But while our thoughts are thus running away with us from Fort Orange, a farmer, Teunis van Vechten, coming from Greenbosch with supplies for the Beverwyck market, offers the children a ride into the town, which they accept with a shout. This rouses us from our reverie, and we follow the merry load as they jog along the country road from Fort Orange to the nearest gate in the stockade (about where the street now called Hudson Avenue crosses Handelaer Street, or Broadway). With a crack of the farmer's whip they drive rapidly down into a sort of ravine, cross the Rutten Kill[24] on a bridge, and ascend the opposite slope. The farmer soon passes the door of the Dutch Reformed Church, where our ramble began, and turning into Joncaer Street pulls up his horses at the market-place. The children scamper back across the Rutten Kill to the Schuyler store on Handelaer Street, opposite Beaver Street, and pass on down to the grassy river-side behind it, where a sloop is moored. Their father is there overseeing the men who are loading it with beaver-skins and other goods. The day's work is nearly over. The sunlight is fading from the hill-tops across the river. All will soon go in to supper. If we were not too tired we might in a few moments walk the whole length of Handelaer Street towards the north gate. In that case we would have a peep now and then through the half-open curtains of the scattered houses; for see! they are beginning to light up for the evening meal. In passing along we would probably startle the dogs from their kennels in the gardens, and hasten the farewells of the lovers who linger on the front stoops in the gathering dusk. Then issuing by the north gate (where Steuben Street comes into Broadway), we might go by moonlight to the Patroon's house, between which and Beverwyck are corn-fields where the burghers grow corn for their slaves and also for their horses, pigs, and poultry. We would then be not far from the Patroon's mills, where all the settlers are in duty bound to go, and not elsewhere, to have their sawing and grinding done. These mills are on the Fifth, or Patroon's Kill, counting from the Norman's Kill near Kenwood.
We must not leave the neighborhood of Fort Orange and Beverwyck until we have been to a trading-house just outside of the stockade (Pemberton's was used for such a purpose at one time, and also the Glenn House). There we shall have an opportunity to listen to some such conversation as the following between a Dutch trader and an Indian.[25] Let us suppose that the trader on this occasion is one of the enterprising burghers whom we encountered during our walk on Joncaer Street, and the Indian a Mohawk warrior in the company of Tekakwitha's uncle, who, as we have seen, travelled from Gandawague for the purpose of bartering his furs at Beverwyck.
"Indian. Brother, I am come to trade with you; but I forewarn you to be more moderate in your demands than formerly.
"Trader. Why, brother, are not my goods of equal value with those you had last year?
"Indian. Perhaps they are; but mine are more valuable because more scarce. The Great Spirit, who has withheld from you strength and ability to provide food and clothing for yourselves, has given you cunning and art to make guns and provide scaura (rum), and by speaking smooth words to simple men, when they have swallowed madness, you have by little and little purchased their hunting-grounds and made them corn-lands. Thus the beavers grow more scarce, and deer fly farther back; yet after I have reserved skins for my mantle and the clothing of my wife, I will exchange the rest.
"Trader. Be it so, brother; I came not to wrong you, or take your furs against your will. It is true that the beavers are fewer and you go farther for them. Come, brother, let us deal fair first and smoke friendly afterwards. Your last gun cost fifty beaver-skins; you shall have this for forty; and you shall give marten and raccoon skins in the same proportion for powder and shot.
"Indian. Well, brother, that is equal. Now, for two silver bracelets, with long pendent ear-rings of the same, such as you sold to Cardarani in the sturgeon month last year,—how much will you demand?
"Trader. The skins of two deer for the bracelets and those of two fawns for the ear-rings.
"Indian. That is a great deal; but wampum grows scarce, and silver never rusts. Here are the skins.
"Trader. Do you buy any more? Here are knives, hatchets, and beads of all colors.
"Indian. I will have a knife and a hatchet, but must not take more. The rest of the skins will be little enough to clothe the women and children, and buy wampum. Your beads are of no value; no warrior who has slain a wolf will wear them.[26]
"Trader. Here are many things good for you which you have not skins to buy; here is a looking-glass, and here is a brass-kettle in which your woman may boil her maize, her beans, and above all her maple sugar. Here are silver brooches, and here are pistols for your youths.
"Indian. The skins I can spare will not purchase them.
"Trader. Your will determines, brother; but next year you will want nothing but powder and shot, having already purchased your gun and ornaments. If you will purchase from me a blanket to wrap around you, a shirt and blue stroud for under-garments for yourself and your woman, and the same for leggings, this will pass the time, and save you the great trouble of dressing the skins, making the thread, etc., for your clothing, which will give you more fishing and hunting time in the sturgeon and bear months.
"Indian. But the custom of my fathers!
"Trader. You will not break the custom of your fathers by being thus clad for a single year. They did not refuse those things which were never offered to them.
"Indian. For this year, brother, I will exchange my skins; in the next I shall provide apparel more befitting a warrior. One pack alone I will reserve to dress for a future occasion. The summer must not find a warrior idle.
"The terms being adjusted and the bargain concluded, the trader thus shows his gratitude for liberal dealing.
"Trader. Corlaer has forbid bringing scaura to steal away the wisdom of the warrior, but we white men are weak and cold; we bring kegs for ourselves, lest death arise from the swamps. We will not sell scaura; but you shall taste some of ours in return for the venison with which you have feasted us.
"Indian. Brother, we will drink moderately.
"A bottle was then given to the warrior by way of a present, which he was advised to keep long, but found it irresistible. He soon returned with the reserved pack of skins, earnestly urging the trader to give him beads, silver brooches, and above all scaura, to their full amount. This, with affected reluctance at parting with the private stock, was at last yielded. The warriors now, after giving loose for a while to frantic mirth, began the war-whoop, and made the woods resound with infuriate howlings.... A long and deep sleep succeeded, from which they awoke in a state of dejection and chagrin such as no Indian had felt under any other circumstances. They felt as Milton describes Adam and Eve to have done after their transgression."
The news of a massacre of white settlers at Esopus (Kingston), by the River Indians or Mohegans, June 7, 1663, when Tekakwitha was seven years old, caused great excitement both at Gandawague and at Beverwyck. Fort Orange was put in a thorough state of defence, the treaty with the Mohawks was renewed, and three pieces of artillery, loaned by Van Rensselaer for the protection of Beverwyck, "were placed on the church." "Nevertheless so great was the alarm that the out-settlers fled for protection to the fort called Cralo, erected on the Patroon's farm at Greenbush, where they held night and day regular watch."
A year later, in 1664, at the time when the juvenile betrothal of Tekakwitha, already mentioned, took place at Gandawague,—that having occurred, as we are told, when she was eight years old,—an entirely new order of things was brought about in the Dutch colony. The new settlement of Arent van Corlaer at Schenectady, the house where her uncle traded at Fort Orange, and the hamlet of Beverwyck, together with the whole of the New Netherlands, passed over into the hands of the English. Henceforth, instead of appealing to their High Mightinesses the Lords States General of Holland for redress of grievances, the settlers of the State of New York were to bow to the decisions of his Majesty King Charles II., who then sat securely on the throne of England, four years having elapsed since the downfall of the Commonwealth.
This change in the colony from Dutch to English rule was accomplished quietly and peaceably, to the great disgust and indignation of the warlike governor, Peter Stuyvesant, who was ready to buckle on his heavy armor, take up his sword, and fight the "malignant English," were they as ten to one. But the settlers were matter-of-fact farmers and traders, lovers of peace, caring little for glory and not overmuch for their far-away fatherland. So long as their commercial, domestic, and religious rights were respected, they were willing enough to do homage to King Charles. So in 1664, New Amsterdam, into whose harbor, said a boastful inhabitant, as many as fifteen vessels were known to have anchored in the course of one year, became New York, taking its name from the title of the king's brother, afterward James II. Beverwyck, which had grown up under the guns of Fort Orange, was henceforth to be called Albany; and an English governor took the reins of colonial government from the hands of Peter Stuyvesant. The British flag floated gayly over fort and vessel, and before many years had passed it was found necessary to employ an English schoolmaster in Albany, and later to build an English church[27] on Joncaer Street.
When young Pieter Schuyler was still learning his lessons in Dutch at Fort Orange, and the little Tekakwitha was stringing her wampum beads at Gandawague,—while her uncle journeyed frequently back and forth from the Mohawk castle to the trading-post on the Hudson, stopping sometimes at Schenectady to see his friend Corlaer, and taking his family with him now and then to fish at the mouth of the Norman's Kill (near the place called Tawasentha[28]),—unsuspected preparations for a surprise were going forward in Canada. A war-cloud was gathering in the north, soon to break with terrible effect on the three Mohawk castles, and to startle the Governor of the Province of New York into a protest against the advance of armed troops of King Louis XIV. of France into the colonial dominions of his Majesty Charles II. of England. These dominions had been so recently acquired by the English King that the French at Quebec thought they still belonged to the States General of Holland.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Corlaer, or Van Curler, a brave and worthy man, was the most influential settler at Schenectady, and on excellent terms with the Mohawk Indians. He had visited them in 1642, on purpose to secure, if possible, the ransom of Father Jogues, and had manifested great sympathy for him in his captivity.
[20] See Annals of Albany, vol. i. p. 288. The dominie's house here mentioned has since given place to the shop which is on the north-east corner of Pearl and State Streets. The house used by Megapolensis, who was at Beverwyck from 1642 to 1649, and who concealed Father Jogues from the Indians, was where Shield's tobacco-factory now stands, close to the site of old Fort Orange, and a little south of it. It was built entirely of oak, and was purchased on the arrival of Megapolensis for a hundred and twenty dollars.