The Mohawk Dutch and The Palatines by Milo Nellis

EUROPEAN CRISIS OF THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY As is tersely stated by Hackett,"The Old Guard of The Old World were on the very threshold of a crisis" that would delay for two hundred years the actual settlement of America. In Hackett's own words,''The master-dynasts were Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, the parents of Henry VIII's first Queen: Maximilian in Germany, Charles' grandfather: Louis XII in France, Francis' father-in-law: Henry VII, Henry's father: and Pope Julius, a little later, in Italy." (Henry VIII, p. 423)

"Death prepared the drama. Henry's father died in 1509, Pope Julius in 1513, Louis XII in 1515, Ferdinand in 1516, and Maximilian in 1519. The old and cautious men, that is to say, followed one another to the grave in a procession. Within a mere decade the grand responsibility for Europe was thrown into dispute between three young and emulative men, the oldest of whom was twenty-four in 1515 -- and this at a moment when artillery was becoming the common language in place of Latin, when parliaments were nerveless, when morals were in chaos, when women had little or no control over their liege lords, when statesmen were virtually viziers and European diplomacy was at once miserably servile and miserably ineffectual." (p. 434).

These three men,"Henry, born in 1491, Francis in 1495, Charles, in 1500,' all within eight years of the discovery of America, "were the central European figures of the first half of the sixteenth century." (p. 419) "In the game of power that occupied these royal lives, the magnet was ..... Italy." (p. 422) The ambition of Ferdinand and Isabella to control the other European countries by royal alliance of their children in marriage had sent their daughter Catherine of Aragon to marry the English Prince Arthur. Arthur's early demise put Henry VIII on the throne and caused him, in revolt against the Pope's non-compliance with his personal ambition to marry his brother's widow, to form the Church of England over which he assumed the functions previously recognized as belonging to the Pope, and, no doubt, thereby weakened his chances for success when he entered the race against Charles and Francis for control of Italy.

"The conflict between Francis and Maximilian in Italy was so formidable, however, that when Maximilian died in January, 1519, and Francis thereupon dashingly sought the Empire for himself, he precipitated the most reckless and exhausting of all European duels." (Henry VIII, p. 436)

"One of Francis' counselors regretted the necessity of corrupting the Electors. Francis mournfully agreed with him, but added, 'In times like these, whoever wants to have anything, whether the Papacy or the Empire, or anything else must get there by using force or fraud,' The principle was so evident that both Wolsey and Henry had long made the most natural of Inferences, namely, that if force and fraud could procure the Empire, Henry might as well have it as Charles or Francis. Henry's candidature could hardly be announced openly, since he had promised both Francis and Charles to support their claims with the Electors, but this hadnotprevented subsidies equal to thirty million dollars to Maximilian in 1516. It did not prevent secret canvassing and suborning, so that the English King let it be known quietly and to the right people that he was now in the field. It was an odd enterprise. Henry had entered the same race as Charles and Francis for the balance of power in Europe, and especially Italy." (p. 438) And at last, with a Hohenzollern as bellweather, the seven votes went to a nineteen-year-old youth, henceforth Charles V, who would be crowned by His Holiness with an iron crown.

"The debauchery of the Electors, so shameless though so secret, marks the collapse of a European epoch. It showed serious men that oaths were hollow, the papacy futile, the Empire a mere dynastic convenience, and nationalism a force not yet moralized. Nothing could have suggested more bitterly the need for a general upheaval of society and a revivification of moral values than this picture of the trough in which the little principalities grunted and snouted while the great principalities slung them their golden swill"...... "The imperial election is the dynastic entrance-gate to the Reformation.

From Frankfort, rather than Rome, one can best see the double problem that was to confront Charles; how to keep his empire together on the one hand and to keep it Catholic on the other. He had a magnificent heritage -- Spain, the Low Countries, Germany, Austria, Naples, Sicily. But if he had to encounter the Turk on the outside, whether it was Selim or Francis, he had to encounter a worse Turk on the inside. On him, as Emperor, fell thebrunt of the German Reformation and the religious self-assertion of the German people." (Henry VIII, pp. 438-439)

This reference to the corruption of the Electors Is more fully explained in The Story Of The Augsburg Confession by Theodore Graebner (Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo., 1929) as follows:- "At the time of the Reformation there were in Germany seven princes hearing the title of electors Three were spiritual electors, that is, they belonged to the clergy. These were the archbishops of Mayence, Treves (Trier), and Cologne. The remaining were the electors of the Rhine Palatinate, Saxony, Brandenburg and Bohemia. Electors these men were called because they elected the Emperor. They were powerful princes and held their office for life." (p. 74)

"When Emperor Maximilian died, the college of electors, knowing Frederick's sterling qualities, asked him to take the imperial crown; but he declined, casting his vote for Charles V. The ministers of Charles V offered him 30,000 guilders as a reward for having used his influence to bring about the election of their master; Frederick sternly refused the money and said, if any of his officials accepted it, they must quit his court." (p. 74)

"The Bishop of Augsburg -- who was trying to prevent religious war by proposing concessions -- was furiously attacked by the advocates of force. "It was here the famous reference to Red Ink occurs in the record; to understand it, one must know that important documents generally were written with red initials at the beginning of every new sentence. Also, to understand what was said, one must know that the best red ink of that time was imported from Brazil and was called Brazilian. Said the sponsors of religious war: 'The Lutherans have laid before us a confession written with black ink on white paper. Well, if I were Emperor, I would answer them in red ink'-- meaning, of course, the shedding of blood. 'Gentlemen', quickly replied the Bishop of Augsburg, 'take care that the Brazilian will not squirt into your laces' -- meaning that the Lutherans might fight for their cause, (pp. 161-163) June 25, 1530, is properly regarded as the real birthday of the Lutheran Church." (p.152)

Bayard Tuckerman, in his Life of Peter Stuyvesant, (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1893) so briefly, ably, and entertainingly describes this eopch, that he is here quoted at length as follows:-

"In 1555 Charles V had brought his son Philip to The Netherlands and had introduced to the provinces their future master. In the security of his palace at Madrid, the monarch who combined most completely an ignorant bigotry with a relish for human blood, brooded over a plan to extirpate every Dutchman not wholly devoted to the Roman Inquisition and the absolute authority of the Spanish crown.

"In 1567 Philip had decided upon the method, and had appointed the Duke of Alva to carry out the holy work. The Duke arrived in the Netherlands with his boxes of death sentences signed in blank by Philip, and ten thousand picked veterans from the Spanish army, to which were added the Kingfe troops already in the country. Against this force the Netherlands had almost none to oppose. Alva, holding the King's commission, had the law on his side. In several of the provinces the Catholics predominated and welcomed what they considered a holy crusade against heretics; moreover, the lack of union among the provinces enabled Alva to proceed against each one separately. Thus for a time the Dutch could only suffer. Three men, among the Netherlanders, stood pre-eminently as leaders, -- William of Orange, and the Counts Egremont and Horn. William foresaw the object of Alva's mission, and left the Netherlands in time to save a life which was to be his country's salvation, Egremont and Horn, trusting in Philip's treacherous promises, remained to lose their heads.

"In the course of a few years, Alva and his Council of Blood had taken the lives of eighteen thousand persons by the hand of the executioner alone. The sword, the rope, the stake and the rack were supplied to their full capacity with victims whose crime was a belief in the reformed religion. Tortures which surpassed the ingenuity of savage races extorted from innocent servants accusations against equally Innocent masters, which sent accuser and accused together to the scaffold.

"The resistance to Alva and the Spanish armies could be made only by isolated towns which had none but their burghers and families to defend the walls. The endurance and valor displayed by the citizens of Haarlem, Leyden, Maestrecht, and Altmaar hardly find a parallel in history. Men, women, and children resisted for months the famine within as well as the veterans without. Leyden, reduced to the last extremity of starvation, held oil until Dutchmen opened gaps in the dykes, let the waters of the Atlantic over the land, and forced the besiegers to abandon their exhausted prey. Of the character of the war waged by the Spanish generals, the fate of Maestrecht is a sufficient example. After defending their walls for four months against the Spanish veterans, the burghers and their wives were surprised in their sleep. The city had contained over thirty thousand inhabitants before the siege, occupied in flourishing industries. All those who had survived the previous fighting were put to the sword, except four hundred whom steer fatigue of slaughter allowed to escape. They wandered away, and the town became a shelter for camp-followers and vagabonds. Such was the system chosen by Philip to tempt the Dutch subjects back to the fold of the Roman Church.

"Through these years of suffering, the hearts of the Netherlands had turned to William of Orange as the only hope of their need. He had sold or mortgaged all his property to procure the means to hire soldiers to fight the Spaniards, but the mercenaries which he could collect had been of little avail against the trained veterans of Philip. His patient fortitude, however, proved superior, at last, to Spanish force. The Protestant provinces hitherto divided, united under his standard.

"In 1579 the Union of Utrecht arrayed the country under William and from that hour the tide turned. During forty years of war, Holland and Zeeland led the other Protestant provinces in destroying and expelling the armies of Spain; and during these years of struggle the rebellious provinces rose to an extraordinary height of prosperity. On the other hand, Hainault and Brabant (now Belgium), which submitted to the rule of Philip, sank into complete desolation." (p. 12)

"The withering rule of the Inquisition and the Spanish soldiery so reduced the country that its inhabitants deserted it. The suburbs of Antwerp were abandoned to wolves, that reared their young in once prosperous human dwellings; the crops ceased to be planted; Catholic nobles who had lived in feudal pomp on their estates were seen begging for bread in the streets of Protestant Amsterdam and The Hague. From such a fate Holland and Zeeland escaped by a desperate struggle for forty years against the power of Spain, when that power was the greatest in Europe, and was supported by the treasures taken from South American mines. In William the Silent, the Dutch had a soldier and statesman whose character approaches more nearly to Washington's than that of any leader of men recorded In history. William was assasinated in 1584 by a hireling of Philip; but he left a son known as Prince Maurice of Nassau, who lived to be the first captain of his time, and to complete the work of national independence begun by his father." Supplementing Tuckerman, we have Thorold Rogers' Story of Holland preserved in the Old South (Church) Leaflet, No. 72, published in Boston, from which the following is copied:-

' The most important event in 1581 was the declaration of Dutch Independence, formally issued at the Hague on the 26th of July .... The instrument was styled an 'Act of Abjuration'.... The action of the Dutch Republic was the first appeal which the world has read on the duties of rulers to their people. Men have revolted a thousand times against tyranny and misgovernment, sometimes successfully, more frequently to be crushed into more hopeless servitude. The Dutch were the first to justify their action by an appeal to the first principles of justice .... They were the first to assert and prove that men and women are not the private estate of princes, to be despised of in their industry, their property, their consciences, by the discretion of those who were fortunate enough to be able to live by the labors of others.

'I.... The sturdy Hollanders, at a time when public liberty seemed entirely lost, and despotism had become a religious creed, began the political reformation. The teachers of Europe in everything, they are the first to argue that governments exist for nations, not nations for governments. And as precedents, especially successful ones, govern the world, the Dutch gave the cue for the English Parliamentary war, and the English Revolution, to the American Declaration of Independence, to the better side of the French Revolution, and to the public spirit which has slowly and imperfectly recovered liberty from despotism.''

The text of that act follows:-

'The States General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries to all whom it may concern, do by these Presents send greeting:

'As 'tis apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects (without which he could be no prince), to govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his children or a shepherd his flock, and even at the hazard of life to defend and preserve them. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects are to consider him in no other view. And particularly when this is done deliberately, unauthorized by the States, they may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense. This is the only method left for subjects whose humble petitions and remonstrances could never soften their prince nor dissuade him from his tyrannical proceedings; and this is what the law of nature dictates for the defense of liberty, which we ought to transmit to posterity, even at the hazard of our lives. And this we have seen done frequently in several countries upon the like occasion, whereof there are notorious Instances, and more justifiable in our land, which has been always governed according to their ancient privileges, which are expressed in the oath taken by the prince at his admission to the government; for mast of the Provinces receive their prince upon certain conditions, which he swears to maintain, which, if the prince violates he is no longer sovereign. Now thus it was with the king of Spain after the demise of the Emperor, his father, Charles the Fifth, of glorious memory, (of whom he received all these Provinces), forgetting the services done by the subjects of these countries, both to his father and himself, .... did rather hearken to the counsels of those Spaniards about him, .... sought by all means possible to reduce this ; country to slavery, under the government of Spaniards having first, under the mask of religion, endeavored to settle new bishops in the largest and principal cities, .... he would have introduced the Spanish Inquisition, which has been always as dreadful and detested in these Provinces as the worst of slavery ..... And, especially, seeing that he did not only seek to tyrannize over their persons and estates, but also over their consciences, for which they believe themselves accountable to God only. Upon this occasion the chief of the nobility in compassion to the poor people, in the year 1566, exhibited a certain remonstrance in form of a petition, .... and ... sent .... ambassadors to Spain, where the king, instead of giving audience, and redress the grievances they had complained of, .... did, by the advice of Spanish Council, declare all those who were concerned in preparing the said remonstrance, to be rebels, and guilty of high treason, and to be punished with death, and confiscation of their estates; and what is more (thinking himself well assured of reducing these countries under absolute tyranny by the army of the Duke of Alva), did soon after imprison and put to death the said lords the ambassadors, and confiscated their estates, contrary to the law of nations, which has been always religiously observed even among the most tyrannic and barbarous princes. And ... sent the Duke of Alva with a powerful army to oppress this land, who for his Inhuman cruelties is looked upon as one of its greatest enemies .... The said duke, immediately after his arrival (though a stranger, and no way related to the Royal Family), declared that he had a captain-general's commission, and soon after that, of governor of these Provinces ... and very courteously sent for the chief nobility in the king's name, under pretense of taking their advice, and to employ them in the service of their country. And those who believed his letters were seized and carried out of Brabant ... and without hearing their defense at large sentenced them to death, which was publicly and ignominlously executed. The others, better acquainted with Spanish hypocrisy, residing in foreign countries, were declared outlawries, and had their estates confiscated, so that the poor subjects could make no use of their fortresses nor be assisted by their princes in defense of their liberty against the violence of the Pope .... All these considerations give us more than sufficient reason to renounce the King of Spain, and seek some other powerful and more gracious prince to take us under his protection....

"So having no hope of reconciliation, and finding no other remedy, we have, agreeable to the law of nature in our own defense, and for maintaining the rights, privileges, and liberties of our countrymen, wives and children, and latent posterity from being enslaved by the Spaniards, been constrained to renounce allegiance to the King of Spain, and pursue such methods as appear to us most likely to secure our ancient liberties and privileges. Know all men by these presents that, being reduced to the last extremity, as above mentioned, we have unanimously and deliberately declared, and do by these presents declare, that the King of Spain has forfeited, ipso jure, all hereditary right to the sovereignty of those countries, and are determined from henceforward not to acknowledge his sovereignty or jurisdiction, nor any act of his relating to the domains of the Low Countries, nor make use of his name as prince, nor suffer others to do it."

Returning to Tuckerman's Life of Stuyvesant (p. 13) we find this account of the struggle that ensued.

"Great as were the victories won by the armies of Holland, they were surpassed by the prowess of her seamen. From every port on the coast sailed privateers to prey on the commerce of Spain. Galleons from America, merchant-men from the East Indies, trading vessels from European ports, ships which had carried their cargoes safely for thousands of miles were captured as they entered their own harbours, and brought as prizes into the Dutch canals. As navigators and sea-fighters there was no comparison to be made between the two nations. In 1602, Jacob Heemskirk, with two small vessels containing together one hundred and thirty men, captured in the Straits of Malacca a great Lisbon carrack, manned by eight hundred men, and divided among his sailors a booty of a million florins: Wolfert Hermann, with five trading vessels and three hundred men, put to flight off the coast of Java, the fleet of twenty-five large ships which Mendoza had brought to punish the islanders who had dared to trade with the enemies of Philip and the Pope. In 1607, Admiral Heemskirk discovered the Spanish war fleet commanded by Don Juan Alvarez dAvila at anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar under the guns of the fortress. Heemskirk had twenty-six small vessels, several of which could not be brought into action. D'Avila had twenty-one sails, of which ten were galleons of the largest size, containing four thousand soldiers. Heemskirk attacked at one o'clock, and by evening every Spanish ship had been destroyed with the crews and soldiers, while the Dutch lost not a single vessel and only one hundred men.

"Spain had exhausted her resources in vain to reduce the rebellious provinces to political and religious subjection. The treasures which were to pay her soldiers had been wrested from her on the seas. While she was poor and defeated, the Netherlands were rich and victorious. Her pride could not yet recognize that independence which the provinces had won but she consented eagerly to a truce of twelve years, in which to regain energy to renew the struggle. This truce, which began in 1609, was not generally acceptable in the Netherlands. Prince Maurice led a powerful party, which preferred to continue a war which gratified the national desire for revenge at the same time that it filled with treasure the warehouses of the towns. But the peace-party, under the guidance of John of Barnevelt, carried the day, and a brief period of repose intervened before the Thirty Years War. "The national energies called into being by the conflict with Spain immensely increased the maritime enterprise of Holland and eventually made Dutchmen supreme on the seas.

"In 1596 Cornelius Houtman doubled the Cape of Good Hope and showed his Qountrymen the way to India. The India trade Increased so rapidly that the States General, fearing the results of excessive competition, compelled all Dutchmen thus engaged to unite in a single organization. Thus in 1602, was formed the great Dutch East India Company, which expelled the Portu-guese from India, captured Spanish property all over the world, and grew into an unexampled commercial power.

"In 1609 this company, hoping to find a northern passage to India shorter than that around the Cape of Good Hope, was looking for a suitable explorer. He was found in Henry Hudson an Englishman, who had already made two Arctic voyages in the employment of the London Trading Company, and who had shown himself to possess the necessary intrepidity perseverance and knowledge of navigation. The East India Company placed him in command of the "Half Moon," a small vessel manned by a picked crew of Dutch and English sailors, and he set sail from Amsterdam on March 25, 1609. Ice and fog having balked his efforts to pass either to the South or the North of Nova Zambia, (Arctic Ocean), he sailed westward along the coast of North America from Newfoundland to Virginia; then, turning again to the North, he followed the shore as far as the mouth of the great North (now Hudson) River.* Hoping that a passage might here exist to the North and West around the Pole, he sailed up the river as far as the site of Albany. He traded with the Indians, and gave them their first taste of intoxicating liquor. He observed the beauty and fruitfulness of the land, the remarkable adaptation of the waters to the purpose

*Hudson may have known of Verrazano who visited the Hudson Valley in 1524 within half a century of Columbus' coming, and 85 years prior to Hudson. He made a map in 1524 on which the Hudson is called Grand River. Hudson must have seen ruins, at least, of the fort at Castle Island. (Comment by Rev. W.N.P. Dailey)

of commerce, and returned down the river, disappointed in his object of finding a Northwest passage to India but confident that he had made a discovery valuable to his employers. The''Half Moon" soon after made port at Dartmouth, England, where the authorities, jealous of Dutch interference in America, forbade Hudson to proceed to Holland. But the vessel, with maps and descriptions of the new discoveries, reached the Dutch East India Company at a propitious moment.

"The truce with Spain made it necessary to find new outlets for the maritime enterprise which had grown so fast during the war, and many ship owners in Holland now turned their attention to America." (pp. 9-16)

"The Dutch, who thus entered into competition with Spain, England, and France for the possession of American territory, were in the heroic period of their history. Industry and fortitude, qualities essential to their existence, had been impressed on the national character. Possessing a land situated in great part below the level of the sea, and liable to overflow besides, from the fresh waters of the Rhine, persevering toil had shut out the tides of the Atlantic, had confined by great dykes the river between its banks, had changed marshes and inland seas into meadows. The precious territory thus redeemed was turned to such account that visitors from other nations of Europe were astonished at the aspect of Dutch cultivation. The towns prominent on the few elevations which the country afforded, or in the lowlands intersected by waterways which served for streets, were hives of wealth-producing industry. Merchandise from every corner of the civilized world was floated through the quiet canals up to the warehouse doors. A soil too restricted to sustain its population by agriculture made foreign commerce the basis of prosperity. Dutch ships carried for every nation, making Amsterdam and the Hague markets where all the world came to buy. The des tiny of the country was well expressed by the stamp of an old Zeeland coin -- a sceptered king, riding over the waves on a sea-horse, with the device, "Your road is upon the sea, and your paths are in many waters'. The motto of the noble order of the Golden Fleece, which declared the wages of labour to be honourable, indicated the spirit of industry which animated the higher as well as the lower ranks of Dutch society.

"It was natural that a people so intelligent and self-reliant should rest uneasily under the weight of arbitrary power and the Roman Inquisition. From an early period, the provinces of the Netherlands had enjoyed an exceptional degree of political liberty. The large towns managed their own affairs as semi-independent corporations, while the nobles ruled on their estates in accordance with liberal customs which had the force of law. The principles of the Reformation rapidly gained adherents. The efforts of the Inquisition to stifle religious thought at the gallows and the stake were met by rebellion and image-breaking. Charles the Fifth of Spain, of whose vast inheritance the Netherlands formed a part, abdicated his throne in time to avoid the solution of the problem presented by Dutch political and religious liberty." (pp. 8-9)

In introducing his Life Of Peter Stuyvesant Tuckerman points out:- "Original sources of information concerning the early Dutch settlers of Manhattan Island are neither many nor rich. The two volumes of Holland Documents, published by the State of New York, contain the official papers of the colony and the West India Company. Some contemporary descriptions exist of which Van der Donck's is the best. But the Dutch wrote very little, and on the whole their records are meager. Concerning their social conditions, the best authority is to be found in the proceedings of the burgomasters and schepens, preserved in the City Hall and in the books of the Surrogate's and Register's offices. These sources and the collections of the New York Historical Society/which sources he relied upon in the preparation of his book'. His account of Hudson's arrival is this: - 'On the morning of the 4th of September, 1609, a few Indians wandering upon the shore of Sandy Hook, were surprised by the sight of a ship sailing slowly along the coast. They fled inland, spreading among their tribe the news of the strange apparition. The vessel, carefully sounding as it went, rounded the Hook and cast anchor in the waters of what is now known as the lower bay of New York.'" "A century of maritime and colonial enterprise had begun, which was to make familiar to Europe the continents of Asia, Africa, and America; to witness the foundation of new empires, and to broaden indefinitely the horizon of human activity. As yet, colonization in America had made little progress. Spaniards under Menendez had built the fort at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. A few settlers in Virginia had been struggling since 1607 under the leadership of Captain John Smith. In 1608, Champlain planted the cross and the fleur-de-lis at Quebec. Now, in 1609, the flag of the United Netherlands was carried by Henry Hudson up the river which bears his name."

The basis for Dutch claims by right of discovery were well presented in a Description of the New Netherland by Adrian Van der Donck in 1655 (copied from Old South Leaflet No. 69, Vol. Ill in the N. Y. Public Library, C.C. 190774): "New Netherland is a fine, acceptable, healthy, extensive, and agreeable country, wherein all people can more easily gain a competent support than in the Netherlands or in any other quarter of the globe which is known to me or which I have visited.

''This country was first found and discovered in the year of our Lord 1609; when, at the cost of the Incorporated East India Company, a ship named the "Half Moon" was fitted out to discover a Westerly passage to the kingdom of China. This ship was commanded by Henry Hudson, as captain and supercargo, who was an Englishman by birth, and had resided many years in Holland, during which he had been in the employment of the East India Company. This ship sailed from the Canary Islands, steering a course North by West; and after sailing twenty days with good speed, land was discovered, which by their calculation, lay 320 degrees by West. On approaching the land, and observing the coast and shore convenient, they landed, and examined the country as well as they could at the time and as opportunity offered; from which they were well satisfied that no Christian people had ever been there before, and that they were the first who, by Providence, had been guided to the discovery of the country..... The country having been first found or discovered by the Netherlanders, and keeping in view the discovery of the same, it is named the New Netherland. That this country was first found or discovered by the Netherlanders is evident and clear from the fact that the Indians or natives of the land, many of whom are still living, and with whom I have conversed, declare freely that before the arrival of the Lowland ship, the Half Moon, in the year 1609, they (the natives) did not know that there were any other people in the world than those who were like themselves, much less any people who differed so much in appearance as we did. Their men on the breasts and about the mouth were bare, and their women, like ours, hairy; going unclad and almost naked, particularly in summer, while we are always clothed and covered. When some of them first saw our ship approaching at a distance, they did not know what to think about her, but stood in deep and solemn amazement, wondering whether it were a ghost or apparition, coming down from Heaven, or from Hell. Others of them supposed her to be a strange fish or sea monster. When they discovered men on board, they supposed them to be more like devils than human beings. Thus they differed about the ship and men. A strange report was also spread about the country concerning our ship and visit, which created great astonishment and surprise amongst the Indians. These things we have frequently heard them declare, which we hold as certain proof that the Netherlanders were the first finders or discoverers and possessors of the New Netherlands There are Indians in the country, who remember a hundred years, and if there had been any other people here before us, they would have known something of them, and, if they had not seen them themselves, they would have heard an account of them from others."

Tuckerman continues his account:

"During the five years following Hudson's discovery, the coasts were explored and the advantages of the fur-trade determined. Hendrick Christiansen and Adrian Block especially distinguished themselves. Block's ship, 'The Tiger", having been burned at Manhattan Island, he built himself a new one on the spot, called "Onrust" - the Restless -, in which he explored Long Island Sound and Cape Cod, and discovered the island which still bears his name. In 1614, the territory made known by Hudson and Block was formally named New Netherland by the States-General, and the monoply of trade conceded to the Amsterdam Trading Company. This association kept up a small station on Manhattan Island and another up the river in the Mohawk country, and prosecuted the fur-trade for several years. A few agents lived at each station in log-huts, bartered Dutch trinkets for beaver-skins collected by the Indians, and were visited in their solitude at regular intervals by an Amsterdam ship, which brought supplies and carried home the peltry.

"In 1618 the Company's charter expired, and the States-General refused to grant a new one, as they had more extensive plans in view for New Netheriand. The marvelous success of the East India Company as a commercial institution, and as an instrument for inflicting injury on the hereditary enemies of Holland, convinced the States-General that their new possessions would be utilized to the best advantage by similar means. Therefore in 1621 was incorporated for twenty-four years the West India Company, with exclusive power to plant and govern colonies, to prosecute trade, and to wage war against national enemies in the West Indies and America. The government of this commercial and military monopoly was intrusted to a board of nineteen directors, called the College of the XIX, of which Amsterdam furnished eight, Zeeland four, the Maas two, North Holland two, Friesland and Groningen two, and the States-General one.

"The first agricultural colonists were sent out in the ship "New Netherland"in 1623, and cultivated the fertile lands along the shore of the East River. Soon after, several families of Walloons, persecuted Protestants from the Catholic provinces settled at the Waal-Bogt, now Wallabout Bay, Long Island. Others followed, and under Cornells May and Wilhelm Verhulst a small settlement grew up at the extreme end of Manhattan Island; a trading post, called Fort Orange, was erected on the Hudson, near the present site of Albany, and another called Fort Nassau, on the South or Delaware River. These three points in the wilderness marked the only habitations of white men between Virginia and Plymouth. In 1626 Peter Minuit came out as director of the West India Company, and under his administration of seven years much progress was made. The Island of Manhattan was purchased for the Company for twenty-four dollars..........

"The trade grew rapidly at first. In 1626 the exports were valued at 46,000 guilders; in 1632 they were worth 143,000 guilders, showing the Company a profit over expenses.... Still, the Dutch possessions in America were no more than trading-posts and it was evident that the West India Company was unfitted by its military and commercial character for the task of planting permanent colonies. At the same time, the opposition already made by the English government to the Dutch settlements, and the hostile attitude toward them assumed by the colony of Massachusets Bay, had made it plain that actual occupation of the soil was necessary to secure possession. The Dutch had little surplus population inclined to emigrate, and no body of men, like the English Non-Conformists, who were obliged to build up a home in a distant wilderness for the sake of religious freedom. Therefore, the Directors of the Company had to devise an artificial method of colonization. "The people of Holland were divided into three classes: the noble families owning land; the burghers who controlled the cities; and the common people. Many of the burghers were rich, and sought to enter the highest class by the possession of land and the feudal rights connected with it. This wish could not be gratified in Holland, where the limited territory was held tenaciously by its owners. But the burgher of Amsterdam, or of The Hague might become the feudal chief of an American domain. This idea was embodied in the "Charter of Privileges and Exemptions" adopted in 1639, by which any stockholder in the West India Company who should plant a colony of fifty souls in New Motherland was to acquire title to land sixteen miles in length on one side of a river, or eight in length if situated on both sides, and as far into the interior as the owner could occupy. Such owner was to be called a"Patroon", and to possess the hereditary rights of a feudal noble -- power to make laws, to establish courts of justice, and to control hunting, fishing and the grinding of grains, subject only to allegiance to the States-General. The Patroons were allowed to trade along the American coast, and with Europe, on paying a duty of five per cent on the cargoes to the West India Company. The fur-trade was permitted on condition that the exports should be sent through the Companyfe agents at Manhattan. Thus, colonists were tempted to emigrate by free transportation and the promise of good land at a nominal rental, while rich burghers were tempted to assume the expense involved by the prospect of attaining the dignity of feudal lords. This plan seemed especially feasible, as wealth had lately been pouring into the coffers of the West India Company. The war with Spain had been renewed after the expiration of the truce in 1621, and the Company had shown itself equal to the East India merchants in making booty of Spanish commerce. In 1628 Peter Heyn, in command of the Company's squadron, met the Spanish "silver fleet" bearing home the spoils of South American mines. Ten galleons were captured off Havana at the first encounter, and the remainder soon after in Matanzas Bay. Heyn brought in all the Spanish vessels except two as prizes, together with pure silver worth twelve millions of guilders. The enthusiasm was great throughout Holland, and the West India Company declared a dividend of fifty per cent.

"Chief among those who now sought the honours of Patroonship was Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a wealthy jeweller of Amsterdam. In 1630, he purchased from the Indians through the Company's agent at Fort Orange, a great tract of land lying on the river to the North and South of the fort. He made good his title by sending out emigrants, and thus planted the colony of Rensselaerwyek. Two other directors of the Company, Godyn and Blommaert, secured lands on the Delaware or South River, their patent ante-dating by two years that given by Charles I to Lord Baltimore. Michael Pauw soon afterwards purchased from the Indians Staten Island, and Paulus Hook, the site of Jersey City, to which he gave the name of Pavonia. But the rapidity with which these enterprising directors had seized upon the best territory excited so much jealousy among their colleagues that they were obliged to share their acquisitions with other members of the Company by taking them into partnership. The same jealousy caused the recall of Peter Minuit, who as director, had confirmed the obnoxious grants. The influence of Van Rensselaer was still strong enough to enable him to procure the appointment to the directorship of Wouter Van Twiller, who had married his niece, and had served as his agent in shipping colonists and cattle to Rensselaerwyck, but who was only a clerk in the Company's employment, and quite unfit for the responsibility of the post.

"Van Twiller arrived in New Netherland in the Spring of 1633, bringing with him one hundred soldiers, -- the first military garrison of the place. Other important fellow-passengers were Everardus Bogardus, the first clergyman*, and Adam Roelandsen, the first schoolmaster ..... A wooden church of rude design was built at the corner of Pearl and Broad streets, with a house for Dominie Bogardus, overlooking the East River .... Van Twiller confirmed the Company's title to land on the West of the Connecticut River by purchase from the Indians, and to protect the claim, erected a fort called the Good Hope on the present site of Hartford.

"In 1633, a dutch sea-captain named DeVries, who had entered into partnership with two of the Amsterdam directors for the establishment of a Patroonship, brought his vessel to Manhattan. DeVries belonged to the class of bold seamen who had rendered such great service to Holland, and he forms the most interesting figure among the Dutchmen connected with the early history of New Netherland. He rejoiced in an opportunity to lay his ship alongside a Dunkirk Pirate, and thought nothing of engaging two or three Spaniards at once. While he was making the acquaintance of Van Twiller and the people at the fort, an English vessel named the "William" came up the Bay. In command of her was Jacob Elkens, a Dutchman formerly in the service of the West India Company at Fort Orange and dismissed for dishonesty in 1623. Having entered the service of Englishmen, he now announced his intention to take the "William" up the river to his old station to trade with the Indians. Van Twiller declared that the river belonged to the West India Company of Holland, and that the"William" should not go up. Elkins replied that the river was discovered by an Englishman, and that he should carry out his intention. Van Twiller displayed the Orange flag at the fort, and fired three guns. Elkins ran up the English flag on the "William", and likewise fired three guns. For six successive days Van Twiller contemplated the English vessel riding at anchor with a complacent sense of his authority. But on the seventh morning the"William" weighed anchor, and sailed defiantly past the fort. She was the first vessel to carry the English flag up the Hudson River ..... Soon after, DeVries taxed Van Twiller in private with his folly ..... Stung by the taunts of DeVries, Van Twiller embarked his soldiers on the Soutberg, a Dutch vessel lying in port, and overtook Elkens while trading with the Indians. With their greatly superior force, the Dutch had no difficulty in confiscating the peltries which Elkens had purchased, and in expelling his ship from the waters of Manhattan.

"Van Twiller's alternate pusillanimity and tyranny made him an unpopular director. Dominie Bogardus felt called upon to threaten him with 'such a shake from the pulpit as would make him shudder.' His honesty was not unquestioned. When replaced by William Kieft in 1637, he hired two of the Company's best boweries, or farms; and it happened that upon these particular boweries had strayed nearly all the Company's cattle, although their previous habit had been to wander over other parts of the island. Van Twiller claimed and kept them as his own property...........

*Rev. Johannes Michaelius came to Manhattan in 1628. Bogardus was second.

"The new director proved himself to be a yet more unfortunate selection. William Kieft was a bankrupt merchant of Amsterdam, whose portrait, in accordance with Dutch custom, had been nailed on the gallows.... The inferior character of the agents appointed by the West India Company was the result of two circumstances: the wide field of Dutch activity at the time caused a scarcity of available men, and the best material was required at points where there was fighting as well as trading to be done. Kieft arrived at New Amsterdam in the Spring of 1628, and his early labours were suggestive of the new broom .....

'At the same time the States-General of Holland interfered in the management of the colony much to jig advantage. The West India Company sent out few persons besides its clerks and fur-buyers; the Patroonships had failed as a colonizing system, with the single exception of Rensselaerwyck. Realizing that under the Company's narrow commercial policy the fertile province of New Netherland remained undeveloped while the colonies of New England advanced with rapid strides, the States-General abolished the exclusive privileges of the Company, and threw open the Hudson River trade to all comers. The loss of its monopoly forced the directors into agricultural colonization as a means of giving value to their lands....The province of New Netherland soon assumed a cosmopolitan character....The severity of religious censorship in New England sent many of its inhabitants to seek among the Dutch the liberty denied them at home.

"On May 27, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant arrived to succeed Kieft whose bad management had nearly wrecked the colony and only two years later, on July 29, 1649, a protest against Stuyvesant was drawn up by the people and delegates chosen to present it in Holland among whom was Adrian Van der Donck -- the first lawyer to settle in New Amsterdam -- a graduate of the University of Leyden, and a Doctor of Laws.

"On arriving in Holland, Van der Donck wisely perceived that he could expect nothing from the West India Company, who would support Stuyvesant right or wrong, and so he appealed directly to the States-General. At the same time he realiaed the necessity of arousing some public interest in his mission, without which the States-General, occupied with greater affairs might accord the delegates from New Netherland but slight attention. With this object, he published his"Vertoogh'', a book which set forth the history of the settlement of the Dutch colonies in North America, with many interesting facts concerning their progress and necessities. The plan was eminently successful ....... in the beginning of 1652, Van der Donck and his companions returned with the hard-earned fruits of their patriotic labours in Holland ......

The government of New Amsterdam was henceforth to be conducted by two burgomasters, five schepens, (one of the first was William Beeckman) and a schout, or scheriff, after the manner of towns of the fatherland ...... Thus began municipal government on Manhattan Island, where burgoumasters and schepens conducted the city's affairs until the English had taken the place of the Dutch flag." (pp. 77-85)

'Although New Nether-land became a permanent English colony under the Treaty of Westminster in 1674, its population remained largely Dutch until nearly the middle of the next century. Many families now living on Manhattan Island are descended from Dutchmen who came out after the English occupation ...... During the last half of the eighteenth century the Dutch names are more and more crowded out by the English ...... These Dutchmen not only preserved their leadership in public affairs, but carried on a large proportion of the city's trade. New York was an English colony, but its greatness was largely built on Dutch foundations." (pp. 182-83)

"The colony at Rensselaerwyck, having kept on good terms with the surrounding Mohawks, had escaped the Indian war, and formed the most prosperous portion of New Netherland. Nature was profuse in her gifts. The river abounded with sturgeon and the brooks with trout. Nuts, plums, blackberries, and grapes were to be had on all sides for the picking. The wild strawberries grew so thickly that the children had but to lie down and eat. Deer, turkeys, partridges, and pigeons were abundant. The lazy burgher could get a fat buck from an Indian in exchange for a pipe." (p. 53)