Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/87

 establish them on the land as laborers bound by servile tenure. In this manner a number of great feudal families was created—some of them so powerful that they survived the storms of factions, wars, and revolutions until near the middle of the nineteenth century. Not yet content with the growth of local industry, the Company, as a regular part of its business, imported slaves from Africa to work in field, shop, and kitchen.

Nevertheless, in spite of these efforts, New Netherland, at the end of forty years, had only about ten thousand inhabitants, of whom approximately one-sixth dwelt in the thriving village of New Amsterdam on the southern end of Manhattan Island. The truth is that the Company found the fur trade with the Indians the most lucrative division of its enterprise; its agents and interlopers exchanged rum and firearms on favorable terms for choice peltries, thus sowing dragons' teeth while earning high dividends. Of all the sickening butcheries that accompanied the conflict of whites and Indians, there was nothing more horrible than the tragedies which occurred on the frontiers of New Netherland.

Still it must not be thought that the Dutch were entirely indifferent to spiritual affairs. On the contrary, their Reformed Church was established in the colony; and the governors sent out by the Company, though usually hard-fisted men of affairs, gave no little attention to providing the inhabitants with ministers, teachers, and "comforters of the sick." Their papers were not as full of references to divine interposition as those of English colonial executives, but the doughty old Stuyvesant, on one occasion when very angry at complaints against his rule, referred to God as well as the Dutch West India Company as a source of his authority. Nor were the Dutch entirely indifferent to the spiritual condition of the Indians. Missionaries were sent to the heathen and heroic efforts brought some of the Mohawks to the Christian faith. The harvest, however, was not great and in spite of their efforts, a Frenchman