east, and to present such conditions in a statesmanlike manner to the people of his generation.

The resume of commercial conditions recited in the Colden Memorial shows that prior to that time trading stations had been established in various parts of the Province. It may elucidate this subject to mention some of these and the steps leading up to them.

As early as 1614, Henry Christiaensen, a Dutch captain merchant, sailed up the Hudson to the head of navigation and resolved "to provide a permanent station there and to invite a regular flow of trade along the avenues which nature had provided along the Mohawk from the west and along lakes Champlain and George from the north at the point where these trade routes converged." This was a little below the place, which was afterward the terminus of the Champlain and Erie canals. It is the first recorded attempt on the part of the whites to unite the commerce of the north and west at the Hudson with that of the south. This station was protected by "breastworks of palisades" surrounded by a moat and known as "Fort Nassau."

The Netherland Company, incorporated in 1614 by the States General of Holland, was given a monopoly of trade and the exclusive navigation of such rivers and bays as were discovered.

The statement that Dutch officers of this company entered into trade relations with the chiefs of the Five Nations at a conference held near Fort Nassau in 1617, is disputed; whatever the fact may be, but little was accomplished owing to the expiration of the charter of the company in 1618, which resulted in the application of several other associations of individuals for charter privileges. These were ultimately merged in the Dutch West India Company, incorporated in 1621 for commercial purposes principally, but with the additional responsibility of the colonization, government and defense of its territory. This entailed upon the company burdens that hampered its growth and as time went on largely depleted its treasury. Thus early did the legislation affecting the Province assume a commercial character, dominated as it was by the instinct of the Dutch

for world-wide trade relations, which had enabled Antwerp to wrest from Venice the sovereignty of the sea and to become the emporium of Europe. After its siege by Philip II. of Spain, this sovereignty passed from Antwerp to Amsterdam. The harbors of these two ports were successively frequented by the merchant marine of many nations, and this begot in the people a keen interest in commercial affairs, which largely shaped the policy of the Dutch settlers in this Province. In 1626 Peter Minuit, a merchant pioneer from Wesel on the Rhine, purchased of the Red men Manhattan Island for the sum of $24, and it became within two centuries the emporium of the New World. In a report of the Dutch West India Company made in November, 1629, is a statement of the commerce of that company, including its shipping and naval facilities, which gave employment to 15,000 seamen and soldiers.1

II. DEVELOPMENT OF INLAND TRADE BY THE DUTCH.

The commercial genius of the Dutch, which, in the plenitude of their maritime power, afforded them "the keenest sense of exultation" inspired their colonists to lay the foundations of the metropolis of the Western Hemisphere. For nearly three centuries the spirit and instinct of its people have been largely commercial, and this is the philosophical explanation of its phenomenal growth. No sooner had the Dutch settlers become acquainted with "the abundance of lakes, some large, some small, besides navigable kills, which are very like rivers, and multitudes of creeks, very useful for navigating over all parts of the country," described on a map of New Netherland, as appears in a Report of the West India Company, in July, 1649,2 than they began to establish trading posts and to locate colonies.

In the "Draft of Freedoms and Exemptions for New Netherland," exhibited May 24, 1650, Patroons were authorized to extend the limits of their colonies "four leagues

1. 1 Col. Hist. N. Y., 40, 41.

2. Ib. 294.

along the coast or on one side of a navigable river, or two leagues along both sides of a river and as far inland as the circumstances of the occupants would permit." All Patroons, colonists and inhabitants of New Netherland were permitted "to trade along the coast from Florida unto Newfoundland, provided they return with all the goods they obtain in barter, first to the island of the Manhattes, and pay a five per cent. duty to the Company, in order, if possible, to be sent thence to the aforesaid countries after proper inventory of all the cargo.

The monopoly of trade between New Netherland and other colonies which were given to the Dutch India Company, was done away with in 1638, and the coastwise and internal commerce were opened up to all merchants of Holland by the Freedom and Exemptions, "exhibited" (i. e., published) in 1640.2 All these grants had a direct bearing on the growth of New Netherland, notwithstanding the oppression and restraints, imposed upon the colonists by the directors and agents of the company, concerning which frequent complaints were made to the States General. The Home Government was slow to make appropriations for the Dutch West India Company, notwithstanding that company had done much to break the power of Spain on the sea and to hold the commerce of the Atlantic for the Netherlands. The drain on its treasury, however, was large and its power greatly weakened, owing to its naval and governmental expenditures required by its charter. "In the spring of 1623 a ship sailed up to the Maykans," an estimated distance of 132 miles, "and the colony built Fort Orange on Castle Island," says W. M. Beauchamp. He also says that James Elkens traded near Fort Orange in 1633 and that he had lived four years with the Indians. The Mohawks had many bear skins. The Mahicans, who were frequently at war with the Mohawks, sold much of their lands in 1630 near Rensselaerwyck to Kiliaen Van Rensselaer and left the

1. Ib. 402, 403.

2. Ib. 119.

3

3. "History of the New York Iroquois" (N. Y. State Museum Bulletin 78), 174, 175.

Hudson valley. Thereafter friendly relations sprung up between the Dutch and the Mohawks, which continued until they (the Dutch) were superseded by the English. In the meantime the Dutch supplied the Indians with strouds, awls, knives, hatchets, guns and many other articles and in exchange the Dutch received furs and lands.

Before the advent of the white man, the aborigines had supplied themselves with polished stone implements such as celts, gouges, adzes, hoes, spades, stone balls, ornaments, hammer-stones, mullers, pestles, potstones, stone plummets, sinew stones, boatstones, cups, morters, double-edged slate knives, women's knives, gorgets, grooved axes, perforators, grooved boulders, beveled and notched flint spear-heads, arrow-heads, quartz and other scrapers, native copper implements, especially the Mahaikans, or River Indians; and with a great variety of wooden articles and implements. These and other things enabled them to maintain trade among themselves and afforded the means for supplying their primitive wants. Adriaen Van der Donck in commenting on the negotiations with the Indians said: “In the year 1645, we were employed with the officers and rulers of the colony of Rensselaerwick in negotiating a treaty of peace with the Maquas, who were and still are the strongest and fiercest Indian nation of the country; whereat the Director General William Kieft on the one part, and the chiefs of the Indian nations of the neighboring country on the other part, attended." This continued as long as the Dutch had possession of the territory, and enabled the nations in the Confederacy to enter into and maintain extensive trade relations with the Dutch.

Van der Donck in his account of "Chahoes" says that in 1656 “an Indian accompanied by his wife and child with sixty bear skins, descended the river in his canoe in the spring when the water runs rapid and the current is strongest, for the purpose of selling his beavers to the NetherlandThis Indian carelessly approached too near the falls before he discovered his danger, and notwithstanding his utmost efforts to gain the land, his frail bark, with all on

ers.

board, was swept over by the rapid current and down the falls, his wife and child were killed, his bark shattered to pieces, his cargo of furs damaged, but his life was preserved."

This misadventure may have given the Mohawk name to the Cohoes, which means “a canoe falling." The statement shows that the river was used at a very early day by the Indians for their commercial purposes. In his history of the New York Iroquois, Dr. William M. Beauchamp, an authority on Indian lore, says:

"It was in December 1634 that Arent Van Curler made a trip from Fort Orange to Oneida, passing through all the Mohawk towns, then on the south side of the river. There were four castles and some villages, the first of which he reached on the morning of the third day. These were Onekagoncka, Canowarode, Senatsycrosy, Netdashet, Canagere, Sohanidisse, Osguage, Cawaoge, and Tenotoge. His itinerary is of interest, and it is the earliest we have of that part of New York. He left the Mohawk at the last castle, taking the usual direct trail over the hills to Oneida, then on the upper waters of Oneida creek. It will be remembered that most trails are not very old, changing as the towns changed place. At Oneida he considered himself in the Seneca country, but met a deputation of Onondagas there, being the first mentioned of these two nations by name. In an Oneida speech or song, which he recorded, the names of all the upper Iroquois may be seen. He returned the same way in January, 1635.” 1

The interior of the Province at this time and for an hundred years later, notwithstanding the stipulations of the Treaty of Utrecht, concluded in 1713, in relation to the French and English possessions in America, was subject to the predatory and hostile invasion of the French and Indians from the north of Lake Ontario which was known as Lake Cataracqui. Expedition after expedition was made into this territory and many were put to death. At first the Dutch and afterwards the British resisted these invasions, but they continued with more or less frequency until the Revolution.

1. "History of the New York Iroquois" (N. Y. State Museum Bulletin 78), 179.

2. 1 Col. Hist. N. Y., 146, 151, 153, 186, 190, etc.