The no-expense colonizing scheme was not a new one among the colonial powers of Europe, except for its dressing.
Members of the West India Company who at their own expense planted the unoccupied provinces of New Netherland were to become “patroons,” that is, proprietors of little colonial principalities with feudalistic “privileges and exemptions.” By transporting and settling a specified number of colonists, black slaves qualifying as such, a rich if otherwise undistinguished merchant of Amsterdam could elevate himself to the worshipful status of a feudal lord. Of course he had first to purchase his land from the Indians in conformance with Dutch policy. A little aqua vitae and a few jackets sufficed usually to keep that a relatively minor expense however.
There was only one hitch. A patroon could not engage in the fur trade. He had freedom of trade in any merchandise “except beavers, otters, minks, and all sorts of peltry.” The commerce in pelts was to remain the company’s monopoly.
Because of this restriction the early patroonships were destined to failure. Trade in furs was needed to help root a new plantation in the soil, as had already been proved so often on the wild American coasts. Only one of the early patroonships survived, Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s colony in the Albany area. And it was the illegal pursuit of private fur trade that suckled Rensselaerwyck through its infancy.
The earliest patroonship for which land was chosen in New Netherland was patented on the “South River” in 1630. Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert, leading members of the company, were original partners in this venture which later included Captain David Pieters de Vries among others. Their original manor tract, called Swanendael, lay west of Cape Henlopen in Delaware Bay, but the proprietorship was later extended to the opposite shore including Cape May. The bay, reportedly, was a favorite haunt of whales, many having been sighted there in the past. It was decided that whaling would be a profitable enterprise in lieu of fur trading to support the plantation in its infancy.
The first colonizing expedition to Swanendael arrived in the spring of 1631 and planted at Whorekill, on present-day Lewes Creek, just above Cape Henlopen. Although the whaling proved a failure that year, the ship that brought over the colonists returning to Amsterdam with no more than a sample of oil taken from a dead whale found on the beach, it was said that the settlers did seed their land and had a fine crop by July. But then, as the story goes, a piece of tin was the instrument of their undoing.
They had emblazoned a small sheet of this metal with the arms of Holland and attached it to a pillar which was erected to proclaim their possession of the land. An Indian chief, happening along, appropriated the tin, probably with the idea of converting it into a shiny tobacco pipe. That savage whim, it was claimed, set off a chain of misunderstanding that ended in his own death and the massacre of the Dutch. Only one of the thirty-three settlers survived the carnage.
The Hollanders had built a brick house which should have served them well as a fort. They were also supposed to have surrounded the house with palisades, a requirement of the time, and to have had an Indian-fighting mastiff handy for just such an emergency. However, according to those who later argued with the company over responsibility for the failure of the Swanendael patroonship, the settlers at Whorekill were caught and butchered individually one day while laboring in the fields, unable to reach the safety of the palisades reportedly erected—while their fierce dog was unfortunately chained at the house.
If Whorekill, which may be translated as Harlots’ Creek, acquired its name as indicated, one cannot resist wondering whether playful Indian squaws, too much aqua vitae and vengeful braves might have had something to do with the demise of the Dutchmen. Certain it is that these first Europeans “left other reminders of their brief sojourn on the bay besides their skeletons,” for later Dutchmen who visited in this vicinity “with their goods where they traded with the Indians ... got the country dutyes, otherwise called the Pox.”
When Captain David de Vries came over as patroon in the winter of 1632-33 he built a lodging hut ashore, constructed “sloops” for whaling and set up a kettle for rendering oil. But although his harpooners killed a few whales, they were small and almost worthless for oil. The whale fishery was an economic failure.