, and does not even give the names of any river. Long
Island is represented by three islands, and the Delaware River rises,
as on the 1616 map, out of a large lake in the Seneca country.[887]
[Illustration: PART OF DE LAET’S MAP, 1630.]
Jacobsen’s map of 1621 seems to have been used by Robert Dudley in his
_Atlas_, upon which an Italian engraver, Antonio Francesco Lucini,
worked; and Lucini’s signature is attached to a “Carta particolare
della Nuova Belgia è parte della Nuova Anglia, d’America carta ii.,”
which constitutes a part of Dudley’s work.[888] He seems to have
consulted Spanish, Dutch, and English maps of more or less correctness,
but understood none of them well. The Hudson is called “Rio Martins
ò R. Hudsons.” Manhattan’s Island is in its proper place, with New
Amsterdam marked on it; but the name “Isla Manhatas” is given to the
land between Newark Bay, Passaic River on the west and the Hackensack
on the east; while the strip of land now called Bergen Point is called
“Oster’s Ilant.” The position of Manhattan has evidently troubled him
very much, for we find the name again inserted covering the eastern
townships of Westchester County. Stratford Point, at the mouth of the
Housatonic, is “Cabo del Fieme,” while Long Island, called “I. di
Gebrok Land,” is a group of six islands, the largest of which bears the
correct name of Matouwacs, and Fisher’s Island is called “Isla Lange.”
Staten Island, “I. State,” is relegated, shorn of its dimensions, to
Newark Bay, and its space divided by “I. Godins” and one of the six
islands in the Long Island group called “C. Godins.” The low coast of
New Jersey, near Long Branch, is properly named “Costa Bassa.” Thence
going south, we come to “Porto Eyer” (Egg Harbor) and “I. Eyer,” “C.
Pedras Arenas” (Barnegat), “C. Mai,” “Rio Carlo” (Delaware), and “C.
Hinlopen ò C. James.” The student of our early cartography must revert
often to the rival maps and atlases of Blaeu and Jansson. The elder of
the Blaeus, W. J. Blaeu, was long a maker of maps and globes,[889] and
began to be known, with his map of the world, in 1606. He had issued
many other maps when, in 1631, he collected them into his _Appendix
Theatri Ortelii_ (103 maps), the earliest of his atlases, which he
later remodelled and enlarged, sometimes giving the text in French,
and sometimes in Latin; that of 1638 being known as his _Novas Atlas_,
and containing fourteen American maps. After several intermediate
issues,[890] following upon the death of the elder Blaeu in 1638,[891]
his atlas, under the care of his son, John Blaeu,[892] was issued with
various texts, and with a wealth of skill rarely equalled since, as the
_Atlas Major_.[893]
Jansson produced a rival of the earliest Blaeu atlas in 1633, with
one hundred and six maps.[894] In 1638 it was called _Atlas Novus_,
and had seventeen maps of America.[895] In 1639 a French edition was
called _Nouveau Théâtre du Monde_, with new maps by Henry Hondius, son
of the elder Hondius, eighteen of them being American, and that on
New Netherland following De Laet’s map. It includes New England and
Virginia, and is the original of various later maps.[896] A fifth part
of the _Nouveau Theatre_ was added in 1657, containing coast charts of
America. Jansson reached his best in his _Orbis Antiquus_, of about
even date (1661) with Blaeu’s best.
In Mr. Edward Armstrong’s essay on _Fort Nassau_ a map in private hands
is mentioned which seems to be little known. It exhibits the grant
made to Sir Edmund Ploeyden of the Province of New Albion, and was
printed at London in 1651. It is a strange combination of knowledge and
ignorance, if not intentional deceit, purporting to have been made by
“Domina Virginia Farrer,” and shows the headwaters of James River to be
within ten days’ march of the California coast.[897]
A map of the Delaware territory was made, about 1638, by Måns Kling,
for the Swedish Government. A later map of the same region, made by
the Swedish engineer Peter Lindstroem in 1654, unfortunately destroyed
by fire in 1697, when the Royal Palace at Stockholm burned down, is
reviewed in another chapter. A Dutch map of the Delaware, made about
1656, has also been lost.[898]
Mr. Asher[899] and Mr. Armstrong incline to the opinion that the
earliest of the later group of maps made during the Dutch occupancy
is the original state of what is called Dancker’s map, known under the
title of _Novi Belgii Novæque Angliæ necnon Pennsylvaniæ et Partis
Virginiæ tabula, multis in locis emendata a Justo Danckers_, and
supposed to date between 1650 and 1656.[900] The map purporting to be
the oldest, and which there is reason to believe was this earlier plate
retouched, is the _Novi Belgii, etc., tabula multis in locis emendata
a Nicolao Joannis Visschero_, of which Asher speaks of a copy in the
Royal Library at the Hague.[901]
[Illustration: SKETCH OF PART OF VISSCHER’S MAP.]
It was afterward included in what is known as Visscher’s _Atlas
Minor_.[902] Visscher’s map, with its view of New Amsterdam, was
reproduced in what is known as Van der Donck’s map, _Nova Belgica sive
Nieuw Nederlandt_,[903] which appeared in the second edition of the
_Beschrijvinge van Nieuw Nederlant_, 1656.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: VAN DER DONCK’S NEW NETHERLAND.]
EDITORIAL NOTES.
=A.= BIBLIOGRAPHY.—In the bibliography of New Netherland, the first
place must be given to the _Bibliographical and Historical Essay on the
Dutch Books and Pamphlets relating to New Netherland_, by G. M. Asher,
Amsterdam, 1854-1867, the work appearing in parts. It embodies the
results of work in the royal library and in the royal archives at the
Hague; at Leyden in the library of the University and in that of Dr.
Bodel Nyenhuis, rich in maps, and particularly in the Thysiana Library,
which he found a rich field; and at Amsterdam, among the extensive
stock of Mr. Frederick Muller, without whose assistance, the author
says, the book would not have been written.[904] In his Introduction he
gives a succinct sketch of the history and geography of New Netherland.
Next in importance are the catalogues of Frederick Muller of Amsterdam,
particularly the series, _Catalogue of Books, Maps, and Plates on
America_,[905] begun in 1872, and which he calls “an essay towards
a Dutch-American bibliography.” It was also under Mr. Muller’s
direction and patronage that Mr. P. A. Tiele prepared his _Mémoire
bibliographique sur les journaux des navigateurs néerlandais réimprimés
dans les collections de De Bry et de Hulsius_, etc., Amsterdam, 1867.
It covers those voyages not Dutch of which accounts have appeared in
Dutch, as well as the distinctively Dutch collections. The compiler
dedicated it to Mr. James Lenox, from whose rich collection he derived
much help. Muller’s _Catalogue_ (1872), no. 110; Stevens, _Hist.
Coll._, i. 1,002.
The best American collection of books on New Netherland is probably
that now in the Lenox Library. Mr. Asher said of it some years ago
(_Essay_, p. xlix, _sub anno_ 1867) that it was “absolutely complete.”
=B.= NEW AMSTERDAM.—The earliest accounts of the town by Wassenaer
(1623), De Laet (1625), De Rasiere (1627), and Michaelis (1628), have
already been mentioned. (Cf. the paper on the first settlement by the
Dutch in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, vol. iii.) Stuyvesant, in his letter
to Nicoll in 1664, claimed that the town was founded in 1623. This
statement is repeated in De la Croix’s book, with De Vries’s additions,
published in Dutch as _Algemeene Wereldt-Beschrijving_, 1705. (Asher,
no. 19.) O’Callaghan, _New Netherland_, ii. 210, has established that
the town was incorporated in 1653.
The original Dutch records of New Amsterdam have been put into English
in MS. volumes in the archives of the city, and some parts of them
are printed in Valentine’s _New York City Manual_, and in _Historical
Magazine_, xi. 33, 108, 170, 224, 354; xii. 30; xiii. 39, 168. Cf.
paper on the development of its municipal government in the Dutch
period, in _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, May, 1882, and the papers on the city
of New York in _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, vols. i. and iii. Some notes on the
Indian incursions in and about New Amsterdam during the Dutch period
are in Valentine’s _New York City Manual_, 1863, p. 533. The principal
histories of the town are Martha J. Lamb’s (1877), M. L. Booth’s
(1859), W. L. Stone’s (1872), and David T. Valentine’s (1853). The last
comes down only to 1750, and this and Lamb’s are of the most importance.
[Illustration: NEW YORK AND VICINITY, 1666.
This fac-simile of the lower portion of the map entitled “De Noord
Rivier, anders R. Manhattans, off Hudson’s Rivier, genaamt t’Groodt,”
which appeared in a tract at Middleburgh (and also at the Hague in 1666
in Goos’s _Zee-Atlas_) in answer to the reply of Downing to the memoir
(1664) of the deputies of the States-General. The cut is made from the
reproduction in Mr. Lenox’s edition of H. C. Murphy’s translation of
the _Vertoogh_ and _Breeden Raedt_, New York, 1854. The North is to the
right.]
Something can be derived from the gatherings of J. F. Watson in his
_Annals of New York City and State_, 1846, and the appendix to his
_Annals of Philadelphia_, 1830. The reader will find interest in
various local antiquarian quests, as exemplified in J. W. Gerard’s
_Old Streets of New York under the Dutch_ (1874).[906] A map of
the original grants of village lots on the island, from the Dutch
West India Company, is in the _City Manual_ (1857), and in the same
(1856) is a map showing the made and swampy lands, as indicating the
original surface of the town. In other volumes (1852 and 1853), and in
Valentine’s _History_, p. 379, is a modern plan of the city, showing
the line of the original high-water marks and the location of the early
farms. It is one of these farms, that of Dominie Bogardus, the pastor
of the Dutch church, who so vigorously opposed Kieft’s plans, that is
now the property of Trinity Church, and the source of a large revenue.
(See the Key in Valentine’s _History_, p. 380.) The same serial
preserves views of sundry landmarks, like the canal in Broad Street, of
1659 (in 1862, p. 515), a windmill of 1661 (in 1862, p. 547), a house
built in 1626 (in 1847, p. 346). A plan of the fort built in 1633-1635
is in Valentine’s _New York_, p. 27; and at p. 38 is a plan of the town
in 1642, as well as the author could make it out from existing data.
[Illustration]
For the northern part of the island, James Riker’s _History of Harlem_,
1881, affords much interest, tracing more minutely than usual the
associations of the early comers with their family stocks in Europe,
and showing by a map the original locations of their house-lots at
Harlem.
=C.= LOCAL HISTORIES.—The Editor is not aware of any considerable
bibliography of New York local histories, except as they are included
in F. B. Perkins’s _Check List of American Local History_. Some help
may be derived from the _Brinley_ and _Alofsen Catalogues_, and
others of a classified character. We have indicated in another Note
the labors of Mr. Munsell for the Albany region. An edition of G.
Furman’s _Antiquities of Long Island_, edited by F. Moore in 1875,
includes a bibliography of Long Island by Henry Onderdonk, Jr. The
most considerable of all the local histories is Stiles’s _History of
Brooklyn_, 1867-1870, which gives a map of the Breuckelen settlements
in 1646. The Faust Club in 1865 issued (125 copies) an older book,
G. Furman’s _Notes of Brooklyn_, which had originally appeared in
1824. Benj. F. Thompson’s _History of Long Island_, 2d ed., 1843, is
the most comprehensive of the accounts of that island, while N. S.
Prime’s _History of Long Island_ is more particularly concerned with
its ecclesiastical history. There are various lesser monographs on the
island towns, like Riker’s _Newton_ (1852), Onderdonk’s _Hempstead_
(1878), etc. Cf. also _Historical Magazine_, viii. 89; and in the same,
vi. 145, Mr. G. P. Disosway recounts the early history of Staten Island.
[Illustration]
Mr. Fernow translated and edited in the _Documents relative to the
Colonial History of New York_, vol. xiii., the papers in the State
archives upon the history and settlements on the Hudson and the Mohawk
(1630-1684), as he has said in the text, which must stand as the basis
for much which is given in the special treatises of Bolton on _West
Chester County_ (or such thorough monographs as that of C. W. Baird on
the _History of Rye_, 1781 in this county), P. H. Smith on _Duchess
County_, 1877, not to name others. The more remote parts of the State
have little or no connection with the Dutch period.
=D.= THE DUTCH GOVERNORS.—Mr. George Folsom has a paper on the
governors in 2 _N. Y. Hist. Coll._, vol. i. On Peter Minuit, the
first governor, there is a paper by J. B. Moore in _N. Y. Hist. Soc.
Proc._, 1849, p. 73, and another in _Historical Magazine_, xiii. 205.
An autograph of Kieft is given herewith. Of Stuyvesant, the last
governor, who survived the surrender, and died in 1672 (Brodhead, ii.
183), we have various memorials. His portrait is preserved, belonging
to Mr. Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, and has been engraved several
times,—Dunlap’s _New York_, vol. i.; O’Callaghan’s _New Netherland_,
vol. ii.; Lamb’s New York, i. 127; Gay’s _Popular History of the United
States_, vol. ii. (Cf. _Catalogue of the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Gallery_, no.
67.) Two reminders of him long remained to New Yorkers,—his house in
the Bowery, which is shown as it existed at the time of his death in
Valentine’s _New York_, p. 53, and in his _Manual_, 1852, p. 407; and
in Watson’s _Annals of New York_, p. 196, as it stood later perched
upon so much of the original knoll as improvements had not removed.
The old pear-tree associated with his name is depicted in Valentine’s
_Manual_, 1861, p. 533, and in Lossing’s _Hudson River_, p. 416.
Mr. Fernow contributed to the _Magazine of American History_, ii. 540,
a monograph on Stuyvesant’s journey to Esopus in 1658. See also 4
_Massachusetts Historical Collections_, vi. 533.
=E.= LEVINUS HULSIUS’S COLLECTION OF VOYAGES.—The twenty-six parts
of this work were originally issued between 1598 and 1650, and this
long interval, as well as their German text finding more popular use
than the Latin of De Bry, has conduced to make sets much rarer of
Hulsius than of De Bry. Scholars also award Hulsius the possession of
more judgment in compiling and translating than is claimed for De Bry.
Asher printed in 1833 a _Short Bibliographical Memoir_ of Hulsius,
which became, when extended, his _Bibliographical Essay on the Voyages
and Travels of Hulsius and his Successors_, in 1839; and in this he
doubts if a perfect set of all the editions of all the parts had ever
been got together. An approximate completeness, however, pertains to
the sets in the Carter-Brown and Lenox libraries, as described in the
_Catalogue_ of the former, vol. i. p. 467, and in the _Contributions
to a Catalogue of the Lenox Library_, no. i, New York, 1877. The set
described in this shows all the first editions of the twenty-six parts,
with second issues of three of them, Latin as well as German of two of
them; two parts successively issued of one of them (part xi.) and other
copies with variations of three of them. There are eighteen second
editions, counting variations (one is lacking); nine third editions or
variations; six fourth editions (with one lacking); two fifth editions
(with one lacking). This would indicate that an absolutely complete
set, to include every part, edition, and variety, would increase the
twenty-six parts to seventy-three. The Carter-Brown copy seems to be
less perfect. The _Huth Catalogue_ shows a complete series of first
editions only.
Tiele’s _Mémoire Bibliographique_ pertains to such voyages in this
collection as were made by Dutch navigators. Sabin’s _Dictionary_,
viii. 526, gives fuller collations for the parts relating to America.
Quaritch printed a collation in 1860.
Bohn published a collation of Lord Lyndsay’s copy.
The Lenox Library possesses MS. Collations of the Grenville and other
sets in the British Museum, of those in the Royal Library, Berlin, and
the City Library of Hamburg.
Sets of such completeness as collectors may hope to attain have been
quoted at £335 (Crowninshield sale, 1860,—all first editions but one),
and 6,700 and 4,500 marks.
CHAPTER IX.
NEW SWEDEN, OR THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE.
BY GREGORY B. KEEN,
_Late Professor of Mathematics in the Theological Seminary of St.
Charles Borromeo, Corresponding Secretary of the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania_.
THE honor of projecting the first Swedish settlement in foreign parts
is due to Willem Usselinx,—a native of Antwerp, who resided for
several years in Spain, Portugal, and the Azores, and was afterward
engaged in mercantile pursuits in Holland, acquiring distinction as the
chief founder of the Dutch West India Company.[907]
[Illustration]
Failing to obtain adequate remuneration for his services in the
Netherlands, he visited Sweden, and succeeded in inducing Gustavus
II. (Adolphus) to issue a _Manifest_ at Gottenburg, Nov. 10, 1624,
instituting a general commercial society, called the Australian
Company, with special privileges of traffic with Africa, Asia, and
America. Authority was conferred on Usselinx to solicit subscriptions,
and a contract of trade was drawn up to be signed by the contributors,
the whole scheme being commended in a paper of great length by the
projector of it. On the 14th of June, 1626, a more ample charter
was conceded, which was confirmed in the Riksdag of 1627,[908] and
followed by an order of the sovereign requiring subscribers to make
their payments by May, 1628. The King himself pledged 400,000 daler
of the royal treasure on equal risks, and other members of his family
took stock in the Company, which embraced the Royal Council, the most
distinguished of the nobility, officers of the army, bishops and other
clergymen, burgomasters and aldermen of the cities, and many of the
commonalty.
[Illustration]
It was believed that the enterprise would prove of great commercial
benefit to Sweden, besides affording private individuals opportunity to
recover fortunes lost through the disastrous wars of the period, and
furnishing, in the colonies to be established, safe places of retreat
for many exiles. By means of a union, in 1630, with the Ship Company,
instituted by agreement of the cities of Sweden, at the Riksdag of the
preceding year, the Australian—or, as it was now generally called, the
South—Company acquired the control of sixteen well-equipped vessels,
which they proceeded to send to sea. No advantage, however, was derived
from any of the voyages made, and in 1632 four of the ships were taken
by Spain.
[Illustration]
Meanwhile the momentous conflicts of the age diverted the attention
of the monarch and drained the resources of the country, causing
inevitable delay in carrying out the plans of the Company, until
at last it was determined to seek the aid of foreign capital. Just
before the battle of Lützen closed the earthly career of Gustavus, a
new charter was prepared for his signature, extending the privileges
of the former one to the inhabitants of Germany, and prolonging the
enjoyment of them until the first day of January, 1646. This paper,
which was already dated, was published by Axel Oxenstjerna, Chancellor
of the Kingdom of Sweden,[909] at Heilbronn, April 10, 1633, and was
confirmed, with certain modifications, by the Deputies of the four
Upper Circles at Frankfort, Dec. 12, 1634.
Another, written at the same time and signed by the Chancellor May 1,
1633, recognized Usselinx as “Head Director of the New South Company,”
with authority to receive subscriptions and promote the undertaking; in
discharge of which duty the zealous Belgian issued a fresh defence of
his project, addressed especially to the Germans, besides reprinting
in their language the earlier documents on the subject. Nevertheless,
no success attended even this well-advertised revival of the
long-cherished enterprise, and subsequent appeals of Usselinx to France
and England, the Hanse Towns, and the States-General appear to have
been without result.[910]
[Illustration]
The first real advance towards the founding of New Sweden was made
in 1635. In May of that year Chancellor Oxenstjerna visited Holland,
and on his return home held correspondence upon the advantages of
forming a Swedish settlement on the coast of Brazil or Guinea, with
Samuel Blommaert, a merchant of Amsterdam and a member of the Dutch
West India Company, who had participated five years before in an
attempt to colonize the shores of the Delaware; and in the following
spring he commissioned Peter Spiring, another Dutchman, dwelling in
Sweden, to learn whether some assistance might not be obtained from
the States-General. With this intent, proposals were made by Usselinx,
now Swedish minister, to induce the States of Holland to found a
“Zuid-Compagnie,” in conjunction with his Government; but the Assembly
of the Nineteen (to whom the matter was referred) refusing their
consent, the States postponed further action in the premises.
[Illustration]
Nevertheless, if failure attended this appeal to the rulers of the
nation, Spiring’s intercourse with private individuals had a happier
issue; and conversations with Blommaert introduced to his acquaintance
Peter Minuit, or Minnewit, a native of Wesel, who had served the
Dutch West India Company from 1626 to 1632 as Director-General of New
Netherland,[911] living in New Amsterdam, and who was then once more
residing in Cleves,—the person who was destined to conduct the first
Swedish expedition to America.
In a letter dated at Amsterdam, June 15, 1636,[912] borne home by
Spiring, Minuit offered “to make a voyage to the Virginias, New
Netherland, and other regions adjoining, certain places well known
to him, with a very good climate, which might be named Nova Suedia;”
and this proposal, or one grounded on it, was read in the Swedish
Råd, the 27th of September. Soon afterward Spiring was again sent out
to Holland as minister; and on further consultation with Minuit and
Blommaert, now Swedish Commissary (or consul-general) at Amsterdam,
it was determined to form a Swedish-Dutch Company to carry on trade
with, and establish colonies on, portions of the North American coast
not previously taken up by the Dutch or English. The cost of the
first expedition was estimated at twenty-four thousand (it actually
amounted to over thirty-six thousand) Dutch florins, half of which
was to be contributed by Minuit and Blommaert and their friends, and
the remaining half to be subscribed in Sweden. Minuit was to be the
leader of it, and Blommaert the commissioner in Amsterdam. After these
stipulations had been concluded, in February, 1637, Minuit set out for
Stockholm. The Government embraced the scheme, and promised to place
two fully-equipped vessels at the disposal of the Company, while the
contribution of money required from Sweden was subscribed by Axel
Oxenstjerna, his brother Gabriel Gustafsson Oxenstjerna, their cousin
Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstjerna, and Clas Fleming (Royal Councillors and
Guardians of Queen Christina), and Peter Spiring.
[Illustration]
Fleming, like the Chancellor, was a very zealous promoter of the
project, and, as virtual chief of the admiralty (the head-admiral
was aged and disqualified for service), obtained a commission to fit
out the ships, concerting the details with Minuit and Blommaert, who
procured an experienced crew and suitable cargo in Holland. The vessels
were sent over to Gottenburg during the spring, when the expedition
was to start. Delays occurred, however, and the vessels,—the “Kalmar
Nyckel” (Key of Calmar), a man-of-war, under Captain Anders Nilsson
Krober, and the sloop “Gripen” (the Griffin), Lieutenant Jacob Borben
commander, both belonging to the United South and Ship Company,—did
not receive their passports before the 9th of August, and were not
ready to sail until late in the autumn. Soon after leaving, they
encountered severe storms, and were obliged to put into the Dutch
harbor of Medemblik for repairs and fresh provisions, but set out once
more in December for their place of destination.
Here they arrived not later than March, 1638, Minuit exercising his
discretion as commander of the expedition to direct his course to the
River Delaware, with which, under the name of the South River of New
Netherland, he had become acquainted during his former sojourn in
America. According to Campanius, the colonists first landed on the
west side of Delaware Bay, below the Mordare Kil (Murderkill Creek),
at a place they called Paradis Udden (Paradise Point), “probably,”
says he, “because it seemed so grateful and agreeable.” They afterward
proceeded up the river, and on the 29th of March Minuit concluded a
purchase of land from five chiefs of the Minquas (belonging to the
great Iroquois race), appropriately rewarding them with articles of
merchandise. The territory thus acquired embraced the west shore of the
Delaware, from Bomtiens Udden (near Bombay Hook) northward to the River
Schuylkill, no limit being assigned towards the interior.[913] At its
boundaries Minuit erected posts bearing the insignia of his sovereign,
designating the country as NEW SWEDEN, and immediately built a fort,
called, in honor of the queen,[914] Christina, at a point of rocks
about two miles from the mouth of the Minquas (now Christeen) Creek, to
which stream he gave the name of Elbe.
[Illustration]
Soon after his arrival he despatched “Gripen” to Jamestown, in
Virginia, for a cargo of tobacco to carry to Sweden free of duty,—a
privilege which the governor declined to grant, out of regard to the
instructions of the English king, while the Treasurer of the Province
wrote to Sir Francis Windebanke, Principal Secretary to Charles I.,
suggesting the removal of the Swedes from the neighborhood of the
Delaware, which he described as “the confines of Virginia and New
England,” claiming it as appertaining to his sovereign. The sloop was
suffered to remain “ten days, to refresh with wood and water,” and
then returned to Minuit. Subsequently the Swedish commander sent her
up the river for purposes of traffic, when he was summarily challenged
by the Dutch at Fort Nassau, a stronghold built in 1623, by Cornelis
Jacobsen Mey, at Timber Creek on the east side of the Delaware, which
had afterward been abandoned and reoccupied several times, and was
then in the possession of traders from New Amsterdam. The actions of
Minuit were also reported by the Assistant-Commissary at that place
to Willem Kieft, the Director-General of New Netherland, and were in
turn communicated by Kieft, in a letter of the 28th of April, to the
Directors of the West India Company in Holland, and were made the
subject of a formal protest, addressed by Kieft to Minuit, the 6th of
May, claiming jurisdiction over the South River for the Dutch. No heed
was paid, however, to remonstrances of either Hollanders or English;
and Minuit proceeded to improve his fort by building two log-houses in
the inclosure for the accommodation of the garrison, while he stocked
it plentifully with provisions, leaving a portion of his cargo to be
used in barter with the Indians, “all whose peltries,” says Governor
Kieft, “he had attracted to himself by liberal gifts.”
[Illustration]
The colonists who remained in New Sweden numbered twenty-three men,
under the command of Lieutenant Måns Kling (the only Swede expressly
named as taking part in this first expedition to the Delaware), who
had charge of the military affairs, and Hendrick Huygen, a relative of
Minuit, likewise born in Cleves, who was intrusted with the civil and
economical duties of the direction. Minuit himself departed for the
West Indies, probably in July, on board the “Kalmar Nyckel,” having
sent “Gripen” thither before him. After disposing of his merchandise,
and securing a cargo of tobacco at the Island of St. Christopher,
while paying a visit to a Dutch ship lying near by, he perished by the
destruction of that vessel in a sudden and violent storm. The “Kalmar
Nyckel” had the good fortune to escape, and soon afterward sailed for
Sweden, but was forced by November gales to take refuge in a port of
Holland; while “Gripen” returned to the Delaware, and, obtaining a load
of furs, acquired by traffic with the Indians, set out for Gottenburg,
where she arrived at the close of May, 1639.
[Illustration]
A second expedition to New Sweden had already been projected, which
Queen Christina and the Swedish partners in the South Company
determined to render more national in character than that conducted by
Minuit. Natives of Sweden were particularly invited to engage in it;
and none volunteering to do so, the governors of Elfsborg and Värmland
were directed to procure married soldiers who had evaded service
or committed some other capital offence, who, with their wives and
children, were promised the liberty of returning home at pleasure at
the end of one or two years.
[Illustration]
Through the zeal of Fleming, the President of the College of Commerce,
and his efficient secretary Johan Beier, a number of emigrants were at
last assembled at Gottenburg, and put on board the “Kalmar Nyckel,”
freshly equipped and provided with a new crew by Spiring and Blommaert
in Holland, and commanded by a Dutch captain, Cornelis van Vliet, who
had been for several years in the Swedish service. The vessel was
also to carry out the second governor of New Sweden, Lieutenant Peter
Hollender, commissioned July 1, 1639, who was probably, as his name
indicates, a Dutchman, and (since he signed himself “Ridder”) doubtless
a nobleman. The ship sailed in the beginning of autumn, but, springing
a leak in the German Ocean, was obliged thrice to return to Holland
for repairs, when the captain was finally discharged for dishonesty
and negligence, and another, named Pouwel Jansen, was engaged to
take his place. At length, on the 7th of February, 1640, the “Kalmar
Nyckel” left the Texel, and reached Christina in safety the 17th of the
following April.[915]
How the first settlers had fared since the departure of Minuit, we are
unfortunately not informed by them; but it is testified by Governor
Kieft that they succeeded in appropriating a large trade with the
natives, which “wholly ruined” that of the Dutch. Still, according to
the same authority, the arrival of the second colony was singularly
opportune, since they had determined to quit the Delaware and remove
the very next day to New Amsterdam. Such an intention was of course
at once abandoned, and Governor Hollender strengthened his foothold
on the river by securing a title from the Indians to the western bank
of it as far north as Sankikan (near Trenton Falls), in spite of the
protests of the Dutch Commissary, who even fired upon him as he sailed
past Fort Nassau. A letter of remonstrance was sent to this officer by
the Swedish governor, but his instructions requiring him to deal gently
with the Hollanders, and his people being afterward treated by Governor
Kieft “with all civility,” no serious collisions occurred between the
rival nations during his direction of the colony. The “Kalmar Nyckel”
was soon made ready for her return voyage, and, sailing in May, arrived
in July at Gottenburg.
The constant intercourse of the Swedish authorities with prominent
merchants of Amsterdam in founding the Colony of New Sweden had by this
time attracted the attention of other Hollanders to the settlement now
successfully established, and the liberality of the terms accorded
the Swedish company induced Myndert Myndertsen van Horst, of Utrecht,
to appeal to Queen Christina for the privilege of planting a Dutch
colony within the limits of her territory, after the model of the
patroonships of their own West India Company. This favor was conceded
in a charter of the 24th of January, 1640, which was transferred by
Van Horst to Hendrik Hoochcamer and other fellow-countrymen, granting
the right to take up land on both sides of the Delaware, four or five
German miles below Christina, to be held hereditarily under the Crown
of Sweden, with freedom from taxation for ten years, but subject to
the restriction that their trade be carried on in vessels built in New
Sweden and confined to Swedish ports, and also assuring liberty for
the exercise of their so-called Reformed religion. Simultaneously with
the charter, a passport was issued for the ship “Fredenburg,” Captain
Jacob Powelsen, to carry the emigrants, and a commission for Jost van
Bogardt, as Swedish agent in New Sweden, with special authority over
this colony. The latter was likewise the leader of the expedition,
which was composed chiefly of persons from the province of Utrecht; and
he arrived with it at the Delaware on the 2d of November, 1640. The
Dutchmen appear to have seated themselves three or four Swedish miles
from Christina. So little mention, however, is afterward made of this
peculiarly constituted settlement,[916] it seems probable that it soon
lost its individuality.
About this time occurred the first attempt on the part of the
inhabitants of New England to obtain a foothold in New Sweden. Captain
Nathaniel Turner is said to have bought land from the Indians “on
both sides of Delaware Bay or River,” as agent of New Haven, in 1640;
and in April, 1641, a similar purchase was made by George Lamberton,
also of New Haven, notwithstanding one of the tracts acquired in this
manner was comprised within that long before sold by the natives
to the Swedish governors, while the other, extending from Cape May
to Narraticons Kil (or Raccoon Creek), on the eastern shore of the
Delaware, had been conveyed only three days earlier, by the same
sachem, to Governor Hollender. Taking advantage of this nugatory title,
and in contravention of engagements entered into with Director Kieft,
some twenty English families, numbering about sixty persons, settled
at Varkens Kil (now Salem Creek, New Jersey), whose “plantations” were
pronounced, at a General Court held in New Haven, Aug. 30, 1641, to be
“in combination with” that town.
Meanwhile preparations were making in Sweden to send forth a fresh
expedition to America. On the 13th of July, 1640, the Governor of
Gottenburg was enjoined to persuade families of his province to
emigrate, “with their horses and cattle and other personal property.”
On the 29th the Governor of Värmland and Dal was directed to enlist
certain Finns, who had been forced to enter the army as a punishment
for violating a royal edict against clearing land in that province by
burning forests; and on the 30th the Governor of Örebro was instructed
to induce people of the same race, roaming about the mining districts
under his jurisdiction, to accompany the rest to the Transatlantic
Colony. Lieutenant Måns Kling, who had returned in the “Kalmar Nyckel,”
was also especially commissioned, on the 26th of the following
September, to aid in this work in the mining regions and elsewhere,
and particularly to procure homeless Finns, who were living in the
woods upon the charity of the settled population of Sweden. In all
these mandates the fertility of the new country and the advantages of
colonists in it are clearly intimated; and in the last it is declared
to be the royal aim that the inhabitants of the kingdom may enjoy the
valuable products of that land, increase in commerce and in knowledge
of the sea, and enlarge their intercourse with foreign nations. In
May, 1641, the people collected by Kling accompanied him on the ship
“Charitas” from Stockholm to Gottenburg, where they were joined by
the others, who by that time were ready to set forth. On the 20th of
February the Government had resolved to buy out the Dutch partners in
their enterprise, instructing Spiring to pay them eighteen thousand
gulden from the public funds, provided they abandoned all further
claims. This, no doubt, was done; and thus the third Swedish expedition
to New Sweden sailed under the auspices of a purely Swedish company.
It comprised the well-tried “Kalmar Nyckel” and the “Charitas,” and
arrived at its place of destination probably in the summer or autumn of
1641.[917]
Nothing is known with regard to New Sweden at this period; but in the
spring of 1642 some of the colonists from New Haven, already spoken
of, took possession of a tract of land, which they claimed to have
purchased of the Indians on the 19th of April, on the west side of
the Delaware, extending from Crum Creek a short distance above the
Schuylkill, and proceeded to build a trading-house on the latter
stream. This attracted the attention of Director Kieft, and on the 22d
of May he despatched two sloops from New Amsterdam with instructions to
Jan Jansen van Ilpendam, the Dutch commissary at Fort Nassau, to expel
the English from the Delaware. His orders were promptly executed; and
the settlements on the Schuylkill and (it is said) at Varkens Kil were
broken up, partly through the aid of the Swedes, who had agreed with
Kieft “to keep out the English,” the trespassers being taken to Fort
Amsterdam, from whence they were sent home to New Haven. Lamberton,
still persisting in trading on the Delaware, was arrested not long
afterward at Manhattan, and compelled to give an account of his
peltries, and to pay duties on his cargo. According to Governor John
Winthrop, of Massachusetts, such “sickness and mortality” prevailed
this summer in New Sweden as “dissolved” the plantations of the
English, and seriously affected the Swedes.
[Illustration]
In Sweden the interest in the little American colony was now at its
height; and in July and August, 1642, Spiring was consulted in the Råd
and the Räkningekammår upon the question of appropriating the funds
of the South and Ship Company for the expenses of another expedition
across the ocean. This resulted in the formation of a new company,
styled the West India, American, or New Sweden Company, although
oftener known as the South Company, with a capital of thirty-six
thousand riksdaler, half being contributed by the South and Ship
Company, one sixth by the Crown, and the remainder by Oxenstjerna,
Spiring, Fleming, and others. To it, also, was transferred the monopoly
of the tobacco trade in Sweden, Finland, and Ingermanland, which had
been granted to the South Company in 1641. On the 15th of August a
third governor was commissioned to succeed Hollender in the direction
of New Sweden; namely, Johan Printz, who had taken part in the Thirty
Years’ War as Lieutenant-Colonel of the West Götha Cavalry, and, after
his dismissal from the service for the capitulation of Chemnitz, was
engaged in 1641 in procuring emigrants for the colony in Northern
Finland. He had been restored to royal favor and ennobled in July.
His “Instructions” were likewise dated Aug. 15, 1642, and were signed
by Peter Brahe, Herman Wrangel, Clas Fleming, Axel Oxenstjerna, and
Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstjerna, Councillors of the Kingdom and Guardians
of Queen Christina, who was still in her minority. They are comprised
in twenty-eight articles, endowing him with extensive authority in
the administration of justice, and enjoining him to keep the monopoly
of the fur-trade, and to pay particular attention to the cultivation
of the soil,—especially for the planting of tobacco, of which he
was expected to ship a goodly quantity on every vessel returning to
Sweden,—as well as to have a care of the raising of cattle, of the
obtaining of choice woods, of the growth of the grape, production of
silk, manufacture of salt, and taking of fish. He was to maintain the
Swedish Lutheran form of religion and education of the young, and
treat the Indians “with all humanity,” endeavoring to convert them
from their paganism, and “in other ways bring them to civilization
and good government.” His territory was defined to include all that
had been purchased of the natives by Minuit and Hollender, extending,
on the west side of the Delaware, from Cape Hinlopen[918] northwards
to Sankikan, and on the east from Narraticons Kil southwards to Cape
May. Over the whole of this region he was commanded to uphold the
supremacy of his sovereign, keeping the Dutch colony under Jost van
Bogardt to the observance of their charter, and bringing the English
settlers under subjection, or procuring their removal, as he deemed
best. His relations with the Holland West India Company and their
representatives at Manhattan and Fort Nassau were to be friendly but
independent, and, in case of hostile encroachments, “force was to be
repelled by force.” On the 30th of August a budget was adopted for
New Sweden, specifying, besides the Governor, a lieutenant, sergeant,
corporal, gunner, trumpeter, and drummer, with twenty-four private
soldiers, and (in the civil list) a preacher, clerk, surgeon, provost,
and executioner, their salaries being estimated at 3,020 riksdaler
per annum. Fleming and Beier (this year appointed postmaster-general)
had the chief direction of the enterprise, and special factors were
designated for the Company’s service in Gottenburg and Amsterdam.
At length all preparations were completed, and the fourth Swedish
expedition to New Sweden, consisting of the ships “Fama” (Fame) and
“Svanen” (the Swan), set sail from Gottenburg on the 1st of November,
1642, carrying Printz, with his wife and children, Lieutenant Måns
Kling, the Rev. Johan Campanius Holm, and many others, among whom were
a number of forest-destroying Finns, sent out as formerly by their
respective governors.[919] They pursued the usual course through the
English Channel and past the Canary Islands, spending Christmas with
the hospitable Governor of Antigua; and, after encountering severe
storms, towards the close of January entered Delaware Bay, and on the
15th of February, 1643, landed in safety at Fort Christina.
Unfortunately, the first and very full report of the new governor
to the West India Company, dated April 13, 1643, and despatched on
the return voyage of the “Fama,” appears to have been irrecoverably
lost; but in letters addressed the day before and the day after,
respectively, to Councillors Peter Brahe and Axel Oxenstjerna, still
preserved in Sweden, Printz gives a favorable account of the country
and an interesting description of the natives, and earnestly advises
the sending out of more emigrants. Soon after his arrival he made a
journey through his territory, sailing up the Delaware to Sankikan, and
determined to take up his abode on the Island of Tennakong, or Tinicum,
situated about fifteen miles above Christina. Here he built himself
a house (Printzhof), and erected a fort of heavy logs, armed with
four brass cannon, called Nya Göteborg (New Gottenburg),—a name also
bestowed on the whole place in a patent from his sovereign of the 6th
of the following November, granting it “to him and his lawful issue as
a perpetual possession.” About twenty emigrants settled on this island,
with their families, including Printz’s book-keeper and clerk, with
his body-guard and the crew of a little yacht used by the Governor. A
redoubt was likewise constructed “after the English plan, with three
angles,” on the eastern shore, “close to the river,” by a little stream
now known as Mill Creek, three or four miles below Varkens Kil, which
was named Nya Elfsborg.
[Illustration]
It was defended by eight brass twelve-pounders, and committed to the
charge of Lieutenant Sven Schute and Sergeant Gregorius van Dyck,
with a gunner and drummer and twelve or fifteen common soldiers; and
was already occupied in October, when a Dutch skipper, carrying David
Pieterszen de Vries on his last voyage to the Delaware, was required
to strike his flag in passing the place and give account of his cargo,
although the noted patroon was afterward courteously entertained five
days at Tinicum by Governor Printz, who bought “wines and sweetmeats”
of his captain, and accompanied him on his return as far as Fort
Christina.
[Illustration]
The latter post remained the chief place of deposit of the stores
of the colony under Commissary Hendrick Huygen, and was settled by
about forty persons and their families, including the Reverend Johan
Campanius, a miller, two carpenters, a few sailors and soldiers, and
a dozen peasants, who were occupied in the cultivation of tobacco. A
tobacco plantation was also formed the same year on the west side of
the Delaware, four or five miles below Tinicum, under the direction of
Peter Liljehöck, assisted by an experienced tobacco-grower, specially
hired for the service, with a dozen or more husbandmen, and received
the name of Upland. About the same time another was begun by Lieutenant
Måns Kling, with seven or eight colonists, on the Schuylkill. At first
both of these places were destitute of forts, although log houses,
strengthened by small stones, were built for the accommodation of the
settlers.[920] A large quantity of maize was sown by Printz immediately
after his arrival for the sustenance of the colony, but not yielding
the results anticipated from certain statements of Governor Hollender,
the deficiency was supplied by purchase of some cattle and winter rye
at the Island of Manhattan. Provisions were also obtained from Dutch
and English vessels which visited the Delaware. During the autumn,
rye was planted in three places, and in the following spring some
barley, which grew so well, says the Governor, “it was delightful to
behold.” For greater convenience of communication between the scattered
settlements two boats were built by the carpenters, one for the use of
Elfsborg, the other for Christina.
Although the instructions to Governor Printz concerning his relations
with the English were probably issued in ignorance of the attempt
of Kieft to dislodge the latter from the Delaware, the success of
the Dutch Director-General does not seem to have been so complete as
to render them superfluous. Lamberton still visited the river for
purposes of trade, and a few settlers from New Haven yet remained at
Varkens Kil. Printz, therefore, “went to the houses” of these English
families, and “forced some of them to swear allegiance to the crown
of Sweden.” He also found opportunity of apprehending Lamberton,
and brought him before a tribunal comprising Captains Christian
Boije and Måns Kling, Commissaries Huygen and Jansen, and six other
persons then on the Delaware, assembled in the name of the Swedish
sovereign at Fort Christina, July 10, 1643. Printz met two protests
made by the Englishman at his trial, claiming land on both sides of
the river in virtue of purchases from the Indians, by showing that
the territory in question was embraced in tracts already bought of
the savages by Governors Minuit and Hollender. He also proved to the
satisfaction of the court that Lamberton had traded with the natives
in the vicinity even of Fort Christina without leave and in spite of
repeated prohibitions, obtaining a quantity of beaver skins, for which
the defendant was required by the tribunal to pay double duty. And,
finally, Lamberton was accused by the Governor of bribing the Indians
to murder the Swedes and Dutch,—a charge which was supported by
several witnesses, who also testified that on the day agreed upon an
unusual number of savages had assembled in front of Fort Christina, who
were, however, frightened off before they could attain their purpose.
In passing upon this grave indictment, the court preferred to treat the
defendant with clemency “on this occasion,” and postponed action on the
subject. These decisions naturally did not content Lamberton, and at
a meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England,
held at Boston September 7, complaint was made by his associates,
Governor Theophilus Eaton and Thomas Gregson, of “injuries received
from the Dutch and Swedes at Delaware Bay;” when it was “ordered that a
letter be written to the Swedish governor, expressing the particulars
and requiring satisfaction,” to be signed by John Winthrop “as Governor
of Massachusetts and President of the Commissioners.” This resolution
was complied with, and a commission was given to Lamberton “to go
treat with” Printz upon the subject, and “to agree with him about
settling their trade and plantation” on the Delaware. Winthrop’s letter
was answered by the Governor of New Sweden, Jan. 12, 1644, with a
statement of the facts established at his court already mentioned, and
a fresh examination of the matter was instituted on the 16th. This was
likewise conducted at Fort Christina, in the presence of the Governor,
Captains Boije, Kling, and Turner, Commissary Huygen, Sergeant Van
Dyck, Isaac Allerton, and Secretary Carl Janson, and resulted in the
exculpation of Printz from the offences charged against him. Copies of
these proceedings and of all others relating to the New Haven people
were transmitted to a General Court of Massachusetts which met at
Boston in March, and Governor Winthrop, in acknowledging the receipt
of them in a friendly letter to Governor Printz, promised “a full
and particular response at the next meeting of the Commissioners of
the United Colonies.” At the same time a fresh commission was issued
to Governor Eaton, though “with a _salvo jure_, allowing him to go
on with his plantation and trade in Delaware River,” accompanied by
a copy of the Massachusetts patent, which he desired “to show the
Swedish governor.” Certain merchants of Boston likewise obtained the
privilege of forming a company for traffic in the vicinity of a great
lake believed to be the chief source of the beaver trade, which was
supposed to lie near the headwaters of the Delaware; and, to carry out
their project, despatched a pinnace, well manned and laden, to that
river, with a commission “under the public seal,” and letters from the
Governor of Massachusetts to Kieft and Printz for liberty to pass their
strongholds. “This,” says Winthrop, “the Dutch promised” to concede,
though under “protest;” but “when they came to the Swedes, the fort
shot at them ere they came up,” obliging them to cast anchor, “and the
next morning the Lieutenant came aboard and forced them to fall lower
down.” On complaint to Governor Printz, the conduct of that officer
was repudiated, and instructions were sent to him from Tinicum not to
molest the expedition. All further progress was, however, checked by
the Dutch agent at Fort Nassau, who showed an order from his Governor
not to let them pass that place; and since neither Printz nor Kieft
would permit them to trade with the Indians, they returned home “with
loss of their voyage.” The letter which Printz addressed to Winthrop,
explaining his actions on this occasion, dated at Tinicum, June 29,
1644, is more amiable than truthful; for in the copy sent to the
authorities in Sweden the Governor qualifies his intimation that he
promoted the undertaking, with the statement that he took care that the
Dutch at Fort Nassau brought it to nought, since it was the purpose of
the persons who were engaged in it “to build a fort above the Swedish
post at Sankikan, to be armed with men and cannon, and appropriate
to themselves all the profits of the river.” Not less successful was
the opposition of the Governor to an attempt to invade his territory
by the English knight, Sir Edmund Plowden, who had recently come to
America to take possession, in virtue of a grant from King Charles I.
of England, of a large tract of land, in which New Sweden was included.
For though certain of the retainers of this so-styled “Earl Palatine
of New Albion,” who had mutinied and left their lord to perish on an
island, were apprehended at Fort Elfsborg in May, 1643, and courteously
surrendered to him by Printz, the latter refused to permit any
vessels trading under his commission to pass up the Delaware, and so
“affronted” Plowden that he finally abandoned the river.[921]
The relations between the Swedes and Dutch were seemingly more
friendly. “Ever since I came here,” says Printz in his Report of 1644,
“the Hollanders have shown great amity, particularly their Director
at Manhattan, Willem Kieft, who writes to me very frequently, as he
has opportunity, telling the news from Sweden and Holland and other
countries of Europe; and though at the first he gave me to understand
that his West India Company laid claim to our river, on my replying to
him with the best arguments at my command, he has now for a long while
spared me those inflictions.”
The Indians always exhibited the most amicable dispositions towards
the Swedes, partly no doubt through timidity, but at least equally
in consequence of the kind treatment habitually shown them by the
colonists of that nation. Still, in the spring of 1644, influenced, it
is presumed, by the example of their brethren in Virginia and Maryland
and the vicinity of Manhattan, who had recently been provoked to
fierce hostility against the Dutch and English, some of the savages
massacred two soldiers and a laborer between Christina and Elfsborg,
and a Swedish woman and her husband (an Englishman) between Tinicum
and Upland. Printz, however, immediately assembling his people at
Christina to defend themselves from further outrages, the natives “came
together,” says he, “from all sides, heartily apologizing for, and
denying all complicity in, the murderous deeds, and suing earnestly for
peace.” This was accorded them by the Governor, but “with the menace
of annihilation if the settlers were ever again molested.” Whereupon
a treaty was signed by the sachems, and ratified by the customary
interchange of presents, assuring tranquillity for the future and
restoring something of the previous mutual confidence.[922]
During the six years now elapsed since the founding of New Sweden the
colonists were compelled to undergo the privations which inevitably
attend the first settlement of a wild and untitled country; and the
frequent scarcity of food and insufficiency of shelter, combined with
the novelty and uncertainty of the climate, and occasional seasons of
disease, had the usual effect of diminishing their numbers. Especially
fatal was the last summer, that of 1643, when no fewer than seventeen
(between six and seven per cent) of the male emigrants died, among
these being the Reverend Reorus Torkillus, the first pastor of the
colony.
[Illustration]
The need, therefore, for fresh recruits to take the places of those who
proved themselves unequal to the trials of their situation constantly
presented itself to the survivors, and ought, surely, to have been
appreciated by the authorities in Sweden. Nevertheless, the fifth
Swedish expedition to the Delaware, which arrived at Christina on
the “Fama,”[923] March 11, 1644, added very little to the numerical
strength of the settlement;[924] while, through the carelessness of the
agent at Gottenburg, some of the clothing and merchandise was shipped
in a damaged condition.
[Illustration]
The principal emigrant on this occasion was Johan Papegåja, who had
already been in New Sweden, and now returned, bearing letters of
recommendation to the Governor from his sovereign and from Peter Brahe,
President of the Royal Council, in consequence of which he was at once
appointed to the chief command at Fort Christina. He was likewise
accepted as a suitor for the hand of Printz’s daughter, Armgott, and
not long afterward became the Governor’s son-in-law. Brahe acknowledged
the receipt of Printz’s letter, before referred to, on the 18th of
August; and congratulating him on his safe arrival at the Delaware he
expresses the hope that he will “gain firm foothold there, and be able
to lay so good a foundation _in tam vasta terra septentrionali_, that
with God’s gracious favor the whole North American continent may in
time be brought to the knowledge of His Son, and become subject to the
crown of Sweden.” He particularly admonishes the Governor to cultivate
friendship with “the poor savages,” instructing them, and endeavoring
to convert them to Christianity. “Adorn,” says he, “your little church
and priest after the Swedish fashion, with the usual habiliments of the
altar, in distinction from the Hollanders and English, shunning all
leaven of Calvinism,” remembering that “outward ceremonial will not
the less move them than others to sentiments of piety and devotion.”
He likewise enjoins “the use of the Swedish language in spoken and
written discourse, in all its purity, without admixture of foreign
tongues. All rivers and streams, forests, and other places should
receive old Swedish names, to the exclusion of the nomenclature of
the Dutch, which,” he has heard, “is taking root. In fine,” he adds,
“let the manners and customs of the colony conform as closely as
possible to those of Sweden.” To Printz’s reply to this letter we are
indebted for the fullest account of the religious rites observed in
the settlement which has been preserved to us. “Divine service,” says
the Governor, “is performed here in the good old Swedish tongue, our
priest clothed in the vestments of the Mass on high festivals, solemn
prayer-days, Sundays, and Apostles’ days precisely as in old Sweden,
and differing in every respect from that of the sects around us.
Sermons are delivered Wednesdays and Fridays, and on all other days
prayers are offered in the morning and afternoon; and since this cannot
be done everywhere by our sole clergyman, I have appointed a lay-reader
for each place, to say prayers daily, morning and evening, and dispose
the people to godliness. All this,” he continues, “has long been
witnessed by the savages, some of whom we have had several days with
us, attempting to convert them; but they have watched their chance,
and invariably run off to rejoin their pagan brethren,”—a statement
not inconsistent with the testimony of Campanius, who admits that,
although his grandfather held many conversations with the Indians, and
translated the Swedish Lutheran catechism into their language[925]
for their instruction in Christian doctrine, no more definite result
was reached than to convince them of the relative superiority of the
religion thus expounded.
In the course of three months a cargo was obtained for the return
voyage of the “Fama,” consisting of 2,142 beaver skins, 300 of which
were from the Schuylkill, and 20,467 pounds of tobacco, part being
bought in Virginia, while the rest was raised by the Swedes and their
English neighbors at Varkens Kil, Printz allowing a higher price
for this, to encourage the cultivation of the plant and to induce
immigration to New Sweden. The Governor also freighted the vessel with
7,300 pounds on his personal account. Five of the colonists embraced
this opportunity to go back to Sweden, among whom were Captain Boije,
the clergyman “Herr Israel,” and a barber-surgeon. The “Fama” set sail
on the 20th of June, and reached Europe in the autumn, but putting
into a Dutch harbor to revictual was detained there pending a long
controversy as to the payment of duty between Peter Spiring, then
Swedish Resident at the Hague, and the States-General, and did not
arrive at Gottenburg till May, 1645.
At the date of Governor Printz’s second Report to the Swedish West
India Company, which was sent home by the “Fama,” the colonists in New
Sweden numbered ninety men, besides women and children. About half of
these were employed, at stipulated wages, in the discharge of various
civil and military functions on behalf of the Crown and Company.
The “freemen” (_frimännen_)—so called because they had settled in
the colony entirely of their own will, and might leave it at their
option—held land granted them in fee, temporarily not taxed, which
they cultivated for themselves, being aided also by the Company with
occasional gifts of money, food, and raiment. Persons who had been
compelled to immigrate, as elsewhere stated, in punishment for offences
committed by them in Sweden, were required to till ground reserved to
the Company, which fed and clothed them, or to perform other work,
at the discretion of the Governor, for a few years, when they were
admitted to the privileges of freemen, or assigned duty in the first
class above mentioned.
In the autumn of 1644 a bark was sent by the merchants of Boston
to trade in the Delaware, which passed the winter near the English
plantation at Varkens Kil, and the following spring fell down the
bay, and in three weeks secured five hundred skins of the Indians on
the Maryland side. Just as the vessel was about to leave, she was
treacherously boarded by some of the savages, who rifled her of her
goods and sails, killing the master and three men, and taking two
prisoners, who were brought six weeks afterward to Governor Printz, and
were returned by him to New England.