Read Ebook: Dutch and English on the Hudson: A Chronicle of Colonial New York by Goodwin Maud Wilder Jefferys Charles W Charles William Illustrator

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When Kieft sent to the tribe of the Weckquaesgeecks to inquire the cause of this murder and to demand the slayer, the Indian told the chief that he had seen his uncle robbed and killed at the fort while it was being built; that he himself had escaped and had vowed revenge; and that the unlucky Claes was the first white man upon whom he had a chance to wreak vengeance. The chief then replied to the Director that he was sorry that twenty Christians had not been killed and that the Indian had done only a pious duty in avenging his uncle.

In this emergency Kieft called a meeting at which the prominent burghers chose a committee of twelve to advise the Director. This took place in 1641. The Council was headed by Captain David de Vries, whose portrait with its pointed chin, high forehead, and keen eyes, justifies his reputation as the ablest man in New Netherland. He insisted that it was inadvisable to attack the Indians--not to say hazardous. Besides, the Company had warned them to keep peace. It is interesting to speculate on what would have been the effect on the colony if the Company's choice had fallen upon De Vries instead of on Kieft as Director.

Although restrained for the time, Kieft never relinquished his purpose. On February 24, 1643, he again announced his intention of making a raid upon the Indians, and in spite of further remonstrance from De Vries he sent out his soldiers, who returned after a massacre which disgraced the Director, enraged the natives, and endangered the colony. Kieft was at first proud of his treachery; but as soon as it was known every Algonquin tribe around New Amsterdam started on the warpath. From New Jersey to the Connecticut every farm was in peril. The famous and much-persecuted Anne Hutchinson perished with her family; towns were burned; and men, women, and children fled in panic.

On the approach of spring, when the Indians had to plant their corn or face famine, sachems of the Long Island Indians sought a parley with the Dutch. De Vries and Olfertsen volunteered to meet the savages. In the woods near Rockaway they found nearly three hundred Indians assembled. The chiefs placed the envoys in the center of the circle, and one among them, who had a bundle of sticks, laid down one stick at a time as he recounted the wrongs of his tribe. This orator told how the red men had given food to the settlers and were rewarded by the murder of their people, how they had protected and cherished the traders, and how they had been abused in return. At length De Vries, like the practical man that he was, suggested that they all adjourn to the Fort, promising them presents from the Director.

The evil that Kieft did lived after him and the good, if interred with his bones, would not have occupied much space in the tomb. The only positive advance during his rule--and that was carried through against his will--was the appointment of an advisory committee of the twelve men, representing the householders of the colony, who were called together in the emergency following the murder of Claes Smits, and in 1643 of a similar board of eight men, who protested against his arbitrary measures and later procured his recall.

When two burghers, Kuyter and Melyn, who had been leaders of the opposition to Kieft, petitioned Stuyvesant to investigate his conduct, Stuyvesant supported his predecessor on the ground that one Director should uphold another. At Kieft's instigation he even prosecuted and convicted Kuyter and Melyn for seditious attack on the government. When Melyn asked for grace till his case could be presented in the Fatherland, he was threatened, according to his own testimony, in language like this: "If I knew, Melyn, that you would divulge our sentence or bring it before Their High Mightinesses, I would cause you to be hanged at once on the highest tree in New Netherland." In another case the Director said: "It may during my administration be contemplated to appeal; but if anyone should do it, I will make him a foot shorter, and send the pieces to Holland and let him appeal in that way."

In support of the last indictment let us take his conduct in a conflict with the authorities at Rensselaerswyck. In 1646 Stuyvesant had ordered that no building should be erected within cannon-shot of Fort Orange. The superintendent of the settlement denied Stuyvesant's right to give such an order and pointed to the fact that his trading-house had been for a long time on the border of the fort. To the claim that a clear space was necessary to the fort's efficiency, Van Slichtenhorst, Van Rensselaer's agent, replied that he had spent more than six months in the colony and had never seen a single person carrying a sword, musket, or pike, nor had he heard a drum-beat except on the occasion of a visit from the Director and his soldiers in the summer. Stuyvesant rejoined by sending soldiers and sailors to tear down the house which Van Slichtenhorst was building near Fort Orange, and the commissary was ordered to arrest the builder if he resisted; but the commissary wrote that it would be impossible to carry out the order, as the settlers at Rensselaerswyck, re?nforced by the Indians, outnumbered his troops. Stuyvesant then recalled his soldiers and ordered Van Slichtenhorst to appear before him, which the agent refused to do.

In 1652 Stuyvesant ordered Dyckman, then in command at Fort Orange, not to allow any one to build a house near the fort or to remain in any house already built. In spite of proclamations and other bluster this order proved fruitless and on April 1, 1653, Stuyvesant came in person to Fort Orange and sent a sergeant to lower the patroon's flag. The agent refusing to strike the patroon's colors, the soldiers entered, lowered the flag, and discharged their guns. Stuyvesant declared that the region staked out by posts should be known as Beverwyck and instituted a court there. Van Slichtenhorst tore down the proclamation, whereupon Stuyvesant ordered him to be imprisoned in the fort. Later the Director transported the agent under guard to New Amsterdam.

The war which broke out in 1652 between England and the Netherlands, once leagued against Catholic Spain but now parted by commercial rivalries, found an immediate echo on the shores of the Hudson. With feverish haste the inhabitants of New Amsterdam began to fortify. Across the island at the northern limit of the town, on the line of what is now Wall Street, they built a wall with stout palisades backed by earthworks. They hastily repaired the fort, organized the citizens as far as possible to resist attack, and also strengthened Fort Orange. The New England Colonies likewise began warlike preparations; but, perhaps owing to the prudence of Stuyvesant in accepting the Treaty of Hartford, peace between the Dutch and English in the New World continued for the present, though on precarious terms; and, the immediate threat of danger being removed by the treaty between England and Holland in 1654, the New Netherlander relaxed their vigilance and curtailed the expense of fortifications.

Stuyvesant replied with his usual bigotry and in a rage at being contradicted. He asserted that there was little wisdom to be expected from popular election when naturally "each would vote for one of his own stamp, the thief for a thief, the rogue, the tippler and the smuggler for his brother in iniquity, so that he may enjoy more latitude in vice and fraud." Finally Stuyvesant ordered the delegates to disperse, declaring: "We derive our authority from God and the Company, not from a few ignorant subjects, and we alone can call the inhabitants together."

With popular support thus alienated and with appeals for financial and military aid from the States-General and the West India Company denied or ignored, the end of New Netherland was clearly in sight. In 1663 Stuyvesant wrote to the Company begging them to send him re?nforcements. "Otherwise," he said, "it is wholly out of our power to keep the sinking ship afloat any longer."

This year was full of omens. The valley of the Hudson was shaken by an earthquake followed by an overflow of the river, which ruined the crops. Smallpox visited the colony, and on top of all these calamities came the appalling Indian massacre at Esopus. The following year, 1664, brought the arrival of the English fleet, the declaration of war, and the surrender of the Dutch Province. For many years the English had protested against the Dutch claims to the territory on the North and South rivers. Their navigators had tried to contest the trade in furs, and their Government at home had interfered with vessels sailing to and from New Amsterdam. Now at length Charles II was ready to appropriate the Dutch possessions. He did not trouble himself with questions of international law, still less with international ethics; but, armed with the flimsy pretense that Cabot's visit established England's claim to the territory, he stealthily made preparations to seize the defenseless colony on the river which had begun to be known as the Hudson. Five hundred veteran troops were embarked on four ships, under command of Colonel Richard Nicolls, and sailed on their expedition of conquest. Stuyvesant's suspicions, aroused by rumors of invasion, were so far lulled by dispatches from Holland that he allowed several ships at New Amsterdam to sail for Cura?ao ladened with provisions, while he himself journeyed to Rensselaerswyck to quell an Indian outbreak. While he was occupied in this task, a messenger arrived to inform him that the English fleet was hourly expected in the harbor of New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant made haste down the river; but on the day after he arrived at Manhattan Island, he saw ships flying the flag of England in the lower harbor, where they anchored below the Narrows. Colonel Nicolls demanded the surrender of the "towns situate on the island commonly known by the name of Manhattoes, with all the forts thereunto belonging."

Although the case of New Amsterdam was now hopeless, Stuyvesant yet strove for delay. He sent a deputation to Nicolls to carry on a parley; but Nicolls was firm. "When may we visit you again?" the deputation asked. Nicolls replied with grim humor that he would speak with them at Manhattan. "Friends are welcome there," answered Stuyvesant's representative diplomatically; but Nicolls told them bluntly that he was coming with ships and soldiers. "Hoist a white flag at the fort," he said, "and I may consider your proposals."

Colonel Nicolls was as good as his word and, to the consternation of the dwellers in New Amsterdam, the fleet of English frigates, under full sail and with all guns loaded, appeared before the walls of the useless old Fort Amsterdam. Stuyvesant stood on one of the angles of the fort and the gunners with lighted matches awaited his command to fire. The people entreated him to yield. "Resistance is not soldiership," said one of them. "It is sheer madness." Stuyvesant, who with all his faults was a brave soldier, felt to the quick the humiliation; but he saw also that resistance meant only useless bloodshed. At last he submitted, and the English vessels sailed on their way unmolested, while Stuyvesant groaned, "I would much rather be carried to my grave."

Without firing a shot the English thus took possession of the rich country which the States-General had not thought worth defending, and New Netherland became New York.

DOMINES AND SCHOOL-TEACHERS

Because the Netherlander were not, like the New Englanders, fugitives from persecution at the hands of their fellow-countrymen, the Dutch colonization in America is often spoken of as a purely commercial venture; but in reality the founding of New Netherland marked a momentous epoch in the struggle for the freedom of conscience. Established between the long contest with the Inquisition in Spain and the Thirty Years' War for religious liberty in Germany, this plantation along the Hudson offered protection in America to those rights of free conscience for which so much blood had been shed and so much treasure spent in Europe.

They had no intention, however, of forcing this church discipline on those who could not conscientiously accept it. The devout wish of William the Silent that all his countrymen might dwell together in amity regardless of religious differences was fulfilled among the early settlers in New Netherland. Their reputation for tolerance was spread abroad early in the history of the colony, and Huguenots, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Moravians, and Anabaptists lived unmolested in New Netherland till the coming of Director Peter Stuyvesant in 1647.

In another case, a resident of Flushing ventured to hold Quaker meetings at his home. He was sentenced to pay a fine or submit to be flogged and banished; but the town officers refused to carry out the decree. A letter, signed by a number of prominent townsfolk of Flushing, declared that the law of love, peace, and liberty was the true glory of Holland, that they desired not to offend one of Christ's little ones under whatever name he appeared, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist, or Quaker. "Should any of these people come in love among us therefore," said they, "we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them." This letter immediately brought down upon the writers the despotic rage of Stuyvesant. The sheriff of Flushing was cashiered and fined; the town clerk was imprisoned; and penalties of varying degree were imposed on all the signers.

When accounts of Stuyvesant's proceedings reached Amsterdam, however, he received from the Chamber a letter of stinging rebuke, informing him that "the consciences of men ought to be free and unshackled, so long as they continue moderate, inoffensive, and not hostile to government." The Chamber, after reminding the Director that toleration in old Amsterdam had brought the oppressed and persecuted of all countries to that city as to an asylum, recommended Stuyvesant to follow in the same course. Herewith ended the brief period of religious persecution in New Netherland.

The amiable Domine Megapolensis who acquiesced in these persecutions came over to the colony of Rensselaerswyck in 1642 in the service of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. He was to have a salary of forty guilders per month and a fit dwelling that was to be provided for him. So the "Reverend, Pious, and learned Dr. Johannes Megapolensis, junior," set sail for America "to proclaim Christ to Christians and heathens in such distant lands." His name, by the way, like that of Erasmus, Melanchthon, AEcolampadius, Dryander, and other worthies of the Reformation, was a classical form of the homely Dutch patronymic to which he had been born.

When Megapolensis arrived at New Netherland he found the Reverend Everardus Bogardus already installed as minister of the Gospel at Fort Amsterdam, his predecessor Michaelius having returned to Holland. From the beginning Bogardus proved a thorn in the side of the Government. He came to blows with Van Twiller and wrote a letter to the Director in which he called him a child of the Devil, a villain whose bucks were better than he, to whom he should give such a shake from the pulpit the following Sabbath as would make him shudder.

Evidently religion prospered better than education in the colony, for the same lively witness who reports the Bogardus affair and the generosity stimulated by the flowing wine says also: "The bowl has been passed around a long time for a common school which has been built with words, for as yet the first stone is not laid; some materials only have been provided. However the money given for the purpose has all disappeared and is mostly spent, so that it falls somewhat short; and nothing permanent has as yet been effected for this purpose."

The duties of these early teachers were by no means light, especially in proportion to their scanty wage. We learn in one case that school began at eight in the morning and lasted until eleven, when there was a two-hour recess, after which it began again at one and closed at four o'clock. It was the duty of the teacher to instruct the children in the catechism and common prayer. The teacher was ordered to appear at the church on Wednesdays with the children entrusted to his care, to examine his scholars "in the presence of the Reverend Ministers and Elders who may be present, what they in the course of the week, do remember of the Christian commands and catechism, and what progress they have made; after which the children shall be allowed a decent recreation."

Besides his duties as instructor, the official schoolmaster was pledged "to promote religious worship, to read a portion of the word of God to the people, to endeavor, as much as possible to bring them up in the ways of the Lord, to console them in their sickness, and to conduct himself with all diligence and fidelity in his calling, so as to give others a good example as becometh a devout, pious and worthy consoler of the sick, church-clerk, Precenter and School master."

Throughout the history of New Netherland we find the church and school closely knit together. Frequently the same building served for secular instruction on week-days and for religious service on Sundays. In a letter written by Van Curler to his patroon, he says: "As for the Church it is not yet contracted for, nor even begun.... That which I intend to build this summer in the pine grove will be thirty-four feet long by nineteen wide. It will be large enough for the first three or four years to preach in and can afterwards always serve for the residence of the sexton or for a school."

There is the true ring of a devout and simple piety in all the utterances of the settlers on the subject of their church. The pioneers were ready to spend and be spent in its service and they gave freely out of their scanty resources for its support. In the matter of education their enthusiasm, as we have seen, was far less glowing, and the reasons for this coolness are a subject for curious consideration. The Dutch in Europe were a highly cultivated people, devoted to learning and reverencing the printed book. Why then were their countrymen in the New World willing to leave the education of their children in the hands of inferior teachers and to delay so long the building of suitable schoolhouses?

THE BURGHERS

In the earliest days of New Netherland there were no burgers because, as the name implies, burghers are town-dwellers, and for a number of years after the coming of the Dutch nothing worthy to be called a town existed in the colony. In the middle of the seventeenth century a traveler wrote from New Netherland that there were only three towns on the Hudson--Fort Orange, Rondout, and New Amsterdam--and that the rest were mere villages or settlements.

These centers were at first trading-posts, and it is as idle to judge of the manners, customs, and dress prevailing in them by those of Holland at the same epoch, as to judge San Francisco in the mining days of 1849 by Boston and New York at the same date. These early traders and settlers brought with them the character and traditions of home; but their way of life was perforce modified by the crude conditions into which they plunged. The picturesque farmhouses of Long Island and the crow-gables of New Amsterdam were not built in a day. Savages must be subdued and land cleared and planted before the evolution of the dwelling could fairly begin. Primitive community life lingered long even on Manhattan Island. As late as 1649 the farmers petitioned for a free pasturage between their plantation of Schepmoes and the fence of the Great Bowerie Number One. The City Hall Park region bounded by Broadway, Nassau, Ann, and Chambers Streets continued very late to be recognized as village commons where the cattle were pastured. The cowherd drove the cows afield and home again at milking-time, and it was his business to sound his horn at every gate announcing the safe return of the cows. Correspondingly in the morning the harsh summons called the cattle from every yard to join the procession toward the meadows.

When Tienhoven, Stuyvesant's secretary, sent out information for the benefit of those planning to take up land in New Netherland, he suggested that those who had not means to build at first might shelter themselves by digging a pit six or seven feet deep as large as needed, covering the floor and walls with timber and placing over it a roof of spars covered with bark or green sods. Even with this rude housing he suggests planting at once a garden with all sorts of pot-herbs and maize, or Indian corn, which might serve as food for man and beast alike. Naturally these pioneer conditions of living lasted longer in the farming region than at New Amsterdam, where as early as 1640 we see simple but comfortable little houses clustered in the shelter of the fort, and gathered close about the stone tavern, the West India Company's stores, and the Church of St. Nicholas. The gallows and pillory, in full view, seemed to serve notice that law and order had asserted themselves and that settlers might safely solidify their houses and holdings.

In 1648 the building of wooden chimneys was forbidden, and roofs of reed were replaced with more solid and less inflammable material. The constant threat of fire led to drastic regulations for the cleaning of chimneys. It was ordered that "if anyone prove negligent he shall, whenever the Firewardens find the chimneys foul, forthwith without any contradiction, pay them a fine of three guilders for every flue found on examination to be dirty, to be expended for fire ladders, hooks and buckets, which shall be procured and provided at the earliest and most convenient opportunity."

As prosperity increased, all conditions of living improved. Many ships from Holland brought loads of brick and tiles as ballast, and the houses began to assume the typical Dutch aspect. They were still built chiefly of wood, but with a gable end of brick facing the street. The steep roofs seldom had eave-troughs, at least in the early days, and mention is made in deeds of "free-drip."

The house was supplied, as the chronicler tells us, with "an abundance of large doors and small windows on every floor, the date of its erection was curiously designated by iron figures on the front, and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce little weather-cock to let the family into the important secret which way the wind blew." The front doors were usually divided, as in the old houses in Holland, into an upper and lower half hung on heavy hinges. The door opened with a latch, and bore a brass knocker wrought frequently in the device of an animal's head.

A shrewd observer has said that luxury implies waste while comfort lives in thrift. We are safe in assuming that comfort rather than luxury prevailed in New Netherland and that the highly colored pictures of elegant life on the shores of the Hudson represent a very late phase, when the Dutch influence still prevailed under English protection. The earlier settlers were a far simpler people, whose floors were scrubbed and sanded instead of carpeted, who used hour-glasses instead of clocks, and who set their four-poster beds in the rooms where visitors were formally received.

To those of us who believe that the state exists for the protection of the home and the home for the protection of the child, it is neither futile nor frivolous to consider at some length what life had to offer to the small colonists. Little Sarah Rapaelje, "the first-born Christian daughter in New Netherland," was soon surrounded by a circle of boys and girls. Cornelis Maasen and his wife came over in 1631, and their first child was born on the voyage. Following this little Hendrick came Martin, Maas, Steyntje, and Tobias. We have already noted the two little motherless daughters of Domine Michaelius who were so hard put to it for a nurse. A little later came Domine Megapolensis with his children Hellegond, Dirrick, Jan, and Samuel, running from eight to fourteen years in age. The patroon had directed that they be furnished with clothing "in such small and compact parcels as can be properly stowed away on the ship."

However rude the sleeping-place of the babies, the old home lullabies soothed them to slumber. Dearest and most familiar was the following:

Trip a trop a tronjes, De varken in de boonjes, De koejes in de klaver, De paaden in de haver, De eenjes in de water plas, De kalver in de lang gras, So goed myn klein poppetje was.

Thus to pictures of pigs in the bean patch and cows in the clover, ducks in the water and calves in the meadow, the little ones fell peacefully to sleep, oblivious of the wild beasts and wilder men lurking in the primeval forests around the little clearing where the pioneers were making a home for themselves and their children.

With an appetite bred of out-of-door work and play, and a breakfast hour at five or six in the morning, the children were hungry for the homely and substantial dinner when it eventually appeared at early noon. Whatever social visits were planned took place at the supper, which occurred between three o'clock and six. The tea-table, the chronicler tells us,

was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork and fried trout, cut up into morsels and swimming in gravy. The company, being seated round the genial board and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes.

In the houses of the richer colonists, as prosperity advanced, shell-shaped silver boxes for sugar, called "bite and stir" boxes, were set on the table and, according to one authority, the lumps of sugar were of the nature of toffy with molasses added to the sugar.

If winter offered sports and pastimes, spring, summer, and autumn had each its own pleasures, fishing and clam digging, shooting and trapping, games with ball and slings, berry picking, and the gathering of peaches which fell so thickly that the very hogs refused them. The market days in New Amsterdam offered a long procession of delights to the young colonists. But merriest of all were the holidays which were observed in New Netherland after much the same fashion as in the old home.

I do not know how to account for the fact that while the struggle of the Dutch people with the Papacy had been as bitter as that of England and the throwing off of the yoke by the Dutch fully as decided, they still retained the holidays which the Puritans eschewed as dangerous remnants of superstition. Perhaps it was on the principle of robbing Satan of his hoofs and horns but keeping his cheerful scarlet costume, or perhaps they thought, as Rowland Hill remarked, that "it was poor policy to leave all the good times to the Devil." In any case it was all grist to the children's mill.

But keen as the delight of the Dutch children may have been, there was in their minds the hope of even better things to come a few weeks later, at their own especial, particular, undisputed feast of St. Nicholas, the beloved Santa Claus, patron saint of children in general and of young Netherlanders in particular. The 6th of December was the day dedicated to this genial benefactor, and on the eventful night a white sheet was spread on the floor. Around this stood the children singing songs of welcome, of which the most popular was the familiar

Saint Nicholaes, goed heilig man, Trekt uw'besten tabbard aan, En reist daamee naar Amsterdam, Von Amsterdam naar Spanje.

When the dust-sheet and litter of wrappings had been removed, the older people gathered around a table spread with a white cloth and set out with chocolate punch and a dish of steaming hot chestnuts, while the inevitable pipe, ornamented with a head of St. Nicholas, made its appearance and the evening ended with dancing and song in honor of the "goed heilig man."

At any rate the spirit of mystery lurked on the outskirts of the Dutch settlements, and the youthful burghers along the Hudson were fed full on tales, mostly of a terrifying nature, drawn from the folklore of three races, the Dutch, the Indians, and the Africans, with some few strands interwoven from local legend and tradition that had already grown up along the banks of the Hudson.

It was a simple but by no means a pitiable life that was led in those days by burghers and farmers alike on the shores of this great river. Never does the esteemed Diedrich Knickerbocker come nearer the truth than when he says: "Happy would it have been for New Amsterdam could it always have existed in this state of blissful ignorance and lowly simplicity; but alas! the days of childhood are too sweet to last. Cities, like men, grow out of them in time and are doomed alike to grow into the bustle, the cares and the miseries of the world."

THE NEIGHBORS OF NEW NETHERLAND

Machiavelli observed that to the wise ruler only two courses were open--to conciliate or to crush. The history of the Dutch in America illustrates by application the truth of this view. The settlers at Fort Orange conciliated the Indians and by this means not only lived in peace with the native tribes but established a bulwark between themselves and the French. Under Stuyvesant the settlers at Fort Amsterdam took a determined stand against the Swedes and crushed their power in America. Toward the English, however, the Dutch adopted a course of feeble aggression unbacked by force. Because they met English encroachments with that most fatal of all policies, protest without action, the Empire of the United Netherlands in America was blotted from the map.

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