Page images
PDF
EPUB

STUYVESANT DISSOLVES ASSEMBLY; NEW SWEDEN ANNEXED 297

an expedition be sent out by the New Englanders to conquer the Dutch at New Netherland, especially as war had broken out between the Dutch and English at home. It was further alleged that the Dutch and Narragansetts had formed a plot to murder the entire body of English colonists. Massachusetts, however, refused to join in any such proceeding, and it was therefore dropped.*

In 1652 certain municipal privileges were granted to the inhabitants of New Amsterdam upon petition to the authorities at home, but these privileges did not satisfy them and they expressed a desire for still further popular liberty.† On December 10, 1653, two delegates from each village assembled in convention and were preparing to demand from the authorities at New Amsterdam a share in the legislation and in the appointment of magistrates, but Stuy

* Doyle, English Colonies in America, vol. ii., pp. 298-300; Palfrey, History of New England, vol. i., p. 366 et seq.; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies, vol. i., pp. 261–267; Trumbull, History of Connecticut, vol. i., pp. 168-171.

For the details of the disputes between Stuyvesant and the colonists leading up to and following the sending of this petition, see Fiske, vol. i., pp. 198-218, 227-237; O'Callaghan, New Netherlands, vol. ii.; Doyle, Middle Colonies, p. 28 et seq.; Lamb, City of New York, vol. i., p. 142 et seq.; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 513 et seq.; Roberts, New York, vol. i., p. 73 et seq. The 'Representation" of 1649 and the answer by Cornelis Van Tienhoven will be found in Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, pp. 293-377; Collections of the New York Historical Society, series ii., vol. ii., pp. 125-242, 251-338; N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. i., pp. 259, 261, 271-318, 422432; Pennsylvania Archives, series ii., vol. v., pp. 124-170.

[ocr errors]

vesant dissolved the assembly, refused to accede to their demands as being presumptuous and absurd, and told the delegates that he did not need any aid from the people in the discharge of his duties.* He said: "We derive our authority from God and the Company, not from a few ignorant subjects, and we alone can call the inhabitants together." The Company in Holland warmly approved his conduct. It was in this year (1653) that New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city. In May, 1654, Fort Casimir came into the possession of the Swedes through a stratagem, but at this time Sweden. was not a formidable power, and the Company directed Stuyvesant to subdue the Swedes and take possession of the South Bay and river. Again, in November, 1654, Stuyvesant was ordered to avenge the infamous surrender of Fort Casimir by driving the Swedes out of the country, and therefore, in the following year, 1655, he set out for the Delaware with a force of between 600 and 700 men. He had little difficulty in accomplishing his object, and New Sweden again became a part of New Netherland.||

Fiske, vol. i., pp. 267-269; Roberts, New York, pp. 81-82; Holland Documents, vol. xv., pp. 168-175; Albany Records, vol. ix., pp. 5, 15, 17-24, 26, 28-56; Lamb, City of New York, vol. i., pp. 166-167. On the official system in New Netherland see Osgood, American Colonies, vol. ii., p. 95 et seq.; Doyle, p. 34 et seq.

Doyle, Middle Colonies, pp. 30-31.
N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. xii., p. 85.

|| Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, vol. iv., p. 467 et seq.; Lamb, City of New York, vol. i.,

The affairs of New Netherland now seemed to be decidedly on the improvement. In 1653 the population amounted to about 2,000, including 800 in the city, and by 1664 Stuyvesant estimated the population at 10,000,* of whom 1,600 were in the city. The appearance of New Amsterdam was not prepossessing. The few streets which had been regularly laid out were paved with cobblestones and the only drainage was a gutter in the middle of the street. Many of the streets were lined with trees and the majority of the houses were surrounded by orchards and gardens. Down what is now Broad Street ran a canal, but in 1676 this was filled in. In 1655 Stuyvesant secured the passage of an ordinance prohibiting the construction of wooden chimneys, and in 1657 ordered all wooden chimneys in existence to be demolished. The situation of the old town is now scarcely recognizable, Bowling Green and the Battery, once occupied by the fort and the Dutch dwellings, now being completely hemmed in by colossal and stately office buildings and the government custom house.†

pp. 175-176; Fiske, vol. i., pp. 237-242; Doyle, Middle Colonies, pp. 62-67; the letter by Johannes Bogaert in Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, pp. 383-386. The Swedish version will be found in Pennsylvania Archives, series ii., vol. v., pp. 222-229, and in Collections of the New York Historical Society, series ii., vol. i., pp. 443-448.

* Brodhead, vol. i., p. 734, quoting Stuyvesant's letter of June 10, 1664.

Doyle, Middle Colonies, p. 76. See also the description of the city as it was in 1661 in Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, pp. 421-424;

Politically the colonists were pro gressing rapidly, and considering the short space of time since the colony had been established, they had secured relatively greater political freedom than their English neighbors in the south and in New England. The religious conditions were not so far advanced, as the economic and political sides of their existence had absorbed almost the entire attention of the colonists. There does not seem to have been a church at Manhattan nor a minister until 1628, though the congregation occasionally met under the ministration of two krankbesoeckers, or visitors of the sick.* 1628 an ordained clergyman, named Jonas Johannis Michaelius, was sent from Amsterdam,† and in 1652 a second pastor was chosen at New Amsterdam, he being required to preach in Dutch, French, and English.‡ In addition to the churches previously mentioned, there were little independent churches at West Chester and at Middelburgh, Long Island, but there does not seem to have been an established ministry or an organized church at either place,

In

[blocks in formation]

PERSECUTION OF QUAKERS; EDUCATION.

though the former had collective religious exercises and the latter had a preacher. In 1654 the Lutherans requested permission to organize a church of their own, but the Presbyterians opposed it, supporting Stuyvesant in his unfriendly attitude.† The Company soon afterward refused the request and instructed Stuyvesant to use his utmost endeavors to bring the Lutherans into the Calvinistic faith. In 1657 five Quakers arrived at New Amsterdam and soon became embroiled in a dispute with Stuyvesant, principally because they preached in the streets. One of them, Robert Hodgson, was arrested, sentenced to a a fine of 100 guilders, in default of which he was to be flogged and publicly worked in the streets with negroes for two years, chained to a wheelbarrow.|| His sentence was soon afterward withdrawn, however, though Stuyvesant considered that the disciples of Hodgson had become sufficiently numerous to warrant the issuing of a proclamation making it an offence punishable by a fine of £50 to harbor a Quaker.§ The citizens of Flushing refused to obey this edict, and their political rights granted by Kieft were

O'Callaghan, Documentary History of New York, vol. iii., p. 69 et seq.

See the letter of Megapolensis and Drisius in Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, pp. 393400; Lamb, City of New York, vol. i., p. 178.

Brodhead, vol. i., p. 582.

Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, pp. 400-401; Lamb, vol. i., p. 184.

§ Doyle, Middle Colonies, pp. 44-45.

299

withdrawn by Stuyvesant, a council of seven of the inhabitants of the town being appointed to administer its affairs. In 1662, however, another Quaker adherent, John Bowne, was arrested for allowing his house to become a meeting place for the Quakers and was sent a prisoner to Amsterdam. There Bowne succeeded in obtaining a hearing from the directors of the Company, who sharply reproved Stuyvesant for overstepping his authority. While the Company did not in any way expressly befriend the Quakers, they were given ample protection under the instructions that no man was to be molested for his religious beliefs, unless he should create a civil disturbance.*

Educational matters were in the same uncertain condition. In 1633 a schoolmaster had come into the colony, as previously mentioned, but there was no schoolhouse nor any regular provision for teaching, and, therefore, classes were only intermittent and poorly attended. In 1650 a schoolmaster was appointed at New Amsterdam:† in 1652 a school was to have been held in the city tavern;‡ and at about the same time a school was established at Rensselaerwyck, the schoolmaster also being the clergyman. Soon afterward, a Latin

[blocks in formation]

schoolmaster, Alexander Curtius, was engaged. The Company paid him 500 guilders and the city 200, while he was also allowed to earn extra money by practising as a physician.* In 1662 Curtius returned to Holland, and under his successor a high school was founded, acquiring such a reputation for scholarship that pupils even came from Virginia to attend it. Before 1664 there were nine schools in the colony.‡

Commercially and industrially, there was little difference between the Dutch and the English colonies. The estates of the patroons were not dissimilar to the Southern plantations except that there was a tendency for villages (such as Beverswyck), to grow up within the patroonship, a condition that did not obtain in the South. Slave labor soon began to rival free labor. The Company had guaranteed to supply the settlers with negroes and many were brought in, but large importations were impossible because of the prohibitive duty imposed by the Company. In 1644, however, the Company passed an ordinance emancipating its slaves after a certain period of service, though they were still compelled to pay certain dues and their children were to remain slaves. Again in 1663 the Company granted certain slaves partial freedom, they being

* Ibid, p. 656.

† Ibid, p. 634.

Doyle, Middle Colonies, p. 76. || Ibid, p. 48.

allowed to work alternate weeks for themselves.* The commercial policy of the Company was extremely rigid, due chiefly to the facts that divers nationalities handled the trade of the colony and that there was little community of interest between the home merchants and the colonists. The chief trade was in furs, for which there was an unlimited demand, and thence sprung an illicit trade which was an inevitable source of danger, as the Indians, from whom the furs were obtained, required guns and powder in exchange, thereby being supplied with the ammunition by which they were enabled to carry on a desultory war for so many years.†

The Dutch maintained amicable relations with Virginia and a mutually profitable trade was carried on. There was a serious dispute with Maryland, however, as to the ownership of the western bank of the Delaware, the Dutch stoutly denying the Maryland claim that the territory was within the limits of the Maryland grant. The Dutch insisted that their prior occupancy gave them the right to the territory. In 1659 there were further Indian troubles, caused chiefly by the selling of "fire-water" to them. In drunken condition the Indians committed many murders, for which the Dutch immediately retaliated and in consequence of which many lives were lost. In 1660 a com

* Ibid., p. 49. Ibid, pp. 49–50.

BOUNDARY DISPUTES; DUKE OF YORK'S CHARTER.

pact of peace was made,* but in 1663 it was broken by the savages. They had been waiting an opportunity to revenge the banishment of some Indians by Stuyvesant to the West Indies, and they furiously attacked the settlers at Esopus, but late in the fall of 1663 peace was again declared after the Indians had been subdued.†

While the Maryland dispute was vexatious, it was of comparatively small moment‡ and could not be compared with the importance of the troubles with New England. Connecticut being the nearest neighbor of the Dutch, she was the greatest transgressor. She was eager for territory, and in May, 1662, after a royal charter had been granted her, she began to press her claim to Long Island, Westchester, and in fact, all of the land east of the Hudson, a commissioner being sent by Connecticut to notify the Dutch townships that they were under her jurisdiction. Stuyvesant himself went to Boston to protest against this action, and in October, 1663, sent agents to Hartford, but little was accomplished.§ The New Englanders, by

Lamb, City of New York, vol. i., pp. 186-189. Roberts, New York, pp. 86-88; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies, vol. i., pp. 270-274; Doyle, Middle Colonics, p. 53 et seq.; Lamb, vol. i., pp. 200-201.

For the details see Browne, Maryland, p. 96 et seq.; the extract from the Maryland Records in the Collections of the New York Historical Society, 1st series, vol. iii., p. 368; Heerman's Journal, in N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ii., p. 88.

|| Brodhead, vol. i., p. 719.

§ Their journal is in N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ii., VOL. I.-20

301

smooth talk, warded off any immedi-
ate trouble, but they could not suc-
ceed in allaying the suspicions of
Stuyvesant, who in 1663, despite his

contempt for
contempt for popular
popular assemblies,
asked the advice of the people. The
people, however, could give him little
assistance, and therefore the days of
New Netherland were numbered.*

The English now determined to enforce their claim to the territory occupied by the Dutch with something more effective than words.† The Duke of York had purchased the claims of Lord Stirling under grants which he had received from the extinct council of New England, and in March, 1664, Charles II. granted him a charter for a tract of land lying between the Connecticut and the Delaware, including in it New Netherland. The name New York was then bestowed upon the new province.‡

In August, 1664, the Duke of York sent four ships with 450 soldiers to seize upon New Netherlands, and on board these ships were Colonel Richard Nicolls, Colonel George Cartwright, Sir Robert Carr and Samuel

pp. 385-392 and in Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, pp. 432–445.

*

Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies, vol. i., pp. 274-283; Hildreth, vol. i., pp. 442-443; Doyle, Middle Colonies, pp. 87-92; Lamb, City of New York, vol. i., pp. 202-204.

Chalmers states that the settlement of New Netherlands was in violation of the law of nations. Chalmers, however, writes with strong English prejudices. See his Introduction to the Revolt of the American Colonies, vol. 1., p. 116.

The charter in full will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. iii., p. 265; and in an appendix of Brodhead, vol. ii.

« PreviousContinue »