The Mohawks, who were friendly to the Dutch, sent an ambassador to Manhattan to negotiate peace, and on the 30th of August, 1645, according to the custom of the Indians, the delegates of both parties met in the open air; and in front of New Amsterdam, the sachems of the various tribes of River Indians, the Mohegans, and those of Long Island, with the chiefs of the Five Nations as witnesses, and the director and council, and the whole population of New Netherlands standing round, signed a solemn treaty of peace; or, to use the figurative and beautiful language of the Indians, “there, in presence of the sun and the ocean, planted the tree of peace and buried the tomahawk beneath its shade.”
CHAPTER XIII.
NEW YORK; NEW SWEDEN.
The treaty with the Mohawks caused the utmost joy throughout the settlements of New Netherlands. In May 1646, the brave and good Peter Stuyvesant arrived as governor, and the same year Kieft sailed for Europe, he being expelled the colony as the author of so much misery, the West India company also resenting his barbarous measures. But the vengeance of Heaven seemed to follow him on the sea, as the execrations of the Dutch had followed him from land. The large and richly laden ship in which he embarked was wrecked on the coast of Wales, and he and eighty others perished in the remorseless waves.
Stuyvesant, a man of good education, as well as a truehearted, brave old soldier, who had lost a leg in the wars, introduced a much milder line of policy into the government of New Netherlands as regarded the natives. In comparison with the New England settlements, New Netherlands could not be said to have flourished, nor even had they, in a pecuniary point of view, with all their trading engagements, proved a lucrative speculation to the Dutch West India company; the truth was, they lacked that element of freedom, both politically and commercially, on which true prosperity is based. Manhattan did not flourish until its merchants “obtained freedom to follow out their own impulses.” The merchants of Amsterdam, at that time the first commercial city of the world, knew this when, addressing their brethren at Manhattan, they said, “when your commerce has become established, and your ships ride on every part of the ocean, throngs that look towards you with eager eyes will be allured to embark for your island.” But these words, though prophetic, as the historian remarks, of the future destiny of that port, were fated not to be fulfilled by the enterprise of Dutch merchants.
At the time of Stuyvesant’s assumption of office, the settlers in New Netherlands amounted but to about 6,000. A few huts were gathered round Fort Orange or Beaverswyk, as the present town of Albany was then called; Long Island was still almost wholly uncleared forest, and “the land there was of so little account, that Stuyvesant thought it no wrong to his employers to purchase of them, at a small price, an extensive bowery just beyond the coppices, among which browsed the goats and kine of the village.” Nor was New Amsterdam, the seat of government, anything more than a rude village of huts, protected by palisades, while the fort itself could scarcely be considered a place of defence.
A colony so feeble could hardly be expected to preserve its borders from the invasion of neighbours as vigorous and of as expansive a character as those of New England, more especially as the puritan colonists never scrupled to question the right of their weaker neighbours to any territory at all. One of the first duties which the new governor, therefore, undertook, was an adjustment of this disputed question of boundary. It was a very difficult one. Restricted from war by the West India company, he bent his efforts to negotiation; and going himself in person to Hartford, a treaty was concluded on the 11th of November, 1650, by which the Dutch relinquished their claim to Connecticut, and the New Englanders consented to their retaining possession of one-half of Long Island. Poor as these conditions appear for the Dutch, the West India company ratified the treaty, which the English never would do. Well might the Dutch say, “the New England people are too powerful for us.”
In 1651, war broke out between England and Holland. We have already seen the good sense of Massachusetts in refusing to take part in it against their Dutch neighbours; but we have not mentioned that Roger Williams, then in England, was the means of delaying an armament against New Netherlands. The Dutch, on their part, not expecting this magnanimity from their powerful neighbours, and aware of their own incapacity for the contest, endeavoured to purchase the aid of the Narragansetts in case of attack; but Mixam, one of the chiefs, replied nobly; “I am poor, but no presents of goods or of guns, or of powder and shot, shall draw me into a conspiracy against my friends the English.” Fortunately, as we have already related, peace was soon established between the two European states, and the fleet which Cromwell had sent out against New Netherlands directed its energies against another power.
But the New England colonists were not the only cause of anxiety to the governor of New Netherlands; on the banks of the Delaware, the colony of New Sweden was becoming an important rival in the tobacco trade with Virginia., and for the beaver of the Schuylkill. Stuyvesant, therefore, built Fort Casimir, near the mouth of the Brandywine River, as a protection of Dutch commerce in that quarter. This fort being only five miles from Fort Christiana, was regarded as an encroachment by the Dutch; and Rising, the Swedish governor, making use of an unworthy stratagem, overpowered the garrison and took possession. This was a fatal deed. Stuyvesant received orders from the Dutch West India company to make reprisals, and in September, 1655, sailed from New Amsterdam with a force of 600, and entering the Delaware, found his career of conquest so easy that it was almost inglorious. One fort after another yielded; it seemed incredible that these men were of the race who, with Gustavus at their head, had filled Europe with the renown of their arms. But so it was; Rising capitulated on honourable terms, and the whole Swedish colony—600 only in number, it must, however, be remembered—acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Dutch; and, as a separate state, New Sweden was at an end.
Of the colony thus absorbed—the colony that connects America with the age as well as with the noble mind of Gustavus Adolphus—we must say yet a few words, and these shall be from Fredrika Bremer, who, with natural patriotism, visited the site of this Swedish settlement, and saw the few relics which remain to this day. She says: “I was invited to meet at the house of the present minister, an American, all the descendants of the earliest Swedish settlers whom he knew. It was a company of from fifty to sixty; there was, however, nothing Swedish about them but their family names. No traditions of their emigration hither remain; language, appearance, all have entirely merged into that of the now prevailing Anglo-Saxon race. The church clock alone had something Swedish about it, something of the character of the peasant’s clock. In the church, also, was a large book placed upon a tall stand, on the page of which might be read in large letters, “The people who dwelt in darkness have seen a great light.” This inscription, together with the old church at Willington in Delaware, and a few family names, are all that remain of this early Swedish colony on the eastern shores of the New World. Yet no, not all. A noble, peaceful memory of its life continues to exist on the page of history, like a lovely episode of Idyllian purity and freshness. The pilgrims of New England stained its soil with blood by their injustice and cruelty to the Indians. The Swedish pilgrims, in their treatment of the natives, were so just and wise, that during the whole time of Swedish dominion, not one drop of Indian blood was shed by them; the Indians loved them and called them ‘our own people.’ ‘The Swedes are a God-fearing people,’ said William Penn; ‘they are industrious and contented, and much attached to the customs and manners of the mother-country. They live by agriculture, and the breeding of cattle; the women are good housewives, spin and weave, take care of their families, and bring up their children well.’” All historians agree that the Swedes who thus became amalgamated into the general population introduced into it a sound element of moral life, by which it has been improved.
The dominion of the Dutch seemed now firmly established in the New World; and the worth of such a colony began to be appreciated at home; its great extent—from New England to Maryland, from the sea to the great river of Canada and the remote north-western wilderness—was a subject of boast. Emigration to the banks of the Hudson was encouraged. Merchants now were beginning to be allured to Manhattan, and all presented an aspect of promise for the future. Stuyvesant, who, seeming to have a high idea of the prerogatives of governor, was inclined to rule with an arbitrary hand, was kept under control by the directors at home; who, when he took it upon himself to inspect the merchants’ books, checked him with the reproof that “it was an unprecedented act in Christendom, and that he must behave well to the merchants;” and when—himself a violent Calvinist—he inclined to persecute the Lutherans, and imitating Massachusetts, began to imprison and banish “the abominable sect of Quakers,” he received the injunction, “Let every peaceful citizen enjoy freedom of conscience; this maxim has made our city the asylum for fugitives from every land; tread in its steps, and you shall be blessed.”