A History of the City of Brooklyn and Kings County Part 2

These purchases, amounting to 15,000 acres, were in a level region, reported already to have been cultivated to some extent by the Indians, and appealing to men brought up in a flat country, and unaccustomed to wood-clearing, as superior to the regions having a heavy tree growth.

Plows were soon at work, and from the settlement thus begun grew the village of "New Amersfoort," now the town of Flatlands.

In the same year (1636) the Indians sold to William Adriaense Bennett and Jacques Bentyn a tract of 930 acres at Gowa.n.u.s, a region so named by the Indians. The tract extended from the vicinity of Twenty-eighth Street, along Gowa.n.u.s Cove and the bay, to the New Utrecht line. The transaction is described in the following record:--

"On this 4th day of April (English style), 1677, appeared before me Michil Hainelle, acknowledged as duly installed Clerk and Secretary, certain persons, to wit: Zeuw Kamingh, otherwise known in his walks (or travels) as Kaus Hansen, and Keurom, both Indians, who, in presence of the undersigned witnesses, deposed and declared, that the limits or widest bounds of the land of Mr. Paulus Vanderbeeck, in the rear, has been or is a certain tree or stump on the Long Hill, on the one side, and on the other the end of the Indian foot-path, and that it extends to the creek of the third meadows, which land and ground, they further depose and declare, previous to the present time, was sold by a certain Indian, known as Chief or Sachem Ka, to Jacques Bentyn and William Adriaense (Bennett), the latter formerly the husband of Marie Thomas, now the wife of Mr. Paulus Vanderbeeck; which account they both maintain to be the truth, and truly set forth in this deposition.

"In witness of the truth is the original of this with the said Indians' own hands subscribed, to wit: By Zeuw Kamingh or Kaus Hansen, with this mark ( ) and by Keurom with this mark ( ) in the presence of Lambert Dorlant, who by request signed his name hereto as a witness. Took place at Brookland on the day and date above written.

"Compared with the original and attested to be correct.

"Michil Hainelle, _Clerk_."

Three years afterward Bentyn sold to Bennett all or nearly all of his share of the land acquired in this early sale.

The purchase by Bentyn and Bennett is to be regarded as the first exchange of property looking to a settlement within the limits of the present city of Brooklyn. It was in the following year that a second purchase was made by Joris Jansen de Rapalje, who was one of the Walloon emigrants who came over with Minuit in 1623. Rapalje's first residence after reaching this country was at Fort Orange (Albany). In 1626 he removed to New Amsterdam. In June, 1637, he bought a tract adjoining the Rennegackonk, a little Long Island stream entering the East River at "the bend of Marechkawieck," at the Wahlebocht or the present Wallabout. There were about 335 acres in the purchase, part of the land now being represented by the grounds of the Marine Hospital.

At this time Rapalje lived on the north side of the river road, now Pearl Street, and on the south side of the fort. Writing of this period Thomas A. Janvier says:--

"Actually, only two roads were established when the town of New Amsterdam was founded, and these so obviously were necessary that, practically, they established themselves. One of them, on the line of the present Stone and Pearl Streets,--the latter then the waterfront,--led from the Fort to the Brooklyn Ferry at about the present Peck Slip. The other, on the line of the present Broadway, led northward from the Fort, past farms and gardens falling away toward the North River, as far as the present Park Row; and along the line of that street, and of Chatham Street, and of the Bowery, went on into the wilderness.

After the Palisade was erected, this road was known as far as the city gate (at Wall Street) as the Heere Straat, or High Street; and beyond the wall as the Heere Wegh--for more than a century the only highway that traversed the Island from end to end."

Rapalje followed the example of the colonists in general in snuggling close to the Fort. The writer just quoted remarks:--

"Upon the town rested continually the dread of an Indian a.s.sault. At any moment the hot-headed act of some angry colonist might easily bring on a war. In the early autumn of 1655, when peaches were ripe, an a.s.sault actually was made: being a vengeance against the whites because Hendrick Van d.y.k.e had shot to death an Indian woman whom he found stealing peaches in his orchard (lying just south of the present Rector Street) on the North River sh.o.r.e. Fortunately, warning came to the townsfolk, and, crowding their women and children into the Fort, they were able to beat off the savages; whereupon the savages, being the more eager for revenge, fell upon the settlements about Pavonia and on Staten Island: where the price paid for Hendrick Van d.y.k.e's peaches was the wasting of twenty-eight farms, the bearing away of one hundred and fifty Christians into captivity, and one hundred Christians outright slain."

During a part of the time that he lived in New Amsterdam Rapalje was an innkeeper. He appears to have been a man of the people, for in August, 1641, he was one of twelve men to represent Manhattan, Breuckelen, and Pavonia in considering measures necessary in dealing with the Indians.

It was at about 1654 that he began living at the Wallabout. Certainly he lived on Long Island in 1655, for in that year he began serving as a magistrate in Breuckelen.

It once was customary to a.s.sert that Rapalje's daughter Sarah was the first white child born on Long Island. The fact is that Sarah Rapalje was born during the residence of her parents at Fort Orange. The error arose from the supposition that Rapalje settled at the Wallabout upon his arrival in this country in 1623. Of Sarah Rapalje, who may probably be said to have been the first white female child born in the New Netherland Colony, one of her descendants, the author of the History of the Bergen Family, says:

"The early historians of this State and locality, led astray by a pet.i.tion presented by her, April 4th, 1656, (when she resided at the Walle-boght,) to the Governor and Council, for some meadows, in which she states that she is the 'first-born Christian child in New Netherlands,' a.s.sert that she was born at the Walle-boght. Judge Benson, in his writings, even ventures to describe the house where this took place. He says: 'On the point of land formed by the cove in Brooklyn, known as the Walle-boght, lying on its westerly side (it should have been _easterly_), was built the first house on Long Island, and inhabited by Joris Jansen de Rapalje, one of the first white settlers on the Island, and in which was born Sarah Rapalje, the first white child of European parentage born in the State.' In this, if there is any truth in the depositions of Catalyn or Catalyntie Trico (daughter of Jeremiah Trico of Paris), Sarah's mother, ... they are clearly mistaken. According to these depositions, she and her husband, Joris Jansen de Rapalje, came to this country in 1623; settled at Fort Orange, now Albany; lived there three years; came, in 1626, to New Amsterdam, 'where she lived afterward for many years; and then came to Long Island, where she now (1688) lives.' Sarah, therefore, was undoubtedly born at Albany, instead of the Walle-boght, and was probably married before she removed to Long Island, there being no reason to suppose that she resided there when a single woman without her husband."

The family record gives the time of her marriage as between her fourteenth and fifteenth year. Mr. Stiles remarks:

"While, therefore, Albany claims the honor of being her birthplace, and New Amsterdam of having seen her childhood, Brooklyn surely received most profit from her; for here in the Wallabout, she was twice married, and gave birth to fourteen children, from whom are descended the Polhemuses, the Bergens, the Bogarts, and many other of the most notable families of Kings County."

At the time of Rapalje's purchase at the Wallabout it began to appear to the land speculators that Long Island was a desirable field. The Director[10] himself made haste to secure the island called "Pagganck,"

lying close to the Long Island sh.o.r.e south of Fort Amsterdam. The island was thickly covered with nut-trees, which brought it the t.i.tle of "Nooten" or Nutten Island. In due time this became known as "the Governor's island," and this name has become permanent.

Van Twiller's successor was not less appreciative of the value of land on Long Island, but his purchases seem to have been made in the interest of the company. In August, 1638, he bought for the West India Company land adjoining Rapalje's farm and extending between Rennegackonck Creek (at the Wallabout) to Newtown Creek, and inland to "the Swamps of Mespaetches" (Maspeth).

This important sale to Kieft, representing approximately the area of the present Eastern District of Brooklyn, was made by "Kakapoteyuo, Manquenw, and Suwvian, Chiefs of Keskaechquerem," who received "eight fathoms of duffels, eight fathoms of wampum, twelve kettles, eight adzes, and eight axes, with some knives, beads, and awl blades."

By other purchases, at Jersey City and elsewhere, the West India Company sought to extend its dominions and increase the population of the colony. The States-General gave some attention to the colony, and by a proclamation in September, 1638, the Amsterdam Chamber threw open New Netherland to trade by all inhabitants of the United Provinces and of friendly nations, "in the company's ships," with an import duty of fifteen per cent., and an export duty of ten per cent. Every immigrant was to receive from the Director and Council "according to his condition and means, with as much land as he and his family can properly cultivate," the company reserving a quit-rent of a tenth. To these inducements was added that of free pa.s.sage over the Atlantic.

The favorable result of these offers soon appeared in the increased rate of immigration and in demand for land. The Director and Council soon found it to be desirable to buy more Long Island land, which they did in January, 1639. By this purchase the company secured the tract extending from Rockaway eastward to "Sicktew-hackey," or Fire Island Bay; thence northward to Martin Gerritsen's, or Cow Bay, and westward along the East River to "Vlaack's Kill"--in other words nearly all the land comprised in the present County of Queens.

In August of the same year (1639) Antony Jansen van Vaas of Salee received two hundred acres resting within the present towns of New Utrecht and Gravesend. In November a patent was granted for "a tobacco plantation" on the beach, "hard by Saphorakan" (presumably at Gowa.n.u.s) adjoining the land of Bennett. Another neighbor to Bennett came in the person of Frederick Lubbertsen, who, in May of the following year (1640), received a patent for land extending northerly from Gowa.n.u.s Cove, and representing a large part of what is now known as South Brooklyn.

Lubbertsen, who had been chief boatswain to Kieft in 1638, was an ambitious and politically disposed man. Two years after this big purchase he was one of twelve men chosen by the commonalty of New Amsterdam. He did not remove to Long Island until 1653, in which year he was chosen to represent the young town of Breuckelen at the New Amsterdam convention. He became a local magistrate in 1653, served several terms thereafter, and filled other political posts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST BROOKLYN FERRY]

As the lands of western Long Island represented by the present area of Kings County began to increase in value by increase of settlement and compet.i.tion in purchase, persons who had merely availed themselves of "squatter" privileges began to see the advisability of taking out formal patents. There had been particularly numerous instances of "squatting"

in the region of the Eastern District in a radius from the Wallabout inlet. Among the patents issued in 1640 was one to Abraham Rycken, for a plantation of considerable extent in this region, and in 1641 a piece of land on the East River legally pa.s.sed into the possession of Lambert Huybertsen.

Adjoining the land of Joris Rapalje at the Wallabout was an extensive piece of farm land occupied by Rapalje's son-in-law, Hans Hansen Bergen.

On Wallabout Bay lay the tobacco plantations of Jan and Peter Montfort, Peter Caesar, and other farmers. Between the Bay and the East River end of the Lubbertsen purchase came the land sold to Claes Jansen van Naerden (Ruyter), Jan Mauje, and Andries Hudde, all of which was afterward sold to Dirck Janse Waertman, who held it until the sale to his son-in-law, Joris Remsen, in 1706.

Meanwhile (in 1640) the first permanent English settlement on eastern Long Island had been made by Lyon Gardiner on the island which afterward received his name. This settlement, and others which followed it, were distasteful to the West India Company, which, having secured control of the entire western end of the Island, from Cow Bay on the Sound to Canarsie Bay on the ocean side, began to regard itself as ent.i.tled to claim jurisdiction over the entire area. When in 1641 emigrants from Lynn, Ma.s.s., undertook to settle at Schout's Bay, within Queens County, they were driven off by soldiers who had been sent out by Kieft for the purpose.

The English colonists did not leave the Island, but settled at Southampton, in Suffolk County. The fact that other New England settlers, who planted Southold, were not attacked seems to show either that Kieft scarcely regarded the territory beyond the Queens County line as worth fighting for at this time, or that he came to regard the new-comers as accepting his authority.

The settlement at Southold by emigrants from New Haven was indicative of conditions within New England to which later settlements on Long Island may be attributed. The extreme severity of the Puritan religious temper found expression in distressing exactions and persecutions. Driven from England by intolerance, the Puritans, when placed in control of social and political conditions, exhibited a degree of paternalism not less despotic than that from which they themselves had suffered. And as the Puritans of England had found shelter and liberty in Holland, the victims of Puritanical intolerance in America fled to the friendly support of Dutch authority within the New Netherland jurisdiction.

In fact, shortly after 1640 the Dutch government granted favoring patents to emigrants from New England. The Rev. John Doughty and his followers were welcomed at Maspeth, and provision for other comers (among them Anne Hutchinson and her family) was made at Throg's Neck and New Roch.e.l.le.

CHAPTER III

THE INDIANS AND THE EARLY SETTLERS

The Dutch Policy toward the Indians. Puritan and Dutch Policy Contrasted. Long Island Indians: Their Relations with the Whites. Kieft's Attacks on Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook. Uprising on Long Island. Overtures for Peace. Mission to Rockaway of De Vries and Olfertsen. Restoration of Friendly Relations.

These numerous settlements had not been accomplished without the encountering of Indian difficulties. In general the Dutch policy toward the Indians was business-like and reasonable, contrasting favorably with policies prevailing elsewhere among American new-comers. The Dutch were not so social as the French, but their att.i.tude was more fraternal than that usually observed among the English colonists. Dougla.s.s Campbell, who is to be regarded as a strong partisan of the Dutch as opposed to the Puritan system, but whose exhaustive studies both of the Puritan and of the Dutch people gave him an unusual grasp of the situation, thus contrasts the policy of the two peoples:--

"Why the Puritans were involved in ceaseless wars can be read in every line of their history. As they could not make of the Indian a red Puritan, he was a spiritual outcast, whom it was their duty to exterminate. Three years after the landing of the Mayflower Miles Standish and seven of his companions murdered three native chiefs in cold blood. It was this event which led the devout John Robinson to say, 'How happy a thing it would have been if you had converted some before you killed any.' In 1637 the white settlers of Connecticut put a red captive to death by dragging him limb from limb by ropes fastened to his arms and legs. Bancroft tells us that the Puritans bought the Indians'

land, except that of the Pequots. Look at their laws and see. In 1633 Ma.s.sachusetts pa.s.sed a statute in relation to land t.i.tles. It confirmed to the Indians the little patches around their wigwams on which they raised their corn, but declared that the rest belonged to the whites on the authority of the first chapter of Genesis 'and the invitation of the Indians.' But murder and robbery of their land all pale before the crowning infamy which drove the red man to despair. Above all things he prized personal liberty; slavery to him was a thousand fold worse than death. And yet to this fate the settlers consigned thousands of the natives, sending them to the West Indies to work on the sugar plantations. Among these victims was the little grandson of the good king Ma.s.sasoit, who had welcomed the Pilgrims and been their life-long friend. Look at the records of Ma.s.sachusetts, and there you will find statute after statute offering bounties for Indian scalps, the prices fixed being from twenty-five to one hundred pounds for males, from twenty to sixty for women, and from ten to twenty for children under ten years of age. These same statutes provided that females and children taken prisoners should belong to the captors, 'to be sold out of the province.' I mention these facts in no invidious spirit, but in justice to the red man, who has been called treacherous and cruel. He resented such conduct; and can you wonder at it? He had no redress except by arms, and he has written the story of his vengeance all over the face of New England. What could the Indians think of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the white man's G.o.d? What was true of the New England colonies was true of the southern colonies as well. The course pursued by Penn can hardly be taken as a criterion, for he dealt with the Delaware Indians, who had been conquered by the Iroquois, deprived of the use of arms, and forced to accept the opprobrious epithet of 'women;' and Penn, in purchasing their lands, only followed out the example which had been set by the Dutch.

"Turn now to New York, and see what the Indian was under different conditions. The upper Hudson and the valley of the Mohawk were first settled by the Dutch. They simply treated the Indian as a man. Tolerant in religion, they respected his rude faith; truthful among themselves, to him they never broke their word; honest in all their dealings with him, they kept good faith. They suffered from no thefts, because they took nothing except by purchase. Their land t.i.tles were respected, because for every tract they had an Indian deed. They were scourged by no ma.s.sacres, save from the enemy across the border, because they committed no robbery or murder. This was the whole secret of their policy. It is easy to belittle it, as historians have done, by saying that upon no other conditions could they have lived among the natives.

Of course it was politic, but the world has discovered that honesty is the best policy, without concluding that it is any the less a Christian virtue. These early settlers in New York were traders, offshoots from what was the greatest commercial nation of the world. They made no pretense of doing missionary work. They were simply in pursuit of gain.

But they had learned that the only permanent success in life rests on honesty and justice. This is the lesson that commerce teaches, and because it does so it has been the civilizer of the world. After the English conquest in 1664 the same policy was continued, thanks to the presence of the Dutch, who still formed the majority of the population.

The Six Nations then placed their lands under protection of the crown and were recognized as appendant to New York. The burden thus cast upon the province was very heavy. For more than a century New York kept their alliance by heavy subsidies and by contributions of men and money for their defense against the French."[11]

The Indian policy of the Dutch has, indeed, been credited with a most important influence upon American history. But sagacious as it may have been as a broad plan of action, there was no way of obviating the difficulties arising from local and individual blunders. Considering the number of special provocations to revolt, it is remarkable that Indian troubles were not more frequent and more serious, and that the storm did not break sooner and more fiercely than it did. Prime remarks that the conduct of the Long Island Indians toward the whites is "without a parallel in the history of the country."

"The Indians on Long Island," says Silas Wood, "seem to have been less troublesome to the whites than those north of the Sound.... [They]

sometimes committed depredations on the property of the whites.... It does not appear that they ever formed any combination against the first settlers, or materially interrupted the progress of their improvements.... The security of the whites must be ascribed to the means they employed to preserve peace with the Indians."

When the storm of Indian anger and revenge broke over New England in 1643, New Netherland did not escape a similar if not equally terrible visitation. If the settlers in New Amsterdam began to experience anxiety, something like a panic seized upon the settlers of outlying regions. The Long Island settlers were perhaps less ill at ease than others at an equal distance from the Fort, so friendly had been their relations with the Indians; but individual offenses of the settlers and individual offenses by the Indians produced a strained relation in certain quarters, and when the excuse came the hot-heads among the Long Island settlers made trouble.

At New Amsterdam the trouble began when the Mohawks descended upon the river tribes in retaliation for local offenses, and the river Indians flocked to the vicinity of the Fort for protection. At "Corlaer's Bouwery," on Manhattan Island, a group of Long Island Indians, under the chief, Nainde Nummerius, had encamped. An ill-advised appeal to Kieft resulted in an impulsive decision on the part of the Governor, who, in spite of wiser counsel, sent out two secret expeditions on the night of February 25, 1643, one against the refugees at Pavonia, the other against the encampment at Corlaer's Hook. The attacks were merciless.

Eighty Indians were slaughtered at Pavonia, and forty at the Hook.

This unfortunate blunder resulted in acts which still further excited the anger of the Indians. Long Island settlers asked Kieft for permission to attack the Marechawieck tribe; but Kieft, possibly because he had already begun to realize the influence of the outrage he had committed, denied permission on the ground that the Long Island red men had given no sufficient cause for offensive action. Nevertheless, the Governor did not deny to the Long Island settlers any retaliatory steps that might at any time seem necessary. Shortly after this communication, two wagon-loads of corn in charge of a party of Indians were seized, and when the Indians resisted the act of plundering, three of them were killed.