CHAPTER IX.
THE COLONIZATION OF THE MIDDLE COLONIES (1609-1700).
Bibliographies.—Larned, Literature of American History, 92-100; Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, ch. xx.; Avery, II. 417-421, 438-444, III. 413-418, 430-432, 443-445; Winsor, III. 411-420, 449-456, 495-516, IV. 409-442, 488-502; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 104-108.
Historical Maps.—Nos. 1, 2, and 3, this volume (Epoch Maps, Nos. [1], [2], [3]); Winsor, as above.
General Accounts.—Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies; Doyle, Colonies, IV.; Lodge, Colonies, chs. ix.-xvi.; Channing, United States, I. chs. xvi., xvii., II. chs. ii., iv., v., vii.; Avery, II. chs. iv., xi., xii., III. chs. iv.-vi., xv., xvii., xviii., xxvi.; Andrews, as above, chs. v.-viii., xi., xii.; Winsor, III. chs. x.-xii., IV. chs. viii., ix.
Special Histories.—New York: Roberts (Commonwealths), and Brodhead: O'Callaghan, New Netherlands; G. Schuyler, Colonial New York, I.; W. Griffis, New Netherland; histories of New York city by Innis, Janvier, Lamb, Rensselaer, Roosevelt, Stone, and Wilson.—Delaware: Conrad and Scharf; Jameson, Willem Usselinx.—New Jersey: Lee, Mulford, Raum, and Tanner; F. Stockton, Stories of New Jersey; A. Melick, Old New Jersey Farm.—Pennsylvania: S. Fisher, Making of Pennsylvania; H. Jenkins, Pennsylvania; I. Sharpless, Two Centuries of Pennsylvania, and Quaker Government; A. Myers, Irish Quakers; O. Kuhns, German and Swiss Settlements; J. Sachse, Pennsylvania Germans, and German Pietists; Scharf and Westcott, Philadelphia.
Contemporary Accounts.—Josselyn, Two Voyages (1675); Dankers Sluyter, Voyage to New York (1679); Penn, Some Account (1681); Budd, Good Order Established (1685); Sewel, History of Quakers (1722); Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania; Gabriel Thomas, West Jersey. Reprints: Colonial Documents and Records of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; Half Moon Series; American History told by Contemporaries, I. part vi.; Jameson, Original Narratives; publications by colonial and town record commissions, and historical and antiquarian societies.
83. Dutch Settlement (1609-1625).
Hudson's discovery.
In September, 1609, Hendrik Hudson, an English navigator in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed up the river to which his name has been given by the English—the Dutch called it North River—as far as the future site of Albany. He found "that the land was of the finest kind for tillage, and as beautiful as the foot of man ever trod upon." Six weeks earlier Champlain, the commander of New France, had been on the shores of Lake Champlain about one hundred miles to the north, fighting the native Iroquois. The object of Hudson's search was a familiar one in his time,—the discovery of a water-passage through the continent that might serve as a short-cut to India, where his masters were engaged in trade. He did not find what he sought, but opened the way to a lucrative traffic with the American savages, whose good graces the thrifty Dutch strove to cultivate. The French leader's introduction to the Iroquois had been as an enemy, but the explorer from Holland came as a friend: the Dutch reaped advantage from the contrast.
Early Dutch trading-posts.
Dutch traders annually visited the region of Hudson River during the next few years. There was at first no attempt at colonization, for Holland just at that time was not prepared to give offence to her old enemy, Spain, which claimed most of North America by the right of discovery and Pope Alexander's bull of partition. Nevertheless, the country was styled New Netherland, and Holland recognized it as a legal dependency. A Dutch navigator, Adrian Block, as the result of an accident, spent a winter on either Manhattan or Long Island, and built a coasting-vessel (1614) for trafficking in furs. A small trading-house, called Fort Nassau, was also erected this year on the site of Albany; a similar establishment, without defences, and surrounded by a few huts for traders, was built on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the river, the following season (1615); a new Fort Nassau was afterwards (1623) set up on the Delaware River, four miles below the site of Philadelphia, but was soon abandoned.
The New Netherlands Company.
In 1615 the New Netherland Company obtained a trading charter from the States-General of Holland. The corporation was granted a monopoly of the Dutch fur-traffic in New Netherland for three years, and conducted extensive operations between Albany and the Delaware, coastwise and in the interior. The Dutch thus far had not ventured to exercise political control over the New Netherland. The country was still claimed by the English Virginia Company. The land originally granted to the Pilgrims from Leyden by the latter company was described as being "about the Hudson's River." We have seen how the party on the "Mayflower" were prevented by storms—or possibly by the design of the captain—from reaching their destination and planting an English colony in the neighborhood of the Dutch trading posts.
The Dutch West India Company.
In 1621 the Dutch West India Company came upon the scene as the successor of the New Netherland Company. Its charter bade it "to advance the peopling of those fruitful and unsettled parts," and to "do all that the service of those countries and the profit and increase of trade shall require." The corporation was given almost absolute commercial and political power in all Dutch domains between Newfoundland and the Straits of Magellan, the home government reserving only the right to decline confirmation of colonial officers. Three years elapsed before the company attempted to plant a colony. Thirty families of Protestant Walloons—a people of mixed Gallic and Teutonic blood, living in the southern provinces of Holland, whose offer to settle in Virginia had been rejected by the English—were sent over by the Dutch proprietors (1624) to their new possessions. The greater part of the emigrants went to Albany, which they styled Fort Orange; others were sent to the Delaware River colony; a small party went on to the Connecticut; a few settled on Long Island; and eight men stayed on Manhattan. These settlements, relying for their chief support on the fur-trade with the Indians, were quite successful, and the New Netherlands soon became an important group of commercial colonies.
84. Progress within New Netherland (1626-1664).
The settlements united.
In 1626 Peter Minuit, then director for the company, purchased Manhattan from the Indians, united all the settlements under one system of direction, and founded New Amsterdam (afterwards New York city) as the central trading depot. In every direction the trade of New Netherland grew.
The patroon system.
As the settlers seemed to be interested in commerce, and agricultural colonization did not flourish, the corporation secured from the States-General a new charter of "freedoms and exemptions" (1629), which they thought better adapted to the fostering of emigration. This document sought to transplant the European feudal system to the American wilds. Members of the Dutch West India Company might purchase tracts of land from the Indians and plant colonies thereon, of which these proprietors were to be the patroons, or patrons. Each patroon thus establishing a colony of fifty persons upwards of fifteen years of age, was granted a tract "as a perpetual inheritance," sixteen miles wide along the river, or eight miles on both sides, "and so far into the country as the situation of the occupiers will permit." The company retained intervening lands; but no one might settle within thirty miles of a patroon colony without consent of the patroon, subject to the order of the company's officials. The patroons were given political and judicial power over their colonists; the latter might take appeals to the New Netherlands council, but the patroons were generally careful to bind the settlers before starting out not to exercise this right.
Patroon settlements.
Leading members of the company were quick to avail themselves of this opportunity to become members of a landed aristocracy and absolute chiefs of whatever colonies they might plant. Small settlements were soon made on these several domains, which were taken up chiefly along Hudson River, the principal highway into the Indian country. Van Rensselaer founded Rensselaerswyck, near Fort Orange; Pauw secured Hoboken and Staten Island; while Godyn, Blommaert, De Vries, and others settled Swaanendael, on the Delaware. Many of the old patroon estates long remained undivided, and the heirs of the founders claimed some semi-feudal privileges well into the nineteenth century. Attempts to collect long arrears of rent on the great Van Rensselaer estate led to a serious anti-rent movement (1839-1846), which broke out in bloody riots and affected New York politics for several years.
Collisions with English traders.
The patroons, as individuals, haughtily assumed to shut out the Dutch West India Company, of which they were members, from the trade of their petty independent States. The corporation was not only torn by internal dissensions, but soon had on hand a quarrel with New England because of the establishment of a Dutch fur-trading post at Hartford, on the Connecticut (1633), and the vain assertion of a right to exclude English vessels from the Hudson river. On the south, the Dutch came into collision with Virginians trading on the Delaware and the Schuylkill. Trade increased, but colonization did not thrive, owing in part to the rapacity of the patroons, and partly to the mismanagement of the governors sent out to represent the company.
An Indian war.
The singular lack of tact displayed by Governor Kieft led to an Algonquian Indian uprising (1643-45), which resulted in the death of sixteen hundred savages, but left the border settlements in ruins, and seriously checked colonial growth for several years. The Algonkins being enemies of the Iroquois, the friendship originally formed between the Dutch and the latter was not disturbed by this outbreak.
Attempts to foster colonization.
In 1640 the company fixed the limits of a patroon's estate at one mile along the river front and two miles in depth, but did not disturb the feudal privileges. As a counter-influence, a new class of settlers was provided for. Any one going to New Netherland with five other emigrants might take two hundred acres of land as a bounty and be independent of the patroons. A species of local self-government was also provided for at this time, the officers of each town or village being chosen by the directors of the company from a list made up by the inhabitants. These inducements do not seem to have attracted many colonists, for when Peter Stuyvesant came out as governor (1647), and strutted about Manhattan "like a peacock,—as if he were the Czar of Muscovy," there were only three hundred fighting men in the entire province.
Up to this time the people had been obliged to rely chiefly on petitions as a means of presenting their political grievances. |The colonists struggling for political rights.| In 1641 Kieft had been forced by popular opinion to call a council of twelve deputies from the several settlements to advise him in regard to treatment of the Indians, and again in 1644 to consult as to taxes; but he rode rough-shod over the deputies. The public outcry over this arbitrary conduct led to his recall and the institution of some minor reforms. Under Stuyvesant there was formed a council of nine, the members being selected by him from a list of popular nominations. The board was so arranged as to be self-perpetuating, and the people, after the original election, ceased to have any hand in its makeup. In an important struggle between Stuyvesant and the residents of New Amsterdam (1651) relative to an excise tax, the director general was obliged to yield.
A heterogeneous population.
A source of anxiety to the rulers of New Netherland was the heterogeneous character of the population. The first permanent settlers had been the Walloons. The Dutch themselves soon followed. Besides these were several bands of Protestant reformers who had fled from persecution in Europe, and numerous sectaries from New England who had found life intolerable there. There were so many French-speaking people in the district that public documents were often printed both in French and Dutch. In 1643 it was reported that eighteen languages were spoken in New Amsterdam.
Encroachments by the Swedes.
The South Company of Sweden sent out a colony in 1638 under charge of Minuit, formerly employed by the Dutch West India Company. He built Fort Christina, on the future site of Wilmington, Del., and called the country New Sweden. The Dutch governor at New Amsterdam vainly protested against this occupation of territory claimed by his employers. Two years later (1641) a party of Englishmen from New Haven built trading-houses on the Schuylkill, and at Salem, N. J., near Fort Nassau, but were soon compelled to leave. The Swedish enterprise went unchecked until Stuyvesant's rule, when a fort was built (1651) on the site of Newcastle, Del., below the Swedish fort; and four years after this (1655) the South Company was obliged, upon display of force, to abandon its enterprise.
85. Conquest of New Netherland (1664).
English interference.
So long as a foreign nation and a formidable commercial rival held the geographical centre, the northern and southern colonies of England were separated, intercommunication was hampered, and international boundary disputes arose. Moreover, New Amsterdam had the best harbor on the coast, and the Hudson river was an easy highway for traffic with the Indians; it was, as well, altogether too convenient for possible raids of French and Indians from the north. For these reasons England was desirous of obtaining possession of the New Netherlands. There were not wanting excuses for interference. Englishmen in Connecticut, on Long Island, and on the Schuylkill had had land disputes with the Dutch, and there had been much bad temper displayed on both sides.
England captures New Netherlands.
In 1654 Cromwell sent out a fleet to take the country; but peace between England and Holland intervened in time to give to New Netherland a respite of ten years. In 1664 Charles II. revived the claim that Englishmen had discovered the region before the Dutch. In August of that year Colonel Nicolls appeared before New Amsterdam, then a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, with a fleet of four ships, having on board four hundred and fifty English soldiers and Connecticut volunteers, and demanded its surrender. There was a stone fort and twenty cannon; but the enemy were too strong to be profitably resisted. Despite Stuyvesant's protest, "I would rather be carried to my grave" than yield, the white flag was eagerly run up by the frightened town officers, and Dutch rule in New Amsterdam came to an end.
Importance of the conquest.
By October every possession of Holland in North America was in the hands of the English, who now held the Atlantic coast from the Savannah to the Kennebec. The achievement of Nicolls had rendered it possible for the American colonies to unite, and thus was of the greatest importance to the political development of the country. Had King Charles been able to foresee the trend of events, he would no doubt have been glad to allow the Dutch to stand as an obstacle to the union of his transatlantic possessions.
Introduction of English rule.
The Duke of York was made proprietor of the conquered territory, the province and capital being now styled New York; Fort Orange was rechristened Albany. But beyond the change of names, little was done to interrupt the smooth current of life, and Dutch customs in household and trade were retained so far as practicable; while the public offices were impartially shared, and former Dutch officials were consulted. There was one notable act of injustice: all land-grants had to be confirmed by the new governor, Nicolls, and fees were exacted for this service. Under English rule the prosperity of the colony greatly increased.
86. Development of New York (1664-1700).
Local government.
The methods of local self-government were quietly transformed. Under the Dutch, the towns, manors, and villages held direct relations with the West India Company. A systematic code drawn by Nicolls and a convention of the settlers (1665)—promulgated as "the duke's laws"—provided for town-meetings for the election in each town by a "plurality of the voices of the freeholders," of a constable and eight overseers. These officers were the governing board of the town, with judicial and legislative powers, thus differing from the New England selectmen, who but carried out the mandates of the town-meeting. There was created a judicial district called a "riding," with an area embracing several towns and presided over by a sheriff. In 1683, these ridings developed into counties; afterwards (1703), it was arranged that a supervisor was to be elected by the freeholders in each town, to represent it in a county board whose duties were chiefly to levy, collect, and apportion taxes. Thus we see the genesis in the middle colonies of the mixed system of local government,—town and county being of equal importance, with elective executive officers in each: it was a compromise between the town system of New England and the county system of Virginia; and this mixed system now prevails in perhaps most of the States of the Union. The duke's charter enabled him to make all laws, without asking the advice or assistance of the freemen. By "the duke's laws," power was vested in the hands of the governor and council, the people being wholly ignored in all matters above the affairs of the riding. Perfect religious liberty was allowed throughout the province.
Recapture by the Dutch.
In 1672 England and Holland were again at war, and Francis Lovelace, then governor of New York, made such preparations as he could against anticipated attack. The Dutch colonists had had more or less trouble about taxes with the English authorities, and there had been some friction because the duke had made grants to Carteret and Berkeley in what afterwards by the release became New Jersey, and thus had still further complicated land-titles; but in general the English rule had been borne with comparative equanimity. Nevertheless, the Dutch were highly delighted when a fleet from Holland appeared before the city (1673), and easily secured the surrender of the place.
England again in possession.
Fifteen months later (1674) the treaty of Westminster ceded the province back to England, and it became New York once more. The population at this time was about seven thousand.
The rule of Andros.
Edmund Andros, later concerned in the attempt to reduce New England (page [174]), now came out as governor. His domestic policy was wise, and the province experienced a healthy growth, the fur-trade being greatly expanded under his administration. Both Nicolls and Andros sought to neutralize the ill effects of the New Jersey grants by contending that they were still tributary to New York, and Andros, in particular, adopted aggressive measures to maintain what he held to be his prerogative; but Carteret and Berkeley were too influential at court, and the governor was recalled (1680) and given other employment.
Charter of liberties.
Under Governor. Thomas Dongan (1683-1688) the government yielded to the clamor of the people, who pointed to the greater freedom allowed the New Englanders; and an assembly was formed composed of eighteen deputies elected by the freeholders. A charter of liberties was adopted by this body, with the king's consent, making the assembly co-ordinate with the governor and council; freeholders and freemen of corporations were invested with the franchise; religious toleration was ordained for all Christians; taxes were not to be levied without the assembly's sanction: but all laws were to require the assent of the duke, who was also to grant lands and establish custom-houses. This liberal treatment was of short duration. The Duke of York came to the throne in 1685 as James II., and his reign was signalized by depriving his subjects in New York of their representative government (1686). The governor and council were ordered to establish the Church of England in the province, and to refuse permits to schools not licensed by the Church.
Leisler's revolution.
In 1688 New York was annexed to New England under the rule of Andros, who was represented in New York by a deputy, Francis Nicholson. Later in the year news came of the Revolution in England. Jacob Leisler, an energetic but uneducated German shopkeeper, who had come out as a soldier in the West India Company's employ, headed the militia in driving Nicholson out and proclaiming the Prince of Orange. Leisler assumed the government; but his rule was rash and arbitrary, although there is no doubt of his patriotic spirit, and soon there arose a demand from the conservative element for his withdrawal. By various subterfuges, however, he retained office for three years. His term was distinguished by his issuance of a call for the first Colonial Congress held in America; it met at Albany, February, 1690, with seven delegates, chiefly from New England, and sought to organize a retaliatory raid against the French and their Algonquian allies, who had recently swept Schenectady with fire and tomahawk. The following year (1691) Leisler was forced to surrender to the royal governor, Col. Henry Sloughter, who soon after, while intoxicated, was induced by Leisler's enemies to sign the death-warrant of his predecessor.
Closing years of the century.
A representative assembly was called, which annulled Leisler's proceedings and formulated a code similar to the earlier charter of liberties. Governor. Benjamin Fletcher (1692-1698) was notoriously corrupt. He levied blackmail on the pirates and smugglers who swarmed in the harbors, and intrigued for money with members of the assembly; but in his dealings with the hostile French and Indians he was firm and successful. In 1698 the Earl of Bellomont was appointed governor, and New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire were jointly placed under his rule. In New York he restored order, reduced crime, and rooted out corruption and piracy, so that when he died (1701), his loss was sincerely regretted.
Characteristics of New York.
New York had gone through a development which down to the end of the eighteenth century marked the colony out from her sisters. No other colony had a history of any importance before the English domination; in no other colony were a foreign race and a foreign language and customs so intrenched. No colony had such an experience of control from England. The history of New York up to 1700 is chiefly a history of administrations. The commercial pre-eminence of New York was hardly shown in colonial times. Its chief importance among the colonies arose out of the relations with the Iroquois.
87. Delaware (1623-1700).
Early Dutch settlers.
We have seen that the Dutch West India Company established (1623) a trading post, called Fort Nassau, on the banks of the Delaware River within the present town of Gloucester, N.J., and four miles below the future site of Philadelphia. The settlers were a portion of the party of Walloons sent out to America in that year. Eight years later (1631), De Vries, Blommaert, and other patroons (page [199]) of New Netherlands founded Swaanendael, near the site of Lewes, Del.; but a quarrel soon arose between the new settlers and the Indians, resulting in the complete massacre of the Swaanendael colonists and the driving away of the garrison at Fort Nassau. In 1635 the patroons owning lands on both shores of Delaware Bay and River sold their possessions to the Dutch West India Company, and a small garrison was sent by the latter to re-occupy Fort Nassau. A party of Englishmen from New Haven attempted that year to settle in the district, but were taken to New Amsterdam as prisoners.
The South Company of Sweden.
A third nation now appeared upon the scene as a competitor for the Delaware country. The South Company of Sweden—which purposed trading in Asia, Africa, and America, but especially in the last—had been chartered in 1624, under the auspices of the enterprising and ambitious Gustavus Adolphus, by Willem Usselinx, an Amsterdam merchant, founder of the Dutch West India Company. Usselinx had become embittered against the Dutch company, which pursued a narrow and exclusive policy; and with him in this new enterprise were associated several who had been formerly connected with the Dutch corporation. Among these were Samuel Blommaert, one of the chief patroons in the Delaware region, and Peter Minuit, a Walloon, once governor at New Amsterdam. Minuit led the first Swedish trading colony to the Delaware River (1638), and erected Fort Christina on the future site of Wilmington, Del.
The rivals on the Delaware.
The governor at New Amsterdam, Kieft, protested loudly against this invasion of soil claimed by the Dutch, although it was clearly within the grant already made to Lord Baltimore by the English, who probably had as good right in the district as the Dutch. The latter had indeed for a time allowed it to revert to the Indians, after their first colonizing attempt. Kieft rebuilt Fort Nassau, a menace to which the Swedes replied by fortifying the island of Tinicum, six miles below the mouth of the Schuylkill, thus planting the first colony in Pennsylvania as well as in Delaware. In 1643 this island became the seat of Swedish government.
Prosperity of New Sweden.
New Sweden prospered. The settlers were industrious, thrifty, intelligent, and contented. Along the shores of Delaware River and Bay were scattered neat hamlets, and the company's fur-trade was extended far into the interior.
Swedish aggressiveness
In 1641 two English settlements were made on the river by New Haven men; but there was good reason to distrust the new-comers, who belonged to a land-hungry race, and Dutch and Swedes united to drive them out. Possibly the Swedes might have finally settled down into friendly neighborhood relations with the Dutch, had not the Swedish governor, John Printz, adopted an aggressive attitude towards the New Netherlanders. This led to reprisals. Stuyvesant, who succeeded Kieft at New Amsterdam, built Fort Casimir, near the present city of Newcastle, Del., below the Swedish forts (1651), and thus endeavored to cut them off from ocean communication. |ends in the fall of New Sweden.| In 1654 a Swedish war-vessel anchored before Casimir, which was quietly surrendered. The next year (1655) Stuyvesant raised an army of six or seven hundred men, which suddenly appeared on the Delaware, overawed the Swedes, and compelled them to abandon control of the region. Thus New Sweden fell, amid a storm of protest, but without bloodshed.
The Dutch domination.
Part of the Delaware country was sold by the Dutch West India Company to the city of Amsterdam (1656). The officers sent out by the municipality were as a rule inefficient, and the colony declined; bad crops, famine, disease, Indian troubles, quarrels with New Netherland, and boundary difficulties with the English in Maryland, being additional reasons for retrogression.
English rule established.
The city had just acquired the whole of the Delaware River region, when the English took possession (1664), and Amsterdam rule was succeeded by that of the Duke of York, with laws similar to those in vogue elsewhere in his province. There were a few outbreaks, but as a rule both Dutch and Swedes prospered under English domination.
Annexed to Pennsylvania.
The district was for some time the object of contention by rival English claimants. Maryland and New Jersey both wanted it, but Penn finally secured a grant of the country (1682), to give his province of Pennsylvania an outlet to the sea. Delaware, now known as "the territories," "lower counties," or "Delaware hundreds" of Pennsylvania, was for many years the source of much anxiety to its Quaker proprietor, for political jealousy of the "province," or Pennsylvania proper, gave rise to much popular discontent. In 1691 the "territories" were granted a separate assembly and a deputy-governor. But the "territories" and the "province" were reunited under Fletcher's temporary rule (1693), and so remained until 1703, when Delaware was recognized as a separate colony, with an assembly of its own, although under the same governorship as Pennsylvania.
Characteristics of Delaware.
The separate existence of Delaware was almost an accident. The colony was unjustly cut out of the Maryland grant, and was little more than a strip along Chesapeake Bay. It remained down to the Revolution the smallest and least important of all the colonies.
88. New Jersey (1664-1738).
We have already noticed the erection of Fort Nassau by the Dutch, and the struggle over the possession of the banks of Delaware River and Bay between the Dutch, the Swedes, and the English. |Berkeley and Carteret's grant.| When the Duke of York came into possession of the country (1664), he granted the lands between the Delaware and the Hudson to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, under the name of New Jersey; this title was in compliment to Carteret, who had been governor of the island of Jersey and bravely held it for Charles II. during the Great Rebellion. New Jersey had a hundred and twenty miles of sea-coast; it was as yet sparsely settled; it had a fixed natural boundary on the west; and it was considered a particularly desirable seat for colonization.
Liberal plan of government.
The new proprietors agreed upon a plan of government by which the administration of affairs was placed in the hands of a governor, council, and representative assembly, as in the other colonies; the proprietors reserved the right to annul laws and to control the official appointments. There was to be religious liberty to all "who do not actually disturb the civil peace of said province;" and all who were subjects of the king and swore fealty to him "and faithfulness to the lords, shall be admitted to plant and become freemen."
A body of laws framed.
Philip Carteret, a nephew of Sir George, came out (1665) as governor, and with him a body of English emigrants, who founded the town of Elizabeth. There were already on the ground, at Bergen, a number of Dutch and Swedes, while at Shrewsbury were several English sectaries, exiles from Connecticut and Long Island, who had purchased land from the Indians. Other New Englanders settled Middletown and Newark in 1666. Soon after the arrival of Carteret, several more companies came out to New Jersey from the Eastern colonies, together with a plentiful sprinkling of Scotch. In May, 1668, deputies from each of the towns met at Elizabeth to frame a body of laws for the colony. The Puritan element strongly influenced the code, particularly in the penalties for crime, which were remarkable for their severity.
The Quaker purchase.
Throughout 1672 there was much turbulence, owing to disputes about quit-rents between the inhabitants and the proprietors. Berkeley was by this time thoroughly dissatisfied, and sold his undivided moiety of the province for a thousand pounds to a party of Quakers who desired to found a retreat for their sect; nine tenths of this purchase soon (1674) fell into the hands of William Penn and other Friends who were associated with him. Two years later (1676) the Penn party purchased the remainder of the Quaker interest.
The Jerseys divided.
In 1673 the Dutch recaptured the district. When they were obliged by treaty (1674) to give it back to the English, Charles II. and the Duke of York reaffirmed Sir George Carteret's claim in New Jersey. The new charter for the first time made a division of the country, giving Carteret the eastern part,—much more than one half,—and leaving the rest to the Quaker proprietors. In 1676, Carteret and the Quakers agreed upon a boundary line, running from Little Egg Harbor northwest to the Delaware, at 41° 40´.
West New Jersey.
In West New Jersey the Quakers set up a liberal government, in which the chief features were religious toleration, a representative assembly, and an executive council, whose members—"ten honest and able men fit for government"—were to be elected by the assembly. As a proprietary body, the framers of these "concessions and agreements" retained no authority for themselves; they truly said, "We put the power in the people." To this refuge for the oppressed, four hundred Quakers came out from England in 1677.
East New Jersey.
Sir George Carteret died in 1680, and in 1682 William Penn and twenty-four associates—among whom were several Scotch Presbyterians—purchased East New Jersey from the Carteret heirs. A government was established similar to that in the western colony, except that the new proprietors and their deputies were to form the executive council. In neither colony were the public offices restricted to Quakers, and every Christian possessed the elective franchise.
Trouble with the Duke of York.
Both the Jerseys had made excellent progress; but for several years there was difficulty with Andros (page [205]), who claimed that the country was still the property of the Duke of York and therefore within his jurisdiction, and who attempted to levy taxes. There was much bitterness over the dispute, in the course of which Andros displayed a despotic temper; but in the end the duke's claims were overruled by the English arbitrator.
The Crown takes possession.
When the duke ascended the throne as James II., he had writs of quo warranto issued (1686) against the Jersey governments on the ground of wholesale smuggling by the residents. Under this pressure the patents were surrendered to the Crown (1688), so far as the government was concerned, but there was a proviso that the landed rights of the proprietors were to be undisturbed. Andros took the two colonies under his charge; thus he was now governor of all the country north and east of the Delaware, except New Hampshire. But though united to the northern colonies, the Jerseymen did not cease to assert their independence. Andros again attempted to levy taxes upon them, and they opposed him as stubbornly as ever, claiming that there could be no lawful taxation without representation. With the proprietors also they had ceaseless bickerings over the quit-rents. Affairs were in a feverish state until the former, tired of keeping up the profitless discussion, and now rent by dissensions in their councils, surrendered all their claims to the Crown (1702). The policy of James was to unite the colonies, and bring them into greater dependence.
New Jersey's condition as a royal province.
New Jersey, at last reunited, was made a royal colony; but until 1738, when given a governor of its own, it was under the administration of the governor of New York, who ruled through a deputy. The New Jersey council was appointed by the king, and there was a popularly elected representative assembly. All Christian sects were tolerated, but Roman Catholics were denied political privileges. There was a property qualification for suffrage,—the possession of two hundred acres of land, or other property worth £50. The inhabitants were generally prosperous. Their isolated geographical position secured them immunity from attacks by hostile Indians; they had scrupulously purchased the lands from the native inhabitants, and with the few who were now left they maintained friendly relations. The new government brought them greater political security, and under it they thrived even better than before.
Characteristics of New Jersey.
The annals of New Jersey are like the population and political system,—confused and uninteresting. It was many years before a tradition of common interest could be established between East and West New Jersey. One of the most remarkable lessons in government furnished by the colony was a decision of the courts that an Act of the assembly was void because not in accordance with the frame of government.
Penn's charter.
In 1676 William Penn, prominent among the English Quakers, became financially concerned, with others of his sect, in the colony of West New Jersey, and thereby acquired an interest in American colonization. His father, an admiral in the English navy, had left him (1670) a claim against the government for sixteen thousand pounds; in lieu of this he induced Charles II. (1681) to give him a proprietary charter of forty thousand square miles in America. The king called the region Pennsylvania, in honor of the admiral, but against the protest of the grantee, who "feared lest it be looked on as vanity in me."
His colonization scheme.
Penn at once widely advertised his dominions. He offered to sell one hundred acres of land for £2, subject to a small quit-rent, and even servants might acquire half this amount. He proposed to establish a popular government, based on the principle of exact justice to all, red and white, regardless of religious beliefs; there was to be trial by jury; murder and treason were to be the only capital crimes; and punishment for other offences was to have reformation, not retaliation, in view. By the terms of the charter Penn was, in conjunction with and by the consent of the free-men, to make all necessary laws. The proposals of the new proprietor were received with enthusiasm among the people of his religious faith throughout England.
In October three ship-loads of Quaker emigrants were sent out, and a year later (1682) Penn himself followed, with a hundred fellow-passengers. At the time of his arrival the Dutch had a church at Newcastle, Del., which was within his grant, the Swedes had churches at Christina, Tinicum, and Wicacoa, and Quaker meeting-houses were established at Chester, Shakamaxon, and near the lower falls of the Delaware.
Constitution and laws.
The constitution drawn up by Penn for his colony provided that the proprietor was to choose the governor, but the people were to elect the members of the council, and also deputies to a representative assembly; it was practically the West New Jersey plan. The laws decided upon by the first assembly, convened by the proprietor soon after his arrival, were beneficent. They included provisions for the humane treatment of Indians; for the teaching of a trade to each child; for the useful employment of criminals in prisons; for religious toleration, with the qualification that all public officers must be professing Christians, and private citizens believers in God. The principles set forth in Penn's original announcement were thus given the sanction of law.
Relations between the "territories" and the province.
A distinction was made between the original Pennsylvania, as granted by the king to Penn, and the territory afterwards known as Delaware, which the latter had obtained in a special grant from the Duke of York,—the royal grant being known as "the province," and the purchase from the duke as "the territories," of Pennsylvania. In the province three counties were established, and in the territories three more. These counties were given popularly elected governing boards, and were made the unit of representation in the assembly; the towns were merely administrative subdivisions of the counties, without any form of local government.
Relations with the Indians.
Penn was eminently successful in treating with the Indians in his neighborhood. Circumstances favored him greatly in this regard, but nevertheless much was due to his shrewd diplomacy and humane spirit; and for a long period the Quaker district of Pennsylvania was exempt from the border warfare which harassed most of the other colonies.
Political turbulence.
Obliged to return to England in 1684, Penn did not again visit his American possessions until fifteen years had elapsed, and then but for a brief time (1699-1701). This intervening period was one of continuous political disquiet for the proprietor and the colonists alike, despite the fact that the material condition of the people—Quakers, Swedes, Dutch, Germans, and Welsh alike—continued to improve. A boundary dispute with Maryland required the intervention of the English government (1685) as an arbitrator; during two years (1692-1694), Penn was dispossessed of his colony by the Crown; and the turbulent "territories" gave him so much trouble that he sought peace by erecting them into the separate colony of Delaware in 1703.
Dissensions, however, did not cease either in the provinces or in Delaware. Penn died in 1718, leaving to his heirs a legacy of petty but harassing disputes which lasted until the Revolution.
Characteristics of Pennsylvania.
Planted as Pennsylvania was, half a century after the earlier Southern and New England colonies, and aided by rich men and court favorites, its progress was rapid and its prosperity assured from the beginning. The pacific policy of Penn towards the Indians saved his colony from the expense and danger of frontier wars. Nevertheless from the beginning the colony showed the same indisposition to submit to the control of proprietors that had so disturbed Maryland and the Carolinas. Notwithstanding, Pennsylvania shortly became the most considerable of the middle colonies, and eventually equalled Virginia and Massachusetts in importance.