conflict raged desperately for two years. Of ninety towns forty were attacked and twelve destroyed. The frontier was driven back and the whites lost a thousand men. In the crisis the New England Confederation was revived and the united strength of the colonies was brought to bear in the struggle. The Indians were finally crushed, and when next New Englanders suffered the horrors of Indian war, their enemies were remoter tribes in alliance with the French of the St. Lawrence basin.

RIVALRY WITH THE DUTCH

The confusion in England during and following the Civil War was not conducive to the planting of new colonies. The execution of Charles I was followed by an Interregnum when Oliver Cromwell ruled with a strong hand supported by the army; but after his death came reaction and the "Restoration" in 1660 of the Stuart line in the person of Charles II. Then the country, weary of strife over religious and political dogmas, turned again to worldly matters. The new King had spent the years of the Interregnum in exile, and an easy-going, pleasure-loving disposition led him to avoid repeating the offenses of his father and grandfather, lest he be compelled "to go again upon his travels." Desiring to please, he lent himself readily to the schemes of men who began to push plans of commercial and territorial expansion with great vigor.

One of the aims of these "mercantilists" was to destroy the Dutch maritime power. The Dutch states had recently won their independence from Spain and had conquered the East Indian possessions of Portugal. With an enthusiasm born of freedom and success they had then begun to look around for other opportunities.

About the time of the coming of the Pilgrims to Plymouth the Dutch West India Company was formed with an ambitious program embracing projects as widely separated as the slave traffic on the African coast, rivalry with the Portuguese in Brazil, and trade with the North American Indians. Until they were driven from the Connecticut Valley by the men of Plymouth, the activities of the Dutch in the Indian trade extended from the Connecticut to the Delaware, which they called "South River."

On the site of New York City they built the village of New Amsterdam; but Fort Orange on the Hudson, near the modern Albany, was the key-point for the fur trade.

Excursions from this post first made known the geography of the New York lake region, and the course of the Delaware from source to mouth. Central New York was the home of the most powerful native confederacy of North America, the League of the Iroquois. The five (later six) tribes composing this alliance were the terror of the other natives, from New England to the Mississippi, and from Canada to Carolina. With them, owing to the mutual benefits of trade, the Dutch had the happy fortune to establish friendly relations which were never seriously disturbed.

The West India Company, like the Virginia Company, tried to shift the burden of bringing in settlers to private shoulders. The "patroonship," like the particular plantation in Virginia, was a grant of land to an individual or group of men on condition of importing immigrants. The Dutch went beyond the English, however, in giving to the patroon the political as well as the economic rights of a feudal lord over his tenants.

Several patroonships were attempted, but the only successful one was Rensselaerswyck, established by Kiliaen van Rensselaer. It embraced the present counties of Albany and Rensselaer and completely surrounded Fort Orange. The ill success of the patroonships led to other devices to induce immigration. Lands were offered on liberal terms to persons of small means, and sometimes free passage was provided. Peasants from Holland, indented servants who had served their time in Virginia, and New Englanders in great numbers were attracted to New Netherland. They settled on Long Island, on the mainland near the mouth of the Hudson, or at Fort Orange, for most of the Hudson Valley, as one contemporary put it, was "little fitted to be peopled," having only "here and there a little corn land, which the Indians had prepared by removing the stones."

The government of New Netherland lacked the liberal features found in the English colonies. There was no representative assembly, and the people had only a small share in local government. In this respect New Netherland resembled the Spanish colonies much more than it did the English. The lack of

political privileges caused much discontent among the English element, and they would doubtless have obtained the right of representation if Dutch control had lasted a little longer.

REGION OF DUTCH AND SWEDISH ACTIVITY, 1609-1664.

The Dutch had slight success in the Delaware Valley. They tried to maintain a trading post in what is now New Jersey,

almost opposite the site of Philadelphia, and patroons and others attempted to settle on Delaware Bay. Their failure was due in large part to the hostility of the Indians. The Swedes fared better. They built Fort Christina on the site of the future Wilmington, in the late thirties, and it was soon the center of a group of small hamlets. The Dutch regarded the Swedes as intruders, but being allies in the Thirty Years War then raging in Europe, they contented themselves for the time with a protest by the governor at New Amsterdam. With the end of the war, however, came the bloodless conquest of New Sweden (1655) by a force from New Netherland.

The elimination of New Sweden was the prelude to the conquest of New Netherland by the English, who claimed the whole coast from Nova Scotia to Florida. Having no active interest in the middle region in the early decades of the century, they had not interfered with the Dutch except in the Connecticut Valley, although Delaware Bay was clearly within the grant to Lord Baltimore. By the middle of the century, however, the growing naval power of the Dutch had aroused the English, who were then as now jealous of their supremacy on the seas. A large share of the carrying trade of the English colonies had fallen into the hands of their enterprising competitors. To regain the monopoly of this trade and to encourage English shipping, Parliament began to pass restrictive laws known as "Navigation Acts." One of these, dating from 1651, forbade the importation into England, or any English possession, of goods from Asia, Africa, or America, except in vessels owned by Englishmen or English colonists, and manned chiefly by English sailors. Imports from European countries might be brought into the English possessions only by English ships or ships of the producing country.

This act was aimed directly at the Dutch, and with other causes led to war, during which an attack was planned (1655) against New Netherland. The forces of New England were to be employed; but Massachusetts held out against the other members of the New England Confederation, and the war ended without hostilities in America.

Similar causes brought on a second war in 1664. The English now thought the time ripe for ejecting the Dutch. An expedi

tion against New Netherland was carefully planned and was actually on the way across the sea before war was declared. Reenforced by some Connecticut volunteers it appeared before New Amsterdam and received its surrender.

NEW NETHERLAND BECOMES NEW YORK

The region of which the Dutch were dispossessed, from the Connecticut to the Delaware, was given to the King's brother, the Duke of York. The Duke in turn transferred the portion between the lower Hudson and the Delaware to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, retaining the Hudson Valley and Long Island for himself, under the name of New York.

The Dutch inhabitants accepted the change of masters quite readily. Their property rights were respected, holders of petty offices were allowed to serve out their terms, and the Dutch local government was replaced so gradually as to cause no annoyance. Complete religious liberty was allowed, and those who wished to leave the province were permitted to do so. Few availed themselves of this privilege, and the descendants of the Dutch stock form to this day an important element in the New York population.

The English inhabitants were sorely disappointed because the conquest did not bring representative government. Perhaps because the people had no representation during the Dutch period, the Duke's patent, unlike Baltimore's, did not require their assent in legislation. Instead it gave him "full and absolute power. . . to . . . govern and rule," so long as his laws were not contrary to the laws of England.

At the outset Governor Richard Nicolls told the English that they might "assure themselves of equal if not greater freedoms and immunities than any of his Majesty's colonies in New England." In fulfillment of this promise he proclaimed the "Duke's Laws," based upon the New England codes and including some features of the system of town government. They permitted the freeholders (landowners) of each town to elect local officials,

1 An agreement with Connecticut fixed the boundary between that colony and New York, but the Vermont region was in dispute between New York and New Hampshire until after the Revolution.