Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam. Abbott John Stevens Cabot
and cast anchor in deep water, near Red Hook. Baffled by opposing winds and calms, they slowly worked their way down the stream, the next two days, to near the present point of Castleton. Here a venerable old man, the chief of a small tribe, or rather patriarchal family of forty men and seventeen women, came on board in his birch canoe. He gave Sir Henry a very cordial invitation to visit his little settlement of wigwams, picturesquely nestled upon the banks of the river. Distance lends enchantment to the view. The little hamlet in a sheltered cove where fertile meadows were spread out, was surrounded by fields waving with the harvest. From the deck of the ship the scene presented was one of peace, prosperity and happiness. The smoke ascended gracefully from the wigwam fires, children were sporting upon the beach, and birch canoes, almost as light as bubbles, were being rapidly paddled over the glassy waves.
The good old chief took the English captain ashore and led him into his palace. It was a very humble edifice, constructed of bark so carefully overlapped as effectually to exclude both wind and rain. It was from thirty to forty feet long and eighteen feet wide. There was a door at each end, and ample light was admitted by an opening extending along the whole length, through which the smoke of the fires could escape. The interior was finished with great care, and very smoothly. Under certain states of the atmosphere and of the wind the smoke freely ascended, causing no embarrassment to those within. The ground floor was neatly covered with mats, except in the centre where the fire was built. The whole interior as Sir Hudson entered it, on a serene autumnal day, presented a very cheerful aspect. One might easily be pardoned for imagining, in that hour, that the life of the American savage, free from care, was apparently far more desirable than that of the toil-worn European.
Sir Henry, with the few who accompanied him, was received with great hospitality. Some Indians were immediately sent into the forest for a dinner. They soon returned with some pigeons which they had shot with their arrows. A nice fat puppy was also killed, skinned with a clam-shell, and roasted in the highest style of barbaric culinary art. Thick mats were provided as seats for the guests at this royal festival. Hudson was urged to remain all night. He was evidently a man of very cautious, if not suspicious temperament. He could not, or did not conceal, from the Indians his fears that they were meditating treachery. These artless men, to convince him that he had nothing to apprehend, actually broke their bows and arrows, and threw them into the fire. But nothing could induce Hudson to remain on shore through the night. He describes the land here as very fertile, bearing abundantly, corn, pumpkins, grapes, plums, and various other kinds of small fruits.
Availing himself of a fair wind, he again spread his sails, and on the 1st of October, cast anchor at the mouth of Haverstraw Bay, in the vicinity of Stony Point. He had scarcely furled his sails, when a large number of natives came paddling out from the shore in their little birch canoes. They were entirely unarmed, bringing apparently in a most friendly manner, furs, fish and vegetables for sale. Soon quite a little fleet of these buoyant canoes were gliding over the water. One Indian, paddling beneath the cabin windows, and seeing hanging out certain articles pilfered a pillow and a jacket. As he was making off with his treasures the mate caught sight of him, and seizing his gun mercilessly shot him dead. A severe punishment for so trivial a crime in an untutored savage.
All the Indians on board the Half Moon as they heard the report of the gun, and saw their unfortunate companion fall dead in his blood, were stricken with terror. Some rushed into their canoes. Others plunged into the river to swim ashore. The vessel's boat immediately put off to pick up the canoe with the stolen goods. As it was returning, a solitary Indian, in the water, probably exhausted and drowning, grasped the gunwale. The cook seized a hatchet and with one blow, deliberately cut off the man's hand at the wrist. The poor creature, uttering a shriek, sank beneath the crimsoned waves and was seen no more.
The next day, the Half Moon descended the river about twenty miles through Tappan Sea, and anchored, it is supposed, near the head of Manhattan island. Sir Henry Hudson was apparently oppressed in some degree with the unjustifiable harshness with which he had treated the simple-hearted, yet friendly natives. He was continually and increasingly apprehensive of treachery. A single canoe containing several men approached the ship Hudson's eagle eye perceived that one of these men was one of the captives whom he had seized, but who had escaped from his imprisonment by plunging into the river and swimming ashore. The sight of this man alarmed the captain, and he refused to allow any of them to come on board.
It seems to us rather absurd to suppose that half-a-dozen savages could think of attacking, from a birch canoe, with arrows, a European ship with its well-armed crew. It should be borne in mind that we have the narrative from the white man only. The Indians have had no opportunity to tell their story.
Mr. Brodhead, in his valuable history of New York, gives the following account of the untoward scenes which immediately ensued, compiling from the most ancient records:
"But Hudson, perceiving their intent, would suffer none of them to enter the vessel. Two canoes, full of warriors, then came under the stern, and shot a flight of arrows into the yacht. A few muskets were discharged in retaliation, and two or three of the assailants were killed. Some hundred Indians then assembled at the Point to attack the Half Moon, as she drifted slowly by; but a cannon-shot killed two of them, whereupon the rest fled into the woods. Again the assailants manned another canoe and again the attack was repulsed by a cannon shot which destroyed their frail bark; and so the savages went their way mourning the loss of nine of their warriors. The yacht then got down two leagues beyond that place, and anchored over night on the other side of the river in the bay near Hoboken. Hard by his anchorage and upon that side of the river that is called Mannahatta, Hudson noticed that there was a cliff that looked of the color of white-green. Here he lay wind-bound the next day, and saw no people to trouble him. The following morning, just one month after his arrival at Sandy Hook, Hudson weighed anchor for the last time and coming out of the mouth of the great river, in the which he had run so far, he set all sail and steered off again into the main sea."
It is very evident that Sir Henry Hudson was by no means a good disciplinarian. The authority he exercised over his crew, was very feeble. A mutinous spirit began already to prevail, and we are told that they threatened him savagely. It would appear that Sir Henry and his mate wished to repair to Newfoundland, and after having passed the winter, which was close upon them, there to resume their voyage, in search of a northwest passage, through Davis's Straits. But the turbulent crew would not consent. They compelled the captain to turn the prow of his ship towards Europe. After the voyage of a month the Half Moon cast anchor in the harbor of Dartmouth, England, on the 9th of November, 1609.
It will be remembered that Sir Henry Hudson was an Englishman, though he was sailing in the service of the Dutch East India Company. When the Dutch Directors heard of his arrival in England, and of the important discoveries he had made, they sent orders for him immediately to repair to Amsterdam. At the same time the Dutch government claimed, by the right of discovery, all that portion of the North American continent along whose coasts Hudson had sailed and upon whose shores he had occasionally landed, taking possession of the same in the name of the Dutch government.
The English government, jealous of the advantage which had thus been gained by the flag of Holland, peremptorily forbade Hudson to leave his native country; and for several months the Half Moon was detained at Dartmouth.
CHAPTER II.
THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY
Value of the Territory Discovered.—Fate of Hudson.—The Conspiracy.—Aspect of Manhattan Island.—The Trail which has Widened into Broadway.—The Opening Commerce.—The Fur Trade.—Visit of the English Man of War.—Exploring the Sound.—Commercial Enterprise Receives a New Stimulus.—Erection of Forts.—Character of the Fur Trade.
The Half Moon was detained in England eight months, and did not reach Amsterdam until the summer of 1610. The Dutch Directors, though disappointed in not finding in the region they had explored the much hoped-for Northwest Passage to the Indies, were somewhat elated by the magnificent discoveries which had been made. The territory they claimed, by virtue of these discoveries, extended from the mouth of the Delaware on the South, to Cape Cod on the Northeast. The grand river of Canada, the St. Lawrence, was deemed its northern frontier. Its western boundaries were unexplored and unknown.
This was indeed