Читать книгу A Short History of the United States for School Use - Edward Channing - Страница 41

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The Dutch East India Company.

57. The Dutch.--At this time the Dutch were the greatest traders and shipowners in the world. They were especially interested in the commerce of the East Indies. Indeed, the Dutch India Company was the most successful trading company in existence. The way to the East Indies lay through seas carefully guarded by the Portuguese, so the Dutch India Company hired Henry Hudson, an English sailor, to search for a new route to India.

Henry Hudson.

He discovers Hudson's River, 1609. Higginson, 88–90; Explorers, 281–296. His death. Explorers 296–302.

58. Hudson's Voyage, 1609.--He set forth in 1609 in the Half-Moon, a stanch little ship. At first he sailed northward, but ice soon blocked his way. He then sailed southwestward to find a strait, which was said to lead through America, north of Chesapeake Bay. On August 3, 1609, he reached the entrance of what is now New York harbor. Soon the Half-Moon entered the mouth of the river that still bears her captain's name. Up, up the river she sailed, until finally she came to anchor near the present site of Albany. The ship's boats sailed even farther north. Everywhere the country was delightful. The Iroquois came off to the ship in their canoes. Hudson received them most kindly--quite unlike the way Champlain treated other Iroquois Indians at about the same time, on the shore of Lake Champlain (p. 20). Then Hudson sailed down the river again and back to Europe. He made one later voyage to America, this time under the English flag. He was turned adrift by his men in Hudson's Bay, and perished in the cold and ice.

The Dutch fur-traders.

Settle on Manhattan Island.

New Netherland.

59. The Dutch Fur-Traders.--Hudson's failure to find a new way to India made the Dutch India Company lose interest in American exploration. But many Dutch merchants were greatly interested in Hudson's account of the "Great River of the Mountain." They thought that they could make money from trading for furs with the Indians. They sent many expeditions to Hudson's River, and made a great deal of money. Some of their captains explored the coast northward and southward as far as Boston harbor and Delaware Bay. Their principal trading-posts were on Manhattan Island, and near the site of Albany. In 1614 some of the leading traders obtained from the Dutch government the sole right to trade between New France and Virginia. They called this region New Netherland.

The Dutch West India Company, 1621. Higginson, 90–96; Explorers, 303–307; Source-book, 42–44. The patroons, 1628.

60. The Founding of New Netherland.--In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was founded. Its first object was trade, but it also was directed "to advance the peopling" of the American lands claimed by the Dutch. Colonists now came over; they settled at New Amsterdam, on the southern end of Manhattan Island, and also on the western end of Long Island. By 1628 there were four hundred colonists in New Netherland. But the colony did not grow rapidly, so the Company tried to interest rich men in the scheme of colonization, by giving them large tracts of land and large powers of government. These great land owners were called patroons. Most of them were not very successful. Indeed, the whole plan was given up before long, and land was given to any one who would come out and settle.

Governor Kieft.

Kieft orders the Indians to be killed.

Results of the massacre.

61. Kieft and the Indians, 1643–44.--The worst of the early Dutch governors was William Kieft (Keeft). He was a bankrupt and a thief, who was sent to New Netherland in the hope that he would reform. At first he did well and put a stop to the smuggling and cheating which were common in the colony. Emigrants came over in large numbers, and everything seemed to be going on well when Kieft's brutality brought on an Indian war that nearly destroyed the colony. The Indians living near New Amsterdam sought shelter from the Iroquois on the mainland opposite Manhattan Island. Kieft thought it would be a grand thing to kill all these Indian neighbors while they were collected together. He sent a party of soldiers across the river and killed many of them. The result was a fierce war with all the neighboring tribes. The Dutch colonists were driven from their farms. Even New Amsterdam with its stockade was not safe. For the Indians sometimes came within the stockade and killed the people in the town. When there were less than two hundred people left in New Amsterdam, Kieft was recalled, and Peter Stuyvesant was sent as governor in his stead.

Peter Stuyvesant. Higginson, 97.

62. Stuyvesant's Rule.--Stuyvesant was a hot-tempered, energetic soldier who had lost a leg in the Company's service. He ruled New Netherland for a long time, from 1647 to 1664. And he ruled so sternly that the colonists were glad when the English came and conquered them. This unpopularity was not entirely Stuyvesant's fault. The Dutch West India Company was a failure. It had no money to spend for the defence of the colonists, and Stuyvesant was obliged to lay heavy taxes on the people.

The Swedes on the Delaware. Higginson, 106–108. Stuyvesant conquers them.

63. New Sweden.--When the French, the English, and the Dutch were founding colonies in America, the Swedes also thought that they might as well have a colony there too. They had no claim to any land in America. But Swedish armies were fighting the Dutchmen's battles in Europe. So the Swedes sent out a colony to settle on lands claimed by the Dutch. As long as the European war went on, the Swedes were not interfered with. But when the European war came to an end, Stuyvesant was told to conquer them. This he did without much trouble, as he had about as many soldiers as there were Swedish colonists. In this way New Sweden became a part of New Netherland.

Summary.

The Chesapeake Colonies.

The New England Colonies.

64. Summary.--We have seen how the French, the Dutch, the Swedish, and the English colonies were established on the Atlantic seashore and in the St. Lawrence valley. South of these settlements there was the earlier Spanish colony at St. Augustine. The Spanish colonists were very few in number, but they gave Spain a claim to Florida. The Swedish colony had been absorbed by the stronger Dutch colony. We have also seen how very unlike were the two English groups of colonies. They were both settled by Englishmen, but there the likeness stops. For Virginia and Maryland were slave colonies. They produced large crops of tobacco. The New England colonists on the other hand were practically all free. They lived in towns and engaged in all kinds of industries. In the next hundred years we shall see how the English conquered first the Dutch and then the French; how they planted colonies far to the south of Virginia and in these ways occupied the whole coast north of Florida.