The Story of New Netherland/Chapter 3

shiploads of American furs sold in Amsterdam set Dutch money-makers hot on the trail for more. Led by Usselinx, they urged in the State Legislature of Holland that a West India Company be formed. Asia had enriched the Republic. Why should not New Netherland?

Not while the truce with Spain lasted could the national congress grant the petition of Usselinx; but in 1621, when war was renewed, consent was given. Then, like hounds from the leash, the Dutch leaped to lead all nations in commercial enterprise. In June, 1621, the West India Company was chartered. The governor-general of the new corporation must be commissioned and approved by the congress; but, except on this point, its powers were sovereign. It could effect treaties and alliances with princes and potentates, erect forts, levy and arm soldiers, dispatch war vessels, plant colonies, carry on war, and establish government. Its products imported into Holland were free of all taxes for the space of eight years. Its proud flag bore the monogram G. W. C., for it possessed the coveted privileges of a Geoctrooyed, or chartered corporation with monopoly.

This charter made possible the cradle history of America's greatest city. The first object was war against Spain. The second was commerce for the enrichment of the Dutch Republic. Hence the great powers granted to the company. In the Netherlands were no mines and very little fertile soil. The life of the State must be maintained by riches won in and on the sea, and by trade with other lands. Holland in the seventeenth century had to do what Japan must do in the twentieth, in order to feed her people and maintain her growth. Hence the extraordinary commercial expansion of 1621.

Nevertheless, it must be remembered that colonization was only one method chosen to enrich the mother country. The Company was not obliged to populate new lands in America. The charter word is may (mogen), not must. There was no urgent call for a colony beyond the Atlantic, for Dutch people did not need or desire to leave Patria. Religion was free, and employment and money were easy to get.

Where, then, was the Republic, not at all overpopulated, to get the colonists? There was little to attract the native Hollander away from home, and a hundred men were ready to enlist as soldiers or sailors to fight or spoil the Spaniards to one willing to go out as a farmer in savage lands. However, — and here is the secret of the initial emigration, — there were several hundred thousand foreigners or "Walloons," living as guests in "the land where conscience was free," and some of these, especially in Leyden and Amsterdam, were ready to try a "hazard of new fortunes."

Other companies of refugees for conscience’ sake, besides "The Pilgrim Fathers of New England," were in Leyden; for the city was then recovering grandly from its famous siege. The cloth trade attracted work-people from many countries, who had churches according to their own tastes. All these, whatever their language, were "Walsh" or "Walloons," that is, foreigners. Out of Leyden came the first colonists who settled both New England and New Netherland.

Generous offers were made first to the "Pilgrims" or English refugees, but these wanted a convoy of war vessels, to protect them against pirates and Spaniards, which the Government could not then spare.

The real colonizer of New Netherland was Jesse de Forest, a Walloon, born between 1570 and 1580 at Avesnes, then in the Netherlands, but now, and since 1819, in France, who was in Leyden in 1605 pursuing his trade as a dyer. In this city, four of his ten children were born, his son Isaac, who became the father of the American de Forests, seeing the light in 1616. Becoming interested in emigration to America, or "the West Indies," he made an application in June, 1621, through Sir Dudley Carleton, the English envoy, in the name of fifty-six Walloon families to go to "Virginia." When the answer of King James was received, it was not satisfactory.

So on August 27, 1622, Jesse de Forest petitioned the States-General for permission to enroll families, who should settle in New Netherland. His petition was allowed. It was his company that embarked on the first colonizing ship, the New Netherland, to make homes and begin the settlement of the Empire State.

In the Leyden archives, we hear nothing further directly from Jesse, except that he had left for America. His brother, Gerard de Forest, petitioned the burgomasters of Leyden, saying that his brother Jesse "had lately gone to the West Indies," — a general name for America, — and he asked permission to replace his brother in his position, according to the regulations of the city and guild. The records of the City Council show that this paper was sent by the magistrates for advice to the Aldermen of the Dyers' Guild, and that permission in due form was given to Gerard de Forest to take his brother's place as a master-dyer. Jesse de Forest deserves honor as leader of the first band of thirty-one families from Leyden, who began the community of homes in New Netherland.

As those people, who were willing to try their fortune in America, did not ask for the protection of big frigates, their request was quickly granted. The first-class new ship of two hundred and sixty tons, roomy and clean, took Jesse de Forest's first party of thirty-one families over sea. A small armed yacht, the Mackerel, commanded by Captain Cornelis J. May, was to convoy them past the pirates of Dunkirk and across the Atlantic.

The larger of these historic vessels, like its fellows of those days, had no jib. Instead of the bowsprit of modern days, with its stays, a spar projected forward, on which two or three little square sails could be spread. The main place of habitation for passengers was in "the tower," of two stories, very high and with two rows of ports or windows. The stern view of the New Netherland, with its affluence of carving and emblems, and a mighty lamp at the top, which illuminated the back track, was most imposing. High over all flew the great orange, white, and blue flag, with the triple monogram G. W. C., that is, The (Geoctrooyed, or) Chartered West [India] Company. This pioneer Dutch ship, eighty tons larger than the Mayflower, was probably three times the size of Henry Hudson’s yacht.

All merchant vessels went armed in those days, and the New Netherland was prepared to fight, in case Spaniard or Dunkirker hove in sight. Besides carrying the flag of the Republic at the mizzen and peak, she was ready to poke out cold iron noses from the portholes and blaze forth fire and shot if attacked. Plenty of "iron beans" for the cannon were on board.

We do not know all the details of Jesse de Forest’s life, but we can trace him in the Netherlands from city to city and from communion table to communion table, for he was, first of all, a Bible Christian. Religion was the first care with his colonists. Arrangements were made with the reverend Classis of Amsterdam for church officers to provide cheer and consolation. These being duly furnished, in March, 1623, fathers and mothers, boys and girls, said good-by to their friends in hospitable Holland and cleared for the land of hope beyond the Atlantic. Truce was over, and mighty Dutch fleets sailed to Angola in Africa and to Brazil to conquer the Portuguese and Spanish possessions, but this single ship, almost tiny in contrast, bore freight of peaceful colonists who were to begin the homes of the future Empire State of the American Union, and Jesse de Forest was the soul of the enterprise. It may be that they did not see Manhattan until 1624.

These beginners of our Middle States and the men who sent them over were neither dreamers nor "humorists." They stood for pure family life, for the Church and the school, and for farming, the true source of all legitimate national wealth of land-dwellers, for they were, most of them, either skilled workmen or tillers of the soil. They were not likely, when landed, to go hunting in the woods for gold or silver mines. They did not come with their brains full of spectres of mythology, such as drove the Spaniards into waterless deserts to seek the Gilded Man, Fountains of Youth, the Seven Cities of Cibola, and various other things that exist only in fairyland. They had once given up home and all that was dear to them, when driven out of the Belgic Netherlands, and had fled to Holland to enjoy freedom of conscience. The Republic was now their own Patria, and they were about to trust God again and seek homes in the New World. They were the real settlers of New Netherland, "John Company" being merely the figurehead and money-maker. Among these thirty-one families, with children and young men and maidens of marriageable age, the adults in the company, of course, spoke French. Bible-reading and singing of the psalms in Marot's version were part of the daily routine of a Walloon family. The Belgic Confession of Faith, which many of the adults knew by heart, was their foundation creed, as it was of the Dutch National Church, already established for over a half-century. It was first written in French in 1561, by Guido de Bres, who was burnt by the Spaniards in 1567. In its revised Dutch form of 1619 the children learned it thoroughly. The keynote of its deep harmonies is sounded in Article I: "God … the overflowing fountain of all good."

The young folks born in Leyden, who had attended the Dutch public schools, spoke the language of the captain and crew and of Patria. They were in effect young Dutchmen, and loyal to the Republic and to the orange, white, and blue flag. Every ship had its "Comforter of the sick," who was well versed in the Holy Scriptures, and the form of words duly provided in the familiar liturgy of the National Church.

Happily no Dunkirkers or Spaniards challenged those pioneer ships, and they may have remained some time in the West Indies, but on entering the Narrows in New York Bay, possibly early in 1624, the Netherlanders saw a French vessel lying, at anchor. Not willing to tolerate a stranger, the Mackerel ran out her guns and showed the necessity of departure. The Frenchmen took the hint at once, and the Dutch were left alone.

Like a sower, going forth to sow in the seed bed of a future empire, was Captain May in the good, clean ship New Netherland. Each of the new settlements was called a "concentration," — after the Spanish term. Eighteen of the passengers were left on Manhattan, and those wore the first families from Europe to dwell upon the island; but the settlement, if at first called New Avesnes, was destined to be New Amsterdam and New York. Several couples disembarked on the land named after the seven States of the Dutch Republic, Staten Island. In a bocht, or bend in the East River, several families made a settlement. This loop, or cove, was, like Walkill, later called the Waal, or Walloon's Boght, or Wallabout.

Eighteen families were planted on the site of the future city of Albany, and left under the command of Adrian Joris, lieutenant to Captain May. Fort Orange, a Redoubt}redoubt with four angles, was built and armed with cannon that fired stone balls for defense. Inside this inclosure, Sarah, the first baby of the colonists, was born, in June, 1625. Her father's name, as he wrote it in Walloon French, was Simon de Rapello, but the Dutch of it is Simon Rapelye. Her mother's name was du Trieux, in modern form, Truax. In a year or two, cradles were in demand. Fathers were ready to make these out of rough timber with barrelhead rockers, but the mothers "drew the line" here, and the importation of Dutch cradles from Holland into New Netherland was quite frequent until the year 1664.

A better defense than Fort Orange, with its cannon and gunpowder, was a league of peace made with the "wilden" of the forest and the river, that is, the Iroquois and the Mohicans. This covenant of friendship was perpetual. In succeeding years, when the people at Esopus and on Manhattan were in terror and saw fire, blood, and devastation, those at Fort Orange found the red men "as quiet as lambs." From the beginning to the end of the Dutch rule in America this, the northern end of the colony, was the most peaceful, the best governed, and, on the whole, the most prosporous portion of New Netherland. Manhattan was cosmopolitan. The distinctively Dutch part of the colony and province lay in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. Civic life in New Netherland was typical, not on the manors or the island, but in the village communities of free farmers, as on Long Island, at Schenectady, Esopus, and New Paltz.