Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam. Abbott John Stevens Cabot
the crime, by presents to the Indians.
"The island of Manhattan," wrote De Rassieres at this time,
"is full of trees and in the middle rocky. On the north side there is good land in two places, where two farmers, each with four horses, would have enough to do without much grubbing or clearing at first. The grass is good in the forests and valleys; but when made into hay, it is not so nutritious for the cattle as the hay in Holland, in consequence of its wild state, yet it annually improves by culture.
"On the east side there rises a large level field, of about one hundred and sixty acres, through which runs a very fine fresh stream; so that land can be ploughed without much clearing. It appears to be good. The six farms, four of which lie along the river Hell-gate, stretching to the south side of the island, have at least one hundred and twenty acres to be sown with winter seed, which, at the most, may have been ploughed eight times."
There were eighteen families at Fort Orange, which was situated on Tawalsoutha creek, on the west side of the Hudson river, about thirty-six Dutch miles above the island of Manhattan. These colonists built themselves huts of bark, and lived on terms of cordial friendship with the Indians. Wassenaar writes, "The Indians were as quiet as lambs, and came and traded with all the freedom imaginable."
The Puritans had now been five years at Plymouth. So little were they acquainted with the geography of the country that they supposed New England to be an island.1 Floating rumors had reached them of the Dutch colony at the mouth of the Hudson. Governor Bradford commissioned Mr. Winslow to visit the Dutch, who had sent a ship to Narragansett bay to trade, that he might dissuade them from encroaching in their trade upon territory which the Puritans considered as exclusively belonging to them. Mr. Winslow failed to meet the Dutch before their vessel had sailed on its return to Manhattan.
Soon after this the Dutch Governor, Peter Minuit, sent secretary De Rassieres to Governor Bradford, with a very friendly letter, congratulating the Plymouth colony upon its prosperity, inviting to commercial relations, and offering to supply their English neighbors with any commodities which they might want.
Governor Bradford, in his reply, very cordially reciprocated these friendly greetings. Gracefully he alluded to the hospitality with which the exiled Pilgrims had been received in Holland. "Many of us," he wrote,
"are tied by the good and courteous entreaty which we have found in your country, having lived there many years with freedom and good content, as many of our friends do this day; for which we are bound to be thankful, and our children after us, and shall never forget the same."
At the same time he claimed that the territory, north of forty degrees of latitude, which included a large part of New Netherland, and all their Hudson river possessions, belonged to the English. Still he promised that, for the sake of good neighborhood, the English would not molest the Dutch at the mouth of the Hudson, if they would "forbear to trade with the natives in this bay and river of Narragansett and Sowames, which is, as it were, at our doors."
The authorities at Fort Amsterdam could not, for a moment, admit this claim of English supremacy over New Netherland. Director Minuit returned an answer, remarkable for its courteous tone, but in which he firmly maintained the right of the Dutch to trade with the Narragansetts as they had done for years, adding "As the English claim authority under the king of England, so we derive ours from the States of Holland, and we shall defend it."
Governor Bradford sent this correspondence to England. In an accompanying document he said,
"the Dutch, for strength of men and fortification, far exceed us in all this land. They have used trading here for six or seven and twenty years; but have begun to plant of later time; and now have reduced their trade to some order, and confined it only to their company, which, heretofore, was spoiled by their seamen and interlopers, as ours is, this year most notoriously. Besides spoiling our trade, the Dutch continue to sell muskets, powder and shot to the Indians, which will be the overthrow of all, if it be not looked into."
Director Minuit must have possessed some very noble traits of character. After waiting three months to receive a reply to his last communication, he sent another letter, reiterating the most friendly sentiments, and urging that an authorized agent should be sent from Plymouth to New Amsterdam, to confer "by word of mouth, touching our mutual commerce and trading." He stated, moreover, that if it were inconvenient for Governor Bradford to send such an agent, they would depute one to Plymouth themselves. In further token of kindness, he sent to the Plymouth Governor, "a rundlet of sugar and two Holland cheeses."
It is truly refreshing to witness the fraternal spirit manifested on this occasion. How many of the woes of this world might have been averted had the brotherhood of man been thus recognized by the leaders of the nations!
A messenger was sent to Plymouth. He was hospitably entertained, and returned to Fort Amsterdam with such testimonials of his reception as induced Director Minuit to send a formal ambassador to Plymouth, entrusted with plenipotentiary powers. Governor Bradford apologized for not sending an ambassador to Fort Amsterdam, stating, "one of our boats is abroad, and we have much business at home." Director Minuit selected Isaac De Rassieres, secretary of the province, "a man of fair and genteel behavior," as his ambassador. This movement was, to those infant colonies, an event of as much importance as any of the more stately embassies which have been interchanged between European courts.
The barque Nassau was fitted out, and manned with a small band of soldiers, and some trumpeters. It was the last of September, 1629, when earth and sky were bathed in all the glories of New England autumnal days. In De Rassieres' account of the excursion, he writes:
"Sailing through Hell-gate, and along the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island, we arrived, early the next month, off Frenchman's Point, at a small river where those of New Plymouth have a house, made of hewn oak planks, called Aptuxet; where they keep two men, winter and summer, in order to maintain the trade and possession."
This Aptuxet was at the head of Buzzard's Bay, upon the site of the present village of Monumet, in the town of Sandwich. Near by there was a creek, penetrating the neck of Cape Cod, which approached another creek on the other side so near that, by a portage of but about five miles, goods could be transported across.
As the Nassau came in sight of this lonely trading port suddenly the peals of the Dutch trumpets awoke the echoes of the forest. It was the 4th of October. A letter was immediately dispatched by a fleet-footed Indian runner to Plymouth. A boat was promptly sent to the head of the creek, called Manoucusett, on the north side of the cape, and De Rassieres, with his companions, having threaded the Indian trail through the wilderness for five miles, was received on board the Pilgrims' boat and conveyed to Plymouth, "honorably attended with the noise of trumpeters."2
This meeting was a source of enjoyment to both parties. The two nations of England and Holland were in friendly alliance, and consequently this interview, in the solitudes of the New World, of the representatives of the two colonies, was mutually agreeable. The Pilgrims, having many of them for a long time resided in Holland, cherished memories of that country with feelings of strong affection and regarded the Hollanders almost as fellow-countrymen.
But again Governor Bradford asserted the right of the English to the country claimed by the Dutch, and even intimated that force might soon be employed to vindicate the British pretentions. We must admire the conduct of both parties in this emergency. The Dutch, instead of retaliating with threats and violence, sent a conciliatory memorial to Charles I., then King of England. And Charles, much to his credit, issued an order that all the English ports, whether in the kingdom or in the territories of the British king, should be thrown open to the Dutch vessels, trading to or from New Netherland.
The management of the affairs of the Dutch Colony was entrusted to a body of merchants called the West India Company. In the year 1629, this energetic company purchased of the Indians the exclusive title to a vast territory, extending north from Cape Henlopen, on the south side of Delaware Bay, two miles in breadth and running thirty-two miles inland.
The reader of the record of these days, often meets with the word Patroon, without perhaps having any very distinct idea of its
Winslow in Young (p. 371).
Bradford in Prince, 248.