Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam Part 15

Governor Stuyvesant a.s.sented to peace upon condition that the Mohawks and the Minguas would stand as security for the faithful observance of the terms exacted. The chiefs of these tribes agreeing to this, in a formal speech admonished the Esopus chiefs to live with the Dutch as brothers. And then, turning to the Dutch, in a speech equally impressive, they warned them not to irritate the Indians by unjust treatment. The Indians were compelled to yield to such terms as Stuyvesant proposed.

All the lands of Esopus were surrendered to the Dutch. The starving Indians were to receive eight hundred schepels of corn as ransom for the captive christians. The Indian warriors sent as slaves to the West Indies, were to be left to their awful fate. The mediators were held responsible for the faithful execution of the treaty. Should the Esopus Indians break it, the mediators were bound to a.s.sist the Dutch in punishing them. No spirituous liquors were to be _drank_ near the houses of the Dutch. No _armed_ Indians to approach a Dutch plantation. Murderers were to be mutually surrendered, and damages reciprocally paid for.

Thus were the Esopus Indians driven from their homes, deprived of their independence and virtually ruined. Having thus triumphantly though cruelly settled this difficulty, Stuyvesant went up to fort Orange, where he held another grand council with the chiefs of all the tribes in those regions.

A clergyman was sent to Esopus and a church organized of sixteen members. In September, 1660, Domine Selyus was installed as the clergyman of Brooklyn, where he found one elder, two deacons and twenty-four church members. There were, at that time thirty-one families in Brooklyn, containing a population of one hundred and thirty-four persons. They had no church but worshipped in a barn.

Governor Stuyvesant contributed nearly eighty dollars annually to the support of this minister, but upon condition that he should preach every Sunday afternoon, at his farm or bouwery upon Manhattan Island.

The last of May, Charles the Second, the fugitive King of England, was returning from his wanderings on the continent to ascend the throne of his ancestors. He was a weak man, of imperturbable good nature. On his way to London he stopped at the Hague, where he was magnificently entertained. In taking leave of the States-General he was lavish of his expressions of friendship. He declared that he should feel jealous should the Dutch prefer the friendship of any other state to that of Great Britain.

At that time Holland was in commercial enterprise, the most prosperous nation upon the globe; decidedly in advance of England. The British parliament envied Holland her commercial supremacy. "The Convention Parliament," writes Mr. Brodhead,

"which had called home the king, took early steps to render still more obnoxious one of England's most selfish measures.

The Navigation Act of 1651 was revised; and it was now enacted that after the first day of December, 1660, no merchandise should be imported into, or exported from any of his majesty's plantations or territories in Asia, Africa or America, except in English vessels of which the master and three-fourths of the mariners at least are English."

Immediately after this, Lord Baltimore demanded the surrender of New Amstel and all the lands on the west side of Delaware bay. "All the country," it was said by his envoy,

"up to the fortieth degree, was granted to Lord Baltimore.

The grant has been confirmed by the king and sanctioned by parliament. You are weak, we are strong, you had better yield at once."

A very earnest and prolonged discussion ensued. The Dutch Company said,

"We hold our rights by the States-General. We are resolved to defend those rights. If Lord Baltimore will persevere and resort to violent measures, we shall use all the means which G.o.d and nature have given us to protect the inhabitants and preserve their possessions."

This was indeed an alarming state of affairs for New Amstel. Various disasters had befallen the colony, so that it now numbered but thirty families. The garrison had been reduced, by desertion, to twenty-five men; and of these but eight or ten were in the princ.i.p.al fort. The English were in such strength upon the Chesapeake, that they could easily send five hundred men to the Delaware. Very earnest diplomatic intercourse was opened between the States-General and the British Parliament upon these questions.

Governor Stuyvesant, whose attention had been somewhat engrossed by the Indian difficulties, now renewed his persecution of the Quakers.

Notwithstanding the law against private conventicles, Henry Townsend at Rustdorp, who had been already twice fined, persisted in holding private meetings in his house. He was arrested with two others, and carried to fort Amsterdam. Townsend and Tilton were banished from the colony. Two magistrates were appointed as spies to inform of any future meetings, and some soldiers were stationed in the village to suppress them. Whatever Governor Stuyvesant undertook to do he accomplished very thoroughly. The following paper was drawn up which the inhabitants were required to sign:

"If any meetings or conventicles of Quakers shall be held in this town of Rustdorp, that we know of, we will give information to the authority set up by the governor, and we will also give the authorities of the town such a.s.sistance against any such persons as needs may require."

A few refused to sign this paper. They were punished by having the soldiers quartered upon them.

Fort Orange was, at this time, the extreme frontier post, in the north and west of New Netherland. Though the country along the Mohawk river had been explored for a considerable distance, there were no settlements there, though one or two huts had been reared in the vicinity of the Cohoes Falls. This whole region had abounded with beavers and wild deer. But the fur trade had been pushed with so much vigor that the country was now almost entirely dest.i.tute of peltries.

The colonists wished to purchase the fertile lands in the valley of the Mohawk, and the Indians manifested a willingness to sell them.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DISASTROUS YEAR.

Purchase of Staten Island.--The Restoration cf Charles Second.--Emigration Invited.--Settlement of Bushwick.--The Peculiar People.--Persecution of John Brown.--The Governor Rebuked.--c.u.mulation of Disasters.--The Outbreak at Esopus.--The Panic.--Measures of the Governor.--The Indian Fort.--The expedition to Mamaket.--Capture of the Fort.--Annihilation of the Esopus Indians.

In the year 1661, the Company purchased of Melyn, the patroon, for about five hundred dollars, all his rights to lands on Staten Island.

Thus the whole island became the property of the Company. Grants of lands were immediately issued to individuals. The Waldenses, and the Huguenots from Roch.e.l.le in France, were invited to settle upon the island. A block-house was built which was armed with two cannon and garrisoned by ten soldiers. Fourteen families were soon gathered in a little settlement south of the Narrows.

Upon the restoration of Charles the Second, in England, the Royalists and churchmen insisted upon the restoration of the hierarchy. The Restoration was far from being the unanimous act of the nation. The republicans and dissenters, disappointed and persecuted, were disposed in ever increasing numbers, to take refuge in the New World. The West India Company of Holland being in possession of a vast territory, between the Hudson and the Delaware, which was quite uninhabited, save by a few tribes of Indians, availed themselves of this opportunity to endeavor to draw emigrants from all parts of Europe, and especially from England, to form settlements upon their lands.

They issued proclamations inviting settlers and offering them large inducements. The country, which embraced mainly what is now New Jersey, was described in glowing terms as if it were a second Eden.

And yet there was no gross exaggeration in the narrative.

"This land," they wrote,

"is but six weeks' sail from Holland. It is fertile in the extreme. The climate serene and temperate, is the best in the world. The soil is ready for the plough, and seed can be committed to it with scarcely any preparation. The most valuable timber is abundant. The forest presents in profusion, nuts and wild fruit of every description. The richest furs can be obtained without trouble. Deer, turkeys, pigeons and almost every variety of wild game, are found in the woods, and there is every encouragement for the establishment of fisheries."

Having presented this view of the region, to which emigrants were invited, and having also announced an exceedingly attractive charter of civil and religious privileges which would be granted them, in the following terms the invitation to emigrate was urged:

"Therefore if any of the good Christians, who may be a.s.sured of the advantages to mankind of plantations in these lat.i.tudes, shall be disposed to transport themselves to said place, they shall have full liberty to live in the fear of the Lord upon the aforesaid good conditions and shall be likewise courteously used.

"We grant to all Christian people of tender conscience, in England or elsewhere oppressed, full liberty to erect a colony between New England and Virginia in America, now within the jurisdiction of Peter Stuyvesant."

Twenty-three families, most of them French, established a settlement on Long Island, at the place now called Bushwick. The village grew rapidly and in two years had forty men able to bear arms.

The proclamation issued by the Company, inviting emigrants to settle upon the lands between the Hudson and the Delaware, attracted much attention in Europe. Committees were sent to examine the lands which it was proposed thus to colonize. The region between New Amstel and Cape Henlopen, being quite unoccupied, attracted much attention. A company, the members of which may be truly called a peculiar people, decided to settle there. An extraordinary doc.u.ment was drawn up, consisting of one hundred and seventeen articles for the government of the a.s.sociation. In this singular agreement it is written:

"The a.s.sociates are to be either married men or single men twenty-four years old, who are free from debt. Each one is bound to obey the ordinances of the society and not to seek his own advancement over any other member. No clergyman is to be admitted into the society. Religious services are to be as simple as possible. Every Sunday and holiday the people are to a.s.semble, sing a Psalm and listen to a chapter from the Bible, to be read by one of the members in rotation. After this another Psalm is to be sung. At the end of these exercises the court shall be opened for public business. The object of the a.s.sociation being to establish a harmonious society of persons of different religious sentiments, all intractable people shall be excluded from it, such as those in communion with the Roman See usurious Jews, English stiff-necked Quakers, Puritans, fool-hardy believers in the Millenium and obstinate modern pretenders to revelation."

While the Company in Holland, were inviting emigrants to their territory of the New World, with the fullest promises of religious toleration, their governor, Stuyvesant, was unrelentingly persecuting all who did not sustain the established religion.

A very quiet, thoughtful, inoffensive man, John Brown, an Englishman, moved from Boston to Flushing. He was a plain farmer, very retiring in his habits and a man of but few words. From curiosity he attended a Quaker meeting. His meditative spirit was peculiarly impressed with the simplicity of their worship. He invited them to his house, and soon joined their society. The magistrates informed Stuyvesant that John Brown's house had become a conventicle for Quakers. Being arrested, he did not deny the charge, and was fined twenty-five pounds and threatened with banishment.

The next week a new proclamation was issued, saying,

"The public exercise of any religion but the Reformed, in houses, barns, ships, woods or fields, will be punished by a fine of fifty guilders; double for the second offence; and for the third quadruple with arbitrary correction."

John Brown, either unable or refusing to pay his fine, was taken to New Amsterdam, where he was imprisoned for three months. An order was then issued announcing his banishment.

"For the welfare," it was written,

"of the community, and to crush as far as possible, that abominable sect who treat with contempt both the political magistrate, and the ministers of G.o.d's holy word, and who endeavor to undermine the police and religion, John Brown is to be transported from this province in the first ship ready to sail, as an example to others."

He was sent to Holland in the "Gilded Fox." Stuyvesant wrote to the Company, "The contumacious prisoner has been banished as a terror to others who, if not discouraged by this example, will be dealt with still more severely."

The Company in Holland, was not at all in sympathy with its intolerant governor. The exile was received by them respectfully. The following dispatch, condemnatory of the severe measures of Stuyvesant, was forwarded to him:

"Although it is our cordial desire that similar and other sectarians may not be found there, yet, as the contrary seems to be the fact, we doubt very much whether vigorous proceedings against them ought not to be discontinued; unless indeed, you intend to check and destroy your population, which, in the youth of your existence, ought rather to be encouraged by all possible means.

"Wherefore it is our opinion that some connivance is useful, and that at least the consciences of men, ought to remain free and unshackled. Let every one remain free so long as he is modest, irreproachable in his political conduct, and so long as he does not offend others or oppose the government.

This maxim of moderation has always been the guide of our magistrates in this city. The consequence has been that people have flocked from every land to this asylum. Tread thus in their steps and we doubt not you will be blessed."