“The vessel, now within ear-shot of the shore, hails the natives in a language they had never heard before; and they answer by a yell and a shout. The great canoe stops; a smaller canoe comes on shore, bearing a man clothed in red, who had been observed standing on the great canoe; the chiefs and the wise men form a circle, and the red man and two attendants approach. He salutes them with a friendly countenance, and they return his salutation in the same manner. They are amazed at his appearance, and believe all the more that it is the Great Manitou, though the white skin is a sign which they had not expected.
“The servants of the supposed Manitou produced a large bottle, and a liquor was poured into a small glass, which the Manitou emptied, and which, on its being refilled, he handed to the chief nearest to him. The chief took it, smelt it, and passed it on to the next, who did the same; and so it went round the circle, and was about to be returned to the Great Manitou in red, when one of their great warriors, feeling it was a mark of disrespect, took the glass, saying to the Indians, that such conduct might provoke the stranger, who meant kindly by them, and that if no one else would, he would drink it himself, happen what might.
“He smelled again at the liquor, bade his friends adieu, and drank it off, all eyes being fixed on him. Scarcely had he swallowed it when he began to stagger; the women cried; he rolled on the ground, and all bemoaned him as dying; he fell asleep, and they would have thought him dead, but that they perceived him still to breathe. He awoke, jumped up, declared he never felt so happy before, asked for more, and the whole company now being eager to drink, drank, and all became drunk.
“In the meantime the white men went to their vessel, and the next day the man in red returned, and gave them beads, axes, hoes, and stockings. They were soon all very good friends. They conversed by signs, and the strangers made them understand, that the next year they would return, and bring them more presents, but, as they could not live without eating, they should then want a little land, on which to grow herbs for their broth.
“The next year they came back, and they were very glad to see each other; but the white men laughed when they saw the axes and hoes hanging, like ornaments, round their necks, and the stockings used as tobacco-pouches. The whites now put handles in the axes, and cut down trees before their eyes, and showed them the use of stockings. The strangers asked for land, and the Indians gave it, being amazed at the cunning manner in which they obtained more land than was expected. The white strangers and the red men lived contentedly together for a long time, but the former were constantly asking for more, and still more, land, which the Indians gave them. And in this way, they gradually advanced up the Mahicannittuck, or Hudson river, until they began to believe that they would want all their country, which proved true in the end.”
Hudson descended the glorious river which bears his name, and, on the 4th of October, set sail on his return to Europe. The report which he carried back of the land he had discovered, though of the most brilliant description, did not, as we have already said, immediately induce the Dutch either to found a settlement or to pursue the discovery. Hudson never returned to these beautiful shores, but the following year perished miserably, in the ice-bound seas of a higher latitude, as we have already related.
Although the country around the Hudson was claimed by the Dutch by right of Hudson’s discovery, still several years elapsed before they took formal possession; nevertheless, in 1610, a company of merchants of Amsterdam sent out a ship laden with merchandise, to trade with the natives, of whom Hudson had reported so favourably; and this first speculation proving lucrative, a regular traffic was established, and a few huts and trading-houses erected on Manhattan, the promontory on which New York stands. It was this early Dutch settlement which Captain Argall, the kidnapper of Pocahontas, compelled to acknowledge the authority of the English, when he returned from his piratical expedition against the French at Port Royal, and the Dutch, too weak to offer resistance, submitted, but hoisted again their flag as soon as he had disappeared.
Unlike the early colonists of New England, the first Dutch settlers kept no records of their movements, so that it is impossible to follow them with any accuracy. All that is known is, that in 1614, the States-General volunteered to any adventurous company four years’ monopoly of traffic with all newly-discovered lands; on which a number of merchants fitted out five ships for trade and exploration. The head of this expedition was Hendrik Christiaanse, who with three vessels went northward as far as Cape Cod, and the other two, commanded by Adrian Blok, advanced to New York Bay. Here his ship accidentally taking fire, he built a yacht, and sailing through East River, discovered the insular position of Long Island, giving his name to an island east of the Sound, which it still retains. Blok is supposed to have discovered the Housatonic and Connecticut rivers, and to have explored the Narragansett Bay, after which, meeting with Christiaanse, they returned to New York harbour, and in the autumn of the same year, probably, a small rude fort was erected on the southern point of Manhattan.
While Christiaanse and Blok were thus engaged, May steered southward, and exploring the Delaware Bay, conferred his own name on the southern cape of the present State of New Jersey. The following year Hendrikson ascended the Schuylkill in the yacht built by Blok; a small fort was built at Albany on the Hudson, and Jacob Elkins, formerly a merchant’s clerk, received from Christiaanse the appointment of commissary of these fortified trading establishments.
Colonisation was here a slow operation. The Dutch as yet appeared in America merely as traders, and even in 1620 the United Provinces had put forth no claim to territory. In 1617 a treaty was concluded between the Dutch and the Iroquois, in which, the Delawares and Mohegans were also parties. This was the treaty with the Five Nations, which was maintained with good faith for many years, and by opposing a barrier of friendly Indians between themselves and the French, prevented the encroachments of the latter.