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 Illustrated title-])age of Philip von Zesen's 
 JJcscriflioii of Ajiistcrdaiii 
 
"Che 
 
 DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY 
 ON THE HUDSON 
 
 BY 
 LUCY M. SALMON 
 
 WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 POUGHKEEPSIE. NEW YORK 
 1915 
 
./ 
 
 •S27 
 
 Copyright, 1915, 
 
 by 
 Lucy M. Salmon 
 
 CI.A414076 
 
 pol. 
 
 OCT II 1915 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 This paper was originally prepared for the celebration 
 of the Hudson-Fulton anniversary in 1909. Part of the 
 material for it was collected in Holland, although it was 
 of a character difficult to cite by "chapter and verse." 
 Three weeks in Amsterdam and the Hague, a day in 
 Utrecht, a trip to the Helder with a glimpse of the island 
 of Texel from which Henry Hudson had sailed on the 
 Half Moon, another day in Brill the high tower of whose 
 cathedral Mary Princess of Orange is said to have 
 climbed when William of Orange was leaving Holland 
 for England, — this supplementing two previous visits to 
 Holland, while it gave nothing in the way of discovery 
 of new material, did give a picture of the material con- 
 ditions out of which the Dutch West India Company 
 grew that has helped the writer to have a better under- 
 standing of the history of the Chartered Company on the 
 Hudson. The illustrations secured at that time may give 
 the reader an interest in the subject. The paper itself is 
 but an attempt to re-state familiar facts and to gather 
 into convenient form some of the data available for a 
 study of ancestry. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Introduction. 
 
 Our national ancestors 11 
 
 Our indebtedness to the Dutch 12 
 
 The Dutch as traders. 
 
 Commercial routes of the Middle Ages 13 
 
 Necessity for finding new routes 14 
 
 An English pilot , 14 
 
 The Chartered Company as a trader 15 
 
 The Dutch West India Company 17 
 
 Amsterdam in the seventeenth century 21 
 
 Trade a failure without colonization 23 
 
 The Dutch as colonizers. 
 
 The Chartered Company as a colonizer 25 
 
 The Dutch West India Company as a colonizer 30 
 
 The patroons 31 
 
 Difficulties between the Company and the patroons... 35 
 
 Net results of the patroon system 38 
 
 Kiliaen Van Rensselaer 39 
 
 Troubles in Rensselaerswyck 41 
 
 Patroonship in absentia 42 
 
 Change of landlords. 
 
 Long live the king ! 45 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Illustrated title-page of Philip von Zesen's Description 
 
 of Amsterdam . . . Frontispiece. ^ 
 
 It was the fashion in the seventeenth century for cities of 
 the Netherlands to have themselves described and illustrated by 
 some well-known writer of the day. The Description of Amster- 
 dam is an excellent example of works of this class, and it has 
 more than seventy copper-plate illustrations and maps which 
 are invaluable records of conditions in Amsterdam in 1664 and 
 earlier. The illustrated title-page symbolizes the wide com- 
 mercial interests of the city. The coat of arms of Amsterdam 
 appears on the right. The copy of von Zesen from which this 
 illustration is taken was obtained at the Hague in 1909 for the 
 library of Vassar College. 
 
 The Dutch West India Company, Haarlemerstraat, Am- 
 sterdam .... Facing page 16 
 
 This building was occupied by the Dutch West India Com- 
 pany in 1623. The approach to the second story from the side 
 is a common architectural feature seen in Amsterdam to-day, 
 and it may be seen on a few houses in the lower part of Pough- 
 keepsie. It suggests the variation seen in the double external 
 stairway used in the original construction of the entrance to 
 the Main Building, Vassar College. 
 
 Seal of the City of New Amsterdam, 1654. 
 
 Facing page 20 
 
 This illustration has been drawn from a copy of the seal 
 on a plaque issued by the Holland Society of New York in 1913 
 and it is an exact reproduction of the wax seal authenticated by 
 the Society. "The cord of white silk" has been adapted from the 
 seal attached to the Charter of the City of Albany given in His- 
 toric New York, edited by Maud Wilder Goodwin, Alice Car- 
 rington Royce and Ruth Putnam. An exhaustive history of the 
 Seal and Flag of the City of Nezv York, edited by John B. Pine, 
 1915, gives illustrations and descriptions of the seals used by 
 the city. 
 
 The monogram, G. W. C, on the escutcheon, stands for 
 Geoctroyeerde West Indische Compagnie, or Chartered West India 
 Company. 
 
The Dutch West India House on the Singel, Amster- 
 dam Facing page 30 
 
 The central building was occupied for a time by the Dutch 
 West India Company. 
 
 The Dutch West India House on the Rappenberg-, Am- 
 sterdam .... Facing page 36 
 
 This building was finished and occupied in 1642. It is now 
 used as a warehouse. The device of the Dutch West India 
 Company can be seen on the tympanum facing the street; the 
 entrances at the two ends of the building embody the same ar- 
 chitectural ideas noted in the building on the Haarlemerstraat. 
 
 The Weepers' Tower, Amsterdam . Facing page 40 
 
 This illustration is taken from von Zesen. When the 
 Dutch sailors embarked on long voyages their friends bade 
 them farewell from this tower. A bas-relief on one side repre- 
 sents a woman weeping and a ship leaving the shore; it bears 
 the date 1569. The tower stands not far from the central rail- 
 way station in Amsterdam. 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY 
 ON THE HUDSON 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY 
 ON THE HUDSON 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes tells us that if we are to 
 educate a boy properly, we must begin with his 
 grandfather. It is even more true to say that if 
 we are to understand the conditions in the midst 
 of which we live, we must study not so much these 
 conditions as they exist to-day, as their origin in a 
 remote past. As far back as we can trace our an- 
 cestral tree, just so far in the past do we find the 
 influences that have helped to make us what we 
 are. The history of America does not begin with 
 the adoption of the federal constitution that made 
 possible a united country, or yet with the Declar- 
 ation of Independence that made possible a new 
 nation, or even with the discovery of iVmerica, 
 whether that discovery be attributed to Columbus 
 or to the Norsemen. Its beginnings are in Europe, 
 and where the history of Europe begins, there be- 
 gins our own history. 
 
 Dr. Holmes does not specify whether he had in 
 mind the paternal or the maternal grandfather 
 of the bo}^ We whose fortune it is to have our 
 homes in the Hudson Valley, whether temporarily 
 or permanently, are confronted by a similar ques- 
 tion, — one of our national grandfathers was Dutch, 
 and one was English, while a long list of kinsmen 
 
 11 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 connect ns with nearly every country of Europe. 
 Shall we attribute to the one or to the other the 
 origin of the conditions about usf The answer 
 must be — to both and all. Yet it is comparatively 
 easy to classify roughly the main sources of our 
 indebtedness to each and to trace back to Holland, 
 for example, many of the distinctive characteris- 
 tics of the life about us. If then we are to under- 
 stand some of the unique conditions that have 
 prevailed for three hundred j^ears in the Hudson 
 Valley and the fringe of territory on its borders, 
 we must seek the ancestral home of its first set- 
 tlers and organizers. If we are to understand 
 why the Hudson River is bordered by extensive 
 estates, why the somewhat infrequent towns on its 
 banks have narrow streets with houses built on 
 narrow lots, crowded together, practically without 
 front or side yards, but with long yards in the 
 rear; why many houses have stoops; why the 
 children beg from house to house on Thanksgiving 
 Day ; why we eat cookies and waffles ; why we cul- 
 tivate flowers to sell rather than to enjoy ; why we 
 have a Market Street in Poughkeepsie ; why as 
 communities we give new ideas an intellectual as- 
 sent but are slow to carry them out in practice; 
 why the commercial spirit is so strongly devel- 
 oped among us and the appreciation and love of 
 the beautiful so comparatively weak, — to under- 
 stand these and a hundred other major and minor 
 characteristics that prevail in the Hudson Valley 
 we must go back at least five hundred years and 
 
 12 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 examine first the causes that led Europeans to 
 seek new fields, and second the reasons that led 
 them America-ward. 
 
 During the Middle Ages the commercial routes 
 of Europe both by land and by sea may be roughly 
 classified as those that connected Europe with the 
 Orient, and those that connected the Mediterra- 
 nean countries with those of Northern Europe. 
 For practically all routes the great focus was Con- 
 stantinople. When therefore that city was occu- 
 pied by the Turks in 1453, the trading countries 
 of Europe faced an impasse, — the Turk not only 
 blocked the way, but he had a long memory that 
 went as far back as the Crusades, and there was 
 no hope that he could be dislodged. New avenues 
 of approach to the wealth of the Indies must there- 
 fore be found. Heretofore the islands and the 
 peninsulas of the great inland seas had played an 
 important part in commerce, — they had served as 
 stepping-stones to facilitate the passage from 
 shore to shore and to render remote lands com- 
 paratively near. By an apparently fortuous 
 chance at the very moment that the old routes to 
 the East were closed by the occupation of Con- 
 stantinople by an enemy, the discovery of the com- 
 pass made the mariner independent of the islands. 
 Substituting the compass therefore for the islands, 
 men ventured on the high seas. If the Turk pre- 
 vented their approach from the east, they would 
 
 13 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 circumvent the Turk and reach their goal by sail- 
 ing west. Thus for one hundred and fifty years 
 the one ambition of every great trading company 
 was to find a competent pilot who should open up 
 for them a new route. 
 
 Among the most reputed of these sea pilots was 
 an English gentleman, Henry Hudson by name. 
 He enjoyed the friendship and the confidence of 
 the great cartographers of the time and was in 
 frequent conference with them. He exchanged 
 notes, maps, and experiences with the great Dutch 
 cartographer, Domine Plancius, and the merchants 
 of Amsterdam invited him to a conference with 
 reference to entering their service. But they felt 
 that they could not act without the co-operation 
 of their fellow merchants in other parts of the 
 Netherlands, and while they deliberated and hesi- 
 tated to act the agents of Henry IV. secretly en- 
 tered into negotiations with him, hoping to fore- 
 stall the Dutch and secure the services of the re- 
 nowned pilot for France. Spurred on by the pos- 
 sibility of losing Hudson to their rival, the leading 
 members of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch 
 East India Company acted on their own responsi- 
 bility and closed the contract with Hudson. It is 
 an idle, but an interesting, diversion to speculate 
 on the different conditions that might prevail in 
 the Hudson Valley to-day had Henry Hudson 
 closed his contract with the emissaries of the 
 
 14 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 French king rather than with the merchants of 
 Amsterdam. He thus entered the service of the 
 Dutch East India Company and made his third 
 voyage which resulted in the exploration of the 
 Hudson River from New York to Albany. 
 
 But while Henry Hudson had thus opened up to 
 Dutch occupation an almost unknown territory of 
 enormous extent and richness, he had exceeded 
 the instructions given him by his employers, and 
 he found neither a northwest nor a northeast pas- 
 sage to India. What mattered it that the journal 
 kept by an officer of the Half Moon after they 
 reached New York Harbor says "This is a very 
 good Land to fall with and a pleasant Land to 
 see," and that the Dutch sailors who went on 
 shore found the land "pleasant with Grasse and 
 Flowers, and goodly Trees, as ever they had scene, 
 and very sweet smells came from them,"^ — the 
 Dutch East India Company took no interest in the 
 country laid at its feet, and its own interest in 
 the new world languished. A few years later its 
 lost opportunity was seized by its rival, the Dutch 
 West India Company. 
 
 The seventeenth century has been called "the 
 age of great monopolies and grasping charters." 
 Foreign trade was not carried on by private initia- 
 
 1 Robert Juet, "The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson." 
 in Narratives of Nezv Netherland, ed. bv J. Franklin Jameson, 
 pp. 17, 19. , J J , 
 
 15 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 live but by powerful companies that received their 
 charter of privileges from the Crown. England, 
 France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Rus- 
 sia and the Netherlands all had their great char- 
 tered companies holding various trading monop- 
 olies, chiefly in the East Indies. With the open- 
 ing of the supjDosed western route to the Indies, 
 corresponding companies were chartered by the 
 various governments and these held the monopoly 
 of trade and claimed the monopoly of their own 
 routes. Yet while the chartered company flour- 
 ished in special vigor in the seventeenth century, 
 it was not confined to that period, — the chartered 
 comj)any of South Africa of to-day is the historic 
 descendant of the great companies of three hun- 
 dred years ago. 
 
 The object of the chartered company has every- 
 where and at all times, irrespective of time, place 
 or nationality, been invariably the same, — it has 
 been to seek wealth for itself primarily through 
 trade, sometimes combined with the nominal sub- 
 sidiary object of Christianizing the native races. 
 It has claimed the control of the territory in which 
 trade has been carried on, but it has never con- 
 cerned itself with the settlement of this territory 
 except in so far as settlers have seemed necessary 
 agents in carrying on trade. As the object of the 
 chartered company has always been the same, so, 
 while its history has varied in details, in essen- 
 tials all the companies have passed through the 
 same experiences, — all have quarrelled on the one 
 
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THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 hand with the Crown from whom they have re- 
 ceived their grant of privileges, they have quar- 
 relled on the other hand with the agents and set- 
 tlers expected to carry out their plans, and all 
 have sooner or later, voluntarily or involuntarily, 
 relinquished their charters. The chartered com- 
 pany has been crushed between the upper and the 
 nether millstone. 
 
 Of all the powerful chartered companies whose 
 life history is comprised within the limits of the 
 seventeenth century, none was more powerful than 
 the Dutch West India Company. The States Gen- 
 eral of Holland in 1621 granted it for a term of 
 twenty-four years a monopoly of trading privi- 
 leges in the new world, ''finding," as they said, 
 "by experience that without the common help, aid 
 and means of a general company, no profitable 
 business can be carried on, protected and main- 
 tained in the parts hereafter designated on ac- 
 count of the great risk from pirates, extortions 
 and the like, which are incurred on such long and 
 distant voyages ; we, therefore, have re- 
 solved that the navigation, trade and commerce in 
 the West Indies, Africa and other countries here- 
 after designated, shall henceforth not be carried 
 on otherwise than with the common united 
 strength of the merchants and inhabitants of this 
 country and that to this end there shall be es- 
 tablished a general company which we will 
 
 17 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 maintaiu and strengthen with onr help, favor and 
 
 assistance and for that purpose furnish 
 
 with a proper charter and endow with the privi- 
 leges and exemptions hereafter enumerated. ' ' ^ 
 
 The Dutch West India Company to whom the 
 charter was granted was made up of merchants 
 residing in different parts of the Netherlands, 
 and it was given the monopoly of trade in the New 
 AVorld and in Africa from the Tropic of Cancer 
 to the Cape of Good Hope, and all persons trad- 
 ing in these parts without the consent of the Com- 
 pany did so under penalty of confiscation of ships 
 and goods. Great as was this concession, it was 
 accompanied by others not inferior in point of in- 
 fluence and power. The Company was given per- 
 mission to make alliances and contracts with the 
 princes and natives of the country, to build fort- 
 resses, to appoint and to remove civil, military, 
 and judicial officers, to promote the settlement of 
 fertile and uninhabited districts, to make good by 
 all such means as could properly be employed all 
 losses sustained through cheating on the part of 
 false friends, or goods or money improperly with- 
 held from them, to apprehend deserters, to defend 
 themselves if trade should be injured in spite of 
 treaties, and to retain all prizes of war, subject 
 to certain necessary deductions. Translating these 
 somewhat veiled phrases into definite statements, 
 
 ^ A. J. F. van Laer, ed., Van Rensselaer Bonner Manuscripts, 
 pp. 87, 89. The Charter is given in full both in the original 
 Dutch and in translation. 
 
 18 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 the meaniug" is clear, — the States General trans- 
 ferred to the Company the task of continuing the 
 contest with Spain by giving it the right to make 
 reprisals on the high seas. How well it performed 
 the task is evident from a report of its services 
 rendered a few years later by the Directors to the 
 States General, — they have had at heart the main- 
 tenance of the true Reformed religion and the lib- 
 erties of the beloved Fatherland, they have cap- 
 tured the fleet from New Spain, amounting ' ' to so 
 great a treasure, that never did any fleet bring 
 such a prize to this, or any other country," and 
 they have not only drained the King of Spain's 
 treasury, but also further pursued him at con- 
 siderable expense by depriving him of so much 
 silver, which was as blood from one of the arteries 
 of his heart/ 
 
 The obligations incurred by the Company in 
 return for these great concessions seem somewhat 
 nominal and formal. It was required to transmit 
 to the home government contracts and alliances 
 made, to report the situation of fortresses and 
 settlements begun, to send accounts of the equip- 
 ment of the ships to the home government and to 
 the Chambers of Directors, to render every six 
 years a general accounting of all profits and losses 
 in trade and in war, to keep its capital intact and 
 not to admit new members, and to bind themselves 
 (the Directors) by oath to conduct the affairs of 
 
 ^ E. B. O'Callaghan, ed.. Documents Relative to the Colonial His- 
 tory of the State of New York, I., 40-42. 
 
 19 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 the Company witli wisdom and witli justice to all. 
 
 Their High Mightinesses the Lords States Gen- 
 eral of the United Netherlands promised on their 
 part to furnish necessary troops, provided they 
 be paid by the Company ; not to requisition for its 
 own use the ships, ordnance, or ammunition of 
 the Company without its consent; exemptions 
 from toll to any of the United Provinces for them- 
 selves, their ships and their goods; exemptions 
 from export and import duties for eight years ; to 
 maintain and defend the trade and navigation of 
 the Company both with money and with ships. 
 They reserved to themselves the confirmation of 
 appointments to office of the governor-general, 
 and demanded an oath of allegiance to themselves 
 as well as to the Comj^any, on the part of governor 
 general, vice-governor, commanders and officers, 
 as also an oath of allegiance by troops to itself as 
 well as to Company, and they reserved a casting 
 vote in case of disagreement in the Assembly. 
 
 Special provisions of the Charter concerned 
 the internal management of the Company, and 
 two years later the States General gave their ap- 
 proval to the plan of organization determined on 
 by the Company for its government.^ How closely 
 this organization was modeled on the federal or- 
 ganization of the United Netherlands is evident 
 from the following table : — 
 
 1 This varied from the original plan in details rather than in 
 fundamental principles. 
 
 20 
 
SEAL OI' THI' CIT^• ()]• NM<:W AMSTI-.RDAM. 1()54 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 Organization of the Dutch West India Company. 
 
 Parts Directors Assembly 
 
 Amsterdam 4-9 20 8 
 
 Zeeland 2-9 12 4 
 
 Maas 1-9 14 2 
 
 Noorder-quartier 1-9 14 2 
 
 Friesland & Groningen . 1-9 14 2 
 
 The States General 1 
 
 9-9 74 19 
 
 The original charter was supplemented by two 
 further amplifications of the privileges conferred, 
 all of these agreements having ' ' a seal pendant of 
 red wax on a cord of white silk. ' ' 
 
 Thus was launched on fair seas the great trad- 
 ing monopoly whose history was so vitally con- 
 nected with that of the great river valley opened 
 up to the Dutch by the English pilot, Henry 
 Hudson. 
 
 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 not only the richest city in the United Netherlands, 
 but the richest and the greatest mercantile city of 
 all Europe was Amsterdam. In the prolonged con- 
 test with Spain it had not suffered severely and 
 its recuperative powers had been great. The mis- 
 fortunes of the cities of the Spanish Netherlands, 
 Antwerp in particular, had worked to its advan- 
 tage, while the change in commercial routes had 
 left stranded cities like Lisbon and Venice that had 
 
 21 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 never dreamed of it as a rival. The persecuted of 
 all religious faiths had flocked to it, enterprising 
 merchants, skilled workmen, successful manu- 
 facturers, distinguished artists had all found in 
 it a place of refuge, and each in turn had con- 
 tributed to its wealth and prosperity. Its ships 
 were found in all the known waters of the globe, 
 the treasures of the Indies were unloaded on its 
 docks, its warehouses held the choicest products 
 of the world, the business of Europe was trans- 
 acted on the Amsterdam Exchange, and the Bank 
 of Amsterdam, which quickly came to be an ob- 
 ject of admiration on the part of all, was founded 
 in the very year in which the truce with Spain 
 was made. The formation in 1602 of the Dutch 
 East India Company with a capital nearly eight- 
 fold that of the English East India Company had 
 resulted in such phenomenal success that it is said 
 to have divided among its stockholders upwards 
 of four times its original capital during the first 
 twenty years of its existence and it hiad quickly 
 raised Amsterdam to the very pinnacle of com- 
 mercial pre-eminence. What could be more fitting 
 than that Amsterdam should play the leading part 
 in the organization and history of the Dutch West 
 India Company which, furnished with the extraor- 
 dinary powers that have been described, seemed 
 destined to outstrip its rival, the Dutch East India 
 Company? Wliat its opportunity was is evident 
 from the table already shown giving the organiza- 
 tion of the Company; and that the Company 
 
 22 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 quickly availed itself of the opportunity is also 
 evident from the records. The States General 
 erected the territory known as New Netherland 
 into a province and invested it with the armorial 
 bearings of a count. The management of the 
 province was given to the Chamber of Amster- 
 dam, and Peter Minuet was appointed the first 
 director-general. It is also evident that the direc- 
 tors of the Company made unseemly haste to take 
 up lands. Even before the charter had been ap- 
 proved by the States General and while its provi- 
 sions were still under discussion by the Company 
 itself, several of them sent out agents to purchase 
 the Indian titles to land within the province to be 
 assigned to the Company, and thus be ready to 
 become patroons as soon as the charter passed the 
 seals. Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert 
 took up territory on the Delaware River and called 
 their colony Swansdale, — this was the first colony 
 in New Netherland. Michel Pauw took up lands 
 on the west side of the Hudson in the present state 
 of New Jersey and called his grant Pavonia, while 
 Kiliaen Van Rensselaer took up the extensive 
 tracts on the upper Hudson, — all these were mem- 
 bers of the Amsterdam Chamber. Thus was in- 
 augurated the part which the rich and influential 
 city of Amsterdam was to take in the development 
 of the Hudson Valley and the adjacent territory. 
 
 There is an old saying that it is the first step 
 that counts, yet the history of the Dutch West 
 
 23 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 India Company is proof that tlie first step is in- 
 effective unless a second one is taken. The Dutch 
 West India Company had secured from the States 
 General a charter giving it the monopoly of trade 
 in America, but it was ineffective without colon- 
 ists through whom trade could be carried on, — the 
 half of the pair of shears needed its complement. 
 But the affairs of the ComjDany were complicated 
 by the assertion of trading privileges in the same 
 territorj" claimed by English rivals; there was a 
 difference of opinion in the Company itself as to 
 the desirability of encouraging settlements, the 
 territory was maintained at great expense and 
 settlements were made slowly. 
 
 The difficulties with their English neighbors on 
 the east were temporarily settled through the in- 
 tervention of the English king, and a polite corre- 
 spondence carried on between Governor Brad- 
 ford of Plymouth and Director-General Minuit. 
 The Chartered Company had in its origin sought 
 for itself only the advantages accruing through 
 trade, it had been given the permission to estab- 
 lish settlements, but it had been divided in opinion 
 as to the wisdom of so doing. The majoritj^ of the 
 Company had been slow to perceive that the con- 
 ditions in an undeveloped country differed from 
 those in one long established, — that while the 
 Dutch East India Company had grown enormous- 
 ly rich through trade with thickly populated coun- 
 tries, their own dividends would be precarious if 
 they relied entirely on trade with the Indians and 
 
 24 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 that thus the territory could not become perma- 
 nently profitable. For some years, however, the 
 majority of the Company maintained its position 
 that the fur trade with the Indians was a sufficient 
 basis for it, or that if it did not yield an adequate 
 revenue, it at least ought to do so. 
 
 But the Company found, instead of revenue, an 
 increasing burden of expense and dwindling 
 profits. After seven years of more or less disap- 
 pointment with the results secured through trade 
 alone, the Assembly of the Nineteen inaugurated a 
 plan for encouraging the planting of colonies or 
 settlements in the territory over which they had 
 jurisdiction. When, therefore, it determined on 
 this step, its plan for carrying out the policy coin- 
 cided with that followed by the States General of 
 Holland and by the Crown in other countries. It 
 was not in a position to undertake colonization 
 directly, except on the Island of Manhattan, and 
 it therefore devised a plan whereby it delegated 
 to others the right of founding colonies, thus in- 
 augurating what is known as the patroon system 
 of the Hudson Valley. 
 
 To understand the patroon system, we must first 
 of all remember that while it had certain charac- 
 teristics that differentiated it from other forms of 
 settlement, it had, on the other hand, a far larger 
 number of characteristics that it shared in com- 
 mon with them. 
 
 25 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 The theory of the ownership of newly discover- 
 ed or conquered territory has always been a sim- 
 ple one, — it belongs to the Crown to be disposed 
 of according to his own best judgment. But the 
 difficulties of administering remote lands by the 
 king in person have been insuperable and since 
 the early years of the seventeenth century a gen- 
 eral process of development has been followed. 
 
 The first stage has been the exaggerated reports 
 of the wealth of the country brought back by the 
 first discoverers and adventurers, — reports indus- 
 triously circulated by friends and neighbors, re- 
 produced in current drama and poem and finally 
 reaching fabulous proportions. Marston, for ex- 
 ample, in his play Eastivard Ho written in 1605, 
 makes one of his characters, Seagull, recently re- 
 turned from America, describe the wealth found 
 at hand. ''I tell thee," he says, "golde is more 
 plentifull there than copper is with us; and for 
 as much redde copper as I can bring, I'll have 
 thrise the weight in golde. Why, man, all their 
 dripping-pans are pure golde, and all the chains 
 with which they chaine up their streets are mas- 
 sive golde ; all the prisoners they take are fettered 
 in golde; and for rubies and diamonds, they goes 
 forth in holy dayes and gather them by the sea- 
 shore, to hang on their children's coates and stick 
 in their children's caps, as commonly as our chil- 
 dren wear saffron-gilt brooches and groates with 
 holes in them." 
 
 26 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 It has been but natural that the second step has 
 been the formation of a stock company to exploit 
 the new lands. Since the king himself has been 
 unable to take immediate advantage of the reputed 
 wealth laid at his feet, he has given an attentive 
 ear to those who have asked the privilege of ex- 
 ploiting the new fields in his name. Thus the 
 chartered company has been formed, — a small 
 group of men have subscribed stock and received 
 a general charter of incorporation from the crown. 
 The charter has secured certain privileges to the 
 authority granting it, while conferring still greats 
 er ones on those receiving it. Thus have been 
 formed all the great chartered companies of the 
 past three hundred years. Nor, as has been seen, 
 has this manner of developing a new country been 
 peculiar to any one nation. England, Holland, 
 France and Denmark, all chartered companies to 
 trade with the East Indies during the seventeenth 
 century. The English Crown chartered the Lon- 
 don Company with a dual organization entitling it 
 to trade in Virginia and in Plymouth ; the States 
 of Holland chartered the Dutch West India Com- 
 pany to trade in America; Sweden incorporated 
 the South Company to develop its possessions on 
 the Delaware ; Spain granted the Chartered Com- 
 pany of Seville a monopoly of the American trade. 
 Country after country has begun in a similar way 
 the development of its newly acquired lands. 
 Trade has come first, but settlements have follow- 
 ed hard in the wake. 
 
 27 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 The objects of the colonists sent out under the 
 chartered companies were various, — they came for 
 religious freedom, or for political freedom, or for 
 personal wealth, or to escape from adverse eco- 
 nomic or social conditions at home. But the ob- 
 ject of the chartered company has everywhere and 
 at all times, irrespective of time, place or nation- 
 ality, been the same, — it has been to seek wealth 
 for itself primarily through trade, while the set- 
 tlement of the territory has been a secondary 
 consideration. 
 
 The Chartered Company, with trade as its pri- 
 mary object, has not concerned itself too closely 
 with the character of the colonists settling under 
 its protection and it has cared little about the ob- 
 jects that have led the colonists to seek a new 
 home. It has sent out vagrants, debtors and crim- 
 inals, as well as political refugees and religious 
 zealots; it has encouraged gentlemen of leisure 
 and others of no occupation, as well as men skilled 
 in various forms of industry. Is it strange that 
 the Chartered Company has never been success- 
 ful as a colonizer? 
 
 Yet we must remember the difficulties that have 
 beset the Chartered Company. Its task has been 
 a two-fold one. It has had in the first place to se- 
 cure as many privileges for itself as could be 
 wrested from the Crown. These have generally 
 concerned the right of governing the colony, free- 
 dom of trade, a definitely stated share of the min- 
 eral wealth of the colony and similar privileges. 
 
 28 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 But the task of the Chartered Company was but 
 half accomplished when it had secured a definite 
 statement under the great seal of its own relation 
 to the Crown. There remained the even harder 
 task of arranging the inducements to be held out 
 to prospective colonists. In some cases, as in Vir- 
 ginia, settlers were induced to come out through 
 the offer of passage money to be redeemed by ser- 
 vice. Others, as in Plymouth, were offered a part 
 of the proceeds of the venture. The Georgia Com- 
 pany promised freedom from past debts. Massa- 
 chusetts Bay held out the promise of freedom from 
 the forms of religious worship established in Eng- 
 land. The Dutch West India Company offered 
 large tracts of land. But in every case the Com- 
 pany reserved for itself directly, and for the 
 Crown indirectly, the internal and external man- 
 agement of the colony established under its pat- 
 ronage. 
 
 The colony might, as in Virginia, elect repre- 
 sentatives to a colonial assembly, but it was the 
 Chartered Company that gave the privilege. It 
 might choose its own executive officers, but this 
 favor was due to the Chartered Company. If re- 
 ligious freedom was assured, it was at the hand of 
 the Company. If the ''concessions and agree- 
 ments" virtually gave to the colonists the absolute 
 right of self-government, it was the result of a 
 self-denying ordinance on the part of the body 
 standing as an intermediary between the Crown 
 and the Colonists. 
 
 29 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 The privileges retained by the Crown in its 
 grant to the Chartered Company were somewhat 
 more vague and general in character. All laws 
 made for or by the Colonists were to conform to 
 the laws of the home country; a reservation of 
 one-fifth of all mineral wealth discovered was 
 often left to the Crown ; and final judgment in im- 
 portant suits might be left to the Crown, — these 
 were the provisions usually found. 
 
 Among all the Chartered Companies none held 
 out inducements to prospective settlers on so mag- 
 nificent a scale as did our Dutch West India Com- 
 pany in its efforts through a settlement to build 
 up trade and commerce in New Netherland, — 
 trade and commerce that were to redound to its 
 own wealth and prosperity. It is possible that the 
 Dutch West India Company was enabled to con- 
 fer its privileges with a more lordly hand than did 
 other Companies, and established an intermediary 
 between itself and the colonists, as was the case 
 nowhere else in America, in part because of the 
 somewhat loose headship of the government of 
 Holland. The inducements the Company held out 
 to those who desired to undertake the responsi- 
 bilities of planting colonies in New Netherland 
 and sending cattle thither are embodied in the 
 Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions drawn up 
 by the representatives of the Company and ap- 
 proved by their High Mightinesses, the Lords 
 States General, June 7, 1629. 
 
 30 
 
00' 
 
 W 
 X 
 
 o 
 w 
 
 CO 
 
 o 
 
 -< 
 
 Q 
 
 CO 
 
 X 
 u 
 
 P 
 Q 
 
 W 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 The preamble states that they are drawn up 
 for the benefit of the Company and for the profit 
 of the patroons, masters and private persons who 
 will plant colonies. 
 
 What were the privileges thus granted with 
 royal hand to the patroons! They were first the 
 privilege of sending over in the ships of the Com- 
 pany agents to inspect the country; all were to be 
 acknowledged patroons who agreed to plant there 
 a colony of fifty souls upwards of fifteen years of 
 age within four years after giving due notice of 
 such intention; ''from the very hour" that they 
 make known the situation of the jDlaces they pro- 
 pose to colonize, they shall have preference over 
 all others to free ownership of the lands chosen, 
 and if subsequently they desire to make another 
 selection, they may do so after applying to the 
 commander and council; patroons may fix the 
 limits of their colony sixteen miles on one side of 
 a navigable river, or eight miles on both sides, and 
 as far inland as the situation of the occupants will 
 permit; they shall forever hold this land in fief 
 from the Company, together with the fruit, plants, 
 minerals, rivers and springs, and exclusive rights 
 of fishing, fowling and grinding ; if anyone founds 
 a city, he shall have authority to appoint officers 
 and magistrates and to use such titles as he sees 
 fit according to the quality of the persons; they 
 may dispose of these fiefs by will ; they may have 
 the use of contiguous lands, rivers and woods until 
 otherwise occupied; patroons and colonists may 
 
 31 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 send all their people and effects in tlie ships of the 
 Company, under conditions specified; patroons of 
 colonies in New Netherlands and colonists on the 
 island of the Manhattes shall have freedom to sail 
 and traffic along the entire coast from Florida 
 to Newfoundland, provided they return to the 
 island of the Manhattes with all such goods 
 and pay five per cent duty to the Company; 
 if the ships of the patroons take prizes from 
 the enemy, the patroons may retain two-thirds 
 of the value, "in consideration of the expense 
 and risk at which they have been"; freedom 
 of trade, except fur trade, although, under certain 
 conditions, the right to trade in fur is granted at 
 places where the Company has no agent ; exemp- 
 tion from all taxes and all export and import du- 
 ties for ten years; the Company will not take 
 from the service of the patroons any of their 
 colonists, either man or woman, son or daughter, 
 man-servant or maid-servant, — even if they desire 
 to leave them, they will not receive them, or per- 
 mit them to leave the service of the patroons with- 
 out the consent of the patroons in writing, and 
 they will make every effort to return to the pa- 
 troon anyone who leaves his service contrary to 
 contract; an appeal may be taken from all judg- 
 ments given by the courts of the patroons for up- 
 wards of fifty guilders ($20) to the Company's 
 commander and council in New Netherland; pa- 
 troons may ship cod to neutral countries on pay- 
 ment of a duty to the Company ; they are entitled 
 
 32 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 to all minerals, precious stones, or pearl fisheries 
 discovered; and they are speedily to find ways 
 and means of supporting a minister and a school- 
 master; the colonies may each send an agent to 
 the government to care for the common interests, 
 anl all colonies must annually make an exact re- 
 port to the home government of their colonies and 
 lands; "the Company will endeavor to supply the 
 colonists with as many blacks as they possibly 
 can," but not to a greater extent or for a longer 
 time than they think proper ; the Company prom- 
 ises to finish the fort on the island of the Man- 
 hattes without delay. 
 
 Nor did the Company confine its benefactions 
 to the lordly patroons, — it recognized that private 
 persons might wish to settle with a smaller num- 
 ber than would entitle them to settle as a patroon, 
 and all such were given that privilege and might 
 with the approval of the director and council, 
 choose and hold as much land as they can properly 
 cultivate, and fishing and hunting rights were ac- 
 corded them. 
 
 The Comj^any also turned its attention to the 
 Indians, and decreed that satisfaction must be 
 given them for all land settled outside the limits 
 of Manhattes Island. 
 
 The Company did not stop here, — in its zeal to 
 found a perfect state it provided that the patroons 
 must give proper instructions to colonists so that 
 they may be ruled according to the rule of gov- 
 ernment of the Assembly of the Nineteen. 
 
 33 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 The Company then reserved to itself the island 
 of the Manliattcs and the lands Ij^ing between the 
 limits of the colonies, announced its intention of 
 settling the island of Manhattes first, declared 
 this to be the staple port for all products and 
 wares found on the North River and lands adja- 
 cent, with certain necessary reservation ; claimed 
 one-third of all prizes taken from the enemy by 
 the ships of the patroons, the monopoly of the fur 
 trade,' the transportation of all raw materials 
 used by the colonists at fixed rates, and then hav- 
 ing forbidden to the colonists the manufacture of 
 all woolen, linen, or cotton cloth on pain of being 
 banished and peremptorily punished as oath 
 breakers, the Dutch West India Company sat 
 back to take its ease.- 
 
 Alas, the troubles of the Company had but just 
 begun. It is related that when Louis XVIII at- 
 tempted to create a new nobility at the close of 
 the French Revolution that had destroyed the old 
 nobility, he found many willing to be made dukes 
 and earls, but none willing to be made anything 
 else. That difficulty the Dutch West India Com- 
 pany had laid up for itself when it sought to par- 
 cel out the vast territories along the Hudson 
 among a number of patroons, leaving to them the 
 
 1 It is interesting to note that furs are to-day peddled on the 
 promenades at Scheveningen, — a possible survival of the interest 
 in the fur trade exemplified in the Dutch West India Company. 
 
 2 A. J. F. van Laer, ed., J'aii Rensselaer Bolder Manuscripts, 
 pp. 137-153. 
 
 34 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 responsibility of finding colonists to enter in and 
 till the land, — many were willing to be patroons, 
 but few were willing to be colonists. It is possible 
 that the Company vaguely appreciated this diffi- 
 culty and that it was the effort to forestall it that 
 led the Comj^any to attempt to square the circle, — 
 if any persons had not sufficient means to take up 
 a patroonship and yet (by implication) did not 
 wish to go out as a colonist under a patroon, they 
 might preempt as much land as they could culti- 
 vate, provided the land lay outside the limits of 
 that assigned to patroons. They were to be called 
 freemen, or free merchants, they had liberty to 
 engage in fishing, and to set up salt works, and 
 they were under the immediate protection of the 
 Company. Is it a wonder that many preferred, 
 like Miles Standish, to be first in a little Iberian 
 village rather than be second in Eome I 
 
 So attractive had the exploitation of the new 
 world seemed to the individual directors of the 
 Company that more than one had preempted 
 land within the territory claimed by the United 
 Netherlands before the Charter of Freedoms and 
 Exemptions had been granted. Alas, for them, 
 their troubles also had but just begun when they 
 took up land under the protection of the Company, 
 even though this protection was re-enforced by the 
 grant of the Charter of Freedoms and Exemp- 
 tions, and even though this was itself re-inforced 
 by a subsequent charter declaring that ''The Pa- 
 troons shall forever possess all the lands situate 
 
 35 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 within their limits, together with the produce, 
 superficies, minerals, rivers and fountains thereof, 
 with high, low and middle jurisdiction, hunting, 
 fishing, fowling and milling, the lands remaining 
 allodial, but the jurisdiction as of a perpetual 
 hereditary fief, devolvable by death as well to fe- 
 males as to males, and fealty and homage for 
 which is to be rendered to the Company, on each 
 of such occasions, with a pair of iron gauntlets, 
 redeemable by twenty guilders within a year and 
 six weeks, at the Assembly of the XIX, here, or 
 before the Governor there. ' ' ^ 
 
 Material was stored up by it for endless dis- 
 putes. The patroons objected to obeying the rules 
 of the Company, to the hea\y restrictions on the 
 fur trade, to the presence of an agent to collect 
 duties on furs purchased, because they were not 
 informed when there was room in ships of the 
 Company to carry their goods, because the colon- 
 ists were required to take oath renouncing the 
 privileges granted by patroons, because the Com- 
 pany refused to reimburse them for losses grow- 
 ing out of failure to atford sufficient protection, 
 to the difficulty of getting cattle, — ' ' If I can get no 
 animals," exclaimed Van Eensselaer in despair, 
 "I shall not succeed in bringing over fifty per- 
 sons," — because they were bidden to make brick 
 without straw, since while desiring to colonize 
 their estates they encountered the greatest diffi- 
 culties in getting colonists, goods or cattle. 
 
 1 Charter of 1640. 
 
 36 
 
^ 
 < ••'. 
 
 ■a -3 
 
 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 Thus endless bickerings and quarrels between 
 the Company and the patroons seemed to be the 
 only fruit of the elaborate scheme devised by the 
 Company for settling its vast territories. The 
 Company had carried on the experiment at a loss 
 to itself. The colonies of the patroons had not 
 been a success, the Company could not carry on 
 an extensive system of colonization, and there 
 were moreover internal disagreements as to the 
 advisability of colonizing it. The question of even 
 turning over the affairs of the Company to the 
 States General was broached in 1638, but this was 
 not done. It was evident, however, that some- 
 thing must be done, and the result was a new plan 
 that went into effect in 1638 whereby the trade of 
 New Netherland was thrown open to all. This les- 
 sened, for the time being, the disputes between the 
 Company and the Patroons, but it did not end 
 them. Another effort in the direction of peace 
 was made, and as a result of the joint efforts of 
 the States General, the Company and the Pa- 
 troons, the States General ratified, in 1640, a new 
 Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions granted by 
 the Company "to all Patroons, Masters or Private 
 persons who will plant any colonies or introduce 
 cattle in New Netherland. ' ' 
 
 Ten years later, in 1650, still a third Charter of 
 Freedoms and Exemptions was granted, modify- 
 ing somewhat the clauses relative to trade and to 
 the administration of justice, but not affecting- 
 land tenures. 
 
 Z7 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 No one had given thouglit to the colonists, yet 
 they too had had their heartburnings, — they had 
 been in debt to the patroons for their outfit and 
 for their passage, they were compelled to pur- 
 chase supplies of the agent of the patroon, and 
 they may have felt that the patroons were passing 
 on to them all the troubles they, on their part, had 
 suffered at the hands of the Company. 
 
 Wliat was the net result of this elaborate plan 
 to colonize the Hudson Valley in the interests of 
 the trade of the Dutch West India Company! 
 During the fifty-five years that the territory 
 known as New Netherland was under the jurisdic- 
 tion of the United Netherlands, from 1609 to 1664, 
 but nine patroonships had been established, only 
 one had succeeded, and ^'all the others had ceased 
 to exist before the English came in, except Van 
 der Donck's, which was moribund." Of the four 
 directors of the West India Company who took 
 up land under its authority, not a single one came 
 to this country, no patroon had helped to dominate 
 the province, only a few hundred acres had been 
 re-claimed from the wilderness, and but six hun- 
 dred and thirty-eight grants of land, varying in 
 size from a town lot to a large estate, had been 
 made to any one, either patroon or colonist, dur- 
 ing the half century and more of Dutch rule.^ On 
 the other hand, a long train of difficulties growing 
 
 ^ Mrs. Schuyler Van Rennselaer, History of the City of New 
 York ill the Seventeenth Century, I., pp. 475-476 passim. 
 
 The list of grants is given in E. B. O'Callaghan, Historv of 
 Nezv Netherland, II., pp. 581-593. 
 
 38 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 out of the system of land tenure had been laid 
 up, — difficulties that lasted for more than two hun- 
 dred years and came to a crisis in the anti-rent 
 troubles of New York State. 
 
 To all outward appearances, if "the Dutch had 
 taken Holland," they had not taken New Netli- 
 erland. 
 
 One of the first members of the Dutch West In- 
 dia Company to file a claim to land in New Neth- 
 erland was a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, Kil- 
 iaen Van Rensselaer by name. He had been a 
 country boy, born and baptized in the village of 
 Hasselt near Zwolle, but some years later we find 
 him apprenticed to a relative, — a rich jeweler of 
 Amsterdam; traveling widely in Europe in the 
 interests of his employer, establishing himself in 
 business on his own account, amassing a substan- 
 tial fortune, forming a marriage alliance with a 
 family of means in Utrecht, and setting up his 
 household gods in a new part of Amsterdam, on 
 the Keizersgracht.' 
 
 He subscribed largely to the stock of the West 
 India Company, was recognized in Amsterdam as 
 a man of ability, of wide experience, and of prac- 
 tical knowledge of many fields of business outside 
 
 1 An excellent idea of the house occupied by a well-to-do 
 Hollander, like Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, can be gained from a 
 contemporaneous seventeenth century doll's house in the Suys 
 Museum, Utrecht, and from two others, less elegant, in the 
 Ryks Museum, Amsterdam. 
 
 39 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 that of jewelry, — a man of affairs and of re- 
 markable executive ability. As a director of the 
 West India Company he urged upon his colleagues 
 the necessity of developing the new territory 
 through agriculture, merchant and trader though 
 he was, and predicted the necessity of abandon- 
 ing New Netherland if this policy were not pur- 
 sued. Unfortunately for the Company, it was 
 long before the majority of the directors gave 
 even a grudging assent to his plans, and then he 
 and his sujDporters were left to combat the opposi- 
 tion on the part of the minority, — an opposition 
 so serious as to wreck the other colonies started 
 at the same time as his own. 
 
 Kiliaen Van Eensselaer was willing, however, 
 to undertake the responsibility of an agricultural 
 colony if only the opportunity were given him, — 
 he had been born in a country village, he had al- 
 ready added to his own wealth by reclaiming large 
 tracts of sandy heath lands to the southeast of 
 Amsterdam, and his courage was equal to attack- 
 ing the difficulties presented by the undeveloiDed 
 lands of the new world. His agents quickly se- 
 lected for him an extensive tract, mainly, at first, 
 on the west side of the North (Hudson) Kiver, 
 near Fort Orange, covering the present sites of 
 Albany and Troy, and subsequently large addi- 
 tions were made to the original grant. He pre- 
 sumably knew well the peasants living near the 
 waste lands reclaimed through his initiative, sev- 
 eral from that locality were persuaded to try their 
 
 40 
 
UJ 
 
 w 
 
 Oh 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 fortunes in the new colony, and contracts were 
 made with other venturesome spirits from Nor- 
 way, Sweden and Denmark, — in subsequent years 
 colonists were secured from other foreign coun- 
 tries, including France, England, and Germany 
 from the Rhine to Pomerania and East Prussia, 
 and as far south as Baden. Two farmsteads were 
 laid out and it seemed as if the affairs of the col- 
 ony had opened under favorable auspices. Yet if 
 the general difficulties of the patroons were so 
 great as to compel more than one to abandon his 
 claim, they were multiplied four-fold in the case 
 of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, beset behind and be- 
 fore and on all sides with concrete troubles that 
 would have downed a lesser man. He had great 
 difficulty in persuading colonists to go out, a con- 
 siderable number made contracts to go but failed 
 to keep them, some even deserting as the ship was 
 about to leave,^ the plague in Amsterdam had de- 
 pleted the ranks of laborers, and there was an 
 abundance of work to be found at home, — hence 
 he found it almost impossible to get the much- 
 needed workmen, especially carpenters and 
 smiths ; every obstacle was put in the way of his 
 securing cattle, and the Indians killed part of the 
 herd finally obtained ; one of his new farmsteads 
 burned ; the winter seed failed for one farm ; his 
 tobacco planter proved inefficient; the freight 
 charges of the Company were very heavj^, and it 
 was almost impossible to secure transportation 
 
 1 Van Laer, p. 56. 
 
 41 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 for his goods at any price; lie was forbidden to 
 purchase goods belonging to the Company, and 
 forbidden *'to barter the necessaries of life for 
 dairy produce and grain ' ' ; the restrictions on the 
 fur trade were a constant source of irritation, and 
 the contraband trade carried on diminished his 
 profits by half; the change in the personel of 
 the directors made a majority against the pa- 
 troons, the local officers appointed by the Com- 
 pany were his enemies, some of the directors were 
 jealous of him, his co-partners disagreed with 
 him, and demanded a division of the property, al- 
 though they had never troubled themselves ''to 
 break a lance for the colony in the Assembly of 
 the Nineteen." ^ We may indeed question whether 
 the honor of having a county in New York State 
 subsequently bear his name was a sufficient com- 
 pensation for these and many other trials attend- 
 ing the possession of a i^atroonship. 
 
 It is conceivable that other stout hearts might 
 have encountered all these and- similar difficul- 
 ties and triumphed over them as did Kiliaen Van 
 Rensselaer, — Governor Bradford and the Pilgrims 
 contended with famine and pestilence at Ply- 
 mouth, — Captain John Smith met inefficiency and 
 insubordination in Virginia, — ingratitude was 
 meted out to Oglethrope in Georgia, — John 
 
 1 Van Laer, p. 84. See Memorial to the Assembly of the Nine- 
 teen, 1633, in van Laer, pp. 235-250. 
 
 42 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 Locke's philosophical theories failed to secure a 
 foothold in the Carolinas, disappointment and dis- 
 couragement are shadowy forms ever attendant 
 on the formation of new enterprises. But who, 
 except Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, ever added to all 
 these obstacles that of non-residence, — of man- 
 aging a colony and a territory he never saw, at a 
 distance of more than three thousand miles in 
 space and four months distance in time? 
 
 There has recently been made available for our 
 use a collection of manuscripts from the pen of 
 Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. It includes the letters, 
 memorials, and instructions written by him during 
 the thirteen years from 1630 to 1643, to his colon- 
 ists, to his partners, to the Dutch West India Com- 
 pany, and to the States General, and through this 
 collection we are able to see reflected as in a mir- 
 ror the great patroon of the Upper Hudson. It 
 is but natural that the instructions concern first of 
 all the general organization of the Colony, yet he 
 does not forget to send a silver-plated rapier with 
 baldric and a black hat with plume to Rutger Hen- 
 drickson as a badge of office in his capacity as 
 Sellout of Rensselaerswyck, and four black hats 
 with silver bands to the persons to act as schepens 
 and councilors of Rensselaerswyck; he sends a 
 copy of the oath to be adminstered to the officers, 
 and a copy of the Bible to be read every Sunday 
 and on the usual holidays, and he appoints Brandt 
 Peelen as reader. In the management of the 
 farms, no detail escapes him, — if more butter is 
 
 43 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 made than is needed, it must be preserved with 
 salt to make it fit for shipment, though he consid- 
 ers it more profitable to make cheese than butter ; 
 a goodly number of hogs must be kept on each 
 farm, — they can be trained to run in the woods in 
 the day time and to come home at night, and if 
 they must be tended by a swineherd during the 
 day, it is not necessary for each farm to have a 
 boy for that purpose, since one person can easily 
 watch all the hogs together, and if the houses are 
 too widely separated, the hogs can be taken for 
 the night now to one farm and then to the other ; 
 he knows just what the increase in the livestock 
 has been during the year; that a cow has been 
 bitten by a snake and died ; that certain chickens 
 claimed as boot in a trade were not boot accord- 
 ing to the contract and must be paid for; that 
 Roeloff Janssen has grossly run up his account in 
 drawing provisions, and that his wife, mother and 
 sister and others must have given things away, 
 which can not be allowed ; he plans to grind meal 
 to sell to the Brownists toward the north, or to 
 the English toward the south; he advises his 
 nephew to be on the lookout for silkworms since 
 they are likely to be found where there are mul- 
 berry trees; he thinks a brickyard might be run 
 with profit, but the clay must be taken from his 
 land; he fits out a cargo for the colony and orders 
 duffels from Leyden, — they are very expensive at 
 thirty-five stiver a yard, but twelve pieces will be 
 needed, half of them red and half steel gray, and 
 
 44 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 he cautions his agent and partner to look out for 
 the width, for the last duffels sent from Leyden 
 were narrower ; when the shipment of the duffels 
 was unduly delayed, he countermands half the 
 order, but later orders in addition two pieces of 
 Leyden grosgrain, double dyed, light liver color 
 or gray, and two pieces of Leyden serge, first qual- 
 ity, color at the discretion of the buyer — the low- 
 est prices will suit him best; — he presses once 
 more to know when the duffels will be ready, and 
 in a fourth letter he again urges haste in the mat- 
 ter of the Leyden duffels, since the Campen duffels 
 are already finished. 
 
 It has been said that Kiliaen Van Rensselaer 
 never saw the colony that bore his name. But was 
 there anything in Rensselaerswyck that he did 
 not see? 
 
 All the stars were in conjunction when Colonel 
 Richard Nicolls, armed with orders from the Duke 
 of York as Lord High Admiral of England ap- 
 peared in the harbor of New Amsterdam in 1664 
 and demanded the surrender of the Province. 
 
 On the side of England, the restoration of 
 Charles IL to the throne had consolidated and 
 strengthened the nation against its rival Holland, 
 while the English colonies had been put under the 
 general care of a Standing Council for Foreign 
 Plantations with instructions to take "all pru- 
 dential means for the rendering those dominions 
 
 45 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 useful to England, and England helpful to them." 
 One of the first manifestations of this plan of mu- 
 tual helpfulness was the grant of a charter to the 
 Colony of Connecticut that united to it the pre- 
 viously independent colony of New Haven, and 
 granted to it all the territory from Narragansett 
 Bay to Delaware Bay, including all the adjacent 
 islands, — thus granting to the Colony mainland 
 and islands already occupied by the Dutch under 
 grants made by the States General of Holland. 
 
 This grant was the realization of a long stand- 
 ing insistence on the right of the English to this 
 territory through priority of claim. Governor 
 Bradford of Plymouth, as early as 1627, had, with 
 much politeness but with equal firmness, insisted 
 on the priority of the English claim to the terri- 
 tory occupied by the Dutch, and had urged his 
 Dutch neighbors to '^ clear the title" of their 
 ''planting in these parts which his Majesty hath, 
 by patent, granted to divers his nobles and sub- 
 jects of quality; lest it be a bone of division in 
 these stirring evil times, which God forbid. We 
 persuade ourselves, that now may be easily and 
 seasonably done, which will be harder and with 
 more difficulty obtained hereafter, and perhaps 
 not without blows." 
 
 In 1642 the English ambassador at the Hague 
 had urged the English in Connecticut ''not to for- 
 bear to put forward their plantations, and crowd 
 on — crowding the Dutch out of those places where 
 they had occupied," 
 
 46 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 While the English leaders were thus asserting 
 their legal right to the territory held by the Dutch, 
 English colonists were going in and taking pos- 
 session of the land, and were often warmly wel- 
 comed by the resident Dutch authorities. English 
 traders established themselves on Manhattan Is- 
 land; English settlers came in from New England 
 and from the southern colonies and settled on 
 Long Island and in Westchester County ; in 1641 
 the Dutch West India Company had granted a 
 charter of freedoms and privileges to "a consid- 
 erable number of respectable Englishmen and 
 their clergyman" who had desired to settle under 
 their protection. As late as 1661 the States Gen- 
 eral of Holland urged * ' Christian people of tender 
 conscience, in England or elsewhere oppressed," 
 to settle in New Netherland. 
 
 Thus by 1664 various causes had combined to 
 make a large English element in New Nether- 
 land, — a desire to escape from the vexatious re- 
 strictions of New England, the opportunities for 
 religious freedom and for trade, "a hankering 
 after land." To many, therefore. New Nether- 
 land had for a time seemed indeed "Vreeden- 
 land, ' ' — the Land of Peace. 
 
 It was therefore over a colony part English as 
 well as part Dutch that Peter Stuyvesant was ap- 
 pointed director-general in 1647. In his zealous 
 efforts to uphold the authority of the Company 
 whose deputy he was, he antagonized both ele- 
 ments in the colony. Soon a petition and a remon- 
 
 47 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 strance were sent to the States General asking 
 them to take over the management of the Prov- 
 ince and protesting that "a covetous governor 
 makes poor subjects," while under more favor- 
 able conditions New Netherland would '4n a few 
 years be a brave place." In 1653 a convention 
 met in New Amsterdam at which four Dutch and 
 four English towns were represented. Nineteen 
 persons signed the Remonstrance^ to the States 
 General, protesting against the arbitrary govern- 
 ment of the director general and of these ten were 
 of Dutch and nine of English birth. 
 
 The way had therefore been prepared for the 
 occupation of the territory by the English govern- 
 ment in 1664 in three general ways, — by the long 
 assertion of a legal claim to the territory on the 
 part of the English, by the presence in the terri- 
 tory of large numbers of English settlers, and by 
 the all but universal dissatisfaction with the ad- 
 ministration of the province by the resident Dutch 
 director general. 
 
 On their side the Dutch had also unknowingly 
 been preparing their own downfall. Their rule in 
 New Netherland had been weakened by internal 
 dissensions in the Dutch West India Company, by 
 the quarrels between the Company and the direc- 
 tors general resident in New Netherland, by the 
 constant friction between the directors general 
 and the settlers, — it seemed as if every man's 
 hand was against every man. The Dutch West 
 
 1 Given in full in O'Callaghan, Nezv Netherland. II., 243-246. 
 48 
 
THE DTJTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 India Company, discouraged by these dissensions 
 and on the verge of bankruptcy^ had surrendered 
 its claims to all its territory on the Delaware 
 River. Its director-general, Peter Stuyvesant, 
 had antagonized the Dutch colonists in New Am- 
 sterdam and aroused the hostility of Rensselaers- 
 wyck further north. Long Island was in rebel- 
 lion, difficulties in the Esopus region between the 
 settlers and the Indians had weakened the col- 
 onies there, while throughout the province the In- 
 dians were restless and dangerous. Is it strange 
 that when Colonel Nicolls appeared before New 
 Amsterdam, offering most generous terms of sur- 
 render, nearly a hundred of the leading burghers 
 sent to the director general a remonstrance against 
 further attempts to hold the province for the 
 Dutch! 
 
 ''Thus ended," says De Lancey, ''the Dutch 
 dominion in America, and thus forever passed 
 away the great Batavian Province of New Neth- 
 erland from the Republic of the United Nether- 
 lands." Yet not so. It is true that the technical 
 control had passed away but "the Dutch had taken 
 New York. ' ' In the period between 1630 and 1664 
 land grants of all kinds, from a patroonship to a 
 single lot on Manhattan Island, had been made to 
 the number of six hundred and thirty-eight.^ The 
 house had been sold over their heads and they had 
 a new landlord, but the rent was not raised and 
 repairs and improvements were more readily 
 
 ^ See ante, p. 36, footnote. 
 
 49 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 made tliau had been under the previous landlord. 
 The ultimate owner of the property was no longer 
 a company of Dutch merchants, but an English 
 duke, — the heir apparent to the English throne, — 
 yet Dutch nomenclature, Dutch architecture, Dutch 
 social customs, Dutch laws, the descendents of the 
 original Dutch settlers are still an influence, per- 
 haps the i3redominant influence, in the Hudson 
 Valley. The Dutch Church retained its creed, 
 discipline, worship, lands, property, and remained 
 unchanged in every way, but it was no longer con- 
 trolled by the Dutch West India Company or main- 
 tained by them, and thus technically it ceased to 
 be the Established Church of Holland. 
 
 Nothing in our history is more remarkable than 
 this persistence of the Dutch influence in the Hud- 
 son Valley, when the period of Dutch occupation 
 was so brief, the number of Dutch settlers so 
 small, the territory held by them so sparsely set- 
 tled, and the influence of the individual settlers ap- 
 parently so slight. 
 
 And the manors on the Hudson ? It is probable 
 that nine Dutch patroonships had been established 
 in New Netherland. All but two of these, Rensse- 
 laerswyck and Colon-Donck, had been abandoned 
 when the English took possession of the territory. 
 The Van Rensselaer estate descended to an heir 
 of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, who took the oath of 
 allegiance to the Duke of York and was thus con- 
 
 50 
 
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 
 
 firmed in his possession of the property. Adrian 
 Van der Donck died a few years before the arrival 
 of the English, his estate passed to his widow, who 
 re-married and removed to Virginia, and the es- 
 tate was subsequently divided and sold. From it 
 were formed the English manors of Westchester 
 County. The transition from Dutch patroonship 
 to English manor, from patroon to lord of the 
 manor was an easy and simple one, — the oath of 
 allegiance was taken to the Duke of York instead 
 of to the Dutch West India Company, and the 
 province of New Netherland became the proprie- 
 tary colony of New York. When the Duke of York 
 became James II, king of England, the proprie- 
 tary colony of New York became, ipso facto, the 
 royal colony of New York. The king was dead, 
 and all the people cried, ''Long live the King! " 
 The patroonships on the Hudson were Dutch, the 
 manors on the Hudson were English. "But that 
 is another story." 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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