And, treading in its steps, New Netherlands became the asylum and chosen home of the oppressed, the persecuted and the enterprising of every European nation. Jews and Christians all crowded over, all were united to help in building up the colony; and troops of orphans, made so by war and persecution, were shipped to the New World; and “a free passage was offered to mechanics, farmers and labourers, foreigners and exiles—men inured to toil and penury.” New York was even then laying its cosmopolitan foundations; “its settlers were relics of the first-fruits of the Reformation, from the Belgic provinces, from England, from France; Protestants who had escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s-eve, from Bohemia, from Germany and Switzerland, from Piedmont and the Italian Alps.”[[4]] Even Africa had her representatives in this home of all people, though her sons were not there by their own voluntary choice. Among the other commercial speculations of the West India company was the traffic in slaves; they had their trading stations on the coast of Guinea, whence cargoes of negroes were shipped to Manhattan. Stuyvesant was required by his employers to advance the sale of negro slaves as much as lay in his power; these slaves were sold at public auctions, the average price being about £12 per man. When the demand was not great at Manhattan, they were sent on to the puritan colonies. Slaves who continued the property of the company were, after a certain time of bondage, settled on small farms, for which they paid a stipulated amount of produce.
“The colony increased,” says Bancroft; “the villages were full of children; the new year and the month of May were welcomed in with merry frolics; New Netherlands was not an ascetic colony, like those of New England; May-poles and dancing were allowed; the vine and the mulberry were cultivated; the whale was pursued off the coast; flocks and herds multiplied, and the tile, so long imported from Holland, began to be manufactured near Fort Orange. New Amsterdam could, in a few years, boast of stately buildings, and vied with Boston. ‘This happily situated province,’ said its inhabitants, ‘may become the granary of our fatherland; by God’s blessing we shall in a few years become a mighty people.’”
With all these new elements of vitality, a bolder and freer spirit had entered the colony. The people demanded a share of political power. They were infected by the liberties of New England, and nothing less would satisfy them. They assembled, and a petition, drawn up by George Baxter, was presented by their delegates, requiring “that no laws should be enacted without the consent of the people; that none should be appointed to office but with the approbation of the people.”
This was an unheard-of measure; Stuyvesant was indignant; he had no faith, he said, in the wavering multitude; and then he taunted them because a New England man had drawn up their petition. “If the people chose their own officers, he said, then the thief would vote for the thief, the smuggler for the smuggler, and fraud and vice would become privileged. No! he and the directors would never make themselves responsible to subjects.” The delegates attempted to reason, and the wilful old governor dissolved the assembly on pain of punishment.
The directors sanctioned the conduct of Stuyvesant. “Have no regard to the consent of the people,” wrote they to him; “let them no longer indulge the visionary dream that taxes can be imposed only by their consent.” But the people obstinately indulged such dreams, and refused to pay obnoxious taxes; and, even more than that, in the determination to enjoy English liberties, saw with no unwillingness the possibility of English jurisdiction extending even over New Netherlands.
A tempest was again brooding. Although the Dutch still kept possession of the country as far south as Cape Henlopen, yet their claims were disputed by Lord Baltimore, the proprietary of Maryland; and in 1659, that nobleman’s rights being established, Fendall, then governor, laid formal claim to Delaware; the College of Nineteen of the West India company firmly disavowed it; and Fendall, being equally determined, the directors declared their resolve to defend their rights, “even to the spilling of blood.” Nor was the aspect of affairs more pacific on the north. Massachusetts, as well as
New Netherlands, claimed the territory adjoining the upper waters of the Hudson, and thence westerly as far as she pleased; whilst Connecticut, which had just then obtained a charter, put forth her claim to territory which the Dutch had hitherto held unquestioned.
“Where, then,” demanded the Dutch, with reference to all these absorbing claims,—“where, then, is New Netherlands?” And the people of Connecticut, speaking as if for all, replied, “We do not know.”
A homely proverb may seem inconsistent with the gravity of history, but it may nevertheless be applicable on some occasions, as in the Dutch settlements at this juncture, when misfortune seemed not only to rain, but to pour. These contentions with regard to territory were carried on during a renewed Indian war, which laid waste a village on the banks of the Esopus, many of the inhabitants being murdered or carried into captivity. The approach of winter alone put a stop to these horrors; and that which added still more to the misery of the time, was the fact that New Netherlands stood alone: none of its more powerful and fortunate neighbours came to its rescue; it had no friends but the Mohawks, who said, “The Dutch are our brethren. We keep with them but one council fire; we are united by a covenant chain.” And not only were their neighbours unwilling to help them, but there was no patriotism, no public spirit, as yet within the heart of the state itself; New Netherlands could neither help herself, nor would the council at home advance either men or money for her defence. Alarmed and perplexed in this crisis, Stuyvesant was ready to concede those privileges to the people which he had hitherto refused. In 1663, a popular assembly was convened. In the spring of the following year it met again, but by that time new troubles were at hand. Rumours of an English invasion filled the colony; and the representatives, seeing the paucity of means of defence, contemplated very coolly the necessity of submission to this new enemy. “If you cannot defend us,” said they, addressing the governor, “to whom shall we turn?” And the governor, wishing to rouse a spirit of patriotism in their souls, proposed that “every third man should enlist for the defence of their adopted country, as had once been done in the Fatherland.” But the people would not adopt his proposal. In vain was a witty libeller of the magistrates fastened to a stake with a bridle in his mouth; people would talk rather than act. In the autumn of 1664, “Long Island had revolted, the settlements on the Esopus wavered, and the Connecticut men had possessed themselves by purchase from the Indians of the whole sea-coast as far as North River.” Stuyvesant wrote these alarming tidings to Holland.
Whilst England and Holland were yet at peace, three ships, with one hundred men, were despatched from England to take possession of New Netherlands in the name of the Duke of York, afterwards James II., to whom his brother, Charles II., disregarding all previous chartered claims, had granted a vast extent of territory, called New York, including the country between the St. Croix and the Pemaquid, and on the east the region between the Connecticut and the Delaware, with all the islands south and west of Cape Cod, completely swallowing up New Netherlands, and encroaching on Massachusetts and Connecticut. Under the conduct of Sir Richard Nichols, groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York, the English squadron, having first touched at Boston, where they demanded a levy of forces for their expedition, anchored before New Amsterdam, which was totally unprepared for defence. In vain Stuyvesant endeavoured to rouse a spirit of resistance in the inhabitants; the town was at the mercy of the English, and the people were prepared for nothing but surrender. It would have been madness to have striven against such odds. Winthrop, now governor of Connecticut, and a true friend of the Dutch, was on board the English fleet, and acted as mediator. Stuyvesant, almost heart-broken, pleaded that “a surrender would be reproved in the Fatherland;” and when the principal inhabitants, who had assembled in the town-hall, demanded to see the letter which the English commander had sent, he indignantly tore it to pieces; the burghers, angry at this, drew up a protest against the governor.