Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

The return trip down the Hudson was, alas! darkened by a terrible act of oppression on the part of the white men. An Indian, one of a crowd of visitors who had come down from the mountain to see the wonders on board the Half Moon, was carrying off a few trifling articles he had stolen, when he was detected by the mate, who at once shot him dead. A general mêlèe ensued, the natives were hotly pursued by Hudson’s men, and, though only one other was then killed, the next day a party of dusky warriors bore down upon the European vessel; a fierce struggle took place, and though the Dutch were victorious, all hope of further exploration was at an end. Differences with his superior officers, and quarrels among his crew, added to the difficulties of Hudson; and when, in November, 1609, he put into Dartmouth Harbor after having made one of the greatest discoveries of the day, he found himself in disgrace both with the English Government and his Dutch employers, who were each jealous of the other.

To make our story complete, we may add that, after a vexatious delay at Dartmouth, Hudson resumed service under the Muscovy Company, and, with its sanction, sailed in the spring of 1610 on the fatal voyage which resulted in the discovery of the great bay bearing his name. Sailing north-westward, in an English vessel, with a crew of twenty-three men, Hudson reached Greenland in June, and made his way thence without delay to the wide strait giving access to the vast inland sea now known as Hudson’s Bay.

Astonished at a discovery so little expected, and convinced that great results might ensue from the thorough exploration of the country around, our hero resolved to winter in these desolate latitudes, and pursue his work in the spring of 1611. The failure of his provisions compelled him, however, to relinquish this grand scheme, and the belief which obtained among his men, that he intended to return home, leaving some of them behind to perish miserably, caused a mutiny. Hudson, his young son, and one or two sailors who remained true to him, were overpowered, placed in a boat, and cast adrift on the waters of the bay he had discovered at so terrible a cost; and of his further sufferings, or of his final fate, no rumor has ever reached Europe, though an expedition was sent in quest of him from England.

Meanwhile the Dutch, eager to precede the English in taking possession of the fertile districts watered by the Hudson, lost not a moment in following up the discoveries inaugurated by their Government, and in the three years succeeding Hudson’s first voyages, one private merchant after another sent out agents to trade with the natives and found colonies among them. As early as 1613, Manhattan Island owned its Dutch fort and surrounding buildings, and was chief among many stations for the collection of peltries, or furs, and their dispatch to European ports; while the bays of the mainland as far south as the mouth of the Delaware, were dotted with clusters of the huts of the Dutch fishermen.

Among the leaders of the various early Dutch enterprises in these regions, Hendrick Christansen, Adriaen Block, and Cornelis Jacobsen May stand out pre-eminent: the first as having founded the first large fort—that called Nassau—on the Hudson; the second for his exploration of Long Island Sound, and discovery of the Connecticut river; and the third for his survey of the coast of New Jersey, still commemorated by the name given to New Jersey’s southern headland—Cape May.

On the 11th October, 1614, after long and tedious preliminary negotiations, a charter, insuring to them a monopoly of the fur trade for three years, was granted to the Dutch, and the name of New Netherland given to the region between New France and Virginia—i.e., the Atlantic seaboard between 40° and 45° N. lat. These three years, during which no rival European power interfered, were turned to the best account by the sturdy colonists from Holland, and their scouts penetrated far into the interior on the west, one party, it is supposed, having reached the upper waters of the Delaware, and descended it in native canoes to the mouth of its tributary, the Schuylkill, which is now known to rise in the carboniferous highlands of Pennsylvania, and to join the Delaware five miles below the capital of that state.

The story goes, that, on this last named expedition, three traders were taken prisoners by the Indians, and held by them as hostages, until their prolonged absence exciting the anxiety of their comrades, an expedition was sent in quest of them, under the command of Cornelis Hendricksen, who, in a little yacht named the Restless, explored the whole of Delaware Bay, ascended one of the rivers flowing into it, and brought back his fellow-countrymen in triumph.

On Hendricksen’s return to the parent settlement, he gave such glowing accounts of the capabilities of the new “havens, lands, and places” visited, that his employers—their original charter being then on the eve of expiration—determined if possible to obtain another, giving them more ample powers. Their petition was refused; but, in 1621, a far more important enterprise than theirs was sanctioned by the States-General of the Netherlands, who granted to the now famous West India Company a monopoly of all the lands known by the Dutch as New Netherland, and which included much of the territory to which the English had given the name of New England.

The first emigrants to take advantage of the extensive privileges of the West India Company were a little band of Walloons, members of that much-persecuted and sturdy race, descended from the old Gallic Belgæ, whose brave struggle against the Germans in the old mountain fastnesses of the Ardennes had saved them from extermination. The same constitutional impulsiveness and perseverance, activity and skill, which kept the Walloons alive and prosperous throughout all subsequent changes in their native land, rendered them well fitted to fight their own battle in a new scene; and when the Dutch authorities heard of their expulsion from their homes on account of their religious opinions, they most wisely invited them to settle in New Netherland.

The first city founded by the Dutch under the new charter—or, to be more strictly accurate, by the Walloons, under the West India Company—was the modern Albany, the capital of the present State of New York, which was at first called Fort Orange, and was the second town of importance built within the limits of the United States, Jamestown having been the first. The foundations were laid in 1623, and in less than a year it had become a flourishing settlement, while trading stations established at the same time on Manhattan Island, the Delaware, Connecticut, and other rivers, grew with equal rapidity. In course of time, difficulties with the Indians led to the temporary abandonment of Fort Orange, and the building on Manhattan Island, on a site purchased for twenty-four dollars, of Fort Amsterdam, round which clustered the town long known as New Amsterdam, and now under its English name of New York—it having been taken by the British in 1664—the chief city and most important seaport of America.