Dutch and English on the Hudson: A Chronicle of Colonial New York

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Goodwin Maud Wilder. Dutch and English on the Hudson: A Chronicle of Colonial New York

CHAPTER I. UP THE GREAT RIVER

CHAPTER II. TRADERS AND SETTLERS

CHAPTER III. PATROONS AND LORDS OF THE MANOR

CHAPTER IV. THE DIRECTORS

CHAPTER V. DOMINES AND SCHOOL-TEACHERS

CHAPTER VI. THE BURGHERS

CHAPTER VII. THE NEIGHBORS OF NEW NETHERLAND

CHAPTER VIII. THE EARLY ENGLISH GOVERNORS

CHAPTER IX. LEISLER

CHAPTER X. PRIVATEERS AND PIRATES

CHAPTER XI. COLONIAL GOVERNMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER XII. THE ZENGER TRIAL

CHAPTER XIII. THE NEGRO PLOTS

CHAPTER XIV. SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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As he was returning to Holland from his voyage to America, Hudson was held with his ship at the port of Dartmouth, on the ground that, being an Englishman by birth, he owed his services to his country. He did not again reach the Netherlands, but he forwarded to the Dutch East India Company a report of his discoveries. Immediately the enthusiasm of the Dutch was aroused by the prospect of a lucrative fur trade, as Spain had been set aflame by the first rumors of gold in Mexico and Peru; and the United Provinces, whose independence had just been acknowledged, thereupon laid claim to the new country.

To a seafaring people like the Dutch, the ocean which lay between them and their American possessions had no terrors, and the twelve-year truce just concluded with Spain set free a vast energy to be applied to commerce and oversea trading. Within a year after the return of the Half Moon, Dutch merchants sent out a second ship, the crew of which included several sailors who had served under Hudson and of which the command was given, in all probability, to Hudson's former mate. The vessel was soon followed by the Fortune, the Tiger, the Little Fox, and the Nightingale. By this time the procession of vessels plying between the Netherlands Old and New was fairly set in motion. But the aim of all these voyages was commerce rather than colonization. Shiploads of tobacco and furs were demanded by the promoters, and to obtain these traders and not farmers were needed.

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These resources were indeed abundant. The climate was temperate, with a long season of crops and harvests. Grape-vines produced an abundant supply of wines. The forests contained a vast variety of animals. Innumerable birds made the wilderness vocal. Turkeys and wild fowl offered a variety of food. The rivers produced fish of every kind and oysters which the letters of the colonists describe as a foot long, though this is somewhat staggering to the credulity of a later age. De Vries, one of the patroons, or proprietors, whose imagination was certainly of a lively type, tells us that he had seen a New Netherlander kill eighty-four thrushes or maize-birds at one shot. He adds that he has noticed crabs of excellent flavor on the flat shores of the bay. "Their claws," he says naïvely, "are of the color of our Prince's flag, orange, white and blue, so that the crabs show clearly enough that we ought to people the country and that it belongs to us." When the very crabs thus beckoned to empire, how could the Netherlander fail to respond to their invitation?

The newly discovered river soon began to be alive with sail, high-pooped vessels from over sea, and smaller vlie booten (Anglicized into "flyboats"), which plied between New Amsterdam and Fort Orange, loaded with supplies and household goods. Tying the prow of his boat to a tree at the water's edge, the enterprising skipper turned pedler and opened his packs of beguiling wares for the housewife at the farm beside the river. Together with the goods in his pack, he doubtless also opened his budget of news from the other settlements and told the farmer's wife how the houses about the fort at Manhattan had increased to thirty, how the new Director was strengthening the fort, and how all promised well for the future of New Netherland.

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