Almost under the shadow of the present Capitol, on a meadow to the north, Ft. Orange was built in 1624, when 18 families of Dutch Walloons selected this site for a permanent settlement in the New World. The history of Albany, however is usually dated from ten years earlier when Dutch traders built Ft. Nassau on Castle Island, the present Rensselaer Island.
According to some writers a temporary trading post was established here by the French as early as 1540—80 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. But it is on the date 1614 that Albany lays claim to being the second oldest settlement in the colonies, Jamestown, founded in 1607 by Capt. John Smith and Christopher Newport, being the first. It is interesting to note that the Pilgrim Fathers narrowly missed making a settlement somewhere along the Hudson River. William Bradford, second governor of the Plymouth colony, tells in his history, how, at one point in the Mayflower's voyage, they determined "to find some place about Hudson's river for their habitation." But, after sailing half a day, "they fell amongst dangerous shoulds and roving breakers," and so decided to bear up again for Cape Cod.
During the early days Albany held high rank among American settlements. As a center of trade and civilization it rivalled Jamestown, Manhattan and Quebec. In 1618 the Dutch negotiated here the first treaty with the Iroquois, which tended to preserve friendly relations with the Indians for more than a century to come.
The territory of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, the most celebrated of Indian confederations, extended from Albany to Buffalo, that is, over just the country through which the New York Central runs. The name is that given to them by the French and is said to be formed of two ceremonial words constantly used by the tribesmen meaning "real adders." The league was originally composed of five tribes or nations—the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas and Cayugas. The confederation probably took place about 1580. In 1722 the Tuscaroras were admitted, the league then being called that of the Six Nations. Without realizing the far-reaching effect of his action, Samuel D. Champlain (1567-1635), the French explorer, probably changed the entire course of history by joining the Algonquins and Hurons in an attack in 1608 on the Iroquois near the present town of Ticonderoga. The Iroquois never forgave the French for the part they played in this battle and naturally turned first to the Dutch and then to the English for allies. "Thus did New France," says Parkman, "rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, and in some measure doubtless the cause, of a long series of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn." Parkman estimates that in the period after the Tuscaroras joined the Iroquois, the Six Nations had a population of about 12,000 with not more than 2,150 fighting men. It is a matter of some surprise that so small a fighting force could wield so great a power in the early days. But Theodore Roosevelt, in speaking of the Indians as warriors, says: "On their own ground they were far more formidable than the best European troops. It is to this day doubtful whether the superb British regulars at Braddock's battle or the Highlanders at Grant's defeat a few years later, were able to so much as kill one Indian for every hundred of their own men who fell." Although up to that time they had been loyal friends of the colonists, in the War of Independence the Iroquois fought on the English side, and by repeated battles their power was nearly destroyed. From very early times a silver "covenant chain" was used as a symbol of their treaties with the Whites, and each time a new treaty was signed the covenant chain was renewed or reburnished. There are perhaps 17,000 descendants of the Iroquois now living in reservations in New York State, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Canada.
Stephen Van Rensselaer
Stephen Van Rensselaer was the eighth patroon and fifth in descent from Killiaen, the first lord of the Manor. He was lieutenant governor of N.Y., an ardent promoter of the Erie Canal, a major general in the War of 1812 (during which he was defeated in the Battle of Queenstown Heights), and represented N.Y. in Congress from 1822 to 1829. In 1824 he founded a school in Troy, which was incorporated two years later as the Rensselaer Polytechnic institute.
In 1629 the Dutch government granted to Killiaen van Rensselaer, an Amsterdam diamond merchant, a tract of land, 24 Sq. M., centering at Ft. Orange, over which he was given the feudal powers of a patroon.
The patroons, under the Dutch régime, were members of the Dutch West India Co., who received large grants of land, called Manors, in New Netherlands. These grants carried with them semifeudal rights, and the patroon could exercise practically autocratic powers in his domain. The first of the patroons, Killiaen van Rensselaer (1580-1645), never came to this country, but he sent over numerous settlers as tenants. The Manor was called Rensselaerswyck, and comprised all of the present counties of Albany and Rensselaer, and part of Columbia.
This was the first manorial grant in New Netherlands and was destined to endure the longest. The colonists sent to this country by van Rensselaer were industrious and the town prospered, although in 1644, it was described by Father Jogues, a Jesuit priest, as "a miserable little fort called Fort Orange, built of logs, with four or five pieces of Breteuil cannon and as many swivels; and some 25 or 30 houses built of boards, and having thatched roofs." On account of its favorable commercial and strategic position at the head of navigation on the Hudson and at the gateway of the Iroquois country and the far west, it maintained its importance among colonial settlements for a century and a half. Its early name, Beverwyck, was changed to Albany—one of the titles of the Duke of York, afterwards James II.—when New Netherlands was transferred to the English (1644). Albany was granted a charter in 1686, and the first mayor (appointed by Gov. Dongan) was Peter Schuyler, who was likewise chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners.