The Story of New Netherland/Chapter 2

quick-witted Netherlanders lost no time. Before the Half Moon was free from King James's clutches, merchants in Amsterdam had formed a syndicate to send a trading-ship across the Atlantic with Juet, mate of the Half Moon, as master of the new vessel. She was the pioneer of a great fleet with homely names, such as the Fortune, Tiger, Spotted Cow, Wood-Yard, Orange Tree, Arms of Amsterdam, Black Eagle, Blue Cock, Flower of Gelderland, Unity, The Pear Tree, New Netherland’s Fortune, White Horse, Herring, Salt Mountain, Prince Maurice, which crossed the Atlantic and came back laden with American furs.

In 1612 two famous skippers, Adrian Block in the Tiger and Hendrick Christiansen in the Fortune, crossed over and brought back to Holland not only a cargo of skins, but two sons of Indian chiefs, named Orson and Valentine. Between 1612 and 1621, Christiansen made ten voyages into the great river. On Castle Island, now part of the city of Albany, he built a fort and trading-station. At Esopus a ronduit, or circular fort, was erected in 1614.

By what name was "the Rhine of America" then known? The Indians called it the Shatemuc; Juet spoke of it as "the Great Stream," but soon it was known among the patriotic Dutchmen as the Mauritius, after the Union General Maurice. To others it was the North River, or the River Flowing out of the Mountains. Not until after 1664 did Englishmen give it the name Hudson.

The Dutchmen took a hint from native architecture, and with the aid of the Indians built huts of timber and bark. These were about at No. 39 Broadway, where are the offices of the Holland-America Line, and then much nearer the water; for Manhattan has been artificially lengthened. Christiansen and his men spent the winter among the virgin forests which covered the spaces now occupied by the tunnel-like streets, on which rise skyscrapers made of Pittsburg steel, higher than Babel's Tower. This original Holland Society ate dinners with keen appetites and splendid digestion.

They noted the landmarks. Probably the first place to get a name was the Kaap, or cape, the rocky southern end of the island, called also the Hook, and later "Capsey" Hook. This became in time the official landing-place, being furnished with an iron rail for the safety of passengers, land lubbers, and boatmen embarking and disembarking. The water space covering the Kaap has long since been "gedempte," as the Dutch say, that is, dumped full of earth, and people in crossing the "Battery" walk over the historic place now under water.

Between Capsey Hook and Spuyten Duyvil, the Dutchmen in exploring the island found a wonderfully varied landscape, — high and low hills, lakes, swamps, forests, stretches of bald rock, grassy meadows, Indian trails, "castles," and villages, with fields of corn and patches of melons and beans. These, with amazing abundance of four-footed, winged, finny, and shell game, furnished juicy and delicious food, and filled the Dutchmen with enthusiastic admiration. At home in Patria they had had to get their "staff of life" out of a spongy soil, which their ancestors after ages of toil drew up from the ocean, or fertilized into life from the dead sand of the sea bottom. Even after winning their land from the waves, it must be continually guarded lest it slip away into marsh or water. The boundless fertility of the New World filled them with perpetual surprise. The vast number of springs, brooks, and rills and the variety and grandeur of the trees were especially impressive. It recalled the Land of Promise about which they had read and their domines had often preached.

Where is now the City Hall Park, stretched grassy meadows. Imposing hills, long since leveled, suggested dreams of future windmills. "The Swamp," still the centre of New York's leather trade, at that time required a boat to cross it. Canal Street was then a river, enlarging into a lake, rich in islands, coves, and inlets fringed with trees, whose leaves made shade and whose roots were the hiding-places of trout. Where lay heaps of clam and oyster shell fragments, left over from Indian feasts and wampum-making, visions of limekilns at once rose in the Dutchmen’s minds; so they called it Kalk Hoek, or Lime Point. As an ordinary Dutchman pronounces Delft "Delleft," so "Kalk" in a sailor's mouth became "Kallek." In time the English called it the Collect, and in the days of its use as a rubbish receiver, it was well worthy of its name.

The Indian village, where lived the Manhattans, or Island Indians, the Mana-hattas, was situated between high land and water, and was favorable for defense and food. Crowning the hill was the "castle" or palisaded village. Below were the maize lands and the endless supplies of furs, game, material for shell money, fresh- and salt-water fish, and the clams, oysters, and eels that thrive in tidal waters. At the river's mouth was Canoe Place.

The American scenery was very different from that of the flat Veluwe, the shore dunes, or the sunken polders of dear Patria. From the varied shores of Manhattan, high and rocky, low and sandy, shell-strewn or stony, gravel or beach, or from coign of vantage on hills, whether bare or bosky, or out of forest vistas, these pioneers feasted on the scenery. Across the narrow East River rose the sand banks, or "Brooklyn Heights," a striking feature in the general flatness of that island of Seawanaka, or wampum-land of the Indians, but not called "Long" until nearly a century later. Across, on the sunset side, "the great rocks of Weehawken" towered above the meadows of the very low Hackensack valley. The columnar lines of the Palisades, frowning on the upper river's front and casting early and long afternoon shadows, mightily impressed men from a flat and sunken land. Their own writings show how handsomely the Netherlanders appraised their new possessions. The pages of Wassenaer fairly glow with enthusiastic description. Though ready to utilize their full resources, they looked for quick returns. So long as the wild animals, easily trapped or shot, carried a fortune on their backs, and the Indian demand was for metal goods and trinkets, nothing else paid like peltry. Besides, to fight the Spaniards and set Patria permanently free, ready cash was the first requirement.

Yet there were those who heeded the beckoning of the shining waters and listened to the call of the woods. Block left off "trucking," to win the prize promised to discoverers of new lands. We shall soon find him afloat. A new map meant credentials to fame.

Three other Dutchmen from Fort Orange had some lively adventures inland during the year 1614, and increased unwillingly Europe's knowledge of American geography. Starting out with some Mohican Indians, they were made prisoners by the Iroquois and taken probably into the Susquehanna region. It is quite possible that, supposed to be Spaniards or Frenchmen, they were kept a while at the stronghold on "Spanish Hill" near Waverly, New York, and then, by way of the Delaware River, released or ransomed. Whatever may have been their full itinerary, these men gave information that was incorporated into a map, dated 1604-16, and discovered by Mr. Brodhead in the archives at the Hague. It is "the oldest muniment" for the history of the Empire State.

When Skipper Block's vessel caught fire and became ashes and scrap iron, the doughty Dutchman built a new yacht, the pioneer craft of the Empire State, the Onrust, or Restless, of sixteen tons. The map-makers had not yet known of the long sound stretching from Manhattan to Montauk. They had pictured New England as coming down to the ocean. From a hilltop on Manhattan, Block may have seen the agitated waters glistening in the morning sun, and named their place "Helder-Gat," or Shining Gate; or he may have remembered the Hellegat, between Axel and Hulst in Zeeland. Passing eastward over the rapids and shallows of Hell Gate (the sunken fan-shaped rocks, which were blown up by General Gilmore in 1877), Block was surprised to find what seemed to be an inland sea. Judging from the many sentimental names, such as Lapwing's Point, Vale of Swans, Clover Nook, Children's Corner, given by the Dutch in America, it is just as likely that the name "Hell" Gate (as in Helderberg, the Shining Hills) suggests heaven and its light, as their opposites. Yet it may be only the rough sailors' dubbing of a place difficult of navigation. He found the water, like the Hudson, salt, but he also learned by tasting that the big stream flowing in a rush from the north was sweet.

Spending several weeks in exploration, Block put down on his map the Fresh (Connecticut) River; Rood (red), or Rhode Island; and many other names long since translated or corrupted into good, possible, or "Connecticut" English. In Dutch, Rood, like Roos in Roosevelt, is pronounced as Rhode, though thousands of Americans still say Russ-velt instead of Rōs-a-velt. Block Island, reckoned in Newport County, and Block Island Sound perpetuate the skipper’s name.

Meanwhile interest in their possessions was increasing among the Dutch. Other merchants hazarded their yachts in trans-Atlantic trade. So long at war with Spain, with all their energies engaged, they could not, even in time of truce, restrain themselves.

Excitement, being in the air, did not need stimulus, but the Dutch Congress, in March, 1614, fed fuel to the flame by fresh offers. Whosoever should discover a new country and give information within a fortnight after his return, and then make four voyages to the new land, should have a monopoly of its trade. Quick to close with the offer, in July, 1614, a company of merchants, in, six cities, in virtue of Henry Hudson's discovery, petitioned the States-General for a charter.

This paper was as yet unacted upon, when, on October 1, Block, with his map, arrived in Holland. On the 11th he had the floor, and told of the lands and peoples he had seen. His chart, or "figurative map," revealed a new inland sea, a great island, numerous waterways, and a new entrance to Manhattan, besides locating rivers and Indian tribes.

Clearly Block had the right of way over the Syndicate of the Six Cities, and on the same day a charter was issued to "The United New Netherland Company."

The official name given to the new-found land, discovered by Hudson and exploited by Block, was New Netherland, — not New Netherlands, as so many careless writers, and even book titles, public documents, and bronze tablets have it. The Dutch patriots gave the land of hope in America not a plural form, which might suggest the ten provinces that had left the covenant of freedom and gone back to Spain, but one that had recalled united Patria, — the seven free and independent states forming the Dutch Republic, now one country and one nation. The new name reflected "the Union," one and indivisible. It was and should be over, in speech and writing, New Netherland.

The actual history of Dutch exploration all over the world has been for the most part erased, like chalk lines from a school blackboard, by later persons, chiefly English, yet it is interesting to know the method in Dutch names. Sentiment and patriotism were predominant. In Java, Ceylon, Formosa, South America, the West Indies, and New Netherland, they recall Patria and its great men or their homes. There were many Staten islands, Mauritius rivers and lands, Sandy Hooks, Forts Nassau and Orange, Dunderbergs, Batavias, and names ending in "dam" and "dyke" all over the world. Kills, bergs, havens, gates, corners, wijks, and other hooks and eyes of geographical speech hold the landscape in the mind’s map.

Within the towns, whether in Java, India, or North America, are found a Maiden's Lane, a Broadway, a Wall and a High Street, besides canals and "grachts," new, old, or "gedempte," with short or long "paths." In addition to these were the same institutions of religion, fraternity, charity, police protection, prevention of fire, and the usual features of Dutch city government.

In the churches, similar offices and customs existed. The original praiseworthy traits of character-industry, honesty, devoutness, loyalty, patience, and cleanliness - are seen in the daily life of the people. These marked the Dutchman in the Greater Netherlands, as surely as did the symbol of the lion minted on his guilder; while the one sentiment which dominated all was that; of William, "the Father of the Fatherland," — "I will maintain."

The Dutchmen faced bravely their new responsibilities of national expansion. In Patria, a new school was called forth by the necessities of colonization in Asia and America. Under the patronage of the India companies, the city of Leyden, which furnished the first settlers of both Massachusetts and New York, instituted a seminary for the training of missionaries. It was founded in the same year, 1622, that saw the organization in Rome of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Out of this Leyden school went forth famous scholars and teachers; among others, George Candidus and Robert Junius of Formosa. The Dutch made good their professed desire to convert the aboriginos to a higher form of faith, and to uplift them through education, and their records show it. Henceforth the school and church, schoolmaster and Domine, were to go in the ship with the pioneers from Patria. By the terms of his call and ordination vows, the Domine served on both land and water.

Such was the beginning of New Netherland. As explored and occupied by the Dutch, it included the region between the Connecticut and the Susquehanna rivers, watered by the streams rising in the Catskills and the Adirondacks.