Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

But the Dutch heard of Hudson and asked him to make a voyage for them. He agreed to undertake for the Dutch East India Company a third voyage in search of a northeast passage to India. He set out in April, 1609, with two vessels, the Half Moon and the Good Hope, and a crew of about twenty men, some Dutch, some English. As before he sailed to the northeast, and as before his passage was blocked by ice. The Good Hope returned to Amsterdam, it is supposed, after a mutiny near Nova Zembla.

But Hudson and the Half Moon did not return. Having for the third time failed to find the northeast passage he sought, he resolved to look for one to the northwest. This was probably suggested to him by a letter and maps which his friend Captain John Smith had sent him. Smith expressed the opinion that north of the English colony, Virginia, there was a sea which led into the Western Ocean. Sailing past Greenland, Newfoundland, and Cape Cod, Hudson reached the coast of Virginia, and entered the Delaware River.

Turning northward he kept near the shore till he observed an opening in the land, New York Bay, which he entered. This bay had been entered before. Verrazano, an Italian sailor in command of a French ship, had sailed in and out of it. French vessels had afterwards traded there, but had made no settlements.

Into this bay emptied a river which Hudson thought might connect the eastern and the western ocean; up this river he sailed about a hundred and fifty miles, as far as the present site of Albany; then he turned back, being convinced that the stream did not afford the passage he sought. He spent a month exploring this river, to which his name was given. The land was “pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees.” It was, he said, “good ground for corn and other garden herbs, with great store of goodly oaks.” The natives, he said, were a “sensible and warlike people.” He carried on trade with the Indians who brought tobacco, maize, beans, grapes, pumpkins, and skins, to exchange for knives, beads, and trinkets. There arose disputes and in a fight one white man and several Indians were killed.

On Hudson’s way back to Holland, he stopped in England to leave some English sailors; there he was detained, being ordered by the English government to “stay and serve his own country.” His charts and records were delivered to the Dutch who laid claim to the country he had found, calling the Delaware the “South River,” and the Hudson the “Great North River,” and the country between “New Netherlands.”

In April, 1610, Hudson sailed on his fourth and last voyage, to seek for English merchants the northwest passage. His little vessel the Discovery entered the strait and bay which bear his name, and he spent three months exploring the coast. In November the vessel was frozen in and the crew spent the winter on the northern sea, suffering from scarcity of food as well as from the severe climate. When summer came, Hudson wished to continue his search. He believed that men should, to use his own words, resolve “To achieve what they have undertaken, or else to give reason wherefore it will not be.”

His crew wished to return home and mutinied against him. One midsummer day, they seized him, his son, and seven loyal seamen, and set them adrift in a boat. The little craft floated off on the summer sea and nothing more was ever heard of it or of a soul on board. An old Dutch legend says that Hudson and his men came safe to shore and made their home in the fair land he had discovered. Years later, when thunder rumbled in the heights along the Hudson River, the old Dutch folks would shake their heads and say, “Hendrik Hudson and his crew are playing ninepins.”

Peter Minuit

A Dutch West India Company was organized on the same plan as the rich and powerful Dutch East India Company. The western company was to trade on the coast of Africa and of America from Newfoundland to Magellan. For convenience in this trade, forts and posts were established where agents were stationed to carry on trade and collect furs. A fort and trading-post was established on Manhattan Island. There was gradually built up a village; this became a town and finally grew to be a city. At first it was called New Amsterdam; now it is the wealthy and populous city of New York.

The first directors who were sent to New Amsterdam by the Dutch Company lacked either ability or character to govern the settlement well. At last, however, the Company found the right man for the place. This was Peter Minuit. He was not a Dutchman. He was French by descent and German by birth; his early manhood had been spent in Germany.