History for ready reference, Volume 3, Greece to Nibelungen

by J. N. Larned

Pike and Long had gathered, almost nothing was known about it.
Yet the prevailing belief gave New Mexico, as related to
California, an exceptional importance. These considerations
weighed for more than acquisition of territory, though the
notion that New Mexico contained very rich silver-mines
undoubtedly had force in determining its conquest. … With
this object General Kearney marched from Fort Leavenworth in
June, 1846, for Santa Fe, at the head of a force of which a
battalion of Mormons formed part. After subduing New Mexico,
Kearney was to go on to California, and with the help of naval
forces already sent there, for the purpose, conquer that
country also. … General Kearney marched by the Upper
Arkansas, to Bent's Fort, and from Bent's Fort over the old
trail through El Moro and Las Vegas, San Miguel and Old Pecos,
without meeting the opposition he expected, or at any time
seeing any considerable body of the enemy. On the 18th of
August, as the sun was setting, the stars and stripes were
unfurled over the palace of Santa Fe, and New Mexico was
declared annexed to the United States. Either the home
government thought New Mexico quite safe from attack, or,
having decided to reserve all its strength for the main
conflict, had left this province to its fate. After organizing
a civil government, and appointing Charles Bent of Bent's
Fort, governor, General Kearney broke up his camp at Santa Fe,
September 25. His force was now divided. One part, under
Colonel Doniphan, was ordered to join General Wool in
Chihuahua. A second detachment was left to garrison Santa Fe,
while Kearney went on to California with the rest of his
troops. The people everywhere seemed disposed to submit
quietly, and as most of the pueblos soon proffered their
allegiance to the United States Government, little fear of an
outbreak was felt. Before leaving the valley, a courier was
met bearing the news that California also had submitted to us
without striking a blow. This information decided General
Kearney to send back most of his remaining force, while with a
few soldiers only he continued his march through what is now
Arizona for the Pacific."
S. A. Drake,
The Making of the Great West,
pages 251-255.
ALSO IN:
H. O. Ladd,
History of the War with Mexico,
chapters 9-12.
P. St. G. Cooke,
The Conquest of New Mexico and California.
H. H. Bancroft,
History of the Pacific States,
volume 12, chapter 17.
H. O. Ladd,
The Story of New Mexico,
chapter 16.
NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1848.
Cession to the United States.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1848.
NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1850.
Territorial organization.
See UTAH: A. D. 1849-1850.
NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1875-1894.
Prospective admission to the Union.
A bill to admit New Mexico to the Union as a state was passed
by both houses of Congress in 1875, but failed in consequence
of an amendment made in the Senate too late for action upon it
in the House of Representatives. Attempts to convert the
scantily populated territory into a state were then checked
for several years. At this writing (July 1894) a bill for
organizing and admitting the state of New Mexico has again
passed the House of Representatives, and is likely to have a
favorable vote in the Senate.
----------NEW MEXICO: End----------
NEW MODEL, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JANUARY-APRIL).
NEW NETHERLAND.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.
NEW ORANGE.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.
----------NEW ORLEANS: Start--------
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1718.
The founding of the city.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1763.
Reserved from the cession to England in the Treaty of Paris,
and transferred with western Louisiana to Spain.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1768-1769.
Revolt against the Spanish rule.
A short-lived Republic and its tragic ending.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1766-1768; and 1769.
{2324}
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1785-1803.
Fickle treatment of American traders.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800; and 1798-1803.
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1798-1804.
Transferred to France and sold to the United States.
Incorporation as a city.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1789-1803; and 1804-1812.
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1815.
Jackson's defense of the city and great victory.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815 (JANUARY).
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1862 (April).
Farragut's capture of the city.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1862 (May-December).
The rule of General Butler.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY-DECEMBER: LOUISIANA).
NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1866.
Riot and massacre.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865-1867.
----------NEW ORLEANS: End--------
NEW PLYMOUTH.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1621, and after.
NEW SCOTLAND.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.
----------NEW SOUTH WALES: Start--------
NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1770-1788.
The discovery.
The naming.
The first settlement.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1601-1800.
NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1850.
Separation of the Colony of Victoria.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1839-1855.
NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1859.
Separation of the Moreton Bay District and its erection into
the Colony of Queensland.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1859.
NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1890.
Characteristics.
Comparative view.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1890.
----------NEW SOUTH WALES: End--------
NEW SPAIN:
The name given at first to Yucatan, and afterwards to
the province won by Cortes.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1517-1518;
and MEXICO: A. D. 1521-1524.
NEW STYLE.
See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.
NEW SWEDEN.
See DELAWARE: A. D. 1638-1640.
NEW WORLD, The:
First use of the phrase.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1500-1514.
----------NEW YORK: Start--------
NEW YORK:
The aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, HURONS, &c.,
HORIKANS; and MANHATTAN ISLAND.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1498.
Probable discovery of the Bay by Sebastian Cabot.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1498.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1524.
The Bay visited by Verrazano.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1523-1524.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1606.
Embraced in the territory granted by King James I.
of England to the Plymouth or North Virginia Company.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1609.
Discovery and exploration of Hudson River by Hendrik Hudson,
in the service of Holland.
"Early in September, 1609, the ship 'Half-Moon,' restlessly
skirting the American coast, in the vain quest for a strait or
other water route leading to India, came to the mouth of a
great lonely river, flowing silently out from the heart of the
unknown continent. The 'Half-Moon' was a small, clumsy,
high-pooped yacht, manned by a score of Dutch and English
sea-dogs, and commanded by an English adventurer then in Dutch
pay, and known to his employers as Hendrik Hudson. … Hudson,
on coming to the river to which his name was afterward given,
did not at first know that it was a river at all; he believed
and hoped that it was some great arm of the sea, that in fact
it was the Northwest Passage to India, which he and so many
other brave men died in vainly trying to discover. … Hudson
soon found that he was off the mouth of a river, not a strait;
and he spent three weeks in exploring it, sailing up till the
shoaling water warned him that he was at the head of
navigation, near the present site of Albany. … Having
reached the head of navigation the 'Half-Moon' turned her
bluff bows southward, and drifted down stream with the rapid
current until she once more reached the bay. … Early in
October, Hudson set out on his homeward voyage to Holland,
where the news of his discovery excited much interest among
the daring merchants, especially among those whose minds were
bent on the fur-trade. Several of the latter sent small ships
across to the newly found bay and river, both to barter with
the savages and to explore and report further upon the
country. The most noted of these sea-captains who followed
Hudson, was Adrian Block."
T. Roosevelt,
New York,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
R. Juet,
Journal of Hudson's Voyage
(New York Historical Society Collection,
series 2, volume 1).
See AMERICA: A. D. 1609.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1609-1615.
Champlain and the French in the North.
See CANADA: A. D. 1608-1611; and 1611-1616.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.
Possession taken by the Dutch.
Named New Netherland.
"The gallant and enterprising people under whose auspices
Hudson had achieved his brilliant discovery [of the Hudson
River] had just emerged from a long, bloody, but glorious
contest for freedom, which they had waged with dogged
determination against Spain since 1566. …
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1562-1566, and after.
It was at this crisis, when peace had at length returned,
after an absence of more than forty years, and when numbers of
people must, by the transition, have found themselves deprived
of their accustomed active employment and habitual excitement,
that the intelligence of Hudson's discovery broke on the
public, affording to private adventure a new field. … The
commodities which abounded among the natives of the newly
discovered countries were objects of great demand in Europe.
The furs that the rigors of the northern climate rendered
indispensable to the inhabitants of Holland, and which they
had hitherto obtained through Russian and other traders, were
to be had now from the Indians in exchange for the veriest
baubles and coarsest goods. Stimulated by these
considerations, … a vessel was despatched by some Amsterdam
merchants, freighted with a variety of goods, to the
Manhattans, in the course of the following year [1610]. The
success of this venture seems to have given increased stimulus
to the spirit of enterprise.
{2325}
New discoveries were projected; licenses were granted by the
States-General, on the recommendation of the Admiralty, to two
ships, the Little Fox and Little Crane, ostensibly to look
again for a northerly passage to China; and the cities of
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoorn, and Enckhuyzen, as well as
several private merchants and citizens, applied for
information to the States of Holland and West Friesland,
relative to a certain newly discovered navigable river, and
the proper course to be steered in proceeding thither. These
ships proceeded, on procuring the requisite information, to
that quarter early in the ensuing spring; and of so much
importance was the country now considered, that the traders
erected and garrisoned one or two small forts on the river,
for the protection of the fur-trade. … The favorable
position of the island of Manhattan for commerce was easily
perceived by the Europeans from the first, and it soon became
the head-quarters of the traders. Their establishment in that
locality consisted now [1613] of four houses, under the
superintendence of Hendrick Corstiaensen, who, by means of his
trading-boats, visited every creek, inlet, and bay in the
neighborhood, where an Indian settlement was to be found, and
thus secured for his employers the furs and other valuable
produce of the country. But the growing prosperity of the
infant post was now fated to experience an unexpected check.
Captain Argal, of Virginia, returning in the month of November
of this year from a seemingly predatory visit to a settlement
which the French had made at Port Royal, in Acadia, touched at
the island of Manhattans, with a view, it is said, of looking
after a grant of land which he had obtained there from the
Virginia Company, and forced Corstiaensen to submit himself
and his plantation to the king of England, and to the governor
of Virginia under him, and to agree to pay tribute in token of
his dependence on the English crown. … Active steps were
taken, early in the next year, to obtain an exclusive right to
the trade of those distant countries," and in March, 1614, the
States General passed an ordinance conferring on those who
should discover new lands the exclusive privilege of making
four voyages thither before others could have admission to the
traffic. This ordinance "excited considerable animation and
activity among adventurers. A number of merchants belonging to
Amsterdam and Hoorn fitted out and dispatched five ships:
namely, the Little Fox, the Nightingale, the Tiger, and the
Fortune, the two last under the command of Adriaen Block and
Hendrick Corstiaensen, of Amsterdam. The fifth vessel was
called the Fortune also; she belonged to Hoorn, and was
commanded by Captain Cornelis Jacobsen Mey. The three
last-named and now well-known navigators proceeded immediately
on an exploring expedition to the mouth of the Great River of
the Manhattans, but Block had the misfortune, soon after his
arrival there, of losing his vessel, which was accidentally
burnt. … He forthwith set about constructing a yacht, 38
feet keel, 44½ feet long, and 11½ feet wide, which, when
completed, he called the 'Restless,' significant of his own
untiring industry. … In this craft, the first specimen of
European naval architecture in these waters, Skipper Block
proceeded to explore the coast east of Manhattan Island. He
sailed along the East River, to which he gave the name of 'The
Hellegat,' after a branch of the river Scheld, in East
Flanders; and leaving Long Island, then called Metoac, or
'Sewan-hacky, 'the land of shells,' on the south, he
discovered the Housatonick, or river of the Red Mountain."
Proceeding eastwardly, Block found the Connecticut River,
which he named Fresh River, and ascended it to an Indian
village at 41° 48'. Passing out of the Sound, and ascertaining
the insular character of Long Island, he gave his own name to
one of the two islands off its eastern extremity. After
exploring Narragansett Bay, he went on to Cape Cod, and there
fell in with Hendrick Corstiaensen's ship. "While these
navigators were thus engaged at the east, Captain Cornelis Mey
was actively employed in exploring the Atlantic coast farther
south. … He reached the great Delaware Bay, … two capes of
which still commemorate his visit; one, the most northward,
being called after him, Cape Mey; another, Cape Cornelis;
while the great south cape was called Hindlopen, after one of
the towns in the province of Friesland. … Intelligence of
the discoveries made by Block and his associates having been
transmitted to Holland, was received there early in the autumn
of this year [1614]. The united company by whom they had been
employed lost no time in taking the steps necessary to secure
to themselves the exclusive trade of the countries thus
explored, which was guarantied to them by the ordinance of the
27th of March. They sent deputies immediately to the Hague,
who laid before the States General a report of their
discoveries, as required by law, with a figurative map of the
newly explored countries, which now, for the first time,
obtained the name of New Netherland. A special grant in favor
of the interested parties was forthwith accorded … to visit
and trade with the countries in America lying between 40° and
45° north latitude, of which they strangely claimed to be the
first discoverers."
E. B. O'Callaghan,
History of New Netherland,
book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
Documents Relating to Colonial History of New York,
volume 1, pages 4-12.
B. Fernow,
New Netherland
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 4, chapter 8).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1614-1621.
The first trading monopoly succeeded
by the Dutch West India Company.
"It was perceived that, to secure the largest return from the
peltry trade, a factor should reside permanently on the
Mauritius River [North, or Hudson, as it has been successively
called], among the Maquaas or Mohawks, and the Mahicans, at
the head of tide-water. Hendrick Christiaensen, who, after his
first experiment in company with Adriaen Block, is stated to
have made 'ten voyages' to Manhattan, accordingly constructed
[1614] a trading house on 'Castle Island,' at the west side of
the river, a little below the present city of Albany. … To
compliment the family of the stadtholder, the little post was
immediately named Fort Nassau. … It has been confidently
affirmed that the year after the erection of Fort Nassau, at
Castle Island, a redoubt was also thrown up and fortified 'on
an elevated spot' near the southern point of Manhattan Island.
But the assertion does not appear to be confirmed by
sufficient authority. … The Holland merchants, who had
obtained from the States General the exclusive right of
trading for three years to New Netherland, though united
together in one company to secure the grant of their charter,
were not strictly a corporation, but rather 'participants' in
a specific, limited, and temporary monopoly, which they were
to enjoy in common. …
{2326}
On the 1st of January, 1618, the exclusive charter of the
Directors of New Netherland expired by its own limitation.
Year by year the value of the returns from the North River had
been increasing; and the hope of larger gains incited the
factors of the company to push their explorations further into
the interior. … No systematic agricultural colonization of
the country had yet been undertaken. The scattered agents of
the Amsterdam Company still looked merely to peaceful traffic,
and the cultivation of those friendly relations which had been
covenanted with their savage allies on the banks of the
Tawasentha [where they had negotiated a treaty of friendship
and alliance with the Five Nations of the Iroquois, in 1617].
Upon the expiration of their special charter, the merchants
who had formed the United New Netherland Company applied to
the government at the Hague for a renewal of their privileges,
the value of which they found was daily increasing. But the
States General, who were now contemplating the grant of a
comprehensive charter for a West India Company avoided a
compliance with the petition." In June, 1621, "the
long-pending question of a grand commercial organization was
finally settled; and an ample charter gave the West India
Company almost unlimited powers to colonize, govern, and
defend New Netherland."
J. R. Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
volume 1, chapters 2-3.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1615-1664.
Dutch relations with the Iroquois.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, THEIR CONQUESTS.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1620.
Embraced in the English patent of the Council for New England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1621-1646.
Early operations of the Dutch West India Company.
The purchase of Manhattan Island.
The Patroons and their colonies.
"When it became evident that the war [of the United Provinces]
with Spain would be renewed, the way was opened for the
charter of a company, so often asked and denied. Just before
the expiration of the twelve years' truce, April, 1621, the
great West India Company was formed, and incorporated by the
States General. It was clothed with extraordinary powers and
privileges. It could make alliances and treaties, declare war
and make peace. Although its field of operations was limited
to Africa, the West India Islands, and the continent of
America, it could in case of war fight the Spaniards wherever
found on land or sea. And finally, it was permitted to
colonize unoccupied or subjugated countries. To it especially
were committed the care and the colonization of New
Netherland. The West India Company, after completing its
organization in 1623, began its work in New Netherland by
erecting a fort on Manhattan Island [called Fort Amsterdam],
and another on the Delaware, and by reconstructing the one at
Albany. It sent over to be distributed in these places 30
families, not strictly as colonists, to settle and cultivate
the land, but rather as servants of the Company, in charge of
their factories, engaged in the purchase and preparation of
furs and peltries for shipment. Some of them returned home at
the expiration of their term of service, and no other
colonists were brought out for several years. The Company
found more profitable employment for its capital in fitting
out fleets of ships of war, which captured the Spanish
treasure-ships, and thus enabled the Company to pay large
dividends to its stockholders. In 1626 its agents bought all
Manhattan Island of the Indian owners for sixty guilders in
goods on which an enormous profit was made; and about the same
time they purchased other tracts of land in the vicinity,
including Governor's and Staten Islands, on similar terms. The
Company was now possessed of lands enough for the
accommodation of a large population. They were fertile, and
only needed farmers to develop their richness. But these did
not come. … Accordingly, in 1629, the managers took up a new
line of action. They enacted a statute, termed 'Freedoms and
Exemptions,' which authorized the establishment of colonies
within their territory by individuals, who were to be known as
Patroons, or Patrons. An individual might purchase of the
Indian owners a tract of land, on which to plant a colony of
fifty souls within four years from the date of purchase. He
who established such a colony might associate with himself
other persons to assist him in his work, and share the
profits, but he should be considered the Patroon, or chief, in
whom were centred all the rights pertaining to the position,
such as the administration of justice, the appointment of
civil and military officers, the settlement of clergymen, and
the like. He was a kind of feudal lord, owing allegiance to
the West India Company, and to the States General, but
independent of control within the limits of his own territory.
The system was a modified relic of feudalism. The colonists
were not serfs, but tenants for a specified term of years,
rendering service to the Patroon for a consideration. When
their term of service expired, they were free to renew the
contract, make a new one, or leave the colony altogether. The
privileges of a Patroon at first were restricted to the
members of the company, but in about ten years were extended
to others. The directors of the company were the first to
improve the opportunity now offered of becoming 'princes and
potentates' in the western hemisphere. … In 1630, the agents
of Director Killian Van Rensselaer bought a large tract of
land on the west side of the Hudson River below Albany, and in
July following other tracts on both sides of the river,
including the present site of Albany. In July, 1630, Director
Michael Paauw bought lands on the west side of the Hudson
opposite Manhattan Island, and named his territory Pavonia. A
few months later Staten Island was transferred to him, and
became a part of his domain. … Killian Van Rensselaer also
formed a partnership with several of his brother directors,
among whom was the historian De Laet, for the purpose of
planting a colony on his lands on the upper Hudson, to be
known as the colony of Rensselaerwyck. He seems to have had a
clearer perception of what was required for such a work than
the other Patroons. The colony was organized in accordance
with the charter, and on business principles. Before the
colonists left Holland they were assigned to specific places
and duties. Civil and military officers were appointed,
superintendents and overseers of the various departments were
selected, and all were instructed in their duties.
The number of the first colonists was respectable.
{2327}
They were chiefly farmers and mechanics, with their families.
On their arrival, May, 1630, farms situated on either side the
river were allotted to them, utensils and stock distributed,
houses built, and arrangements made for their safety in case
the natives should become hostile. Order was maintained, and
individual rights respected. They were not long in settling
down, each to his allotted work. Year by year new colonists
arrived, and more lands were bought for the proprietors. In
1646, when Killian Van Rensselaer, the first Patroon, died,
over two hundred colonists had been sent from Holland, and a
territory forty-eight by twenty-four miles, besides another
tract of 62,000 acres, had been acquired. The West India
Company had changed its policy under the direction of new men,
and no longer favored the Patroons. The Van Rensselaers were
much annoyed, and even persecuted, but they held firmly to
their rights under the charter. Their colony was prosperous,
and their estate in time became enormous. … Of all the
Patroon colonies Rensselaerwyck alone survived. It owed its
existence mainly to its management, but largely to its
situation, remote from the seat of government, and convenient
for the Indian trade."
G. W. Schuyler,
Colonial New York,
introduction, section 1.
ALSO IN:
I. Elting,
Dutch Village Communities on the Hudson,
pages 12-16.
J. R. Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
volume 1, chapter 7.
See, also, LIVINGSTON MANOR.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1629-1631.
Dutch occupancy of the Delaware.
See DELAWARE: A. D. 1629-1631.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1630.
Introduction of public registry.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1630-1641.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1634.
The city named New Amsterdam.
Soon after the appointment of Wouter Van Twiller, who became
governor of New Netherland in 1633, "the little town on
Manhattan Island received the name of New Amsterdam … and
was invested with the prerogative of 'staple right,' by virtue
of which all the merchandise passing up and down the river was
subject to certain duties. This right gave the post the
commercial monopoly of the whole province."
Mrs. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, page 73.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1634-1635.
Dutch advance posts on the Connecticut.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1635.
Territory granted to Lord Lennox and Lord Mulgrave,
on the dissolution of the Council for New England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1635.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1638.
Protest against the Swedish settlement on the Delaware.
See DELAWARE: A. D. 1638-1640.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1638-1647.
The colony thrown open to free immigration and free trade.
Kieft's administration, and the ruinous Indian wars.
"The colony did not thrive. The patroon system kept settlers
away, and the paternal government of a trading corporation
checked all vigorous and independent growth, while Van Twiller
[Wouter Van Twiller, appointed governor in 1633] went steadily
from bad to worse. He engaged in childish quarrels with
everyone, from the minister down. … This utter misgovernment
led at last to Van Twiller's removal. He retired in possession
of large tracts of land, which he had succeeded in acquiring,
and was replaced [1638] by William Kieft, a bankrupt merchant
of bad reputation. Kieft practically abolished the Council,
and got all power into his own hands; but he had some sense of
order. … Despite his improvements, the place remained a mere
trading-post, and would not develope into a colony. The
patroons were the curse of the scheme, and too powerful to be
overthrown; so they proposed, as a remedy for the existing
evils, that their powers and privileges should be greatly
enlarged. The Company had bought back some of the lands; but
they were still helpless, and the State would do nothing for
them. In this crisis they had a return of good sense, and
solved the problem by destroying their stifling monopoly. They
threw the trade to New Netherlands open to all comers, and
promised the absolute ownership of land on the payment of a
small quit-rent. The gates were open at last, and the tide of
emigration swept in. De Vries who had bought land on Staten
Island, came out with a company; while ship followed ship
filled with colonists, and English came from Virginia, and
still more from New England. Men of property and standing
began to turn their attention to the New Netherlands; fine
well-stocked farms rapidly covered Manhattan, and healthy
progress had at last begun. Thus strengthened, the Company
[1640] restricted the patroons to a water-front of one mile
and a depth of two, but left them their feudal privileges,
benefits which practically accrued to Van Rensselaer, whose
colony at Beverwyck had alone, among the manors, thriven and
grown at the expense of the Company. The opening of trade
proved in one respect a disaster. The cautious policy of the
Company was abandoned, and greedy traders who had already
begun the business, and were now wholly unrestrained, hastened
to make their fortunes by selling arms to the Indians in
return for almost unlimited quantities of furs. Thus the
Mohawks obtained guns enough to threaten both the Dutch and
all the surrounding tribes, and this perilous condition was
made infinitely worse by the mad policy of Kieft. He first
tried to exact tribute from the Indians near Manhattan, then
offered a price for the head of any of the Raritans who had
destroyed the settlement of De Vries; and, when a young man
was murdered by a Weckquaesgeek, the Governor planned
immediate war." Public opinion among the colonists condemned
the measures of Kieft, and forced him to accept a council of
twelve select-men, chosen at a public meeting; but "the
twelve," as they were called, failed to control their
governor. Acting on the advice of two or three among them,
whose support he had secured, he ordered a cowardly attack
upon some fugitive Indians from the River tribes, who had been
driven into the settlements by the onslaught of the Mohawks,
and whom De Vries and others were trying to protect. "The
wretched fugitives, surprised by their supposed protectors,
were butchered in the dead of a winter's night [1643], without
mercy, and the bloody soldiers returned in the morning to
Manhattan, where they were warmly welcomed by Kieft. This
massacre lighted up at once the flames of war among all the
neighboring tribes of Algonquins. All the outlying farms were
laid waste, and their owners murdered, while the smaller
settlements were destroyed. Vriesendael alone was spared.
{2328}
A peace, patched up by De Vries, gave a respite until summer,
and the war raged more fiercely than before, the Indians
burning and destroying in every direction, while trade was
broken up and the crews of the vessels slaughtered." Kieft's
life was now in danger from the rage of his own people, and
eight men, appointed by public meeting, took control of public
affairs, as far as it was possible to do so. Under the command
of John Underhill, the Connecticut Indian fighter, who had
lately migrated to Manhattan, the war was prosecuted with
great vigor and success on Long Island and against the
Connecticut Indians who had joined in it; but little headway
was made against the tribes on the Hudson, who harassed and
ruined the colony. Thus matters went badly for a long period,
until, in 1647, the Company in Holland sent out Peter
Stuyvesant to take the place of Kieft. "In the interval, the
Indian tribes, weary at last of war, came in and made peace.
Kieft continued his quarrels; but his power was gone, and he
was hated as the principal cause of all the misfortunes of the
colony. The results of his miserable administration were
certainly disastrous enough. Sixteen hundred Indians had
perished in the war; but all the outlying Dutch settlements
and farms had been destroyed, and the prosperity of the colony
had received a check from which it recovered very slowly. In
Connecticut, the English had left the Dutch merely a nominal
hold, and had really destroyed their power in the East. On the
South river [the Delaware] the Swedes had settled, and,
disregarding Kieft's blustering proclamations, had founded
strong and growing colonies. … The interests of Holland were
at a low ebb."
H. C. Lodge,
Short History of the English Colonies,
chapter 16.
A more favorable view of Kieft and his administration is taken
by Mr. Gerard, who says: "Few proconsuls had a more arduous
task in the administration of the government of a province
than had Director Kieft. The Roman official had legions at
command to sustain his power and to repel attack; and in case
of disaster the whole empire was at hand for his support.
Kieft, in a far distant province, with a handful of soldiers
crowded in a dilapidated fort and a few citizens turbulent and
unreliable, surrounded on all sides by savages ever on the
alert for rapine and murder, receiving little support from the
home government, and having a large territory to defend and
two civilized races to contend with, passed the eight years of
his administration amid turmoil and dissension within, and
such hostile attack from without as to keep the province in
continuous peril. The New England colonies were always in a
state of antagonism and threatening war. … The Swedes and
independent settlers on the South and Schuylkill rivers were
constantly making encroachments and threatening the Company's
occupancy there, while pretenders under patents and
independent settlers, knowing the weakness of the government,
kept it disturbed and agitated. What wonder that mistakes were
made, that policy failed, that misfortunes came, and that
Kieft's rule brought no prosperity to the land? The radical
trouble with his administration was that he was under a
divided rule—a political governor with allegiance to the
States-General, and a commercial Director, as the
representative of a great company of traders. The
States-General was too busily occupied in establishing its
independence and watching the balance of European power to
give supervision to the affairs of a province of small
political importance—while the Company, looking upon its
colony merely as a medium of commercial gain, drew all the
profit it could gather from it, disregarded its true
interests, and gave it only occasional and grudging support.
… Towards the Indians Kieft's dealings were characterized by
a rigid regard for their possessory rights; no title was
deemed vested and no right was absolutely claimed until
satisfaction was made to the native owner. Historians of the
period have been almost universal in their condemnation of him
for the various contests and wars engaged in with the Indians,
and have put on him all responsibility for the revolts. But
this is an ex post facto criticism, which, with a false
judgment, condemns a man for the results of his actions rather
than for the actions themselves. Indeed, without the energy
displayed by the Director towards the aborigines, the colony
would probably have been annihilated. … Imprudence,
rashness, arbitrary action, want of political sagacity may be
imputed to Director Kieft, but not excessive inhumanity, nor
want of effort, nor unfaithfulness to his employers or to his
province. He has been generally condemned, but without
sufficient consideration of the trials which he experienced,
the anxiety to which he was subject, and the perplexities
incident to a government over discontented, ignorant and
mutinous subjects, and to the continued apprehension of
outside attack. Left mostly to his own resources, and
receiving no sympathy and little aid, his motives the subject
of attack from both tavern and pulpit, and twice the object of
attempted assassination, his rule as a whole, though
disastrous, was not dishonorable."
J. W. Gerard,
The Administration of William Kieft
(Memorial History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 6).
ALSO IN:
Mrs. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapters 6-8.
E. B. O'Callaghan,
History of New Netherland,
book 2, chapter 7
and book 3, chapters 1-9 (volume 1).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1640-1643.
Expulsion of New Haven colonists from the Delaware.
See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1640-1655.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1647-1664.
Peter Stuyvesant and his administration.
Peter Stuyvesant, the director or governor who succeeded
Kieft, "took possession of the government on the 11th of May,
1647. On his arrival he was greeted with a hearty and cordial
reception by the citizens, to which he responded by reciprocal
professions of interest and regard. He had for several years
been in the Company's service as Director of their colony at
Curaçoa, and was distinguished for his energy and bravery.
Having lost a leg in an attack on the Portuguese settlement at
St. Martin's, he had been obliged to return to Europe for
surgical aid, whence, still retaining his former commission,
he was sent to the charge of the Province of New Netherlands.
Immediately on his accession he organized a representative
Council of nine members from a list of eighteen presented to
him by the inhabitants of the province, and gave his assent to
various important provisions for the regulation of trade and
commerce. By a conciliatory and just treatment of the Indians
so recently in revolt he speedily gained their affection and
goodwill, and by his judicious measures for their mutual
protection restored peace and harmony among all classes."
S. S. Randall,
History of the State of New York,
period 2, chapter 5.
{2329}
"The powers of government—executive, legislative, and
judicial—which he [Stuyvesant] assumed, were quite extensive,
and often arbitrary. Directly or indirectly, he appointed and
commissioned all public officers, framed all laws, and decided
all important controversies. … He directed churches to be
built, installed ministers, and even ordered them when and
where to preach. Assuming the sole control of the public
lands, he extinguished the Indian title thereto, and allowed
no purchase to be made from the natives without his sanction;
and granted at pleasure, to individuals and companies, parcels
of land, subject to such conditions as he saw fit to impose.
In the management of these complicated affairs the Director
developed a certain imperiousness of manner and impatience of
restraint, due, perhaps, as much to his previous military life
as to his personal character. … During the whole of his
predecessor's unquiet rule a constant struggle had been going
on between the personal prerogative of the Executive and the
inherent sentiment of popular freedom which prevailed among
the commonalty, leading the latter constantly to seek for
themselves the franchises and freedoms of the Fatherland, to
which, as loyal subjects, they deemed themselves entitled in
New Netherland. The contest was reopened soon after
Stuyvesant's installation, and the firmness of both Director
and people, in the maintenance of what each jealously
considered their rights, gave indication of serious
disturbance to the public weal." The governor, at length, in
1647, conceded "a popular representation in the affairs of
government. An election was therefore held, at which the
inhabitants of Amsterdam, Breuckelen, Amersfoort and Pavonia
chose eighteen of 'the most notable, reasonable, honest, and
respectable' among them, from whom, according to the custom of
the Fatherland, the Director and Council selected 'Nine Men'
as an advisory Council; and although their powers and duties
were jealously limited and guarded by the Director's
Proclamation, yet the appointment of the Nine Men was a
considerable gain to the cause of popular rights. … The
subsequent history of Stuyvesant's government is a record of
quarrels with colonial patroons, with the English in New
England, the Swedes on the South River, and last—not
least—with his own people. In fact, the government was by no
means well adapted to the people or adequate to protect them.
The laws were very, imperfect, and the Director and Council
either incompetent or indisposed to remedy the serious defects
which existed in the administration of civil and criminal
justice."
H. R. Stiles,
History of the City of Brooklyn,
volume 1, chapter 3.
"Director Stuyvesant was recalled to Europe soon after the
surrender [to the English—see below], to vindicate his
conduct … and … found himself the object of serious
charges and most virulent attacks. He returned to this country
in 1668, and died on his bouwerie in 1672. … Throughout his
chequered life he exhibited a character of high morality, and
in his dealings with the Indians an energetic and dignified
deportment, which contributed, no doubt, considerably to the
success of his arms and policy. Alike creditable to his
talents are his negotiations with the neighboring English
colonies. His vindications of the rights of his country, on
these occasions, betoken a firmness of manner, a sharpness of
perception, a clearness of argument and a soundness of
judgment, combined with an extent of reading, which few of his
contemporaries could equal, and none surpass. … It would
afford pleasure were we justified in pronouncing a like
panegyric on other parts of his administration; but none can
review [his arbitrary resistance to just popular demands] …
and his persecution of the Lutherans and other Nonconformists,
without reprobating his tyranny, and regretting that a
character, so faultless in other respects, should be stained
by traits so repulsive as these, and that the powers of a mind
so strong should be exerted in opposing rather than promoting
civil and religious freedom. The hostility this part of his
public conduct evoked redounds most creditably to the
character of the settlers, whose struggles for freer
institutions cannot fail to win for them our sympathy and
regard."
E. B. O'Callaghan,
History of New Netherland,
book 6, chapter 8 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Remonstrance of New Netherlands
(Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York,
volume 1, pages 275-317);
also volume 13.
G. P. Fisher,
The Colonial Era,
chapter 9.
B. Fernow,
Peter Stuyvesant
(Memorial History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 7).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1650.
The adjustment of boundaries with Connecticut.
To settle the long pending controversy between Dutch and
English respecting the territory claimed by each on Long
Island and at the mouth of the Connecticut River, Governor
Stuyvesant went in person to Hartford, September, 1650, and
opened negotiations. His hands were tied from the beginning by
instructions from his company to press no claim to the
extremity of a quarrel, because the English were too strong in
America to be fought with. He assented, therefore, to the
appointment of two arbitrators on each side, and he named
Englishmen as his arbitrators. "The four agreed upon a
settlement of the boundary matter, ignoring all other points
in dispute as having occurred under the administration of
Kieft. It was agreed that the Dutch were to retain their
lands, in Hartford [the post of 'Good Hope,' established in
1633, and which they had continued to hold, in the midst of
the spreading English settlement]; that the boundary line
between the two peoples on the mainland was not to come within
ten miles of the Hudson River, but was to be left undecided
for the present, except the first 20 miles from the Sound,
which was to begin on the west side of Greenwich Bay, between
Stamford and Manhattan, running thence 20 miles north; and
that Long Island should be divided by a corresponding line
across it, 'from the westernmost part of Oyster Bay,' to the
sea. The English thus got the greater part of Long Island, a
recognition of the rightfulness of their presence in the
Connecticut territory, and at least the initial 20 miles of a
boundary line which must, in the nature of things, be
prolonged in much the same direction, and which in fact has
pretty closely governed subsequent boundary lines on that side
of Connecticut. If these seem hard terms for the Dutch, and
indicative of treachery on the part of their two English
agents, it must be borne in mind that, by the terms of his
instructions from his principals, Stuyvesant had to take the
best terms he could get. The treaty of Hartford was dated
September 19, 1650."
A. Johnston,
Connecticut
(American Commonwealths),
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
E. B. O'Callaghan,
History of New Netherland,
book 4, chapters 1-9 (volume 2).
C. W. Bowen,
The Boundary Disputes of Connecticut,
part 1, chapter 1.
Division of the Boundary in America
(Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York,
volume 1, pages 541-577).
{2930}
NEW YORK: A. D. 1653.
The grant of municipal government to New Amsterdam.
"An interesting moment arrived. A new city appeared in the
annals of the world. Its birth was announced on the evening of
February 2, 1653, at the feast of Candlemas. A proclamation of
the governor defined its exceedingly limited powers and named
its first officers. It was called New Amsterdam. There was
nothing in the significant scene which inspired enthusiasm. It
came like a favor grudgingly granted. Its privileges were few,
and even those were subsequently hampered by the most
illiberal interpretations which could be devised. Stuyvesant
made a speech on the occasion, in which he took care to reveal
his intention of making all future municipal appointments,
instead of submitting the matter to the votes of the citizens,
as was the custom in the Fatherland; and he gave the officers
distinctly to understand, from the first, that their existence
did not in any way diminish his authority, but that he should
often preside at their meetings, and at all times counsel them
in matters of importance. … A pew was set apart in the
church for the City Fathers; and on Sunday mornings these
worthies left their homes and families early to meet in the
City Hall, from which, preceded by the bell-ringer, carrying
their cushions of state, they marched in solemn procession to
the sanctuary in the fort. On all occasions of ceremony,
secular or religious, they were treated with distinguished
attention. Their position was eminently respectable, but it
had as yet no emoluments. … There were two burgomasters,
Arent van Hattam and Martin Cregier. … There were five
schepens,—Paulus Van der Grist, Maximilian Van Gheel, Allard
Anthony, Peter Van Couwenhoven, and William Beekman."
Mrs. M. J. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
D. T. Valentine,
History of the City of New York,
chapter 5.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1654.
Threatened attack from New England.
See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1640-1655.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1655.
Subjugation of the Swedes on the Delaware.
See DELAWARE: A. D. 1640-1656.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.
The English conquest.
New Amsterdam becomes New York.
The Navigation Act of Cromwell, maintained by the English
after the Stuart Restoration, was continually evaded, almost
openly, in the British American colonies; and it was with the
Dutch at New Amsterdam that the illicit trade of the New
Englanders, the Virginians and the Marylanders was principally
carried on. "In 1663 the losses to the revenue were so
extensive that the framers of the customs … complained of
the great abuses which, they claimed, defrauded the revenue of
£10,000 a year. The interest of the kingdom was at stake, and
the conquest of the New Netherland was resolved upon. … The
next concern of the Chancellor [Clarendon] was to secure to
the Crown the full benefit of the proposed conquest. He was as
little satisfied with the self-rule of the New England
colonies as with the presence of Dutch sovereignty on American
soil; and in the conquest of the foreigner he found the means
to bring the English subject into closer dependence on the
King. James Duke of York, Grand Admiral, was the heir to the
Crown. … A patent to James as presumptive heir to the crown,
from the King his brother, would merge in the crown; and a
central authority strongly established over the territory
covered by it might well, under favorable circumstances, be
extended over the colonies on either side which were governed
under limitations and with privileges directly secured by
charter from the King. … The first step taken by Clarendon
was the purchase of the title conveyed to the Earl of Stirling
in 1635 by the grantees of the New England patent. This
covered the territory of Pemaquid, between the Saint Croix and
the Kennebec, in Maine, and the island of Matowack, or Long
Island. … A title being thus acquired by the adroitness of
Clarendon, a patent was, on the 12th of March, 1664, issued by
Charles II. to the Duke of York, granting him the Maine
territory of Pemaquid, all the islands between Cape Cod and
the Narrows, the Hudson River, and all the lands from the west
side of the Connecticut to the east side of Delaware Bay,
together with the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
The inland boundary was 'a line from the head of Connecticut
River to the source of Hudson River, thence to the head of the
Mohawk branch of Hudson River, and thence to the east side of
Delaware Bay.' The patent gave to the Duke of York, his heirs,
deputies, and assigns, 'absolute power to govern within this
domain according to his own rules and discretions consistent
with the statutes of England.' In this patent the charter
granted by the King to the younger John Winthrop in 1662 for
Connecticut, in which it was stipulated that commissioners
should be sent to New England to settle the boundaries of each
colony, was entirely disregarded. The idea of commissioners
for boundaries now developed with larger scope, and the King
established a royal commission, consisting of four persons
recommended by the Duke of York, whose private instructions
were to reduce the Dutch to submission and to increase the
prerogatives of the Crown in the New England colonies, which
Clarendon considered to be 'already well nigh ripened, to a
commonwealth.' Three of these commissioners were officers in
the royal army,—Colonel Richard Nicolls, Sir Robert Carr,
Colonel George Cartwright. The fourth was Samuel Maverick. …
To Colonel Nicolls the Duke of York entrusted the charge of
taking possession of and governing the vast territory covered
by the King's patent. To one more capable and worthy the
delicate trust could not have been confided. … His title
under the new commission was that of Deputy-Governor; the
tenure of his office, the Duke's pleasure. … When the news
of the gathering of the fleet reached the Hague, and
explanation was demanded of Downing [the English ambassador]
as to the truth of the reports that it was intended for the
reduction of the New Netherland, he boldly insisted on the
English right to the territory by first possession. To a claim
so flimsy and impudent only one response was possible,—a
declaration of war. But the Dutch people at large had little
interest in the remote settlement, which was held to be a
trading-post rather than a colony, and not a profitable post
at best.
{2331}
The West India Company saw the danger of the situation, but
its appeals for assistance were disregarded. Its own resources
and credit were unequal to the task of defence. Meanwhile the
English fleet, composed of one ship of 36, one of 30, a third
of 16, and a transport of 10 guns, with three full companies
of the King's veterans,—in an 450 men, commanded by Colonels
Nicolls, Carr, and Cartwright,—sailed from Portsmouth for
Gardiner's Bay on the 15th of May. On the 23d of July Nicolls
and Cartwright reached Boston, where they demanded military

aid from the Governor and Council of the Colony. Calling upon
Winthrop for the assistance of Connecticut, and appointing a
rendezvous at the west end of Long Island, Nicolls set sail
with his ships and anchored in New Utrecht Bay, just outside
of Coney Island, a spot since historical as the landing-place
of Lord Howe's troops in 1776. Here Nicolls was joined by
militia from New Haven and Long Island. The city of New
Amsterdam … was defenceless. The Director, Stuyvesant, heard
of the approach of the English at Fort Orange (Albany),
whither he had gone to quell disturbances with the Indians.
Returning in haste, he summoned his council together. The
folly of resistance was apparent to all, and after delays, by
which the Director-General sought to save something of his
dignity, a commission for a surrender was agreed upon between
the Dutch authorities and Colonel Nicolls. The capitulation
confirmed the inhabitants in the possession of their property,
the exercise of their religion, and their freedom as citizens.
The municipal officers were continued in their rule. On the
29th of August, 1664, the articles were ratified … and the
city passed under English rule. The first act of Nicolls on
taking possession of the fort, in which he was welcomed by the
civic authorities, was to order that the city of New Amsterdam
be thereafter known as New York, and the fort as Fort James,
in honor of the title and name of his lord and patron. At the
time of the surrender the city gave small promise of its
magnificent future. Its entire population, which did not
exceed 1,500 souls, was housed within the triangle at the
point of the island. … Nicolls now established a new
government for the province. A force was sent up the Hudson
under Captain Cartwright, which took possession of Fort
Orange, the name of which was changed to Albany, in honor of a
title of the Duke of York."
J. A. Stevens,
The English in New York
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 3, chapter 10).
ALSO IN:
J. R. Brodhead,
History of New York,
volume 1, chapter 20.
Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York,
volumes 2-3.
See, also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1660-1665.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.
The separation of New Jersey,
by grant to Berkeley and Carteret.
See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.
The annexation of the Delaware settlements.
See DELAWARE: A. D. 1664.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1664-1674.
The province as the English received it.
Dutch institutions, their influence and survival.
"In the year 1664, when the government passed to the English,
New Netherland is said by the Chevalier Lambrechtsen to have
consisted of three cities and thirty villages. Its population
was then about ten thousand souls, exclusive of the Indians,
who were important auxiliaries for trade and peltries. The
inhabitants enjoyed a fair measure of freedom and protection.
High roads already existed, and there were numerous owners of
flourishing farms, or bouweries, and other real property,
while urban life was well policed by proper laws. The
treatment by the Dutch of the many English and other aliens
who already dwelt within the Dutch territory was rather in
advance of the age, while the jurisprudence established here
by the Dutch, being largely borrowed from the high
civilization of Rome, was certainly superior in refinement to
the contemporary feudal and folk law introduced by the English
in 1664. Theoretically, the administration of justice
conformed to a high standard, and both Dutch and aliens were
protected by adequate constitutional guaranties. We cannot for
an instant presume that the institutions which half a century
had reared were swept into oblivion by a single stroke of the
English conquerors in 1664. It would be more rational to
suppose that the subsidence of the Dutch institutions was as
gradual as the facts demonstrate it to have been. Negro
slavery was introduced by the Dutch, but it existed here only
under its least objectionable conditions. A large measure of
religious liberty was tolerated, although the Dutch Reformed
Church was the only one publicly sanctioned. On several
occasions delegates of the commonalty were brought into
consultation with the Director-General and Council, and thus,
to some extent, a principle of representative government was
at least recognized, although it was somewhat at variance with
the company's standard of colonial government, and savored too
much of the English idea and encroachment to be palatable. It
must not be forgotten that at home the Dutch were a
self-governing people and accustomed to that most important
principle of free government—self-assessment in taxation. In
common with all commercial peoples, they possessed a sturdy
independence of mind and demeanor. There is no proof that
these excellent qualities were diminished by transplantation
to the still freer air of the new country. New Netherland was
not altogether fortunate in its type of government, experience
demonstrating that the selfish spirit of a mercantile monopoly
is not the fit repository of governmental powers. Yet, on the
whole, it must be conceded that the company's government
introduced here much that was good and accomplished little
that was pernicious. In 1664 it certainly surrendered to the
English one of the finest and most flourishing colonies of
America, possessing a hardy, vigorous, and thrifty people,
well adapted to all the principles of civil and religious
freedom. History shows that this people speedily coalesced
with all that was good in the system introduced by the
English, and sturdily opposed all that was undesirable. … It
is certain … that after the overthrow of the Dutch political
authority the English proceeded gradually to introduce into
New York, by express command, their own laws and customs. Yet
it requires a very much more extended examination of original
sources than has ever been made to determine absolutely just
how much of the English laws and institutions was in force at
a particular epoch of colonial history. The subject perplexed
the colonial courts, and it is still perplexing."
R. L. Fowler,
Constitutional and Legal History, of New York
in the 17th Century
(Memorial History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 14).
{2332}
"Although the New Netherland became a permanent English colony
under the Treaty of Westminster in 1674 [see below], its
population remained largely Dutch until nearly the middle of
the next century. The prosperity of New York, growing steadily
with the progress of trade and the exportation of grains,
attracted emigrants from Holland notwithstanding the change of
flag. Many families now living on Manhattan Island are
descended from Dutchmen who came out after the English
occupation. The old names with which we have become familiar
in the early annals of New Amsterdam continue in positions of
honour and prominence through the English colonial records. In
1673, we find among the city magistrates Johannes van Bruggh,
Johannes de Peyster, Ægidius Luyck, Jacob Kip, Laurans van der
Spiegel, Wilhelm Beeckman, Guleyn Verplanck, Stephen van
Courtlandt. In 1677, Stephanus van Courtlandt is mayor, and
Johannes de Peyster deputy mayor. In 1682, Cornelis Steenwyck
is mayor; in 1685, the office is filled by Nicholas Bayard; in
1686, by Van Courtlandt again. Abraham de Peyster was mayor
from 1691 to 1695; and in his time the following Dutchmen were
aldermen: W. Beeckman, Johannes Kip, Brandt Schuyler, Garrett
Douw, Arent van Scoyck, Gerard Douw, Rip van Dam, Jacobus van
Courtlandt, Samuel Bayard, Jacobus van Nostrandt, Jan
Hendricks Brevoort, Jan van Home, Petrus Bayard, Abraham
Wendell, John Brevoort. These names recur down to 1717. In
1718, John Roosevelt, Philip van Courtlandt, and Cornelius de
Peyster are aldermen. In 1719, Jacobus van Courtlandt is
mayor, and among the aldermen are Philip van Courtlandt,
Harmanus van Gilder, Jacobus Kip, Frederic Philipse, John
Roosevelt, Philip Schuyler. In 1745, Stephen Bayard is mayor.
During the last half of the eighteenth century the Dutch names
are more and more crowded out by the English. … By the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the Dutch names occur
only occasionally. These Dutchmen not only preserved their
leadership in public affairs, but carried on a large
proportion of the city's trade. New York was an English
colony, but its greatness was largely built on Dutch
foundations. It is often said that the city became flourishing
only after the English occupation. This is true, with the
qualification that the Dutch trader and the Dutch farmer after
that event had greater opportunities for successful activity.
… Dutch continued to be the language of New York until the
end of the seventeenth century, after which time English
contended for the mastery with steady success. In the outlying
towns of Long Island and New Jersey and along the Hudson
River, Dutch was generally used for a century later. … In
New York city the large English immigration, the requirements
of commerce, and the frequent intermarriages of Dutch and
English families had given to English the predominance by the
year 1750. … In New York city the high-stoop house, and the
peculiar observance of New Year's Day which continued until
1870, are two familiar relics of Holland. The valuable custom
of registering transfers of real estate has been received from
the same source."
B. Tuckerman,
Peter Stuyvesant,
chapter 4.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1665.
The Duke's Laws.
"At a general meeting held at Hempstead, on Long Island [March
1, 1665], attended by deputies from all the towns, Governor
Nichols presently published, on his own and the duke's
authority, a body of laws for the government of the new
province, alphabetically arranged, collated, and digested,
'out of the several laws now in force in his majesty's
American colonies and plantations,' exhibiting indeed, many
traces of Connecticut and Massachusetts legislation. … The
code [was] known as the 'Duke's Laws,' which Nichols imagined
'could not but be satisfactory even to the most factious
Republicans.' A considerable number of immigrants seem to have
come in on the strength of it from the neighboring colonies of
New England,"
R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
chapter 17 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
The Duke of York's Book of Laws,
compiled and edited by S. George, et al.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1665-1666.
French invasions of the Iroquois country,
under Courcelles and Tracy.
See CANADA: A. D. 1640-1700.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.
The reconquest of the city and province by the Dutch.
The seizure of New Netherland by the English in 1664 was one
of several acts of hostility which preceded an actual
declaration of war between England and Holland. The war became
formal, however, in the following year, and ended in 1666,
ingloriously for England although she retained her American
conquests.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666
Then followed a period of hypocritical alliance on the part of
Charles II. with the Dutch, which gave him an opportunity to
betray them in 1672, when he joined Louis XIV. of France in a
perfidious attack upon the sturdy republic.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674.
During the second year of this last mentioned war, Cornelis
Evertsen, worthy son of a famous Dutch admiral, made an
unexpected reconquest of the lost province. Evertsen "had been
sent out from Zealand with fifteen ships to harass the enemy
in the West Indies, which was effectually done. At Martinico
he fell in with four ships dispatched from Amsterdam, under
the command of Jacob Binckes. Joining their forces, the two
commodores followed Krynssen's track to the Chesapeake, where
they took eight and burned five Virginia tobacco ships, in
spite of the gallantry of the frigates which were to convoy
them to England. As they were going out of the James River,
the Dutch commodores met a sloop from New York," and received
information from one of its passengers which satisfied them
that they might easily take possession of the town. "In a few
days [August 7, 1673] the Dutch fleet, which, with three ships
of war from Amsterdam, and four from Zealand, was now swelled
by prizes to 23 vessels, carrying 1,600 men, arrived off Sandy
Hook. The next morning they anchored under Staten Island." On
the following day the city, which could make no defense, and
all the Dutch inhabitants of which were eager to welcome their
countrymen, was unconditionally surrendered. "The recovery of
New York by the Dutch was an absolute conquest by an open
enemy in time of war. … 'Not the smallest' article of
capitulation, except military honors to the garrison, was
granted by the victors. …
{2333}
Their reconquest annihilated British sovereignty over ancient
New Netherland, and extinguished the duke's proprietary
government in New York, with that of his grantees in New
Jersey. Evertsen and Binckes for the time represented the
Dutch Republic, under the dominion of which its recovered
American provinces instantly passed, by right of successful
war. The effete West India Company was in no way connected
with the transaction. … The name of 'New Netherland' was of
course restored to the reconquered territory, which was held
to embrace not only all that the Dutch possessed according to
the Hartford agreement of 1650, but also the whole of Long
Island east of Oyster Bay, which originally belonged to the
province and which the king had granted to the Duke of York.
… It was, first of all, necessary to extemporize a
provisional government. No orders had been given to Evertsen
or Binckes about New Netherland. Its recovery was a lucky
accident, wholly due to the enterprise of the two commodores;
upon whom fell the responsibility of governing their conquest
until directions should come from the Hague." They appointed
Captain Anthony Colve to be Governor General of the Province.
"Colve's commission described his government as extending from
15 miles south of Cape Henlopen to the east end of Long Island
and Shelter Island, thence through the middle of the Sound to
Greenwich, and so northerly, according to the boundary made in
1650, including Delaware Bay and all the intermediate
territory, as possessed by the English under the Duke of York.
… The name of the city of New York was … changed to 'New
Orange,' in compliment to the prince stadtholder. … The
metropolis being secured, 200 men were sent up the river, in
several vessels, to reduce Esopus and Albany. No opposition
was shown." Albany was ordered to be called Willemstadt.
J. R. Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
volume 2, chapters 4-5.
ALSO IN:
Mrs. M. J. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 14-15.
Documents Relating to Colonial History of New York,
volume 2.
Memorial History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 9.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1674.
Restored to England by the Treaty of Westminster.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1674-1675.
Long Island annexed, with attempts against half of
Connecticut.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1674-1675.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1684.
Doubtful origin of English claims to the sovereignty of the
Iroquois country.
"Colonel Dongan [governor of New York] was instrumental in
procuring a convention of the Five Nations, at Albany, in
1684, to meet Lord Howard of Effingham, Governor of Virginia,
at which he (Dongan) was likewise present. This meeting, or
council, was attended by the happiest results. … Colonel
Dongan succeeded in completely gaining the affections of the
Indians, who conceived for him the warmest esteem. They even
asked that the arms of the Duke of York might be put upon
their castles;—a request which it need not be said was most
readily complied with, since, should it afterwards become
necessary, the governor might find it convenient to construe
it into an act of at least partial submission to English
authority, although it has been asserted that the Indians
themselves looked upon the ducal insignia as a sort of charm,
that might protect them against the French."
W. L. Stone,
Life and Times of Sir W. Johnson,
volume 1, page 15.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1684-1687.
French invasions of the Iroquois country
under De La Barre and De Nonville.
See CANADA: A. D. 1640-1700.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1686.
The Dongan Charter.
"The year 1686 was distinguished by the granting of the
'Dongan Charter' to the city of New York. It was drafted by
Mayor Nicholas Bayard and Recorder James Graham, and was one
of the most liberal ever bestowed upon a colonial city. By it,
sources of immediate income became vested in the corporation.
Subsequent charters added nothing to the city property, save
in the matter of ferry rights, in immediate reference to which
the charters of 1708 and 1730 were obtained. … The
instrument was the basis of a plan of government for a great
city."
Mrs. M. J. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, page 317.
ALSO IN:
M. Benjamin,
Thomas Dongan and the Granting of the New York Charter
(Memorial History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 11).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1688.
Joined with New England under the governorship of Andros.
In April, 1688, Sir Edmund Andros, who had been made
Governor-general of all New England in 1686, received a new
commission from the King which "constituted him Governor of
all the English possessions on the mainland of America, except
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The 'Territory
and Dominion' of New England was now to embrace the country
between the 40th degree of latitude and the River St. Croix,
thus including New York and the Jerseys. The seat of
government was to be at Boston; and a Deputy-Governor, to
reside at New York, was to be the immediate head of the
administration of that colony and of the Jerseys. The Governor
was to be assisted by a Council consisting of 42 members, of
whom five were to constitute a quorum. … The Governor in
Council might impose and collect taxes for the support of the
government, and might pass laws, which however were, within
three months of their enactment, to be sent over to the Privy
Council for approval or repeal. … The seal of New York was
to be broken, and the seal of New England to be used for the
whole jurisdiction. Liberty of conscience was to be allowed,
agreeably to the Declaration of Indulgence."
J. G. Palfrey,
Compendious History of New England,
book 3, chapter 14 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Mrs. M. J. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 18.
J. R. Brodhead, editor
Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York,
volume 3, pages 537-554.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1689-1691.
The Revolution.
Jacob Leisler and his fate.
News of the revolution in England which drove James II. from
the throne, giving it to his daughter, Mary, and her husband,
William of Orange, reached New York, from Virginia, in
February, 1689, but was concealed as long as possible from the
public by Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson. No disturbance of the
authority of the latter occurred until after the people of
Boston had risen, in April, and seized the Governor-General,
Sir Edmund Andros, stripping his authority from him and
casting him into prison. This spirited movement was followed a
little later by like action in New York. Two parties had
quickly taken form, "one composed of the adherents of James,
the other of the friends of William and Mary. The former
embraced the aristocratic citizens, including Nicholas Bayard,
the commander of the city militia, the members of the council,
and the municipal authorities.
{2334}
The friends of the new monarchs formed a large majority of the
citizens. They maintained that the entire fabric of the
imperial government, including that of the colonies, had been
overthrown by the revolution, and that, as no person was
invested with authority in the province, it reverted to the
legitimate source of all authority—the people—who might
delegate their powers to whomsoever they would. Among the
principal supporters of this view was Jacob Leisler, a German
by birth, a merchant, the senior captain of one of the five
train-bands of the city commanded by Colonel Bayard, and one
of the oldest and wealthiest inhabitants. … He was a zealous
opponent of the Roman Catholics, and a man of great energy and
determination. … Rumors of terrible things contemplated by
the adherents of James spread over the town, and produced
great excitement. The five companies of militia and a crowd of
citizens gathered at the house of Leisler, and induced him to
become their leader and guide in this emergency. Colonel
Bayard attempted to disperse them, but he was compelled to fly
for his life. A distinct line was now drawn between the
'aristocrats,' led by Bayard, Van Cortlandt, Robert
Livingston, and others, and the 'democrats'—the majority of
the people—who regarded Leisler as their leader and
champion. At his suggestion a 'Committee of Safety' was
formed, composed of ten members—Dutch, Huguenot, and English.
They constituted Leisler 'Captain of the Fort,' and invested
him with the powers of commander-in-chief—really chief
magistrate—until orders should come from the new monarch.
This was the first really republican ruler that ever attained
to power in America. He took possession of Fort James and the
public funds that were in it, and, in June, 1689, he
proclaimed, with the sound of trumpets, William and Mary
sovereigns of Great Britain and the colonies. Then he sent a
letter to the king, giving him an account of what he had
done." Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson made little attempt to
assert his authority in the face of these demonstrations, but
departed presently for England, "after formally giving
authority to his councillors to preserve the peace during his
absence, and until their Majesties' pleasure should be made
known. … Nicholson's desertion of his post gave Leisler and
the Republicans great advantages. He ordered the several
counties of the province to elect their civil and military
officers. Some counties obeyed, and others did not. The
counter influence of Nicholson's councillors was continually
and persistently felt, and Leisler and his party became
greatly incensed against them, especially against Bayard, who
was the chief instigator of the opposition to the 'usurper,'
as he called the Republican leader. So hot became the
indignation of Leisler and his friends that Bayard was
compelled to fly for his life to Albany. The other
councillors, alarmed, soon followed him. At Albany they
acknowledged allegiance to William and Mary. They set up an
independent government, and claimed to be the true and only
rulers of the province. In this position they were sustained
by the civil authorities at Albany." Leisler's son-in-law,
Jacob Milborne, was sent with a force to take possession of
their seat of government, but failed to accomplish his
mission. "Soon after this event a letter arrived at New York
by a special messenger from the British Privy Council,
directed to 'Francis Nicholson, Esq., or, in his absence, to
such as, for the time being, take care for preserving the
peace and administering the laws in His Majesty's province of
New York.'" This letter was delivered by the messenger to
Leisler. Bayard, who had come to the city in disguise, and
attempted to secure the missive, was arrested and imprisoned.
"From this time the opposition to Leisler's government assumed
an organized shape, and was sleepless and relentless. Leisler
justly regarding himself as invested with supreme power by the
people and the spirit of the letter from the Privy Council, at
once assumed the title of lieutenant-governor; appointed
councillors; made a new provincial seal; established courts,
and called an assembly to provide means for carrying on war
with Canada. … Colonel Henry Sloughter was appointed
Governor of New York, but did not arrive until the spring of
1691. Richard Ingoldsby, a captain of foot, arrived early in
the year, with a company of regular soldiers, to take
possession of and hold the government until the arrival of the
governor. He was urged by Leisler's enemies to assume supreme
power at once, as he was the highest royal officer in the
province. He haughtily demanded of Leisler the surrender of
the fort, without deigning to show the governor his
credentials. Leisler, of course, refused, and ordered the
troops to be quartered in the city. Ingoldsby attempted to
take the fort by force, but failed. For several weeks the city
was fearfully excited by rival factions—'Leislerians' and
'anti-Leislerians.' On the arrival of Governor Sloughter, in
March (1691), Leisler at once loyally tendered to him the fort
and the province. Under the influence of the enemies of
Leisler, the royal governor responded to this meritorious
action by ordering the arrest of the lieutenant-governor; also
Milborne, and six other 'inferior insurgents' … , on a
charge of high treason." The accused were tried, convicted and
sentenced to be hanged; but all except Leisler and Milborne
received pardon. These two appealed to the king; but the
governor's councillors succeeded in suppressing the appeal. As
Sloughter hesitated to sign the death-warrant, they
intoxicated him at a dinner party and obtained his signature
to the fatal document while his judgment was overcome. Before
the drunken governor recovered his senses Jacob Leisler and
Jacob Milborne had been hanged. "When the governor became
sober, he was appalled at what he had done: He was so keenly
stung by remorse and afflicted by delirium tremens that he
died a few weeks afterward. Calm and impartial judgment,
enlightened by truth, now assigns to Jacob Leisler the high
position in history of a patriot and martyr."
B. J. Lossing,
The Empire State,
chapter 8.
"Leisler lacked judgment and wisdom in administrative affairs,
but his aims were comprehensive and patriotic. His words are
imbued with a reverent spirit, and were evidently the
utterances of an honest man. It was his lot to encounter an
opposition led by persons who held office under King James.
They pursued him with a relentless spirit. … It is the
office of history to bear witness to Jacob Leisler's integrity
as a man, his loyalty as a subject, and his purity as a
patriot."
R. Frothingham,
The Rise of the Republic,
chapter 3.
{2335}
"The founder of the Democracy of New York was Jacob Leisler.
… And Jacob Leisler was truly an honest man, who, though a
martyr to the cause of liberty, and sacrificed by injustice,
aristocracy, and party malignity, ought to be considered as
one in whom New York should take pride—although the ancestors
of many of her best men denounced him as a rebel and a
traitor."
W. Dunlap,
History of the New Netherlands,
volume 1, chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
C. F. Hoffman,
The Administration of Jacob Leisler
(Library of American Biographies,
series 2, volume 3).
Papers relating to
Lieutenant Governor Leisler's Administration
(O'Callaghan's Documentary History of New York, volume 2).
Documents Relating to Leisler's Administration
(New York Historical Society Collection, 1868).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1689-1697.
King William's War: The Schenectady massacre.
Abortive expedition against Montreal.
French plans of conquest.
See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; and 1692-1697:
NEW YORK: A. D. 1690.
The first Colonial Congress.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1692.
Bradford's press set up.
See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1692-1696.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1696.
Count Frontenac's invasion of the Iroquois country.
See CANADA: A. D. 1696.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1696-1749.
Suppression of colonial manufactures.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1709-1711.
Queen Anne's War: Unsuccessful projects against Montreal.
Capture of Port Royal.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710;
and CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1710.
Colonization of Palatines on the Hudson.
Settlement of Palatine Bridge and German Flats.
See PALATINES: A. D. 1709-1710.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1720-1734.
Conflicts of royal governors with the people.
Zenger's trial.
Vindication of the freedom of the press.
"In September 1720, William Burnet, the son of Bishop Burnet
and godson of William III., entered upon the government of New
York, burdened by instructions from England to keep alive the
assembly which had been chosen several years before. This he
did, to the great discontent of the people, until it had
lasted more than eleven years. … But he was intelligent, and
free from avarice. It was he who took possession of Oswego,
and he 'left no stone unturned to defeat the French designs at
Niagara.' Nevertheless, for all his merit, in 1728, he was
transferred to Massachusetts to make way for the groom of the
chamber of George II. while he was prince of Wales. At the
time when the ministry was warned that 'the American
assemblies aimed at nothing less than being independent of
Great Britain as fast as they could,' Newcastle sent as
governor to New York and New Jersey the dull and ignorant John
Montgomerie. Sluggish, yet humane, the pauper chief magistrate
had no object in America but to get money; and he escaped
contests with the legislatures by giving way to them in all
things. … He died in office in 1731. His successor, in 1732,
was William Cosby, a brother-in-law of the earl of Halifax,
and connected with Newcastle. A boisterous and irritable man,
broken in his fortunes, having little understanding and no
sense of decorum or of virtue, he had been sent over to clutch
at gain. Few men did more to hasten colonial emancipation. …
To gain very great perquisites, he followed the precedent of
Andros in Massachusetts in the days of the Stuarts, and
insisted on new surveys of lands and new grants, in lieu of
the old. To the objection of acting against law, he answered:
'Do you think I mind that? I have a great interest in
England.' The courts of law were not pliable; and Cosby
displaced and appointed judges, without soliciting the consent
of the council or waiting for the approbation of the
sovereign. Complaint could be heard only through the press. A
newspaper was established to defend the popular cause; and, in
November 1734, about a year after its establishment, its
printer, John Peter Zenger, a German by birth, who had been an
apprentice to the famous printer, William Bradford, and
afterward his partner, was imprisoned, by an order of the
council, on the charge of publishing false and seditious
libels. The grand jury would find no bill against him, and the
attorney-general filed an information. The counsel of Zenger
took exceptions to the commissions of the judges, because they
ran during pleasure, and because they had been granted without
the consent of council. The angry judge met the objection by
disbarring James Alexander who offered it, though he stood at
the head of his profession in New York for sagacity,
penetration, and application to business. All the central
colonies regarded the controversy as their own. At the trial
the publishing was confessed; but the aged and venerable
Andrew Hamilton, who came from Philadelphia to plead for
Zenger, justified the publication by asserting its truth. 'You
cannot be admitted,' interrupted the chief justice, 'to give
the truth of a libel in evidence.' 'Then,' said Hamilton to
the jury, 'we appeal to you for witnesses of the facts. The
jury have a right to determine both the law and the fact, and
they ought to do so.' 'The question before you,' he added, 'is
not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone; it is
the cause of liberty.' … The jury gave their verdict, 'Not
guilty.' Hamilton received of the common council of New York
the franchises of the city for 'his learned and generous
defence of the rights of mankind and the liberty of the
press.'"
G. Bancroft,
History of the United States (Author's last Revision)
part 3, chapter 15 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
J. Grahame,
History of the United States (Colonial),
book 10, chapter 1 (volume 2).
W. L. Stone,
History of New York City,
2d period, chapter 2.
E. Lawrence,
William Cosby and the Freedom of the Press
(Memorial History of the City of New York,
volume 2, chapter 7).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1725.
The first Newspaper.
See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1704-1729.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1726.
How the Iroquois placed themselves
under the protection of England.
"Governour Burnet … assembled the chiefs of the Iroquois at
Albany [1726]; he reminded them of all the benefits they had
received from England, and all the injuries that had been
inflicted by France. He pointed out the evils that would flow
to them from a French fort at Niagara, on their territory. The
Indians declared their unwillingness to suffer this intrusion
of the French, but said they now had not power to prevent it.
They called upon the Governour of New York to write to the
King of England for help to regain their country from the
French of Canada. Burnet seized this opportunity to gain a
surrender of their country to England, to be protected for
their use. Such a surrender would be used by Europeans for
their own purposes; but (in the sense they viewed and
represented it), was altogether incomprehensible by the Indian
chiefs; and the deputies had no power from the Iroquois
confederacy to make any such surrender. … By the treaty of
Utrecht … France had acknowledged the Iroquois and their
territory to be subject to Great Britain."
W. Dunlap,
History of New York,
volume 1, page 289.
{2336}
NEW YORK: A. D. 1741.
The pretended Negro Plot.
Panic and merciless frenzy of the people.
In 1741, "the city of New York became the scene of a cruel and
bloody delusion, less notorious, but not less lamentable than
the Salem witchcraft. That city now contained some 7,000 or
8,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,200 or 1,500 were slaves. Nine
fires in rapid succession, most of them, however, merely the
burning of chimneys, produced a perfect insanity of terror. An
indented servant woman purchased her liberty and secured a
reward, of £100 by pretending to give information of a plot
formed by a low tavern-keeper, her master, and three negroes,
to burn the city and murder the whites. This story was
confirmed and amplified by an Irish prostitute, convicted of a
robbery, who, to recommend herself to mercy, reluctantly
turned informer. Numerous arrests had been already made among
the slaves and free blacks. Many others followed. The eight
lawyers who then composed the bar of New York all assisted by
turns on behalf of the prosecution. The prisoners, who had no
counsel, were tried and convicted upon most insufficient
evidence. The lawyers vied with each other in heaping all
sorts of abuse on their heads, and Chief-justice Delancey, in
passing sentence, vied with the lawyers. Many confessed to
save their lives, and then accused others. Thirteen unhappy
convicts were burned at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and
seventy-one transported. The war and the religious excitement
then prevailing tended to inflame the yet hot prejudices
against Catholics. A non-juring schoolmaster, accused of being
a Catholic priest in disguise, and of stimulating the negroes
to burn the city by promises of absolution, was condemned and
executed."
R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
chapter 25 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Mrs. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, chapter 26.
G. W. Williams,
History of the Negro Race in America,
volume 1, chapter 13.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1744.
Treaty with the Six Nations at Albany.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1744.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1744-1748.
King George's War.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744; 1745; and 1745-1748.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1746-1754.
The founding of King's College.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1746-1787.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1749-1774.
The struggle for Vermont.
The disputed New Hampshire Grants,
and the Green Mountain Boys who defended them.
See VERMONT: A. D. 1749-1774.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1754.
The Colonial Congress at Albany and Franklin's Plan of Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1755.
The French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George.
Abortive expedition against Niagara.
Braddock's defeat.
See CANADA: A. D. 1755;
and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1755.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1756-1757.
The French and Indian War:
English loss of Oswego and of Fort William Henry.
See CANADA: A. D. 1756-1757.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1758.
The French and Indian War:
Bloody defeat of the English at Ticonderoga.
Final capture of Louisburg and recovery of Fort Duquesne.
See CANADA: A. D. 1758;
and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1759.
The French and Indian War:
Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Quebec taken.
See CANADA: A. D. 1759.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1760.
The French and Indian War:
Completed English conquest of Canada.
See CANADA: A. D. 1760.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1763-1764.
Pontiac's War.
Sir William Johnson's Treaty with the Indians at Fort Niagara.
See PONTIAC'S WAR.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1763-1766.
The question of taxation by Parliament.
The Sugar Act.
The Stamp Act and its repeal.
The Declaratory Act.
The Stamp Act Congress.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1760-1775; 1763-1764; 1765; and 1766.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1765.
Patriotic self-denials.
Non-importation agreements.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764-1767.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1765-1768.
The Indian treaties of German Flats and Fort Stanwix.
Adjustment of boundaries with the Six Nations.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1766-1773.
Opening events of the Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1766-1767, to 1772-1773,
and BOSTON: A. D. 1768, to 1773.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774.
The Revolutionary spirit abroad.
The conflict of parties.
The Vigilance Committee, the Committee of Fifty-One,
and the Committee of Sixty.
"In 1773 the tax on tea was imposed. On October 25th the
Mohawks of New York, a band of the Sons of Liberty, were
ordered by their old leaders to be on the watch for the tea
ships; and it was merely the chances of time and tide that
gave the opportunity of fame first to the Mohawks of Boston.
… An 'association' was now circulated for signatures,
engaging to boycott, 'not deal with, or employ, or have any
connection with' any persons who should aid in landing, or
'selling, or buying tea, so long as it is subject to a duty by
Parliament'; and December 17th a meeting of the subscribers
was held and a committee of fifteen chosen as a Committee of
Correspondence that was soon known as the Vigilance Committee.
Letters also were exchanged between the speakers of many of
the houses of assembly in the different provinces; and January
20, 1774, the New York Assembly, which had been out of touch
with the people ever since the Stamp Act was passed in the
year after its election, appointed their Speaker, with twelve
others, a standing Committee of Correspondence and Enquiry, a
proof that the interest of all classes was now excited. April
15th, the 'Nancy' with a cargo of tea arrived off Sandy Hook,
followed shortly by the 'London.' The Committee of Vigilance
assembled, and, as soon as Captain Lockyier, of the' Nancy'
landed in spite of their warning, escorted him to a pilot boat
and set him on board again. … April 23d, the 'Nancy' stood
out to sea without landing her cargo, and with her carried
Captain Chambers of the 'London,' from which the evening
before eighteen chests of tea had been emptied into the sea by
the Liberty Boys. The bill closing the port of Boston was
enacted March 31st, and a copy of the act reached New York by
the ship Samson on the 12th.
{2337}
Two days later the Committee of Vigilance wrote to the Boston
Committee recommending vigorous measures as the most
effectual, and assuring them that their course would be
heartily supported by their brethren in New York. So rapid had
been the march of events that not till now did the merchants
and responsible citizens of New York take alarm. Without their
concurrence or even knowledge they were being rapidly
compromised by the unauthorized action of an irresponsible
committee, composed of men who for the most part were noted
more for enthusiasm than for judgment, and many of whom had
been not unconcerned in petty riots and demonstrations
condemned by the better part of the community. … 'The men
who at that time called themselves the Committee,' wrote
Lieutenant Governor Colden the next month, 'who dictated and
acted in the name of the people, were many of them of the
lower ranks, and all the warmest zealots of those called the
Sons of Liberty. The more considerable merchants and citizens
seldom or never appeared among them. … The principal
inhabitants, being now afraid that these hot-headed men might
run the city into dangerous measures, appeared in a
considerable body at the first meeting of the people after the
Boston Port Act was published here.' This meeting, convoked by
advertisement, was held May 16th, at the house of Samuel
Francis, 'to consult on the measures proper to be pursued.'
… A committee of fifty, Jay among them, instead of one of
twenty-five, as at first suggested, was nominated 'for the
approbation of the public,' 'to correspond with our sister
colonies on all matters of moment.' Three days later these
nominations were confirmed by a public meeting held at the
Coffee House, but not until a fifty-first member was added,
Francis Lewis, as a representative of the radical party which
had been as much as possible ignored. … At the Coffee House
again, on May 23d, the Committee of Fifty-one met and
organized; they repudiated the letter to Boston from the
Committee of Vigilance as unofficial," and prepared a response
to another communication just received from Boston, by the
famous messenger, Paul Revere. In this reply it was "urged
that 'a Congress of Deputies from the Colonies in General is
of the utmost moment,' to form 'some unanimous resolutions …
not only respecting your [Boston's] deplorable circumstances,
but for the security of our common rights;' and that the
advisability of a non-importation agreement should be left to
the Congress. … The importance of this letter can hardly be
exaggerated, for it was the first serious authoritative
suggestion of a General Congress to consider 'the common
rights' of the colonies in general. … The advice of New York
was followed gradually by the other colonies, but even before
a Continental Congress was a certainty, the Committee of
Fifty-one, with singular confidence, resolved that delegates
to it should be chosen, and called a meeting for that purpose
for July 19th. … Philip Livingston, John Alsop, James Duane,
and John Jay were nominated as delegates to be submitted to
the public meeting, July 19th. The people met accordingly at
the Coffee House, and after a stormy debate elected the
committee's candidates in spite of a strong effort to
substitute for Jay, McDougall, the hero of the Liberty Boys."
This election, however, was not thought to be an adequate
expression of the popular will, and polls were subsequently
opened in each ward, on the 28th of July. The result was a
unanimous vote for Jay and his colleagues. "Thus, fortunately,
at the very inception of the Revolution, before the faintest
clatter of arms, the popular movement was placed in charge of
the 'Patricians' as they were called, rather than of the
'Tribunes,' as respectively represented by Jay and McDougall."
G. Pellew,
John Jay,
chapter 2.
"The New York Committee of Fifty-One, having accomplished its
object, appointed a day for the choice, by the freeholders of
the city, of a 'Committee of Observation,' numbering sixty, to
enforce in New York the Non-Importation Act of the late
Congress; and when this new committee was duly elected and
organized, with Isaac Low as chairman, the Fifty-One was
dissolved."
Mrs. M. J. Lamb,
History of the City of New York,
volume 1, page 768.
ALSO IN:
I. Q. Leake,
Life and Times of General John Lamb,
chapter 6.
J. A. Stevens,
The Second Non-importation Agreement
(Memorial History of the City of New York,
volume 2, chapter 11).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1774.
The Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Act,
and the Quebec Act.
The First Continental Congress.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (April).
Disadvantages experienced by the patriots.
The first provincial Convention held.
"The republicans of the province of New York, composing by far
the greater portion of the inhabitants, labored under severe
disabilities. Acting Governor Colden was a Loyalist, and his
council held office by the King's will. The assembly, though
chosen by the people, continued in existence only by the
King's prerogative. They might be dissolved by the
representative of the crown (the acting governor) at any
moment. There was no legally constituted body to form a
rallying point for the patriots, as in Massachusetts, where
there was an elective council and an annually elected
assembly. In all the other colonies there was some nucleus of
power around which the people might assemble and claim to be
heard with respect. But in New York they were thrown back upon
their own resources, and nobly did they preserve their
integrity and maintain their cause, in spite of every
obstacle. The whole continent was now moving in the direction
of rebellion. … The excitement in New York was equally
intense. Toward the close of the preceding December, the
Liberty Boys were called to action by the seizure of arms and
ammunition, which some of them had imported, and had consigned
to Walter Franklin, a well known merchant. These were seized
by order of the collector, because, as he alleged, of the want
of cockets, or custom-house warrants, they having been in
store several days without them. While they were on their way
to the custom-house, some of the Sons of Liberty rallied and
seized them, but before they could be concealed they were
retaken by government officials and sent on board a man-of-war
in the harbor. … The republicans failed in their efforts, in
the New York Assembly, to procure the appointment of delegates
to the second Continental Congress, to be convened at
Philadelphia in May. Nothing was left for them to do but to
appeal to the people.
{2338}
The General Committee of sixty members, many of them of the
loyal majority in the assembly, yielding to the pressure of
popular sentiment, called a meeting of the freeholders and
freemen of the city at the Exchange, to take into
consideration the election of delegates to a convention of
representatives from such of the counties of the province as
should adopt the measure, the sole object of such convention
being the choice of proper persons to represent the colony in
the Continental Congress. This movement was opposed by the
loyalists. … At first there was confusion. This soon
subsided, and the meeting proceeded with calmness and dignity
to nominate eleven persons to represent the city in a
provincial convention to be held in New York on the 20th
[April], who were to be instructed to choose delegates to the
Continental Congress. On the following day the chairman of the
Committee of Sixty gave notice of the proposed convention on
the 20th to the chairmen of the committees of correspondence
in the different counties, advising them to choose delegates
to the same. There was a prompt response. … The convention
assembled at the Exchange, in New York, on the 20th, and
consisted of 42 members [representing seven counties outside
of New York city]. Colonel Schuyler was at the head of the
delegation from Albany, and took a leading part in the
convention. Philip Livingston was chosen president of the
convention, and John M'Kesson, secretary. This was the first
provincial convention in New York—the first positive
expression of the doctrine of popular sovereignty in that
province. They remained in session three days, and chose for
delegates to the Continental Congress Philip Livingston, James
Duane, John Alsop, John Jay, Simon Boerum, William Floyd,
Henry Wisner, Philip Schuyler, George Clinton, Lewis Morris,
Francis Lewis, and Robert R. Livingston, to whom were given
full power, 'or any five of them, to meet the delegates from
other colonies, and to concert and determine upon such
measures as shall be judged most effectual for the
preservation and reestablishment of American rights and
privileges, and for the restoration of harmony between Great
Britain and her colonies.' While this convention was in
session intelligence of the bloodshed at Lexington was on its
way, but it did not reach New York until the day after the
adjournment."
B. J. Lossing,
Life and Times of Philip Schuyler,
volume 1, chapters 17-18.
ALSO IN:
W. Dunlap,
History of New York,
volume 1, chapter 29.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (April-May).
The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution.
Lexington.
Concord.
Action upon the news.
Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga.
Siege of Boston.
Bunker Hill.
The Second Continental Congress.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (April-September).
The Sons of Liberty take control of the city.
The end of royal government.
Flight of Governor Tryon.
"On Sunday, the 24th of April, 1775, the news of the battle of
Lexington reached the city. This was the signal for open
hostilities. Business was at once suspended; the Sons of
Liberty assembled in large numbers, and, taking possession of
the City Hall, distributed the arms that were stored in it,
together with a quantity which had been deposited in the
arsenal for safe keeping, among the citizens, a party of whom
formed themselves into a voluntary corps under the command of
Samuel Broome, and assumed the temporary government of the
city. This done, they demanded and obtained the keys of the
custom house, closed the building and laid an embargo upon the
vessels in port destined for the eastern colonies. … It now
became necessary to organize some provisional government for
the city, and for this purpose, on the 5th of May, a meeting
of the citizens was called at the Coffee-House, at which a
Committee of One Hundred was chosen and invested with the
charge of municipal affairs, the people pledging themselves to
obey its orders until different arrangements should be made by
the Continental Congress. This committee was composed in part
of men inclined to the royalist cause, yet, such was the
popular excitement at the time, that they were carried away by
the current and forced to acquiesce in the measures of their
more zealous colleagues. … The committee at once assumed the
command of the city, and, retaining the corps of Broome as
their executive power, prohibited the sale of weapons to any
persons suspected of being hostile to the patriotic party. …
The moderate men of the committee succeeded in prevailing on
their colleagues to present a placable address to

Lieutenant-Governor Colden, explanatory of their appointment,
and assuring him that they should use every effort to preserve
the public peace; yet ominous precautions were taken to put
the arms of the city in a serviceable condition, and to survey
the neighboring grounds with a view to erecting
fortifications. … On the 25th of June, Washington entered
New York on his way from Mount Vernon to Cambridge to take
command of the army assembled there. The Provincial Congress
received him with a cautious address. Despite their
patriotism, they still clung to the shadow of loyalty; fearing
to go too far, they acted constantly under protest that they
desired nothing more than to secure to themselves the rights
of true-born British subjects. The next morning Washington
quitted the city, escorted on his way by the provincial
militia. Tryon [Governor Tryon, who had been absent, in England
since the spring of 1774, leaving the government in the hands
of Lieutenant-Governor Colden, and who now returned to resume
it] had entered it the night before, and thus had been brought
almost face to face with the rebel who was destined to work
such a transformation in his majesty's colonies of America.
The mayor and corporation received the returning governor with
expressions of joy, and even the patriot party were glad of
the change which relieved them from the government of Colden.
… Meanwhile, the colony of New York had been ordered by the
Continental Congress to contribute her quota of 3,000 men to
the general defence, and four regiments were accordingly
raised. … The city now presented a curious spectacle, as the
seat of two governments, each issuing its own edicts, and
denouncing those of the other as illegal authority. It was not
long before the two powers came into collision." This was
brought about by an order from the Provincial Congress,
directing the removal of guns from the Battery. Shots were
exchanged between the party executing this order and a boat
from the ship of war "Asia"; whereupon the "Asia" cannonaded
the town, riddling houses and wounding three citizens.
"Hitherto, the governor had remained firm at his post; but
finding his position daily growing more perilous, despite the
pledges of the corporation for his personal safety, he
determined to abandon the city, and took refuge on board the
'Asia.'"
Mary L. Booth,
History of the City of New York,
chapter 16.
ALSO IN:
I. Q. Leake,
Life and Times of General John Lamb,
chapter 7.
{2339}
NEW YORK: A. D. 1776 (January-August).
Flight of Governor Tryon.
New York City occupied by Washington.
Battle of Long Island.
Defeat of the American army.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (AUGUST).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1776 (September-November).
The struggle for the city.
Washington's retreat.
The British in possession.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1776-1777.
The Jersey Prison-ship and the Sugar-house Prisons.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776-1777 PRISONERS AND EXCHANGES.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1776-1777.
The campaigns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776-1777. WASHINGTON'S RETREAT;
and 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1777.
Adoption of a Constitution and
organization of a State government.
Religious freedom established.
"After the Declaration of Independence, the several colonies
proceeded to form State governments, by adopting
constitutions. In that business New York moved early. On the
1st of August, 1776, a committee of the 'Convention of the
Representatives of New York,' as the provisional government
was called, sitting at White Plains, in Westchester County,
were appointed to draw up and report a constitution. The
committee consisted of the following named gentlemen: John
Jay, John Sloss Hobart, William Smith, William Duer,
Gouverneur Morris, Robert R. Livingston, John Broome, John
Morin Scott, Abraham Yates, Jr., Henry Wisner, Sen., Samuel
Townsend, Charles De Witt and Robert Yates. John Jay was the
chairman, and to him was assigned the duty of drafting the
Constitution. The Convention was made migratory by the
stirring events of the war during the ensuing autumn and
winter. First they held their sessions at Harlem Heights; then
at White Plains; afterward at Fishkill, in Dutchess County,
and finally at Kingston, in Ulster County, where they
continued from February till May, 1777. There undisturbed the
committee on the Constitution pursued their labors, and on the
12th of March, 1777, reported a draft of that instrument. It
was under consideration in the Convention for more than a
month after that, and was finally adopted on the 20th of
April. Under it a State government was established by an
ordinance of the Convention, passed in May, and the first
session of the Legislature was appointed to meet at Kingston
in July." The election of State officers was held in June. Jay
and others issued a circular recommending General Schuyler for
Governor and General George Clinton for Lieutenant Governor.
But Schuyler "declined the honor, because he considered the
situation of affairs in his Department too critical to be
neglected by dividing his duties. The elections were held in
all the Counties excepting New York, Kings, Queens, and
Suffolk, then occupied by the British, and Brigadier General
George Clinton was elected Governor, which office he held, by
successive elections, for eighteen years, and afterward for
three years. Pierre Van Courtlandt, the President of the
Senate, became Lieutenant Governor. Robert R. Livingston was
appointed Chancellor; John Jay Chief Justice; Robert Yates and
John Sloss Hobart judges of the Supreme Court, and Egbert
Benson attorney-general. So it was that the great State of New
York was organized and put into operation at a time when it
was disturbed by formidable invasions on its northern,
southern, and western frontiers."
B. J. Lossing,
Life and Times of Philip Schuyler,
volume 2, chapter 9.
The framers of this first constitution of the State of New
York "proceeded at the outset to do away with the established
church, repealing all such parts of the common law and all
such statutes of the province 'as may be construed to
establish or maintain any particular denomination of
Christians or their ministers.' Then followed a section …
which, it is believed, entitles New York to the honor of being
the first organized government of the world to assert by
constitutional provision the principle of perfect religious
freedom. It reads as follows: 'And whereas, we are required by
the benevolent principles of rational liberty, not only to
expel civil tyranny, but also to guard against that spiritual
oppression and intolerance wherewith the bigotry and ambition
of weak and wicked priests and princes have scourged mankind,
this convention doth further, in the name and by the authority
of the good people of this state, ordain, determine, and
declare that the free exercise and enjoyment of religious
profession and worship, without discrimination or preference,
shall forever hereafter be allowed within this state to all
mankind.' Thomas Jefferson, to whom Virginia is chiefly
indebted for her religious liberty [embodied in her
Declaration of Rights, in 1776] derived his religious as well
as his political ideas from the philosophers of France. But
the men who framed this constitutional provision for New York,
which has since spread over most of the United States, and
lies at the base of American religious liberty, were not
freethinkers, although they believed in freedom of thought.
Their Dutch ancestors had practised religious toleration, they
expanded toleration into liberty, and in this form transmitted
to posterity the heritage which Holland had sent across the
sea a century and a half before."
D. Campbell,
The Puritan in Holland, England and America,
volume 2, pages 251-252.
ALSO IN:
W. Jay,
Life of John Jay,
chapter 3 (volume 1).
T. Roosevelt,
Gouverneur Morris,
chapter 3.
B. F. Butler,
Outline of Constitutional History of New York
(New York Historical Society Collections,
series 2, volume 2).
See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776-1779.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1777.
Opposition to the recognition of
the State independence of Vermont.
See VERMONT: A. D. 1777-1778.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1777-1778.
Burgoyne's invasion from Canada and his surrender.
The Articles of Confederation.
The alliance with France.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1777(JULY-OCTOBER), to 1778 (FEBRUARY).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1778.
Fortifying West Point.
See WEST POINT.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1778.
The war on the Indian Border.
Activity of Tories and Savages.
The Massacre at Cherry Valley.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1778 (JUNE-NOVEMBER), and (JULY).
{2340}
NEW YORK: A. D. 1778-1779.
Washington's ceaseless guard upon the Hudson.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D.1778-1779 WASHINGTON GUARDING THE HUDSON.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1779.
Sullivan's expedition against the Senecas.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1779 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1780.
Arnold's attempted betrayal of West Point.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1780 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1780-1783.
The war in the South.
The surrender of Cornwallis.
Peace with Great Britain.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780, to 1783.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1781.
Western territorial claims and
their cession to the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1783.
Flight of the Tories, or Loyalists.
See TORIES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1783.
Evacuation of New York City by the British.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1783 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1784.
Founding of the Bank of New York.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1780-1784.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1786.
Rejection of proposed amendments
to the Articles of Confederation.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783-1787.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799.
Land-fee of Western New York ceded to Massachusetts.
The Phelps and Gorham Purchase.
The Holland Purchase.
The founding of Buffalo.
The conflicting territorial claims of New York and
Massachusetts, caused by the overlapping grants of the English
crown, were not all settled by the cession of western claims
to the United States which New York made in 1781 and
Massachusetts in 1785 (see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.
1781-1786). "Although the nominal amount in controversy, by
these acts, was much diminished, it still left some 19,000
square miles of territory in dispute, but this controversy was
finally settled by a convention of Commissioners appointed by
the parties, held at Hartford, Connecticut, on the 16th day of
December, 1786. According to the stipulations entered into by
the convention, Massachusetts ceded to the state of New York
all her claim to the government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction
of all the territory lying west of the present east line of
the state of New York; and New York ceded to Massachusetts the
pre-emption right or fee of the land subject to the title of
the natives, of all that part of the state of New York lying
west of a line beginning at a point in the north line of
Pennsylvania, 82 miles west of the north-east corner of said
state, and running from thence due north through Seneca lake
to lake Ontario; excepting and reserving to the state of New
York a strip of land east of and adjoining the eastern bank of
Niagara river, one mile wide and extending its whole length.
The land, the pre-emption right of which was thus ceded,
amounted to about 6,000,000 of acres. In April, 1788,
Massachusetts contracted to sell to Nathaniel Gorham of
Charlestown, Middlesex county, and Oliver Phelps of Granville,
Hampshire county, of said state, their pre-emption right to
all the lands in Western New York, amounting to about
6,000,000 acres, for the sum of $1,000,000, to be paid in
three annual instalments, for which a kind of scrip
Massachusetts had issued, called consolidated securities, was
to be received, which was then in market much below par. In
July, 1788, Messrs. Gorham and Phelps purchased of the Indians
by treaty, at a convention held at Buffalo, the Indian title
to about 2,600,000 acres of the eastern part of their purchase
from Massachusetts. This purchase of the Indians being bounded
west by a line beginning at a point in the north line of the
state of Pennsylvania, due south of the corner or point of
land made by the confluence of the Kanahasgwaicon
(Cannnseraga) creek with the waters of Genesee river; thence
north on said meridian line to the corner or point at the
confluence aforesaid; thence northwardly along the waters of
said Genesee river to a point two miles north of Kanawageras
(Cannewagus) village; thence running due west 12 miles; thence
running northwardly, so as to be 12 miles distant from the
westward bounds of said river, to the shore of lake Ontario.
On the 21st day of November, 1788, the state of Massachusetts
conveyed and forever quitclaimed to N. Gorham and O. Phelps,
their heirs and assigns forever, all the right and title of
said state to all that tract of country of which Messrs.
Phelps and Gorham had extinguished the Indian title. This
tract, and this only, has since been designated as the Phelps
and Gorham Purchase. … So rapid were the sales of the
proprietors that before the 18th day of November, 1790, they
had disposed of about 50 townships [each six miles square],
which were mostly sold by whole townships or large portions of
townships, to sundry individuals and companies of farmers and
others, formed for that purpose. On the 18th day of November,
1790, they sold the residue of their tract (reserving two
townships only), amounting to upwards of a million and a
quarter acres of land, to Robert Morris of Philadelphia, who
soon sold the same to Sir William Pultney, an English
gentleman. … This property, or such part of it as was unsold
at the time of the decease of Sir William, together with other
property which he purchased in his lifetime in its vicinity,
is now [1849] called the Pultney Estate. … Messrs. Phelps
and Gorham, who had paid about one third of the purchase money
of the whole tract purchased of Massachusetts, in consequence
of the rise of the value of Massachusetts consolidated stock
(in which the payments for the land were to be received) from
20 per cent. to par, were unable further to comply with their
engagements." After long negotiations they were permitted to
relinquish to the state of Massachusetts all that western
section of their purchase of which they had not acquired the
Indian title, and this was resold in March, 1791, by
Massachusetts, to Samuel Ogden, acting for Robert Morris.
Morris made several sales from the eastern portion of his
purchase, to the state of Connecticut (investing its school
fund) and to others, in large blocks known subsequently as the
Ogden Tract, the Cragie Tract, the Connecticut Tract, etc. The
remainder or most of it, covering the greater part of western
New York, was disposed of to certain gentlemen in Holland, and
came to be generally known as the Holland Purchase.
O. Turner,
Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase,
pages 325 and 396-424.
{2341}
"Much has been written and more has been said about the
'Holland Company.' When people wished to be especially
precise, they called it the 'Holland Land Company.' … Yet
there never was any such thing as the Holland Company or the
Holland Land Company. Certain merchants and others of the city
of Amsterdam placed funds in the hands of friends who were
citizens of America to purchase several tracts of land in the
United States, which, being aliens, the Hollanders could not
hold in their own name at that time. One of these tracts,
comprising what was afterwards known as the Holland Purchase,
was bought from Robert Morris. … In the forepart of 1798 the
legislature of New York authorized those aliens to hold land
within the State, and in the latter part of that year the
American trustees conveyed the Holland Purchase to the real
owners." The great territory covered by the Purchase
surrounded several Indian "Reservations"—large blocks of
land, that is, which the aboriginal Seneca proprietors
reserved for their own occupancy when they parted with their
title to the rest, which they did at a council held in 1797.
One of these Reservations embraced the site now occupied by
the city of Buffalo. Joseph Ellicott, the agent of the Holland
proprietors, quickly discerned its prospective importance, and
made an arrangement with his Indian neighbors by which he
secured possession of the ground at the foot of Lake Erie and
the head of Niagara River, in exchange for another piece of
land six miles away. Here, in 1799, Ellicott began the
founding of a town which he called New Amsterdam, but which
subsequently took the name of the small stream, Buffalo Creek,
on which it grew up, and which, by deepening and enlargement,
became its harbor.
C. Johnson,
Centennial History of Erie Company, New York,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
O. Turner,
History of the Pioneer Settlement
of Phelps' and Gorham's Purchase,
part 2.
O. Turner,
Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase,
pages 401-424.
H. L. Osgood,
The Title of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase
(Rochester Historical Society Publications, volume 1).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1787-1788.
The formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution.
The chief battle ground of the contest.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787; and 1787-1789.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1789.
Inauguration of President Washington in New York City.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1789.
The beginnings of Tammany.
See TAMMANY SOCIETY.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1790.
Renunciation of claims to Vermont.
See VERMONT: A. D. 1790-1791.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1799.
Gradual emancipation of Slaves enacted.
During the session of the legislature in April, 1799,
"emancipation was at last enacted. It was provided that all
children born of slave parents after the ensuing 4th of July
should be free, subject to apprenticeship, in the case of
males till the age of 28, in the case of females till the age
of 25, and the exportation of slaves was forbidden. By this
process of gradual emancipation there was avoided that
question of compensation which had been the secret of the
failure of earlier bills. At that time the number of slaves
was only 22,000, small in proportion to the total population
of nearly a million. So the change was effected peacefully and
without excitement."
G. Pellew,
John Jay,
page 328.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1805.
The Free School Society in New York City.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1880.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1807.
Fulton's first steamboat on the Hudson.
See STEAM NAVIGATION: THE BEGINNINGS.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1812-1815.
The war on the Canadian frontier.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER);
1813 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER);
1813 (DECEMBER);
1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER);
1814 (SEPTEMBER).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1819.
The Clintonians and Bucktails.
During the first term of De Witt Clinton as governor of the
State, the feud in the Democratic Republican party, between
his supporters and his opponents, which began in 1812 when he
audaciously sought to attain the Presidency, against Madison,
assumed a fixed and definite form. "Clinton's Republican
adversaries were dubbed 'Bucktails,' from the ornaments worn
on ceremonial occasions by the Tammany men, who had long been
Clinton's enemies. The Bucktails and their successors were the
'regular' Republicans, or the Democrats as they were later
called; and they kept their regularity until, long afterwards,
the younger and greater Bucktail leader [Martin Van Buren],
when venerable and laden with honors, became the titular head
of the Barn-burner defection. The merits of the feud between
Bucktails and Clintonians it is now difficult to find. Each
accused the other of coquetting with the Federalists; and the
accusation of one of them was nearly always true."
E. M. Shepard,
Martin Van Buren,
page 56.
ALSO IN:
J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
volume 3, page 227.
J. D. Hammond,
History of Political Parties in the State of New York,
volume 1, page 450.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.
Construction of the Erie Canal.
"History will assign to Gouverneur Morris the merit of first
suggesting a direct and continuous communication from Lake
Erie to the Hudson. In 1800, he announced this idea from the
shore of the Niagara river to a friend in Europe. … The
praise awarded to Gouverneur Morris must be qualified by the
fact, that the scheme he conceived was that of a canal with a
uniform declination, and without locks, from Lake Erie to the
Hudson. Morris communicated his project to Simeon De Witt in
1803, by whom it was made known to James Geddes in 1804. It
afterward became the subject of conversation between Mr.
Geddes and Jesse Hawley, and this communication is supposed to
have given rise to the series of essays written by Mr. Hawley,
under the signature of 'Hercules,' in the 'Genesee Messenger,'
continued from October, 1807, until March, 1808, which first
brought the public mind into familiarity with the subject.
These essays, written in a jail, were the grateful return, by
a patriot, to a country which punished him with imprisonment
for being unable to pay debts owed to another citizen, and
displayed deep research, with singular vigor and
comprehensiveness of thought, and traced with prophetic
accuracy a large portion of the outline of the Erie canal. In
1807, Albert Gallatin, then secretary of the treasury, in
pursuance of a recommendation made by Thomas Jefferson,
president of the United States, reported a plan for
appropriating all the surplus revenues of the general
government to the construction of canals and turnpike roads;
and it embraced in one grand and comprehensive view, nearly
without exception, all the works which have since been
executed or attempted by the several states in the Union. …
{2342}
In 1808, Joshua Forman, a representative in the assembly from
Onondaga county, submitted his memorable resolution,"
referring to the recommendation made by President Jefferson to
the federal congress, and directing that "'a joint committee
be appointed to take into consideration the propriety of
exploring and causing an accurate survey to be made of the
most eligible and direct route for a canal, to open a
communication between the tide waters of the Hudson river and
Lake Erie, to the end that Congress may be enabled to
appropriate such sums as may be necessary to the
accomplishment of that great national object.'" The committee
was appointed, its report was favorable, and the survey was
directed to be made. "There was then no civil engineer in the
state. James Geddes, a land surveyor, who afterward became one
of our most distinguished engineers, by the force of native
genius and application in mature years, levelled and surveyed,
under instructions from the surveyor-general," several routes
to Lake Ontario and to Lake Erie. "Mr. Geddes' report showed
that a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson was practicable, and
could be made without serious difficulty. In 1810, on motion
of Jonas Platt, of the senate, who was distinguished
throughout a pure and well-spent life by his zealous efforts
to promote this great undertaking, Gouverneur Morris, De Witt
Clinton, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Simeon De Witt, William
North, Thomas Eddy, and Peter B. Porter, were appointed
commissioners 'to explore the whole route for inland
navigation from the Hudson river to Lake Ontario and to Lake
Erie.' Cadwallader D. Colden, a contemporary historian,
himself one of the earliest and ablest advocates of the
canals, awards to Thomas Eddy the merit of having suggested
this motion to Mr. Platt, and to both these gentlemen that of
engaging De Witt Clinton's support, he being at that time a
member of the senate. … The commissioners in March, 1811,
submitted their report written by Gouverneur Morris, in which
they showed the practicability and advantages of a continuous
canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson, and stated their estimate
of the cost at $5,000,000. … On the presentation of this
report, De Witt Clinton introduced a bill, which became a law
on the 8th of April, 1811, under the title of 'An act to
provide for the improvement of the internal navigation of this
state.' … The act added Robert R. Livingston and Robert
Fulton to the board of commissioners, and authorized them to
consider all matters relating to such inland navigation, with
powers to make application in behalf of the state to Congress,
or to any state or territory, to cooperate and aid in the
undertaking. … Two of the commissioners, Mr. Morris and Mr.
Clinton, repaired to the federal capital, and submitted the
subject to the consideration of the President (Mr. Madison)
and of Congress. In 1812, the commissioners reported that,
although it was uncertain whether the national government
would do anything, it certainly would do nothing which would
afford immediate aid to the enterprise. … The commissioners
then submitted that, having offered the canal to the national
government, and that offer having virtually been declined,
the state was now at liberty to consult and pursue the maxims
of policy, and these seemed to demand imperatively that the
canal should be made by herself, and for her own account, as
soon as the circumstances would permit. … On the 19th of
June, 1812, a law was enacted, reappointing the commissioners
and authorizing them to borrow money and deposite it in the
treasury, and to take cessions of land, but prohibiting any
measures to construct the canals. … From 1812 to 1815, the
country suffered the calamities of war, and projects of
internal improvement necessarily gave place to the patriotic
efforts required to maintain the national security and honor."
But after peace had returned, the advocates of the enterprise
prevailed with considerable difficulty over its opponents, and
"ground was broken for the construction of the Erie canal on
the 4th day of July, 1817, at Rome, with ceremonies marking
the public estimation of that great event. De Witt Clinton,
having just before been elected to the chief magistracy of the
state, and being president of the board of canal
commissioners, enjoyed the high satisfaction of attending,
with his associates, on the auspicious occasion. … On the
26th of October, 1825, the Erie canal was in a navigable
condition throughout its entire length, affording an
uninterrupted passage from Lake Erie to tidewater in the
Hudson. … This auspicious consummation was celebrated by a
telegraphic discharge of cannon, commencing at Lake Erie [at
Buffalo], and continued along the banks of the canal and of
the Hudson, announcing to the city of New York the entrance on
the bosom of the canal of the first barge [bearing Governor
Clinton and his coadjutors] that was to arrive at the
commercial emporium from the American Mediterraneans."
W. H. Seward,
Notes on New York
(Works, volume 2), pages 88-117.
ALSO IN:
D. Hosack,
Memoir of De Witt Clinton,
pages 82-119 and 245-504.
J. Renwick,
Life of De Witt Clinton,
chapters 10-19.
C. D. Colden,
Memoir: Celebration of the
Completion of the New York Canals.
M. S. Hawley,
Origin of the Erie Canal.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1821.
Revision of the Constitution.
"The Constitution did not meet the expectations of its
framers. The cumbrous machinery by which it was sought to
insure the control of the People, through the supremacy of the
Assembly, had only resulted in fortifying power practically
beyond their reach. The Council of Revision was objected to
because it had exercised the veto power contrary to the spirit
of the Constitution, which was in harmony with the traditions
of the Colony from the earliest conflict with the executive
power; and because the officers who thus interposed their
objections to the will of the Legislature, holding office for
good behavior (except the Governor), were beyond the reach of
the People. It was seen that this power was a dangerous one,
in a Council so constituted; but it was thought that it could
be safely intrusted to the Governor alone, as he was directly
responsible to the People. The Council of Appointment,
although not vested with any judicial authority, and in fact
disclaiming it, nevertheless at an early day summoned its
appointees before it, for the purpose of hearing accusations
against them, and proving their truth or falsity. At a later
day, more summary proceedings were resorted to. The office
thus became very unpopular. Nearly every civil, military, and
judicial officer of the commonwealth was appointed by this
Council.
{2343}
In 1821, 8,287 military and 6,663 civil officers held their
commissions from it, and this vast system of centralized power
was naturally very obnoxious. The Legislature, in 1820, passed
'an act recommending a Convention of the People of this
State,' which came up for action in the Council of Revision,
on November 20th of the same year; present, Governor Clinton,
Chancellor Kent, Chief Justice Spencer, and Justices Yates and
Woodworth, on which day the Council, by the casting vote of
the Governor, adopted two objections to it; first, because it
did not provide for taking the sense of the People on the
question; and second, because it submitted the new
Constitution to the People in toto, instead of by sections.
These objections were referred to a select committee, Michael
Ulshoeffer, chairman, who submitted their report January 9,
1821, in opposition to the opinion of the Council, which was
adopted by the Assembly. The bill, however, failed to pass,
not receiving a two-third vote. Immediately thereupon a
committee was appointed to draft a new bill. The committee
subsequently introduced a bill for submitting the question to
the people, which passed both Houses; received the sanction of
the Council of Revision on the 13th of March, and was
subsequently amended, the amendments receiving the sanction of
the Council on the third of April. The popular vote on holding
the Convention was had in April, and resulted as follows: 'For
Convention' 109,346. 'For No Convention' 34,901. The
Convention assembled in Albany, August 28, and adjourned
November 10, 1821. The Council of Revision was abolished, and
its powers transferred to the Governor. The Council of
Appointment was abolished without a dissenting voice. The
principal department officers were directed to be appointed on
an open separate nomination by the two Houses, and subsequent
joint ballot. Of the remaining officers not made elective, the
power of appointment was conferred upon the Governor, by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate. In 1846, two
hundred and eighty-nine offices were thus filled. The elective
franchise was extended. The Constitution was adopted at an
election held in February, 1822, by the following vote:
Constitution—For, 74,732: Against, 41,402. … The People
took to themselves a large portion of the power they had felt
it necessary, in the exercise of a natural conservatism, to
intrust to the Assembly. They had learned that an elective
Governor and an elective Senate are equally their agents, and
interests which they thought ought to be conserved, they
intrusted to them, subject to their responsibility to the
People. The entire Senate were substituted in the place of the
members who chanced to be the favorites with a majority in the
Assembly, as a Council to the Governor, and thus the People of
all the State were given a voice in appointments. The Supreme
Judicial Tribunal remained the same. The direct sovereignty of
the People was thus rendered far more effective, and popular
government took the place of parliamentary administration."
E. A. Werner,
Civil List and Constitutional History of New York, 1887,
pages 126-128.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1823.
The rise of the Albany Regency.
"The adoption of the new constitution in 1822 placed the
political power of the State in the hands of Mr. Van Buren,
the recognized representative leader of the Democratic party.
Governor Clinton, as the end of his term of service
approached, became as powerless as he was in 1816. … William
L. Marcy was then State Comptroller, Samuel L. Talcott,
Attorney-General; Benjamin Knower, Treasurer; and Edwin
Crosswell, editor of the 'Argus' and state printer. These
gentlemen, with Mr. Van Buren as their chief, constituted the
nucleus of what became the Albany Regency. After adding Silas
Wright, Azariah C. Flagg, John A. Dix, James Porter, Thomas W.
Olcott, and Charles E. Dudley to their number, I do not
believe that a stronger political combination ever existed at
any state capital. … Their influence and power for nearly
twenty years was almost as potential in national as in state
politics."
T. Weed,
Autobiography,
volume 1, chapter 11.
"Even to our own day, the Albany Regency has been a strong and
generally a sagacious influence in its party. John A. Dix,
Horatio Seymour, Dean Richmond and Samuel J. Tilden long
directed its policy, and from the chief seat in its councils
the late secretary of the treasury, Daniel Manning, was chosen
in 1885."
E. M. Shepard,
Martin Van Buren,
page 96.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1826-1832.
Anti-Masonic excitement.
The abduction of Morgan.
"The society of free-masons included a large number of the
foremost citizens in all walks of life, and the belief existed
that they used their secret ties to advance their ambitions.
… This belief was used to create prejudice among those who
were not members, and it added fuel to the fires of faction.
At this juncture, September 11, 1826, William Morgan, of
Batavia, a free-mason, who had announced his intention to
print a pamphlet exposing the secrets of masonry, was arrested
on a charge of larceny, made by the master of a masonic lodge,
but found not guilty, and then arrested for debt, and
imprisoned in jail at Canandaigua. He was taken secretly from
that jail and conveyed to Fort Niagara, where he was kept
until September, when he disappeared. The masons were charged
with his abduction, and a body found in the Niagara River was
produced as proof that he was drowned to put him out of the
way. Thurlow Weed, then an editor in Rochester, was aggressive
in charging that Morgan was murdered by the masons, and as
late as 1882 he published an affidavit rehearsing a confession
made to him by John Whitney, that the drowning was in fact
perpetrated by himself and four other persons whom he named,
after a conference in a masonic lodge. In 1827, Weed, who was
active in identifying the drowned body, was charged with
mutilating it, to make it resemble Morgan, and the imputation
was often repeated; and the abduction and murder were in turn
laid at the door of the anti-masons. The disappearance became
the chief topic of partisan discussion. De Witt Clinton was
one of the highest officers in the masonic order, and it was
alleged that he commanded that Morgan's book should be
'suppressed at all hazards,' thus instigating the murder; but
the slander was soon exposed. The state was flooded with
volumes portraying masonry as a monstrous conspiracy, and the
literature of the period was as harrowing as a series of
sensational novels."
E. H. Roberts,
New York,
volume 2, chapter 33.
{2344}
"A party soon grew up in Western New York pledged to oppose
the election of any Free Mason to public office. The
Anti-Masonic Party acquired influence in other States, and
began to claim rank as a national political party. On most
points its principles were those of the National Republicans.
But Clay, as well as Jackson, was a Free Mason, and
consequently to be opposed by this party. … In 1832 it even
nominated a Presidential ticket of its own, but, having no
national principle of controlling importance, it soon after
declined."
A. Johnston,
History of American Politics,
chapter 12, section 3, with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
T. Weed,
Autobiography,
chapters 20-30, 36, and 40.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1827.
The last of Slavery in the state.
"On the 28th of January, 1817, the governor sent a message to
the legislature recommending the entire abolition of slavery
in the State of New York, to take place on the fourth day of
July, 1827. By an act passed some years before, all persons
born of parents who were slaves after July 1799, were to be
free; males at twenty-eight and females at twenty-five years
of age. The present legislature adopted the recommendation of
the governor. This great measure in behalf of human rights,
which was to obliterate forever the black and foul stain of
slavery from the escutcheon of our own favored state, was
produced by the energetic action of Cadwallader D. Colden,
Peter A. Jay, William Jay, Daniel D. Tompkins and other
distinguished philanthropists, chiefly residing in the city of
New York. The Society of Friends, who never slumber when the
principles of benevolence and a just regard to equal rights
call for their action, were zealously engaged in this great
enterprise."
J. D. Hammond,
History of Political Parties in the State of New York,
volume 1, chapter 22.
ALSO IN:
E. H. Roberts,
New York,
volume 2, page 565.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1835-1837.
The Loco-focos.
"The Van Buren party began to be called the Loco-focos, in
derision of the fancied extravagance of their financial
doctrines. The Loco-foco or Equal Rights party proper was
originally a division of the Democrats, strongly
anti-monopolist in their opinions, and especially hostile to
banks,—not only government banks but all banks,—which
enjoyed the privileges then long conferred by special and
exclusive charters. In the fall of 1835 some of the Democratic
candidates in New York were especially obnoxious to the
anti-monopolists of the party. When the meeting to regularly
confirm the nominations made in committee was called at
Tammany Hall, the anti-monopolist Democrats sought to capture
the meeting by a rush up the main stairs. The regulars,
however, showed themselves worthy of their regularity by
reaching the room up the back stairs. In a general scrimmage
the gas was put out. The anti-monopolists, perhaps used to the
devices to prevent meetings which might be hostile, were ready
with candles and loco-foco matches. The hall was quickly
illuminated; and the anti-monopolists claimed that they had
defeated the nominations. The regulars were successful,
however, at the election; and they and the Whigs dubbed the
anti-monopolists the Loco-foco men. … The hatred which Van
Buren after his message of September, 1837, received from the
banks commended him to the Loco-focos; and in October, 1837,
Tammany Hall witnessed their reconciliation with the regular
Democrats upon a moderate declaration for equal rights."
E. M. Shepard,
Martin Van Buren,
pages 293-295.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1838.
Passage of the Free Banking Act.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1838.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1839-1846.
The Anti-rent disturbances.
See LIVINGSTON MANOR.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1840-1841.
The McLeod Case.
See CANADA: A. D. 1840-1841.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1845-1846.
Schism in the Democratic party over Slavery extension.
Hunkers and Barnburners.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1846.
Constitutional revision.
During the twenty-five years of the existence of the
constitution of 1821, "ten different proposals for amendments
were submitted to the electors, who decided against choosing
presidential electors by districts, but in favor of extending
the franchise, in favor of electing mayors by the people, and
in 1846 for no license except in the city of New York. The
commonwealth grew not only in population, but in all the
elements of progress and prosperity and power, and by the
census of 1845 was shown to contain 2,604,495 inhabitants.
Legislation had tended to the substitution of rights for
privileges granted as favors. The tenure of land, especially
under the claims of the patroons, had caused difficulties for
which remedies were sought; and the large expenditures for
internal improvements, involving heavy indebtedness, prompted
demands for safe-guards for the creditor and the taxpayer. The
judiciary system had confessedly become independent, and
required radical reformation. When, therefore, in 1845, the
electors were called upon to decide whether a convention
should be held to amend the State constitution, 213,257 voted
in the affirmative, against 33,860 in the negative. The
convention met June 1, 1846, but soon adjourned until October
9, when it proceeded with its task. John Tracy of Chenango
presided; and among the members were Ira Harris of Albany,
George 'V. Patterson of Chautauqua, Michael Hoffman and
Arphaxed Loomis of Herkimer, Samuel J. Tilden of New York,
Samuel Nelson of Otsego, and others eminent at home and in
State affairs. The convention dealt radically with the
principles of government. The new constitution gave to the
people the election of many officers before appointed at
Albany. It provided for the election of members of both houses
of the legislature by separate districts. Instead of the
cumbrous court for the correction of errors, it established an
independent court of appeals. It abolished the court of
chancery and the circuit courts, and merged both into the
supreme court, and defined the jurisdiction of county courts.
All judges were to be elected by the people. Feudal tenures
were abolished, and no leases on agricultural lands for a
longer period than twelve years were to be valid, if any rent
or service were reserved. The financial articles established
sinking funds for both the canal and general fund debt,
forbade the loan of the credit of the State, and limited
rigidly the power of the legislature to create debts, except
to repel invasion or suppress insurrection, and declared the
school and literature funds inviolate. Provision was made for
general laws for the formation of corporations. The
constitution required the submission to the people once every
twenty years of the question whether a convention shall be
called or not."
E. H. Roberts,
New York,
volume 2, pages 567-569.
{2345}
NEW YORK: A. D. 1848.
The Free Soil movement.
The Buffalo Convention.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1848.
Legal Emancipation of Women.
See LAW, COMMON; A. D. 1839-1848.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1848.
Adoption of the Code of Civil Procedure.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1848-1883.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1861 (April).
The speeding of the Seventh Regiment
to the defense of Washington.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (APRIL-MAY: MARYLAND).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1862-1886.
The founding and growth of Cornell University.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1862-1886.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1863.
The Draft Riots in New York City.
"A new levy of 300,000 men was called for in April, 1863, with
the alternative of a draft if the quotas were not filled by
volunteering. The quota of the city of New York was not
filled, and a draft was begun there on Saturday, the 11th of
July. There had been premonitions of trouble when it was
attempted to take the names and addresses of those subject to
call, and in the tenement-house districts some of the marshals
had narrowly escaped with their lives. On the morning when the
draft was to begin, several of the most widely read Democratic
journals contained editorials that appeared to be written for
the very purpose of inciting a riot. They asserted that any
draft at all was unconstitutional and despotic, and that in
this case the quota demanded from the city was excessive, and
denounced the war as a 'mere abolition crusade.' It is
doubtful if there was any well-formed conspiracy, including
any large number of persons, to get up a riot; but the excited
state of the public mind, especially among the laboring
population, inflammatory handbills displayed in the
grog-shops, the presence of the dangerous classes, whose best
opportunity for plunder was in time of riot, and the absence
of the militia that had been called away to meet the invasion
of Pennsylvania, all favored an outbreak. It was unfortunate
that the draft was begun on Saturday, and the Sunday papers
published long lists of the names that were drawn—an instance
of the occasional mischievous results of journalistic
enterprise. … When the draft was resumed on Monday, the
serious work began. One provost-marshal's office was at the
corner of Third Avenue and Forty-Sixth street. It was guarded
by sixty policemen, and the wheel was set in motion at ten
o'clock. The building was surrounded by a dense, angry crowd,
who were freely cursing the draft, the police, the National
Government, and 'the nigger.' The drawing had been in progress
but a few minutes when there was a shout of 'stop the cars!'
and at once the cars were stopped, the horses released, the
conductors and passengers driven out, and a tumult created.
Then a great human wave was set in motion, which bore down
everything before it and rolled into the marshal's office,
driving out at the back windows the officials and the
policemen, whose clubs, though plied rapidly and knocking down
a rioter at every blow, could not dispose of them as fast as
they came on. The mob destroyed everything in the office, and
then set the building on fire. The firemen came promptly, but
were not permitted to throw any water upon the flames. At this
moment Superintendent John A. Kennedy, of the police,
approaching incautiously and unarmed, was recognized and set
upon by the crowd, who gave him half a hundred blows with
clubs and stones, and finally threw him face downward into a
mud-puddle, with the intention of drowning him. When rescued,
he was bruised beyond recognition, and was lifted into a wagon
and carried to the police headquarters. The command of the
force now devolved upon Commissioner Thomas C. Acton and
Inspector Daniel Carpenter, whose management during three
fearful days was worthy of the highest praise. Another
marshal's office, where the draft was in progress, was at
Broadway and Twenty-Ninth street, and here the mob burned the
whole block of stores on Broadway between Twenty-Eighth and
Twenty-Ninth streets. … In the afternoon a small police
force held possession of a gun-factory in Second Avenue for
four hours, and was then compelled to retire before the
persistent attacks of the rioters, who hurled stones through
the windows and beat in the doors. Toward evening a riotous
procession passed down Broadway, with drums, banners, muskets,
pistols, pitchforks, clubs, and boards inscribed 'No Draft!'
Inspector Carpenter, at the head of two hundred policemen,
marched up to meet it. His orders were, 'Take no prisoners,
but strike quick and hard.' The mob was met at the corner of
Amity (or West Third) street. The police charged at once in a
compact body, Carpenter knocking down the foremost rioter with
a blow that cracked his skull, and in a few moments the mob
scattered and fled, leaving Broadway strewn with their wounded
and dying. From this time, the police were victorious in every
encounter. During the next two days there was almost constant
rioting, mobs appearing at various points, both up-town and
down-town. The rioters set upon every negro that
appeared—whether man, woman, or child—and succeeded in
murdering eleven of them. … This phase of the outbreak found
its worst expression in the sacking and burning of the Colored
Orphan Asylum, at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Fourth street. The
two hundred helpless children were with great difficulty taken
away by the rear doors while the mob were battering at the
front. … One of the saddest incidents of the riot was the
murder of Colonel Henry J. O'Brien of the 11th New York
Volunteers, whose men had dispersed one mob with a deadly
volley. An hour or two later the Colonel returned to the spot
alone, when he was set upon and beaten and mangled and
tortured horribly for several hours, being at last killed by
some frenzied women. … Three days of this vigorous work by
the police and the soldiers brought the disturbance to an end.
About fifty policemen had been injured, three of whom died;
and the whole number of lives destroyed by the rioters was
eighteen. The exact number of rioters killed is unknown, but
it was more than 1,200. The mobs burned about 50 buildings,
destroying altogether between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 worth
of property. Governor Seymour incurred odium by a speech to
the rioters, in which he addressed them as his friends, and
promised to have the draft stopped; and by his communications
to the President, in which he complained of the draft, and
asked to have it suspended till the question of its
constitutionality could be tested in the courts."
R. Johnson,
Short History of the War of Secession,
chapter 18.
ALSO IN:
J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,
Abraham Lincoln,
volume 7, chapter 1.
H. Greeley,
The American Conflict,
volume 2, chapter 21.
D. M. Barnes,
The Draft Riots in New York.
{2346}
NEW YORK: A. D. 1863-1871.
The Tweed Ring.
Between 1863 and 1871 the city of New York, and, to a
considerable extent, the state at large, fell under the
control and into the power of a combination of corrupt
politicians commonly known as the Tweed Ring. Its chief was
one William Marcy Tweed, of Scotch parentage, who first
appeared in public life as an alderman of the city, in 1850.
Working himself upward, in the Democratic party, to which he
adhered, he attained in 1863 the powerful dignity of Grand
Sachem of the Tammany Society and chairman or "Boss" of the
general committee of Tammany Hall. "At this time, however, the
Tammany 'Ring,' as it afterwards was called, was not
completely formed, and Tammany Hall, though by far the most
important political organization in the city, was not absolute
even in the Democratic party. It had a bitter enemy in Mozart
Hall, a political organization led by Fernando Wood, a former
mayor of the city. The claims of Mozart Hall were satisfied in
this same year, 1863, by granting to its leader the Democratic
nomination to Congress. … Soon afterwards Tweed was
appointed deputy-commissioner of streets. The 'Ring' was now
fast consolidating. The enormous patronage possessed by its
members enabled them to control almost all the nominations of
the Democratic party to positions in the city. They provided
their adherents with places in the city government, and when
the supply of places became inadequate, they enlarged the city
pay-roll to create new places. By means of the political
influence they exerted over the Democratic party in the State,
they packed the State legislature with their followers, and
placed upon the bench judges on whom they could rely. … In
1865 the Ring obtained control of the mayoralty. Its

candidate, John T. Hoffman, was a man of much higher character
than his supporters and associates. He was personally honest,
but his ambition blinded him to the acts of his political
friends. … In 1868 … Hoffman was nominated for governor
and was elected. His election was secured by the grossest and
most extensive frauds ever perpetrated in the city, e. g.
illegal naturalization of foreigners, false registration,
repeating of votes, and unfair counting. The mayoralty, left
vacant by the promotion of Hoffman, was filled by the election
of Hall [A. Oakey Hall], who took his seat on the 1st day of
January 1869. As Samuel J. Tilden said, by this election 'the
Ring became completely organized and matured.' It controlled
the common council of the city and the legislature of the
State, and its nominee sat in the gubernatorial chair. Hall
was mayor; Sweeny [Peter B. Sweeny, 'the great schemer of the
Ring'] was city chamberlain or treasurer of both city and
county; Tweed was practically supreme in the street
department; Connolly [Richard B.] was city comptroller, and
thus had charge of the city finances; the city judiciary was
in sympathy with these men." But great as were the power and
the opportunities of the Ring, it obtained still more of both
through its well-paid creatures in the State legislature, by
amendments of the city charter and by acts which gave Tweed
and his partners free swing in debt-making for the city. In
1871, the last year of the existence of the Ring, it had more
than $48,000,000 of money at its disposal. Its methods of
fraud were varied and numerous. "But all the other enterprises
of the Ring dwindle into insignificance when compared with the
colossal frauds that were committed in the building of the new
court-house for the county. When this undertaking was begun,
it was stipulated that its total cost should not exceed
$250,000; but before the Ring was broken up, upwards of
$8,000,000 had been expended, and the work was not completed.
… Whenever a bill was brought in by one of the contractors,
he was directed to increase largely the total of his charge.
… A warrant was then drawn for the amount of the bill as
raised; the contractor was paid, perhaps the amount of his
original, bill, perhaps a little more; and the difference
between the original and the raised bills was divided between
the members of the Ring. It is said that about 65 per cent. of
the bills actually paid by the county represented fraudulent
addition of this sort." The beginning of the end of the reign
of the Ring came in July, 1871, when copies of some of the
fraudulent accounts, made by a clerk in the auditor's office,
came into the possession of the New York Times and were
published. "The result of these exposures was a meeting of
citizens early in September. … It was followed by the
formation of a sort of peaceable vigilance committee, under
the imposing title of the 'Committee of Seventy.' This
committee, together with Samuel J. Tilden (long a leading
Democratic politician, and afterwards candidate for the
presidency of the United States), went to work at once, and
with great energy, to obtain actual proof of the frauds
described by the 'Times.' It was owing mainly to the tireless
endeavours of Mr. Tilden … that this work was successful,
and that prosecutions were brought against several members of
the Ring." The Tammany leaders attempted to make a scapegoat
of Connolly; but the latter came to terms with Mr. Tilden, and
virtually turned over his office to Mr. Andrew H. Green, of
the Committee of Seventy, appointing him deputy-comptroller,
with full powers. "This move was a tremendous step forward for
the prosecution. The possession of the comptroller's office
gave access to papers which furnished almost all the evidence
afterwards used in the crusade against the Ring." At the
autumn election of 1871 there was a splendid rally of the
better citizens, in the city and throughout the state, and the
political power of the Ring was broken. "None of the leading
actors in the disgraceful drama failed to pay in some measure
the penalty of his deeds. Tweed, after a chequered experience
in eluding the grasp of justice, died in jail. Connolly passed
the remainder of his life in exile. Sweeny left the country
and long remained abroad. … Hall was tried and obtained a
favourable verdict, but he has chosen to live out of America.
Of the judges whose corrupt decisions so greatly aided the
Ring, Barnard and M'Cunn were impeached and removed from the
bench, while Cardozo resigned his position in time to avoid
impeachment. The following figures will give an approximate
idea of the amount the Ring cost the city of New York. In
1860, before Tweed came into power, the debt of the city was
reported as amounting only to $20,000,000 while the tax rate
was about 1.60 per cent. on the assessed valuation of the
property in the city liable to taxation.
{2347}
In the middle of the year 1871, the total debt of the city and
the county—which were coterminous, and for all practical
purposes the same—amounted to $100,955,333.33, and the tax
rate had risen to over 2 per cent. During the last two years
and a half of the government of the Ring the debt increased at
the rate of $28,652,000 a year."
F. J. Goodnow,
The Tweed Ring in New York City
(chapter 88 of Bryce's "American Commonwealth," volume 2).
ALSO IN:
S. J. Tilden,
The New York City "Ring": its Origin, Maturity and Fall.
C. F. Wingate,
An episode in Municipal Government
(N. A. Rev., Oct. 1874, January and July, 1875,
October. 1876).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1867.
The Public Schools made entirely free.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1867.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1867-1882.
Amendments of the Constitution.
The constitution of 1846 having provided for its own revision
at the end of twenty years, if so willed by the people, the
calling of a constitutional convention was approved by popular
vote in 1866, and the convention of elected delegates
assembled June 4, in the following year. Its final adjournment
was not reached until February 28, 1868. The constitution
proposed by the convention was submitted to the people in
1869, and rejected, with the exception of the judiciary
article, which reorganized the Court of Appeals, and provided
for a temporary Commission of Appeals, to determine the cases
pending in the Court, where business in arrears had
accumulated to a serious extent. The rejection of the
constitution framed in 1867 led, in 1872, to the creation by
the governor and legislature of a Commission for the revision
of the constitution, which met at Albany, December 4, 1872,
and adjourned March 15, 1873. Several amendments proposed by
the Commission were submitted to popular vote in 1874 and
1876, and were adopted. By the more important of these
amendments, colored citizens were admitted to the franchise
without property qualifications; a strong, specific enactment
for the prevention and punishment of bribery and corruption at
elections was embodied in the constitution itself; some
changes were made in the provisions for districting the state,
after each census, and the pay of members of the legislature
was increased to $1,500 per annum; the power of the
legislature to pass private bills was limited; the term of the
governor was extended from two years to three; the governor
was empowered to veto specific items in bills which
appropriate money, approving the remainder; the governor was
allowed thirty days for the consideration of bills left in his
hands at the adjournment of the legislature, which bills
become law only upon his approval within that time; a
superintendent of public works was created to take the place
of the Canal Commissioners previously existing, and a
superintendent of state prisons to take the place of the three
inspectors of state prisons; a selection of judges from the
bench of the Supreme Court of the state to act as Associate
Judges of the Court of Appeals was authorized; the loaning or
granting of the credit or money of the state, or that of any
county, city, town, or village to any association,
corporation, or private undertaking was forbidden; corrupt
conduct in office was declared to be felony. By an amendment
of the constitution submitted by the legislature to the people
in 1882, the canals of the state were made entirely free of
tolls.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1869.
Black Friday.
"During the war gold had swollen in value to 285, when the
promise of the nation to pay a dollar on demand was only worth
thirty-five cents. Thence it had gradually sunk. … All our
purchases from foreign nations, all duties on those purchases,
and all sales of domestic produce to other nations are payable
in gold. There is therefore a large and legitimate business in
the purchase and sale of gold, especially in New York, the
financial centre of the nation. But a much larger business of
a gambling nature had gradually grown up around that which was
legitimate. … These gambling operations were based on the
rise and fall of gold, and these in turn depended on
successful or unsuccessful battles, or on events in foreign
nations that could be neither foreseen nor guarded against.
The transactions were therefore essentially gambling. … So
large was the amount of this speculative business, gathering
up all the gold-betting of the nation in a single room, that
it more than equalled the legitimate purchase and sale of
gold. There were large and wealthy firms who made this their
chief business; and prominent among them was the firm of
Smith, Gould, Martin & Co., four gentlemen under one
partnership name, all wealthy and all accustomed to this
business for years. Their joint wealth and business skill made
them a power in Wall street. The leading mind of the firm,
though not the first named, was Mr. Jay Gould, President of
the Erie Railway, joint owner with Colonel James Fisk Jr., of
two lines of steamboats, and largely interested in a number of
railroads and other valuable properties. Mr. Gould looked upon
gold, railroads, and steamboats as the gilded dice wherewith
to gamble. … During the spring of 1869 he was a buyer of
gold. There was perhaps fifteen millions of that rare currency
in New York outside the Sub-Treasury; and he had bought half
that amount, paying therefor a bonus of a little more than two
millions of dollars. As fast as he had purchased the precious
metal he had loaned it out to those who needed it for the
payment of duties, and who hoped to repurchase it at a lower
rate. And so, though the owner of seven millions, he had none
of it in hand; he merely possessed the written acknowledgment
of certain leading merchants and brokers that they owed him
that amount of specie, which they would repay with interest on
demand. Having this amount obtainable at any moment, Mr. Gould
had the mercantile community at his mercy. But there was some
hundred millions of gold in the Treasury, more or less, and
the President of the United States or the Secretary of the
Treasury might at any time throw it on the market. On this
point it was very desirable to ascertain the opinion of
President Grant; more desirable to have constant access to his
private ear." In various ways, argumentative influences were
brought to bear on President Grant and the Secretary of the
Treasury, Mr. Boutwell, to persuade them that it was desirable
for the country, while the crops were being moved, to hold up
the price of gold. One important channel for such influences
was supplied by the President's brother-in-law, a retired New
York merchant, named Corbin, who was drawn into the
speculation and given a share in Gould's gold purchases.
{2348}
By strenuous exertions, Gould and his associates pushed up the
price till "in May it stood at 144 7/8; but as soon as they
ceased to buy, the price began to recede until in the latter
part of June it again stood at 136. The others were then
frightened and sold out. 'All these other fellows deserted me
like rats from a ship,' said Gould. But for him to sell out
then would involve a heavy loss, and he preferred a gain. He
therefore called upon his friend and partner Fisk to enter the
financial arena. It is but justice to Mr. Fisk to say that for
some time he declined; he clearly saw that the whole tendency
of gold was downward. But when Gould made the proposition more
palatable by suggesting corruption, Fisk immediately swallowed
the bait. … He … entered the market and purchased twelve
millions. There is an old adage that there is honor among
thieves. This appears not to be true on the Gold Exchange. All
Mr. Gould's statements to his own partner were false, except
those relating to Corbin and Butterfield. And Mr. Corbin did
his best. He not only talked and wrote to the President
himself; not only wrote for the New York 'Times,' but when
General Grant visited him in New York, he sent Gould to see
him so often that the President, unaware of the financial trap
set for him, rebuked the door servant for giving Mr. Gould
such ready access. But it is worthy of note that neither
Corbin, Gould, nor Fisk ever spoke to the President of their
personal interest in the matter. They were only patriots
urging a certain course of conduct for the good of the
country. These speculations as to the advantage to the country
of a higher price of gold seem to have had some effect on the
Presidential mind; for early in September he wrote to Mr.
Boutwell, then at his Massachusetts home, giving his opinion
of the financial condition of the country, and suggesting that
it would not be wise to lower the price of gold by sales from
the Treasury while the crops were moving to the seaboard. Mr.
Boutwell therefore telegraphed to the Assistant Secretary at
Washington only to sell gold sufficient to buy bonds for the
sinking fund. Through Mr. Corbin or in some other way this
letter came to the knowledge of the conspirators; for they at
once began to purchase and the price began to rise. … On the
13th of September, gold, swelling and falling like the tide,
stood at 135½. The clique then commenced their largest
purchases, and within nine days had bought enough to hold
sixty-six millions—nearly every cent of it fictitious, and
only included in promises to pay. On the evening of Wednesday,
September 22, the price was 140½; but it had taken the
purchase of thirty or forty millions to put it up that five
cents. Could it be forced five cents higher, and all sold, the
profits would be over ten millions of dollars! It was a stake
worth playing for. But the whole mercantile community was
opposed to them; bountiful harvests were strong arguments
against them; and more than all else, there stood the
Sub-Treasury of the United States, with its hundred millions
of dollars in its vaults, ready at any time to cast its
plethora of wealth on their unfortunate heads. … Corbin,
while assuring Gould that there was no danger of any
Government sale, and yet himself greatly in trepidation,
addressed a letter to General Grant urging him not to
interfere with the warfare then raging between the bulls and
the bears, nor to allow the Secretary of the Treasury to do
so. … The letter would probably have had some effect, but
unfortunately the ring overdid their business in the way in
which they sent it." The letter was conveyed by a private
messenger. The messenger, "Mr. Chapin, delivered his letter,
asked General Grant if there was any reply, and being told
there was none, started for his home, first telegraphing to
his employer, 'Letter delivered all right.' It was a most
unfortunate telegraphic message he sent back. He swears that
his meaning was that the letter was delivered all right; and
so the despatch reads. But the gold gamblers, blinded by the
greatness of the stake at risk, interpreted the 'all right' of
the message as an answer to the contents of Mr. Corbin's
letter—that the President thought the letter all right; and
on the strength of that reading Fisk rushed into the market
and made numerous purchases of gold. But that very letter,
which was intended to be their governmental safeguard, led to
their ruin. Carried by special messenger for a day and a half,
its urgency that the Administration should sell no gold,
coupled with frequent assertions in the newspapers that Mr.
Corbin was a great bull in gold, excited General Grant's
suspicions. He feared that Corbin was not actuated by
patriotic motives alone in this secret correspondence. At the
President's suggestion, therefore, Mrs. Grant wrote to her
sister, Mrs. Corbin, telling her that rumors had reached them
that Mr. Corbin was connected with speculators in New York,
and that she hoped if this was so he would at once disengage
himself from them; that the President was much distressed at
such rumors. On the receipt of this letter, Mr. Corbin was
greatly excited." Corbin showed the letter to Gould, and got
himself let out of the game, so that he might be able to say
to President Grant that he had no interest in gold; but Fisk
was not told of the President's suspicions. "On the evening of
Wednesday, September 21, it was determined to close the corner
within two days." A desperate attack on the market began next
morning. Gold opened that day at 39½; it closed at 44. The
next day was "Friday, September 24, commonly called Black
Friday, either from the black mark it caused on the characters
of dealers in gold, or, as is more probable, from the ruin it
brought to both sides. The Gold Room was crowded for two hours
before the time of business. … Fisk was there, gloating over
the prospect of great gains from others' ruin. His brokers
were there, noisy and betting on the rapid rise of gold and
the success of the corner. All alike were greatly excited,
palpitating between hope and fear, and not knowing what an
hour might bring forth. … Gold closed on Thursday at 144;
Speyers [principal broker of the conspirators] commenced his
work on Friday by offering 145, one per cent. higher than the
last purchase. Receiving no response, he offered to buy at
146, 147, 148, and 149 respectively, but without takers. Then
150 was offered, and half a million was sold him by Mr. James
Brown, who had quietly organized a band of prominent merchants
who were determined to meet the gold gamblers on their own
ground. … Amid the most tremendous confusion the voices of
the excited brokers could be heard slowly bidding up the value
of their artificial metal.
{2349}
Higher and higher rose the tide of speculation; from 156 to
159 there was no offer whatever; amid deep silence Speyers
called out, 'Any part of five millions for 160.' 'One million
taken at 160,' was the quiet response of James Brown. Further
offers were made by the brokers of the clique all the way from
160 to 163½. But Mr. Brown preferred to grapple the enemy by
the throat, and he sold Speyers five millions more, making
seven millions of gold sold that hour for which Speyers agreed
to pay eleven millions in currency. Such figures almost
stagger one to read of them! But Speyers continued to buy till
before noon he had purchased nearly sixty millions. … As the
price rose cent by cent, men's hearts were moved within them
as the trees are shaken by the swelling of the wind. But when
the first million was taken at 160 a great load was removed,
and when the second million was sold there was such a burst of
gladness, such a roar of multitudinous voices as that room,
tumultuous as it had always been, never heard before.
Everybody instantly began to sell, desiring to get rid of all
their gold before it had tumbled too deep. And just as the
precious metal was beginning to flow over the precipice, the
news was flashed into the room that Government had telegraphed
to sell four millions. Instantly the end was reached; gold
fell to 140, and then down, down, down, to 133. There were no
purchasers at any price. … The gold ring had that day bought
sixty millions of gold, paying or rather agreeing to pay
therefor ninety-six millions of dollars in currency!" But
Gould, Fisk & Co., who owned several venal New York judges,
placed injunctions and other legal obstacles in the way of a
settlement of claims against themselves. "Of course these
judicious and judicial orders put an end to all business
except that which was favorable to Fisk and Gould. They
continued to settle with all parties who owed them money; they
were judicially enjoined from settling with those to whom, if
their own brokers may be believed, they were indebted, and
they have not yet settled with them. … As the settlements
between the brokers employed by the ring and their victims
were all made in private, there is no means of knowing the
total result. But it is the opinion of Mr. James B. Hodskin,
Chairman of the Arbitration Committee of the Exchange, and
therefore better acquainted with its business than anyone
else, that the two days' profits of the clique from the
operations they acknowledged and settled for were not less
than twelve millions of dollars; and that the losses on those
transactions which they refused to acknowledge were not less
than twenty millions. The New York 'Tribune' a day or two
afterward put the gains of the clique at eleven million
dollars. Some months after 'Black Friday' had passed away,
Congress ordered an investigation into its causes. … For two
or three days the whole business of New York stood still
awaiting the result of the corner. … In good-will with all
the world, with grand harvests, with full markets on both
sides the Atlantic, came a panic that affected all business.
Foreign trade came to a stand-still. The East would not send
to Europe: the West could not ship to New York. Young men saw
millions of dollars made in a few days by dishonesty; they
beheld larger profits result from fraud than from long lives
of honesty. Old men saw their best-laid plans frustrated by
the operations of gamblers. Our national credit was affected
by it. Europe was told that our principal places of business
were nests of gamblers, and that it was possible for a small
clique, aided by our banking institutions, to get possession
of all the gold there was in the land; and that when one firm
had gone through business transactions to the amount of over
one hundred millions of dollars, the courts of the United
States would compel the completion of those bargains which
resulted in a profit, while those that ended in a loss were
forbidden. For two or three months the sale of bonds in Europe
was affected by the transactions of that day; and not until
the present generation of business men has passed away will
the evil influence of Black Friday be entirely lost."
W. R. Hooper,
Black Friday
(The Galaxy, December, 1871).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1875-1881.
Stalwarts and Half-breeds.
See STALWARTS.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1881.
Adoption of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1848-1883.
NEW YORK: A. D. 1892.
Restored Tammany government in the City.
The Tammany organization was greatly discredited and crippled
for a time by the exposure and overthrow of Tweed and his
"ring," in 1871; but after a few years, under the
chieftainship of John Kelly and Richard Croker, successive
"grand sachems," it recovered its control of the city
government so completely that, in 1892, Dr. Albert Shaw was
justified in describing the latter as follows: "There is in
New York no official body that corresponds with the London
Council. The New York Board of Aldermen, plus the Mayor, plus
the Commissioners who are the appointive heads of a number of
the working departments such as the Excise, Park, Health and
Police departments, plus the District Attorney, the Sheriff,
the Coroners, and other officials pertaining to the county of
New York as distinct from the city of New York, plus a few of
the head Tammany bosses and the local Tammany bosses of the
twenty-four Assembly Districts—all these men and a few other
officials and bosses, taken together, would make up a body of
men of about the same numerical strength as the London
Council; and these are the men who now dominate the official
life of the great community of nearly eighteen hundred
thousand souls. In London the 137 councillors fight out every
municipal question in perfectly open session upon its actual
merits before the eyes of all London, and of the whole British
empire. In New York, the governing group discusses nothing
openly. The Board of Aldermen is an obscure body of
twenty-five members, with limited power except for mischief,
its members being almost to a man high Tammany politicians who
are either engaged directly in the liquor business or are in
one way or another connected with that interest. So far as
there is any meeting in which the rulers of New York discuss
the public affairs of the community, such meetings are held in
the Tammany wigwam in Fourteenth Street. But Tammany is not an
organization which really concerns itself with any aspects of
public questions, either local or general, excepting the
'spoils' aspect. It is organized upon what is a military
rather than a political basis, and its machinery extends
through all the assembly districts and voting precincts of New
York, controlling enough votes to hold and wield the balance
of power, and thus to keep Tammany in the possession of the
offices.
{2350}
Its local hold is maintained by the dispensing of a vast
amount of patronage. The laborers on public works, the members
of the police force and the fire brigades, the employees of
the Sanitary Department, of the Excise Department, of the
Street Cleaning and Repair Department and of the Water and
Dock and Park Departments, the teachers in the public schools
and the nurses in the public hospitals, all are made to feel
that their livelihood depends on the favor of the Tammany
bosses; and they must not only be faithful to Tammany
themselves, but all their friends and relatives to the
remotest collateral degree must also be kept subservient to
the Tammany domination. The following characterization of
Tammany leadership and method is from the New York Evening
Post. … 'None of the members occupy themselves with any
legislation, except such as creates salaried offices and
contracts in this city, to be got hold of either by capture at
the polls or "deals" with the Republican politicians here or
in Albany. When such legislation has been successful, the only
thing in connection with it which Tammany leaders consider is
how the salaries shall be divided and what "assessments" the
places or contracts can stand. If any decent outsider could
make his way into the inner conferences at which these
questions are settled, he would hear not the grave discussion
of the public interests, how to keep streets clean, or how to
repave them, or how to light them or police them, or how to
supply the city with water, but stories of drunken or amorous
adventure, larded freely with curious and original oaths,
ridicule of reformers and "silk-stockinged" people generally,
abuse of "kickers," and examination of the claims of gamblers,
liquor-dealers, and pugilists to more money out of the public
treasury. In fact, as we have had of late frequent occasion to
observe, the society is simply an organization of clever
adventurers, most of them in some degree criminal, for the
control of the ignorant and vicious vote of the city in an
attack on the property of the tax-payers. There is not a
particle of politics in the concern any more than in any
combination of Western brigands to "hold up" a railroad train
and get at the express packages. Its sole object is plunder in
any form which will not attract the immediate notice of the
police.'"
A. Shaw,
Municipal Problems of New York and London
(Review of Reviews, April 1892).
NEW YORK: A. D. 1894.
Constitutional Convention.
A bill passed by the legislature of 1892, calling a convention
to revise the constitution of the State, provided for the
election of 128 delegates by Assembly districts, and 32 at
large, but added 9 more whom the Governor should appoint, 3 to
represent labor interests, 3 woman-suffrage claims, and 3 the
advocates of prohibition. By the legislature of 1893 this act
was set aside and a new enactment adopted, making the total
number of delegates to the Constitutional Convention 165, all
elective, and apportioning five to each senatorial district.
The convention assembled at Albany, May 9, 1894. Its labors
are unfinished at the time this volume goes to press.
Questions of reform in municipal government have claimed the
greatest attention.
----------NEW YORK: End----------
NEW YORK SOCIETY LIBRARY.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
----------NEW ZEALAND: Start--------
NEW ZEALAND:
The aborigines.
"The traditions of these people [the Maoris] lead to the
conclusion that they first came to New Zealand about 600 years
ago, from some of the islands between Samoa and Tahiti; but
some ethnologists put the migration as far back as 3,000
years. Their language is a dialect of the Polynesian, most
resembling that of Rarotonga, but their physical characters
vary greatly. Some are fair, with straight hair, and with the
best type of Polynesian features; others are dusky brown, with
curly or almost frizzly hair, and with the' long and broad
arched nose of the Papuan; while others have the coarse thick
features of the lower Melanesian races. Now these variations
of type cannot be explained unless we suppose the Maoris to
have found in the islands an indigenous Melanesian people, of
whom they exterminated the men, but took the better-looking of
the women for wives; and as their traditions decidedly state
that they did find such a race when they first arrived at New
Zealand, there seems no reason whatever for rejecting these
traditions, which accord with actual physical facts, just as
the tradition of a migration from 'Hawaiki,' a Polynesian
island, accords with linguistic facts."
Hellwald-Wallace,
Australasia
(Stanford's Compendium, new issue, 1893),
chapter 14, section 9 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
E. Shortland,
Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders.
J. S. Polack,
Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders.
Lady Martin,
Our Maoris.
W. D. Hay,
Brighter Britain,
volume 2, chapters 3-5.
See, also, MALAYAN RACE.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1642-1856.
Discovery.
Colonization.
Early dealings with Natives.
Constitutional organization.
"The honour of the actual discovery of New Zealand must be
accorded to the Dutch Navigator, Tasman, who visited it in
1642, discovering Van Dieman's Land during the same voyage.
As, however, he does not appear to have landed, the knowledge
of the country derived by Europeans from his account of it
must have been of very limited extent. … It was our own
countryman, Captain Cook, to whom we are so largely indebted
for what we now know of the geography of the Pacific, who made
us acquainted with the nature of the country and the character
of its inhabitants. The aborigines were evidently of a much
higher type than those of the Australian continent. They are a
branch of the Polynesian race, and according to their own
traditions came about 600 years ago from 'Hawaiki,' which
ethnologists interpret to mean either Hawaii (the Sandwich
Islands), or Savaii in the Samoa group. They are divided into
some twenty clans, analogous to those of the Scottish
Highlands. Cook's first visit was paid in 1769, but he touched
at the islands on several occasions during his subsequent
voyages, and succeeded in making, before his final departure,
a more or less complete exploration of its coasts. The
aborigines were divided into numerous tribes, which were
engaged in almost constant wars one with another. … As has
been the case in so many distant lands, the first true
pioneers of civilization were the missionaries.
{2351}
In 1814, thirty-seven years after Captain Cook's last visit to
New Zealand, a few representatives of the English Church
Missionary Society landed in the North Island, less with the
intention of colonising than with the hope of converting the
natives to Christianity. The first practical steps in the
direction of settlement were taken by the New Zealand Land
Company, composed of a very strong and influential body of
gentlemen headed by Lord Durham, and having much the same
ideas as those which actuated the South Australian
Colonisation Society. The proposal to found a new Colony was
at first bitterly opposed by the Government of the day, but in
consequence of the energetic action of the Company, who sent
out agents with large funds to purchase land of the natives,
the Government ultimately gave way, and despatched as Consul
Captain Hobson, who arrived in January 1840. One of his first
steps on assuming office was to call a meeting of the natives
and explain to them the object of his mission, with the view
of entering into a treaty for placing the sovereignty of their
island in Her Majesty the Queen. He was not at first
successful, the natives fearing that if they acceded to the
proposal, their land would be taken from them; but being
reassured on this point, the majority of the chiefs ultimately
signed the treaty in February of the same year. By the terms
of this treaty, called the Treaty of Waitangi, the chiefs, in
return for their acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Queen
of England, were guaranteed for themselves and their people
the exclusive possession of their lands so long as they wished
to retain them, and they, on their side, accorded to the Crown
the exclusive right of pre-emption over such lands as might,
from time to time, come into the market. It will thus be seen
that the acquisition of land in New Zealand by European
settlers was effected in a manner entirely different from that
which obtained in other colonies; for, although the right of
pre-emption by the Crown was subsequently waived, no land
could be obtained from natives unless they were perfectly
willing to part with it. It is true that lands have in some
instances been confiscated as a punishment for native
insurrections, but, with this exception, all lands have passed
from natives to Europeans by the ordinary processes of bargain
and sale. Captain Hobson's next action was to place himself in
communication with the New Zealand Company's agents, and
ascertain what they were doing in the way of colonisation. He
found that besides acquiring various blocks of land in the
North and South Islands, they had formed a permanent
settlement at Wellington, at which they were organising a
system of government incompatible with the Queen's authority,
which he therefore promptly suppressed. … In June of 1840
the settlement was made a colony by Charter under the Great
Seal, Captain Hobson naturally becoming the first Governor.
This eminent public servant died at his post in September
1842, being succeeded by Captain R. Fitzroy, who, however, did
not reach the Colony till a year afterwards. In the interval
occurred that lamentable incident, the massacre of white
settlers by the natives at Wairu, in the South Island. Shortly
after this the Company made strenuous efforts to obtain a
share in the Executive Government, but this was twice
disallowed by the Home authorities. Captain Fitzroy's term of
office was in all respects a stormy one, the native chiefs
rising in rebellion, open and covert, against the terms of the
Waitangi treaty. With only 150 soldiers, and destitute of any
military facilities, this governor deemed it prudent to come
to a compromise with the rebels, fearing the effect upon the
minds of the natives generally of the certain defeat which he
must sustain in active warfare. Receiving, however,
reinforcements from Sidney, Captain Fitzroy took the field,
sustaining in his first expedition a decided defeat. Two other
expeditions followed this, and at length the success of the
British arms was assured, Captain Fitzroy suffering from the
irony of fate, since, having been neglected in his peril, he
was recalled in the moment of victory. Captain (afterwards Sir
George) Grey succeeded to the Governorship in November 1845;
having the good fortune to be surrounded by ministers of
exceptional ability, and arriving in the Colony at a fortunate
turn in its affairs, he takes his place among the successful
Governors of New Zealand. Colonel Gore Browne—after an
interregnum of nearly two years—succeeded to power, and
during his viceroyalty in 1853, responsible government, which,
however, did not provide for ministerial responsibility, was
inaugurated. … The Home Government shortly afterwards (May
1856) … established responsible government in its fullest
form, but unfortunately without any special provisions for the
representation of the native races. … Up to 1847 New Zealand
remained a Crown Colony, the Government being administered by
a Governor appointed by the Crown, an Executive Council, and a
Legislative Council. Under this system, the Governor had very
large powers, since the only control over him was that
exercised by the Home Government. The Executive Council
consisted of the Governor and three official members, while
the Legislative Council was made up of the Executive Council
and three non-official members nominated by the Governor. At
that time Auckland was the seat of Government, which has since
been moved to Wellington. In 1852, before the expiration of
the period over which the provisional charter granted in 1847
was to extend, the Imperial Parliament granted a new
constitution to New Zealand (15 & 16 Vic. cap. 72), and in the
following year it came into force and is still [1886]
operative. The Legislature, under this Constitution, consists
of a Governor, a Legislative Council, composed of life members
nominated by the Crown, and a House of Representatives elected
by the people, under a franchise which practically amounts to
household suffrage."
Her Majesty's Colonies
(Colonial and Ind. Exhibition, 1886),
pages 245-248.
ALSO IN:
G. W. Rusden,
History of New Zealand,
volume 1.
G. Tregarthen,
Story of Australasia.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1853-1883.
Land questions with the Natives.
The King movement.
The Maori War.
"In the course of years, as it was evident to the natives that
the Europeans were the coming power in the land, suspicion and
distrust were excited, and at last the tocsin sounded. … It
was considered that a head was needed to initiate a form of
Government among the tribes to resist the encroachments daily
made by the Europeans, and which seemed to threaten the
national extinction of the native race. The first to endeavour
to bring about a new order of things was a native chief named
Matene Te Whiwi, of Otaki.
{2352}
In 1853 he marched to Taupo and Rotorua, accompanied by a
number of followers, to obtain the consent of the different
tribes to the election of a king over the central parts of the
island, which were still exclusively Maori territory, and to
organize a form of government to protect the interests of the
native race. Matene … met with little success. … The
agitation, however, did not stop, the fire once kindled
rapidly spread, ardent followers of the new idea sprang up,
and their numbers soon increased, until finally, in 1854, a
tribal gathering was convened at Manawapou. … After many
points had been discussed, a resolution was come to among the
assembled tribes that no more land should be sold to
Europeans. A solemn league was entered into by an present for
the preservation of the native territory, and a tomahawk was
passed round as a pledge that all would agree to put the
individual to death who should break it. In 1854 another bold
stand was made, and Te Heuheu, who exercised a powerful sway
over the tribes of the interior, summoned a native council at
Taupo, when the King movement began in earnest. It was there
decided that the sacred mountain of Tongariro should be the
centre of a district in which no land was to be sold to the
government, and that the districts of Hauraki, Waikato,
Kawhia, Mokau, Taranaki, Whanganui, Rangitikei, and Titiokura,
should form the outlying portions of the boundary; that no
roads should be made by the Europeans within the area, and
that a king should be elected to reign over the Maoris. In
1857 Kingite meetings were held, … at which it was agreed
that Potatau Te Wherowhero, the most powerful chief of
Waikato, should be elected king, under the title of Potatau
the First, and finally, in June, 1858, his flag was formally
hoisted at Ngaruawahia. Potatau, who was far advanced in life
when raised to this high office, soon departed from the scene,
and was succeeded by his son Matutaera Te Wherowhero, under
the title of Potatau the Second. The events of the New Zealand
war need not here be recited, but it may be easily imagined
that during the continuance of the fighting the extensive area
of country ruled over by the Maori monarch was kept clear of
Europeans. But in 1863 and 1864 General Cameron, at the head
of about 20,000 troops, composed of Imperial and Colonial
forces, invaded the Waikato district, and drove the natives
southward and westward, till his advanced corps were at
Alexandra and Cambridge. Then followed the Waikato
confiscation of Maori lands and the military settlements. The
King territory was further broken into by the confiscations at
Taranaki and the East Coast. … Since the termination of the
lamentable war between the two races, the King natives have,
on all occasions, jealously preserved their hostile spirit to
Europeans. … The New Zealand war concluded, or rather died
out, in 1865, when the confiscated line was drawn, the
military settlements formed, and the King natives isolated
themselves from the Europeans. For ten years it may be said
that no attempt was mane to negotiate with them. They were not
in a humour to be dealt with. About 1874 and 1875, however, it
became evident that something would have to be done. The
colony had greatly advanced in population, and a system of
public works had been inaugurated, which made it intolerable
that large centres of population should be cut off from each
other by vast spaces of country which Europeans were not
allowed even to traverse." Then began a series of
negotiations, which, up to 1883, had borne no fruit.
J. H. Kerry-Nicholls,
The King Country, introduction.
ALSO IN:
G. W. Rusden,
History of New Zealand.
Colonel Sir J. E. Alexander,
Incidents of the Maori War.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1887-1893.
Maori representation.
Women Suffrage.
An act passed in 1887 created four districts in each of which
the Maoris elect a member of the House of Representatives.
Every adult Maori has a vote in this election. By an act
passed in 1893 the elective franchise was extended to women.
----------NEW ZEALAND: End----------
NEWAB-WUZEER,
OR NAWAB-VIZIER, of Oude.
See OUDE; also NABOB.
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY:
The founding of the city by migration
from New Haven (1666-1667).
See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.
NEWBERN, North Carolina: Capture by the national forces.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862
(JANUARY-APRIL: NORTH CAROLINA).
NEWBURGH, Washington's headquarters at.
"At the close of 1780, the army was cantoned at three points:
at Morristown and at Pompton, in New Jersey, and at
Phillipstown, in the Hudson Highlands. Washington established
his head-quarters at New Windsor in December, 1780, where he
remained until June, 1781, when the French, who had quartered
during the winter at Newport and Lebanon, formed a junction
with the Americans on the Hudson. In April, 1782, he
established his head-quarters at Newburgh, two miles above the
village of New Windsor, where he continued most of the time
until November, 1783, when the Continental army was
disbanded."
B. J. Lossing,
Field-book of the Revolution,
volume 1, page 671.
NEWBURGH ADDRESSES, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782-1783.
NEWBURN, Battles of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1640.
NEWBURY, First Battles of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
NEWBURY, Second Battle.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, Origin of.
See PONS ÆLII.
NEWCOMEN, and the invention of the steam engine.
See STEAM ENGINE: THE BEGINNINGS.
----------NEWFOUNDLAND: Start--------
NEWFOUNDLAND:
Aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: BEOTHUKAN FAMILY.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1000.
Supposed identity with the Helluland of Norse Sagas.
See AMERICA: 10-11TH CENTURIES.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1498.
Discovery by Sebastian Cabot.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1498.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1500.
Visited by Cortereal, the Portuguese explorer.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1500.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
The Portuguese, Norman, Breton and Basque fisheries.
"It is a very curious circumstance, that the country in which
the Cabots started their idea for a navigation to the
north-west, and in which they at first proclaimed their
discovery of the rich fishing-banks near their
New-found-Isles, did not at once profit by it so much as their
neighbors, the French and the Portuguese. …
{2353}
During the first half of the 16th century we hear little of
English fishing and commercial expeditions to the great banks;
although they had a branch of commerce and fishery with
Iceland. … 'It was not until the year 1548 that the English
government passed the first act for the encouragement of the
fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland, after which they
became active competitors in this profitable occupation.'" In
Portugal, Cortereal's discovery had revealed "the wealth to be
derived from the fish, particularly cod-fish, which abounded
on that coast. The fishermen of Portugal and of the Western
Islands, when this news was spread among them, made
preparations for profiting by it, and soon extended their
fishing excursions to the other side of the ocean. According
to the statement of a Portuguese author, very soon after the
discoveries by the Cortereals, a Portuguese Fishing Company
was formed in the harbors of Vianna, Aveiro and Terceira, for
the purpose of colonizing Newfoundland and making
establishments upon it. Nay, already, in 1506, three years
after the return of the last searching expedition for the
Cortereals, Emanuel gave order, 'that the fishermen of
Portugal, at their return from Newfoundland, should pay a
tenth part of their profits at his custom-houses.' It is
certain, therefore, that the Portuguese fishermen must,
previous to that time, have been engaged in a profitable
business. And this is confirmed by the circumstance that they
originated the name of 'tierra de Bacalhas' [or Bacalhao] (the
Stockfish-country) and gave currency to it; though the word,
like the cod-fishery itself, appears to be of Germanic origin.
…. The nations who followed them in the fishing business
imitated their example, and adopted the name 'country of the
Bacalhas' (or, in the Spanish form, Baccallaos), though
sometimes interchanging it with names of their own invention,
as the 'Newfoundland: 'Terre neuve,' etc. … They [the
Portuguese] continued their expeditions to Newfoundland and
its neighborhood for a long time. They were often seen there
by later English and other visitors during the course of the
16th century; for instance, according to Herrera, in 1519;
again by the English in 1527; and again by Sir Humphrey
Gilbert in 1583. … The Portuguese engaged in this fishery as
early as 1501, according to good authorities, and perhaps
under the charter of Henry VII. In 1578, they had 50 ships
employed in that trade, and England as many more, and France
150. … The inhabitants of the little harbors of Normandy and
Brittany, the great peninsulas of France, … were also among
the first who profited by the discoveries of the Cabots and
Cortereals, and who followed in the wake of the Portuguese
fishermen toward the north-west cod-fish country. … The
first voyages of the Bretons of St. Malo and the Normans of
Dieppe to Newfoundland, are said to have occurred as early as
1504. … They probably visited places of which the Portuguese
had not taken possession; and we therefore find them at the
south of Newfoundland, and especially at the island of Cape
Breton, to which they gave the name, still retained,—the
oldest French name on the American north-east coast. … The
Spaniards, and more particularly the mariners and fishermen of
Biscay, have pretended, like those of Brittany and Normandy,
that they and their ancestors, from time immemorial, had
sailed to Newfoundland; and, even before Columbus, had
established their fisheries there. But the Spanish historian
Navarette, in more modern times, does not sustain this
pretension of his countrymen. … We may come to the
conclusion that, if the fisheries of the Spanish Basques on
the Banks of Newfoundland and in the vicinity, did not begin
with the voyage of Gomez [in 1525], they received from it a
new impulse. … From this time, for more than a century, they
[the Basques] appeared in these waters every year with a large
fleet, and took their place upon the banks as equals by the
side of the Bretons, Normans, and Basques of France, until the
middle of the 17th century, when rival nations dispossessed
them of their privileges."
J. G. Kohl,
History of the Discovery of Maine
(Maine Historical Society Collections, series 2, volume 1),
chapters 6 and 8, with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
R. Brown,
History of Cape Breton,
chapters 1-2.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1534.
Visited by Jacques Cartier.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1583.
Formal possession taken for England by Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1583.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655.
Early English attempts at colonization.
The grants to Lord Baltimore and Sir David Kirke.
"For 27 years after the failure of the Gilbert expedition no
fresh attempt was made to establish a colony in the island.
During this interval fishermen of various nationalities
continued to frequent its shores. … The French were actively
engaged in the prosecution of the fisheries in the neighboring
seas. Their success in this direction strengthened their
desire to gain possession of Newfoundland. Hence it is that in
the history of the country France has always been an important
factor. Having from time to time held possession of various
points of the land, England's persistent rival in these
latitudes has given names to many towns, villages, creeks, and
harbors. To this day Newfoundland has not completely shaken
off French influence. … In 1610 another attempt was made to
plant a colony of Englishmen in Newfoundland. John Guy, a
merchant, and afterwards mayor of Bristol, published in 1609 a
pamphlet on the advantages which would result to England from
the establishment of a colony in the island. This publication
made such a deep impression on the public mind that a company
was formed to carry out the enterprise it suggested. The most
illustrious name on the roll was that of Lord Bacon. … The
importance of Newfoundland as a site for an English colony did
not escape the wide-ranging eye of Bacon. He pronounced its
fisheries 'more valuable than all the mines of Peru,' a
judgment which time has amply verified. … To this company
James I., by letters patent dated April, 1610, made a grant of
all the part of Newfoundland which lies between Cape Bonavista
in the north and Cape St. Mary. Mr. Guy was appointed
governor, and with a number of colonists he landed at Mosquito
Harbor, on the north side of Conception Bay, where he
proceeded to erect huts. … We have no authentic account of
the progress of this settlement, begun under such favourable
auspices, but it proved unsuccessful from some unexplained
cause. Guy and a number of the settlers returned to England,
the rest remaining to settle elsewhere in the New World.
{2354}
Five years afterwards, in 1615, Captain Richard Whitbourne,
mariner, of Exmouth, Devonshire, received a commission from
the Admiralty of England to proceed to Newfoundland for the
purpose of establishing order among the fishing population and
remedying certain abuses which had grown up. … It was shown
that there were upwards of 250 English vessels, having a
tonnage of 1,500 tons, engaged in the fisheries along the
coast. Fixed habitations extended at intervals along the shore
from St. John's to Cape Race. … Having done what he could
during the active part of his life to promote its interests,
on his return to England, in his advanced years, he
[Whitbourne] wrote an account of the country, entitled 'A
Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland.' … His book made a
great impression at the time. … So highly did King James
think of the volume that he ordered a copy to be sent to every
parish in the kingdom. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York
issued a letter recommending it, with the view of encouraging
emigration to Newfoundland. … A year after the departure of
Whitbourne, in 1623, by far the most skilfully-organized
effort to carry out the settlement of Newfoundland was made,
under the guidance of Sir George Calvert, afterwards Lord
Baltimore. … When Secretary of State he obtained a patent
conveying to him the lordship of the whole southern peninsula
of Newfoundland, together with all the islands lying within
ten leagues of the eastern shores, as well as the right of
fishing in the surrounding waters, all English subjects
having, as before, free liberty of fishing. Being a Roman
Catholic, Lord Baltimore had in view to provide an asylum for
his co-religionists who were sufferers from the intolerant
spirit of the times. The immense tract thus granted to him
extended from Trinity Bay to Placentia, and was named by him
Avalon, from the ancient name of Glastonbury, where, it is

believed, Christianity was first preached in Britain. … Lord
Baltimore called his Newfoundland province Avalon and his
first settlement Verulam. The latter name, in course of time,
became corrupted into Ferulam, and then into the modern
Ferryland. At this spot, on the eastern coast of Newfoundland,
about 40 miles north of Cape Race, Lord Baltimore planted his
colony, and built a noble mansion, in which he resided with
his family during many years." But after expending some
£30,000 upon the establishment of his colony, Lord Baltimore
abandoned it, on account of the poor quality of the soil and
its exposure to the attacks of the French. Not long afterwards
he obtained his Maryland grant [see MARYLAND: A. D. 1632] and
resumed the enterprise under more favorable conditions. "Soon
after the departure of Lord Baltimore, Viscount Falkland,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, hoping to permanently increase the
scanty population of Newfoundland, sent out a number of
emigrants from that country. At a later date, these were so
largely reinforced by settlers from Ireland that the Celtic
part of the population at this day is not far short of
equality in numbers with the Saxon portion. In 1638, Sir David
Kirke, one of Britain's bravest sea-captains, arrived in
Newfoundland and took up his abode at Ferryland, where Lord
Baltimore had lived. Sir David was armed with the powers of a
Count Palatine over the island, having obtained from Charles
I. a grant of the whole." This was by way of reward for his
exploit in taking Quebec
See CANADA: A. D. 1628-1635.
Kirke "governed wisely and used every effort to promote the
colonization of the country. His settlement prospered greatly.
The Civil War, however, broke out in England, and, Kirke being
a staunch loyalist, all his possessions in Newfoundland were
confiscated by the victorious Commonwealth. By the aid of
Claypole, Cromwell's son-in-law, Kirke eventually got the
sequestration removed, and, returning to Ferryland, died there
in 1655, at the age of 56. At this time Newfoundland contained
a population of 350 families, or nearly 2,000 inhabitants,
distributed in 15 small settlements along the eastern coast."
J. Hatton and M. Harvey,
Newfoundland,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
H. Kirke,
The First English Conquest of Canada,
chapters 3-4.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.
The French gain their footing.
"With the possession of Cape Breton, Acadia, and the vast
regions stretching from the gulf of the River St. Lawrence,
and the mighty lakes, Newfoundland obtained a new value in the
estimation of the government of France, as it formed one side
of the narrow entrance to its transatlantic dependencies:
consequently the pursuit of the fishery by its seamen was
encouraged, and every opportunity was improved to gain a
footing in the country itself. This encroaching tendency could
not, however, be manifested without a protest on the part of
the somewhat sluggish English, both by private individuals and
by the government. Charles I. … imposed a tribute of five
per cent. on the produce taken by foreigners in this fishery,
to which exaction the French, as well as others, were forced
to submit. During the distracted time of the Commonwealth, it
does not appear that the struggling government at home found
leisure to attend to these distant affairs, though the tribute
continued to be levied. The Restoration brought to England a
sovereign who owed much to the monarch of France, to whom he
was therefore attached by the ties of gratitude, and by the
desire to find a counterpoise to the refractory disposition of
which he was in continual apprehension among his own subjects.
It was not until 1675 that Louis XIV. prevailed on Charles to
give up the duty of five per cent., and by that time the
French had obtained a solid footing on the southern coast of
Newfoundland, so that, with Cape Breton in their possession,
they commanded both sides of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Over a
territory of some 200 miles in extent, belonging to the
British sovereignty, they had built up imperceptibly an almost
undisputed dominion. At Placentia, situated in the bay of that
name, a strong fort was erected, sustained by other forts
standing at intervals along the shore, and at the same place a
royal government was established. How real was the authority
assumed, and how completely was the English sovereignty
ignored, needs no better proof than is furnished in an
ordinance issued by Louis in the year 1681, concerning the
marine of France. In this state paper, Newfoundland is
reckoned as situate in those seas which are free and common to
all French subjects, provided that they take a license from
the admiral for every voyage. …
{2355}
Thus that period which is regarded as among the most
humiliating in the annals of our nation,—when the king was a
pensioner of France, and his ministers received bribes from
the same quarter, witnessed the partial sliding under this
alien power of the most ancient of the colonial possessions of
the Crown. Not less than half of the inhabited coast of
Newfoundland was thus taken under that despotic rule, which,
while swaying the councils of England to the furtherance of
its ambitious designs, was labouring for the subjugation of
the European continent. The revolution of 1688 broke the spell
of this encroaching autocracy."
C. Pedley,
History of Newfoundland,
chapter 2.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694-1697.
French success in the war with England.
The Treaty of Ryswick and its unsatisfactory terms.
"On the accession of William III. to the throne of England
hostilities broke out between the rival nations. In William's
declaration of war against the French, Newfoundland holds a
prominent place among the alleged causes which led to the
rupture of pacific relations. The grievance was tersely set
forth in the royal manifesto: 'It was not long since the
French took license from the Governor of Newfoundland to fish
upon that coast, and paid a tribute for such licenses as an
acknowledgement of the sole right of the Crown of England to
that island; but of late the encroachments of the French, and
His Majesty's subjects trading and fishing there, had been
more like the invasions of an enemy than becoming friends, who
enjoyed the advantages of that trade only by permission.'
Newfoundland now became the scene of military skirmishes,
naval battles, and sieges by land and water." In 1692 the
English made an unsuccessful attack on Placentia. In 1694, a
French fleet, under the Chevalier Nesmond, intended for an
attack upon Boston and New York, stopped at Newfoundland on
the way and made a descent on the harbor and town of St.
John's. Nesmond "was repulsed, and instead of going on to
Boston he returned to France. A more determined effort at
conquest was made later in the same year. The new expedition
was under the command of Iberville and Brouillan, the former
being at the head of a Canadian force. The garrison of St.
John's was weak in numbers, and, in want of military stores,
could only make a feeble resistance; capitulating on easy
terms, the troops were shipped to England. The fort and town
were burned to the ground, and the victors next proceeded to
destroy all the other adjacent English settlements; Carbonear
and Bonavista alone proved too strong for them. The English
Government at once commenced dispositions for dislodging the
invaders; but before anything was attempted the treaty of
Ryswick was signed, in 1697. This treaty proved most
unfortunate for Newfoundland. It revived in the island the
same state of division between France and England which had
existed at the beginning of the war. The enemy retired from
St. John's and the other settlements which they had forcibly
occupied. Their claims upon Placentia and all the other
positions on the south-west coast were, however, confirmed.
The British inhabitants of Newfoundland were, therefore, once
more left open to French attacks, should hostilities be again
renewed between the rival powers."
J. Hatton and M. Harvey,
Newfoundland,
part 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. Parkman,
Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.,
chapter 18.
W. Kingsford,
History of Canada,
book 4, chapter 7 (volume 2).
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1705.
English settlements destroyed by the French.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713.
Relinquished to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht.
French fishing rights reserved.
In the 12th and 13th articles of the Treaty signed at Utrecht,
April 11, 1713, which terminated the War of the Spanish
Succession (commonly known in American history as Queen Anne's
War) it was stipulated that "All Nova Scotia or Acadié, with
its ancient boundaries, as also the city of Port Royal, now
called Annapolis Royal, … the island of Newfoundland, with
the adjacent islands, … the town and fortress of Placentia,
and whatever other places in the island are in possession of
the French, shall from this time forward belong of right
wholly to Great Britain. … That the subjects of France
should be allowed to catch fish and dry them on that part of
the island of Newfoundland which stretches from Cape Bonavista
to the northern point of the island, and from thence down the
western side as far as Point Riché; but that no fortifications
or any buildings should be erected there, besides Stages made
of Boards, and Huts necessary and usual for drying fish. …
But the island of Cape Breton, as also all others, both in the
mouth of the river of St. Lawrence and in the gulf of the same
name, shall hereafter belong of Right to the King of France,
who shall have liberty to fortify any place or places there."
R. Brown,
History of the Island of Cape Breton,
letter 9.
ALSO IN:
J. Hatton and M. Harvey,
Newfoundland,
part 1, chapters 3-4;
and part 3, chapter 7.
See, also, UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1744.
Attack on Placentia by the French.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1748.
The islands of St. Pierre and Michelon ceded to France.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D: 1745-1748.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1763.
Ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris,
with rights of fishing reserved to France.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES;
also FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1763.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1778.
French fishery rights on the banks recognized
in the Franco-American Treaty.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1778 (FEBRUARY).
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1783.
American fishing rights conceded in the
Treaty of Peace with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1818.
Fisheries Treaty between Great Britain and the United States.
See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1814-1818.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1854-1866.
Reciprocity Treaty with the United States.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION
(UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1871.
The Treaty of Washington.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1871.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1877.
The Halifax Fishery award.
Termination of the Fishery Articles of the Treaty of Washington.
Renewed fishery disputes.
See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1877-1888.
----------NEWFOUNDLAND: End----------
NEWNHAM HALL.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1865-1883.
NEWPORT, England, The Treaty at.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER),
and (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
{2356}
----------NEWPORT, Rhode Island: Start--------
NEWPORT, Rhode Island: A. D. 1524.
Visited by Verrazano.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1523-1524.
NEWPORT, Rhode Island: A. D. 1639.
The first settlement.
See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.
NEWPORT, Rhode Island: A. D. 1778.
Held by the British.
Failure of French-American attack.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1778 (JULY-NOVEMBER).
----------NEWPORT, Rhode Island: End--------
NEWSPAPERS.
See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1612-1650, and after.
NEWTON BUTLER, Battle of (1689).
See IRELAND: A. D. 1688-1689.
NEWTONIA, Battles of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS);
and 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).
NEY, Marshal, Campaigns and execution of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER),
1806-1807, 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE);
SPAIN: A. D. 1809;
RUSSIA: A. D. 1812;
GERMANY: A. D. 1813;
FRANCE: A. D. 1815, and 1815-1830.
NEZ PERCÉS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: NEZ PERCÉS.
----------NIAGARA: Start--------
NIAGARA:
The name and its original applications.
"Colden wrote it [the name] 'O-ni-ag-a-ra,' in 1741, and he
must have received it from the Mohawks or Oneidas. It was the
name of a Seneca village at the mouth of the Niagara river;
located as early as 1650, near the site of Youngstown. It was
also the place where the Marquis de Nonville constructed a
fort in 1687, the building of which brought this locality
under the particular notice of the English. The name of this
Indian village in the dialect of the Senecas was 'Ne-ah'-gä,'
in Tuscarora 'O-ne-ä'-kars,' in Onondaga 'O-ne-ah'-gä,' in
Oneida 'O-ne-ah'-gäle,' and in Mohawk 'O-ne-a'-gä-rä.' These
names are but the same word under dialectical changes. It is
clear that Niagara was derived from some one of them, and thus
came direct from the Iroquois language. The signification of
the word is lost, unless it is derived, as some of the present
Iroquois suppose, from the word which signifies 'neck,' in
Seneca 'O-ne-ah'-ä,' in Onondaga 'O-ne-yä'-ä' and in Oneida
'O-ne-arle.' The name of this Indian village was bestowed by
the Iroquois upon Youngstown; upon the river Niagara, from the
falls to the Lake; and upon Lake Ontario."
L. H. Morgan,
League of the Iroquois,
book 3, chapter 3.
"It [the name Niagara] is the oldest of all the local
geographical terms which have come down to us from the
aborigines. It was not at first thus written by the English,
for with them it passed through almost every possible
alphabetical variation before its present orthography was
established. We find its germ in the 'On-gui-aah-ra' of the
Neutral Nation, as given by Father L'Allemant in a letter
dated in 1641, at the mission station of Sainte Marie, on Lake
Huron. … The name of the river next occurs on Sanson's map
of Canada, published in Paris in 1656, where it is spelled
'Ongiara.' Its first appearance as Niagara is on Coronelli's
map, published in Paris in 1688. From that time to the
present, the French have been consistent in their orthography,
the numerous variations alluded to occurring only among
English writers. The word was probably derived from the
Mohawks, through whom the French had their first intercourse
with the Iroquois. The Mohawks pronounced it Nyah,-ga-rah',
with the primary accent on the first syllable; and the
secondary on the last. … The corresponding Seneca name,
Nyah'-gaah, was always confined by the Iroquois to the section
of the river below the Falls, and to Lake Ontario. That
portion of the river above the Falls being sometimes called
Gni-gwaah-geh, one of their names for Lake Erie."
O. H. Marshall,
The Niagara Frontier
(Historical Writings, page 283).
NIAGARA: A. D. 1687-1688.
Fort constructed by De Nonville and destroyed a year later.
"We arrived there [at Niagara] on the morning of the 30th [of
July, 1687]. We immediately set about choosing a place, and
collecting stakes for the construction of the Fort which I had
resolved to build at the extremity of a tongue of land,
between the river Niagara and Lake Ontario, on the Iroquois
side. On the 31st of July and 1st of August we continued this
work, which was the more difficult from there being no wood on
the place suitable for making palisades, and from its being
necessary to draw them up the height. We performed this labor
so diligently that the fort was in a state of defence on the
last mentioned day. … The 2d day of August, the militia
having performed their allotted task, and the fort being in a
condition of defence in case of assault, they set out at noon,
in order to reach the end of the lake on their return to their
own country. On the morning of the 3d, being the next day, I
embarked for the purpose of joining the militia, leaving the
regular troops under the direction of M. de Vaudreuil to
finish what was the most essential, and to render the fort not
only capable of defence, but also of being occupied by a
detachment of 100 soldiers, which are to winter there under
the command of M. Troyes."
Marquis de Nonville,
Journal of Expedition against the Senecas
(translated in Historical Writings of O. H. Marshall, p. 173).
"De Nonville's journal removes the doubt which has been
entertained as to the location of this fortress, some having
supposed it to have been first built at Lewiston. … It
occupied the site of the present fort on the angle formed by
the junction of the Niagara with Lake Ontario. … De Nonville
left De Troyes with provisions and munitions for eight months.
A sickness soon after broke out in the garrison, by which they
nearly all perished, including their commander. … They were
so closely besieged by the Iroquois that they were unable to
supply themselves with fresh provisions. The fortress was soon
after abandoned and destroyed [1688], much to the regret of De
Nonville."
Marquis de Nonville,
Journal of Expedition against the Senecas
(translated in Historical Writings of O. H. Marshall, p. 173).
Foot-notes
ALSO IN:
F. Parkman,
Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.,
pages 155 and 166.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1725-1726.
The stone fort built.
How the French gained their footing.
Joncaire's wigwam.
Captain Joncaire "had been taken prisoner when quite young by
the Iroquois, and adopted into one of their tribes. This was
the making of his fortune. He had grown up among them,
acquired their language, adapted himself to their habits, and
was considered by them as one of themselves. On returning to
civilized life he became a prime instrument in the hands of
the Canadian government, for managing and cajoling the
Indians. … When the French wanted to get a commanding site
for a post on the Iroquois lands, near Niagara, Joncaire was
the man to manage it.
{2357}
He craved a situation where he might put up a wigwam, and
dwell among his Iroquois brethren. It was granted, of course,
'for was he not a son of the tribe—was he not one of
themselves?' By degrees his wigwam grew into an important
trading post; ultimately it became Fort Niagara."
W. Irving,
Life of Washington,
volume 1, chapter 5.
"In 1725 the Fort of Niagara was commenced by Chaussegross de
Léry, on the spot where the wooden structure of de Denonville
formerly stood; it was built of stone and completed in 1726."
W. Kingsford,
History of Canada,
volume 2, page 516.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1755.
Abortive expedition against the fort, by the English.
See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
NIAGARA: A. D. 1756.
The fort rebuilt by Pouchot.
See CANADA: A. D. 1756.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1759.
The fort taken by the English.
See CANADA: A. D. 1759 (JULY-AUGUST).
NIAGARA: A. D. 1763.
The ambuscade and massacre at Devil's Hole.
See DEVIL'S HOLE.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1764.
Sir William Johnson's treaty with the Indians.
Cession of the Four Mile Strip' along both banks of the river.
See PONTIAC'S WAR.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1783.
Retention of the Fort by Great Britain
after peace with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784-1788.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1796.
Surrender of the fort by Great Britain.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795.
NIAGARA: A. D. 1813.
Surprise and capture of the fort by the British.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1813 (DECEMBER).
----------NIAGARA: End--------
NIAGARA, OR LUNDY'S LANE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
NIAGARA FRONTIER: A. D. 1812-1814.
The War.
Queenstown.
Buffalo.
Chippewa.
Lundy's Lane.
Fort Erie.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER);
1813 (DECEMBER);
1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
NIAGARA PEACE MISSION, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY).
NIAGARA RIVER, Navigated by La Salle (1679).
See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.
NIBELUNGEN LIED, The.
"Of the bequests made to us of the [German] Popular Poetry of
the time of the Hohenstauffen, by far the most important, in
fact the most important literary memorial of any kind, is the
epic of between nine and ten thousand lines known as the
Nibelungen Lied. The manuscripts which have preserved for us
the poem come from about the year 1200. For full a thousand
years before that, however, many of the lays from which it was
composed had been in existence; some indeed proceed from a
still remoter antiquity, sung by primitive minstrels when the
Germans were at their wildest, untouched by Christianity or
civilization. These lays had been handed down orally, until at
length a poet of genius elaborated them and intrusted them to
parchment."
J. K. Hosmer,
Short History of German Literature,
part 1, chapter 1.
"In the year 1757, the Swiss Professor Bodmer printed an
ancient poetical manuscript, under the title of Chriemhilden
Rache und die Kluge (Chriemhilde's Revenge, and the Lament);
which may be considered as the first of a series, or stream of
publications and speculations still rolling on, with increased
current, to the present day. … Some fifteen years after
Bodmer's publication, which, for the rest, is not celebrated
as an editorial feat, one C. H. Müller undertook a Collection
of German Poems from the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Centuries; wherein, among other articles, he reprinted
Bodmer's Chriemhilde and Klage, with a highly remarkable
addition prefixed to the former, essential indeed to the right
understanding of it; and the whole now stood before the world
as one Poem, under the name of the Nibelungen Lied, or Lay of
the Nibelungen. It has since been ascertained that the Klage
is a foreign inferior appendage; at best related only as
epilogue to the main work: meanwhile out of this Nibelungen,
such as it was, there soon proceeded new inquiries and kindred
enterprises. For much as the Poem, in the shape it here bore,
was defaced and marred, it failed not to attract observation:
to all open-minded lovers of poetry, especially where a strong
patriotic feeling existed, the singular antique Nibelungen was
an interesting appearance. Johannes Müller, in his famous
Swiss History, spoke of it in warm terms: subsequently, August
Wilhelm Schlegel, through the medium of the Deutsche Museum,
succeeded in awakening something like a universal popular
feeling on the subject; and, as a natural consequence, a whole
host of Editors and Critics, of deep and of shallow endeavour,
whose labours we yet see in progress. The Nibelungen has now
been investigated, translated, collated, commented upon, with
more or less result, to almost boundless lengths. … Apart
from its antiquarian value, and not only as by far the finest
monument of old German art; but intrinsically, and as a mere
detached composition, this Nibelungen has an excellence that
cannot but surprise us. With little preparation, any reader of
poetry, even in these days, might find it interesting. It is
not without a certain Unity of interest and purport, an
internal coherence and completeness; it is a Whole, and some
spirit of Music informs it: these are the highest
characteristics of a true Poem. Considering farther what
intellectual environment we now find it in, it is doubly to be
prized and wondered at; for it differs from those Hero-books,
as molten or carved metal does from rude agglomerated ore;
almost as some Shakspeare from his fellow Dramatist, whose
Tamburlaines and Island Princesses, themselves not destitute
of merit, first show us clearly in what pure loftiness and
loneliness the Hamlets and Tempests reign. The unknown Singer
of the Nibelungen, though no Shakspeare, must have had a deep
poetic soul; wherein things discontinuous and inanimate shaped
themselves together into life, and the Universe with its
wondrous purport stood significantly imaged; overarching, as
with heavenly firmaments and eternal harmonies, the little
scene where men strut and fret their hour, His Poem, unlike so
many old and new pretenders to that name, has a basis and
organic structure, a beginning, middle and end; there is one
great principle and idea set forth in it, round which all its
multifarious parts combine in living union. … With an
instinctive art, far different from acquired artifice, this
Poet of the Nibelungen, working in the same province with his
contemporaries of the Heldenbuch [Hero-book] on the same
material of tradition, has, in a wonderful degree, possessed
himself of what these could only strive after; and with his
'clear feeling of fictitious truth,' avoid as false the errors
and monstrous perplexities in which they vainly struggled.
{2358}
He is of another species than they; in language, in purity and
depth of feeling, in fineness of invention, stands quite apart
from them.' The language of the Heldenbuch … was a feeble
half-articulate child's-speech, the metre nothing better than
a miserable doggerel; whereas here in the old Frankish
(Oberdeutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen, we have a clear
decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse not without
essential regularity, great liveliness, and now and then even
harmony of rhythm. … No less striking than the verse and
language is the quality of the invention manifested here. Of
the Fable, or narrative material of the Nibelungen we should
say that it had high, almost the highest merit; so daintily
yet firmly is it put together; with such felicitous selection
of the beautiful, the essential, and no less felicitous
rejection of whatever was unbeautiful or even extraneous. The
reader is no longer afflicted with that chaotic brood of
Fire-drakes, Giants, and malicious turbaned Turks, so fatally
rife in the Heldenbuch: all this is swept away, or only hovers
in faint shadows afar off; and free field is open for
legitimate perennial interests. Yet neither is the Nibelungen
without its wonders; for it is poetry and not prose; here too,
a supernatural world encompasses the natural, and, though at
rare intervals and in calm manner, reveals itself there. …
The whole story of the Nibelungen is fateful, mysterious,
guided on by unseen influences; yet the actual marvels are
few, and done in the far distance; those Dwarfs, and Cloaks of
Darkness, and charmed Treasure-caves, are heard of rather than
beheld, the tidings of them seem to issue from unknown space.
Vain were it to inquire where that Nibelungen-land specially
is: its very name is Nebel-land or Nift-land, the land of
Darkness, of Invisibility. The 'Nibelungen Heroes' that muster
in thousands and tens of thousands, though they march to the
Rhine or Danube, and we see their strong limbs and shining
armour, we could almost fancy to be children of the air."
T. Carlyle,
The Nibelungen Lied
(Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 3).
"The traditions of German heroic poetry extend over more than
300 years, and are drawn from various German tribes. King
Ostrogotha reigned over the Goths about the year 250, and was
the contemporary of the emperors Philip and Decius. Ermanaric
governed the Ostrogoths about 100 years later, and was a very
warlike king, ruling over a large extent of territory. The
invasion of the Huns drove him to despair, and he fell by his
own hand before the year 374. Soon after the year 400 the
Burgundians founded a mighty empire in the most fertile part
of the Upper Rhine, where Cæsar had already fought with the
Germans, near Spiers, Worms, and Mayence. The Roman Aëtius,
who ruled Gaul with the aid of his Hun allies, defeated the
Burgundians by means of these barbarians in a terrible battle
about the year 437; 20,000 men fell, amongst them their king
Gundicarius (Gunther). The Burgundians seemed to be
annihilated, and soon after retreated to Savoy. About the same
time Attila was king of the Huns and Ostrogoths to the terror
of the world. His name is Gothic, the arrangements of his
court were Gothic, and he reckoned among his knights
Theodomer; the king of the Ostrogoths. The West had just
learnt all the terror of this 'Scourge of God,' when news came
of his sudden death (453), and in the following year his
followers succumbed to the attacks of the Germans (454).
Twenty-two years later, Odoacer deposed the last shadow of a
Roman emperor; and again, twelve years later, Theodoric led
the Ostrogoths into Italy and Odoacer fell by his hand. About
the same period the Merovingian Clovis founded the kingdom of
the Franks; about the year 530 his sons destroyed the
Thuringian empire; and his grandson Theodebert extended his
kingdom so far, that, starting from Hungary, he planned an
attack on the Byzantine emperor. The Merovingians also offered
a successful resistance to the Vikings, who were the terror of
the North Sea, and who appeared even at the mouths of the
Rhine. From another quarter the Longobards in little more than
a century reached Italy, having started from Lüneburg, in the
neighbourhood of Brunswick, and their King Alboin took
possession of the crown of Italy in 568. These wonderful
transferences of power, and this rapid founding of new
empires, furnished the historical background of the German
hero-legends. The fact that the movement was originally
against Rome was forgotten; the migration was treated as a
mere incident in the internal history of the German nation.
There is no trace of chronology. … Legend adheres to the
fact of the enmity between Odoacer and Theodoric, but it
really confuses Theodoric with his father Theodomer,
transplants him accordingly to Attila's court, and supposes
that he was an exile there in hiding from the wrath of
Odoacer. Attila becomes the representative of everything
connected with the Huns. He is regarded as Ermanaric's and
Gunther's enemy, and as having destroyed the Burgundians.
These again are confused with a mythical race, the Nibelungen,
Siegfried's enemies, and thus arose the great and complicated
scheme of the Nibelungen legend. … This Middle High-German
Epic is like an old church, in the building of which many
architects have successively taken part. … Karl Lachmann
attempted the work of restoring the Nibelungen lied and
analysing its various elements, and accomplished the task, not
indeed faultlessly, yet on the whole correctly. He has pointed
out later interpolations, which hide the original sequence of
the story, and has divided the narrative which remains after
the removal of these accretions into twenty songs, some of
which are connected, while others embody isolated incidents of
the legend. Some of them, but certainly only a few, may be by
the same author. … We recognise in most of these songs such
differences in conception, treatment, and style, as point to
separate authorship. The whole may have been finished in about
twenty years, from 1190-1210. Lachmann's theory has indeed
been contested. Many students still believe that the poem, as
we have it, was the work of one hand; but on this hypothesis
no one has succeeded in explaining the strange contradictions
which pervade the work, parts of which show the highest art,
while the rest is valueless."
W. Scherer,
History of German Literature,
chapters 2 and 5 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
B. Taylor,
Studies in German Literature,
chapter 4.