Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam. Abbott John Stevens Cabot
Taxation.—Outrage upon the Raritan Indians.—Indian Revenge.
De Vrees very wisely decided that it would be but a barren vengeance to endeavor to retaliate upon the roaming savages, when probably more suffering would be inflicted upon the innocent than upon the guilty. He therefore, to their astonishment and great joy, entered into a formal treaty of peace and alliance with them. Any attempt to bring the offenders to justice would of course have been unavailing, as they could easily scatter, far and wide, through the trackless wilderness. Arrangements were made for re-opening trade, and the Indians with alacrity departed to hunt beaver.
A new Director was appointed at Manhattan, Wouter Van Twiller. He was an inexperienced young man, and owed his appointment to the powerful patronage he enjoyed from having married the niece of the patroon Van Rensselaer. Thus a "raw Amsterdam clerk," embarked in a ship of twenty guns, with a military force of one hundred and four soldiers, to assume the government of New Netherland. The main object of this mercantile governor seemed to be to secure trade with the natives and to send home furs.
De Vrees, having concluded his peace with the Indians, sailed up the South river, as they then called the Delaware, through the floating ice, to a trading post, which had been established some time before at a point about four miles below the present site of Philadelphia. He thought he saw indications of treachery, and was constantly on his guard. He found the post, which was called Fort Nassau, like a similar post on the Hudson, deserted. The chiefs, however, of nine different tribes, came on board, bringing presents of beaver skins, avowing the most friendly feelings, and they entered into a formal treaty with the Dutch. There did not, however, seem to be any encouragement again to attempt the establishment of a colony, or of any trading posts in that region. He therefore abandoned the Delaware river, and for some time no further attempts were made to colonize its coasts.
In April, 1633, an English ship arrived at Manhattan. The bluff captain, Jacob Elkins, who had formerly been in the Dutch employ, but had been dismissed from their service, refused to recognize the Dutch authorities, declaring that New Netherland was English territory, discovered by Hudson, an Englishman. It was replied that though Hudson was an Englishman, he was in the service of the East India Company at Amsterdam; that no English colonists had ever settled in the region, and that the river itself was named Mauritius river, after the Prince of Orange.
Elkins was not to be thus dissuaded. He had formerly spent four years at this post, and was thoroughly acquainted with the habits and language of the Indians. His spirit was roused. He declared that he would sail up the river if it cost him his life. Van Twiller was equally firm in his refusal. He ordered the Dutch flag to be run up at fort Amsterdam, and a salute to be fired in honor of the Prince of Orange. Elkins, in retaliation, unfurled the English flag at his mast-head, and fired a salute in honor of King Charles. After remaining a week at fort Amsterdam, and being refused a license to ascend the river, he defiantly spread his colors to the breeze, weighed anchor, and boldly sailed up the stream to fort Orange. This was the first British vessel which ascended the North river.
The pusillanimous Van Twiller was in a great rage, but had no decision of character to guide him in such an emergency. The merchant clerk, invested with gubernatorial powers, found himself in waters quite beyond his depth. He collected all the people of the fort, broached a cask of wine, and railed valiantly at the intrepid Englishman, whose ship was fast disappearing beyond the palisades. His conduct excited only the contempt and derision of those around.
DeVrees was a man of very different fibre. He had, but a few days before, entered the port from Swaanendael. He dined with the Governor that day, and said to him in very intelligible Dutch:
"You have committed a great folly. Had it been my case, I would have helped the Englishman to some eight pound iron beans, and have prevented him from going up the river. The English are of so haughty a nature that they think that everything belongs to them. I would immediately send a frigate after him, and drive him out of the river."
Stimulated by this advice, Van Twiller prepared, as speedily as possible, three well armed vessels, strongly manned with soldiers, and sent them, under an intrepid captain, in pursuit of the intruders. They found the English ship, the William, about a mile below fort Orange. A tent was pitched upon the shore, where, for a fortnight, the English had been pursuing a very lucrative traffic for furs. The Dutch soldiers were in strength which Elkins could not resist.
They ordered him to strike his tent. He refused. They did it for him; reshipped all his goods which he had transferred to the shore, to trade with the Indians, and also the furs which he had purchased. They then weighed the anchors of the William, unfurled her sails, and, with trumpet blasts of victory, brought the ship, captain and crew down to fort Amsterdam. The ship was then convoyed to sea, and the discomfited Elkins returned to London. Thus terminated, in utter failure, the first attempt of the English to enter into trade with the Indians of New Netherland.
The Dutch were now the only Europeans who had occupied any part of the present territory of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. They were also carrying on a very flourishing trade with the Indians on the Connecticut river, which was then called Fresh river, and this "long before any English had dreamed of going there." The Value of this traffic may be inferred from the fact that, in the year 1633, sixteen thousand beaver skins were sent to Holland from the North river alone.
To strengthen their title, thus far founded on discovery and exclusive visitation, the Dutch, in 1632, purchased of the Indians nearly all of the lands on both sides of the Connecticut river, including Saybrook Point, at the mouth, where the arms of the States-General were affixed to a tree in token of possession. A fort was also commenced, near the mouth of the river, and a trading post established some miles up the stream, at the point now occupied by the city of Hartford.
About the same time, Lord Warwick, assuming that a legitimate grant of the region had been made to him by the king of England, conveyed to Lords Say, Brook and others, all the territory running southwest from Narragansett river, to the distance of one hundred and twenty miles along the coast, and reaching back, through the whole breadth of the country, from the Western Ocean to the South Sea. The geography of these regions was then very imperfectly known. No one had any conception of the vast distance between the Atlantic Ocean and the shores of the Pacific. The trading post, which the Dutch had established on the Connecticut, was called Fort Hope.
As soon as it was known, at Plymouth and Boston, that the Dutch had taken formal possession of the valley of the Connecticut, Governor Winslow hastened to confer with the Massachusetts Governor respecting their duties. As it was doubtful whether the region of the Connecticut was embraced within either of their patents, they decided not to interfere. But through diplomatic policy they assigned a different reason for their refusal.
"In regard," said Governor Winthrop,
"that the place was not fit for plantation, there being three or four thousand warlike Indians, and the river not to be gone into but by small pinnaces, having a bar affording but six feet at high water, and for that no vessel can get in for seven months in the year, partly by reason of the ice, and then the violent stream, we thought not fit to meddle with it."4
Still Governor Winthrop looked wistfully towards the Connecticut. Though he admitted that the lower part of the valley was "out of the claim of the Massachusetts patent," it could not be denied that the upper part of the valley was included in their grant. In the summer of 1633, John Oldham, with three companions, penetrated the wilderness, through the Indian trails, one hundred and sixty miles to the Connecticut river. They were hospitably entertained in the many Indian villages they passed through by the way.
They brought back early in the autumn, glowing accounts of the beauty of the region, and of the luxuriant meadows which bordered the stream. Governor Winthrop then sent a vessel on a trading voyage, through Long Island Sound, to Manhattan, there to inform the Dutch authorities that the king of England had granted the Connecticut river and the adjacent country to the subjects of Great Britain.
In most of these transactions the Dutch appear to great advantage. After five weeks' absence the vessel returned to Boston to report the friendly reception of the Massachusetts party at Manhattan, and bearing a courteous letter to Governor Winthrop, in which Van Twiller, in respectful
Morton's memorial, page 176.