Chapter 25

NEW NETHERLAND

[1609]

While the French explorer, Champlain, was sailing along the shores of the lake which bears his name, another equally adventurous spirit, Henry Hudson, was on his way to the western world. Hoping to open a passage to India by a voyage to the north, Hudson, an English navigator, offered in 1609 to sail under the authority of the Dutch East India Company. Driven back by ice and fog from a northeast course, he turned northwest. Searching up and down near the parallel of 40 degrees, he entered the mouth of the great river which perpetuates his name. He found the country inviting to the eye, and occupied by natives friendly in disposition. The subsequent career of this bold mariner has a mournful interest. He never returned to Holland, but, touching at Dartmouth, was restrained by the English authorities, and forbidden longer to employ his skill and experience for the benefit of the Dutch. Again entering the English service and sent once more to discover the northwest passage, he sailed into the waters of the bay which still bears his name, where cold and hunger transformed the silent discontent of his crew into open mutiny, and they left the fearless navigator to perish amid the icebergs of the frozen north.

[1614-1618]

Hudson had sent to Holland a report of the Great River and the country bordering it, rich in fur-bearing animals, and it had excited eager interest. Private individuals sent expeditions thither and carried on a profitable trade with the natives. A few Dutch were here when, in 1613, Captain Argall sailed from Virginia against the French at Port Royal, Acadia, now Annapolis in Nova Scotia, who were encroaching upon the English possessions on the coast of Maine. He compelled them to surrender. On his return, he visited the Dutch traders of Manhattan Island, and forced them also, as it had been discovered by Cabot in 1497, to acknowledge the sovereignty of England over this entire region.

It was in 1614 that the Dutch States-General, in the charter given to a company of merchants, named the Hudson Valley New Netherland. To facilitate trade this company made a treaty with the Five Nations and subordinate tribes, memorable as the first compact formed between the whites and the savages. In it the Indians were regarded as possessing equal rights and privileges with their white brethren. The treaty was renewed in 1645, and continued in force till the English occupation, 1664. In 1618, the charter of the New Netherland Company having expired, the Dutch West India Company was offered a limited incorporation, but it was not until 1621 that it received its charter, and it was two years later that it was completely organized and approved by the States-General. By this company were sent out Mey, as Director, to the Delaware or South River, and Tienpont to the Hudson or North River. Four miles below Philadelphia Fort Nassau was erected, and where Albany now stands was begun the trading-post called Fort Orange.

[1626]

In 1626 Tienpont's successor, Peter Minuit, a German, born at Wesel, was appointed Director-General of New Netherland. He bought of the Indians, for the sum of twenty-four dollars, the entire island of Manhattan, and a fort called New Amsterdam was built. The State of New York dates its beginning from this transaction.

By their usually honest dealing with the natives the Dutch settlers gained the friendship of the Five Nations, whose good-will was partly on this account transferred to the English colonists later. The Dutch were not only friendly to the red men, but tried to open social and commercial relations with the Plymouth colonists as well. Governor Bradford replied, mildly urging the Dutch to "clear their title" to a territory which the English claimed by right of discovery.

[1630-1633]

The present State of Delaware soon became the scene of attempts at settlement. De Vries began, in 1632, a colony on the banks of the Delaware, but it was quickly laid waste by the savages, who had been needlessly provoked by the insolence of the commander left in charge of the colony. In 1633 Minuit was succeeded by Van Twiller, and a fort was erected at Hartford, though the English claimed this country as theirs. Emigrants from the Plymouth colony began the settlement of Windsor, in spite of the protests of the Dutch. Long Island was invaded by enterprising New Englanders, regardless of the claim of New Netherland thereto.

This "irrepressible conflict" between two races was by no means abated by the introduction of a third. As early as 1626, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden and the hero of the Thirty Years' War, had entertained the idea of establishing colonies in America, and in pursuance of that object had encouraged the formation of a company, not only for trading purposes but also to secure a refuge for the "oppressed of all Christendom." To Usselinx, an Antwerp merchant, the originator of the Dutch West India Company, belongs the honor of first suggesting to the king this enterprise. The glorious death of Gustavus on the victorious field of Lutzen in 1632 deferred the execution of a purpose which had not been forgotten even in the midst of that long and arduous campaign. But a few days before he fell, the Protestant hero had spoken of the colonial prospect as "the jewel of his kingdom."

[1638]

In 1638 Minuit, who had already figured as governor of New Netherland, having offered his services to Sweden, was intrusted with the leadership of the first Swedish colony to America. After a few days' stay at Jamestown the new-comers finally reached their wished-for destination on the west shore of the Delaware Bay and River. Proceeding up the latter, one of their first acts was to build a fort on a little stream about two miles from its junction with the Delaware, which they named Fort Christina, in honor of the young queen of Sweden. Near this spot stands the present city of Wilmington. The country from Cape Henlopen to the falls at Trenton received the title of New Sweden.

[1650]

It was in this very year that Kieft came to supersede Van Twiller, who had given just cause for complaint by his eagerness to enrich himself at the expense of the West India Company. During the administration of Kieft occurred the long and doubtful conflict with the natives detailed in the succeeding chapter. Arbitrary and exacting, he drove the Indians to extremities, and involved the Dutch settlements in a war which for a time threatened their destruction. Not till 1645 was peace re-established, and in 1647 the unpopular governor was recalled. In 1647 not more than three hundred fighting men remained in the whole province. Its total population was between fifteen hundred and two thousand. In 1652 New Amsterdam had a population of seven or eight hundred. In 1664 Stuyvesant put the number in the province at ten thousand, about fifteen hundred of whom were in New Amsterdam.

[1655-1663]

The next governor, Stuyvesant, was the last and much the ablest ruler among those who directed the destinies of New Netherland. His administration embraced a period of seventeen years, during which he renewed the former friendly relations with the savages, made a treaty with New England, giving up pretensions to Connecticut as well as relinquishing the east end of Long Island, and compelled the Swedes, in 1655, to acknowledge the Dutch supremacy. It was while he was absent on his expedition against the Swedes, leaving New Amsterdam unprotected, that the river Indians, watchful of their opportunity, invaded and laid waste the surrounding country. In 1663 the savages attacked the village on the Esopus, now Kingston, and almost destroyed it. It was not until the energetic governor made a vigorous campaign against the Esopus tribe, whom he completely subdued, that peace was established on a firm footing.

[1664]

But the Dutch sway in their little part of the New World was about to end. The English had never given over their claim to the country by virtue of their first discovery of the North American continent. The New Netherlanders, tired of arbitrary rule, sighed for the larger freedom of their New England neighbors. Therefore, when in 1664 Charles II. granted to his brother, the Duke of York, the territory which the Dutch were occupying, and sent a fleet to demand its submission, the English invader was welcomed.

Almost the only resistance came from the stout-hearted governor, who could hardly be dissuaded from fighting the English single-handed, and who signed the agreement to surrender only when his magistrates had, in spite of him, agreed to the proposed terms. But the founders of the Empire State have left an indelible impress upon the Union, which their descendants have helped to strengthen and perpetuate. They were honest, thrifty, devout, tolerant of the opinions of others. As Holland sheltered the English Puritans from ecclesiastical intolerance, so New Netherland welcomed within her borders the victims of New England bigotry and narrowness.