Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/580

NEW YORK. country in 1610 and subsequent years. Just below Albany, Captain Christiænsen built Fort Nassau in 1613 (abandoned in 1617), and about the same time a number of traders built their posts on Manhattan Island. A trading company, organized in 1615, concluded two years later at Tawasantha, near Albany, a treaty with the Iroquois, who remained to the last friends of the Dutch. With the founding of the West India Company in 1621 a fairly active immigration began. A number of Walloons brought over by Captain May in 1623 were settled on Manhattan Island, on Long Island, and up the Hudson at Fort Orange (later Albany), founded in 1622. In 1626 Peter Minuit was made director-general of the company, and bought Manhattan Island from the Indians. (See, section on History.) The greater part of the population of New Netherland, 200 in number in 1625, were agents of the company, whose object in the main was trade and not colonization; and as it guarded its monopoly jealously and offered few inducements to permanent settlers, progress for a few years was slow. Quickly, however, individual directors discovered the advantageous facility with which the Indians might be brought to part with their lands, and in 1629 the patroon system, a system of feudal tenure on an extensive scale, was established. Kilian Van Rensselaer purchased a large tract of land in the neighborhood of Albany, and Michael Pauw bought Staten Island and Pavonia. Ships from Holland stocked these great estates with colonists, tools, and animals. The acquisition of land continued under (q.v.), who came over in 1633, and under (q.v.), who succeeded Van Twiller in 1638. The abandonment of the company's trade monopoly was followed by a large influx of colonists, among whom were many English Puritans and French Huguenots. The population was cosmopolitan even in 1643, when, according to Father Jogues, 400 or 500 inhabitants spoke eighteen different languages and were divided into Calvinists, Lutherans, Catholics, Puritans, Baptists, and other more minute denominations. Wars with the Algonquin Indians, caused by the greed of Kieft, brought the colony near to destruction. The settlements around New Amsterdam were wiped out and the town itself was threatened. In the moment of highest danger Kieft was forced by popular demand to appoint a council of eight to assist him in carrying on the war. This was the beginning of representative government in New York. Peter Stuyvesant (1647-64) appointed a council of nine to advise him and acted in systematic opposition to it. Sincerely solicitous for the welfare of the colony, he reserved it for himself to determine in what that welfare consisted and how it was to be attained. Defying alike the popular will and the orders of the States-General in Holland, he ruled, arrested, confiscated, silenced public speech, and dictated the outline for the Sunday sermon. New Amsterdam received a burgher government in 1653, but Stuyvesant had the appointment of the magistrates. He upheld bravely the rights of the company against the Swedes on the Delaware, whom he dispossessed, and the English in Connecticut and Long Island, but the citizens grew weary of him and yielded in 1664 to an English fleet under Colonel Nicolls, which had come to enforce the Duke of York's title to the region.

New Netherland became New York, and was ruled by the Duke's Governors (a Legislature was refused), and the ‘Duke's laws.’ Taken by the Dutch in 1673, it was returned to England in the following year. At the time of the English occupation New Netherland had a population of about 8000, comprising many nationalities, with the Dutch predominant. Life in the colony had not that deep spiritual tinge which it bore in New England, but it was more gracious and more free. The churches were well supported, and the school system was excellent, but breweries and drinking-shops found their place in the order of things. In religion a broad toleration, in social life a hearty gayety and timely hospitality marked this cosmopolitan colony of well-fed traders and farmers.

The Dutch did not take kindly to the English rule in the beginning. The desire of the people for some share in the government remained unsatisfied. Complaints against the arbitrary imposition of taxes and customs culminated in a demand, expressed in the form of petitions, for a popular assembly, and this was finally granted in 1683, when a provincial assembly summoned by Governor Dongan passed the Charter of Liberties, granting freedom of religion to all Christians, and the suffrage to all freeholders. An important treaty with the Iroquois in 1684 confirmed the alliance between them and the English and made them definitely the enemies of the French, who retaliated with punitive expeditions into the country, in 1687 under Denonville, and later, repeatedly, under Frontenac. In 1686 New York and Albany obtained new charters, but in the following year the provincial assembly was dissolved, absolute rule was restored, and New York became a part of the Dominion of New England, under Governor Andros. The Revolution of 1688 in England found two parties in the colony, the richer classes who were loyal to James II., the popular majority in favor of William of Orange. Exaggerated reports of Catholic intrigues caused (q.v.) to seize the fort at New Amsterdam in the name of William and Mary. A committee of safety made him commander-in-chicf, and the popular assembly in 1689 gave him autocratic power. He held the fort against a force of troops from England, but willingly laid down his authority when Governor Sloughter, the King's appointee, arrived. The clergy and the wealthy merchants hated Leisler as the champion of popular ideas, and brought about his death on a charge of treason in 1691.

The period from 1690 to the Revolution was marked by almost continuous disputes between the Governor and the Assembly on the questions of the Governor's salary, the collection and the disposal of the revenue, the control of the courts, and the establishment of an endowed Church. Of the Governors the larger number were impecunious peers sent to America to grow fat as best they might. They bargained with the Assembly for an increase in salary, participated in gigantic land frauds in common with minor officials and prominent citizens, and in one instance, the notable case of Governor Fletcher (1692-98), shared in the profits of piracy. There were, however, Governors of a far higher character, men like Bellomont (1698-1701), to whom the rehabilitation of Leisler's memory is due. Robert Hunter (1710-19), or William Burnet (1720-28), who was an ardent champion of the royal power, but nevertheless an honest man,