Slaves were introduced into N.Y. as early as 1626 when the West India Co. (a Dutch company), which had large establishments on the coast of Guinea, brought negroes to Manhattan, and practiced the slave trade here "without remorse." It is said that in proportion to population N.Y. imported as many Africans as Virginia. That New York did not become a slave-state like Carolina was, according to Bancroft, "due to climate and not to the superior humanity of its founders. [Gov.] Stuyvesant was instructed to use every exertion to promote the sale of negroes. They were imported sometimes by way of the West Indies, often directly from Guinea, and were sold at auction to the highest bidder. The average price was less than $140." With the extension of English rule to N.Y. in 1664 the slave trade in this colony passed into the hands of the British. It is estimated that the total import of slaves into all the British colonies of America and the West Indies from 1680 to 1786 was 2,130,000. The traffic was then carried on principally from Liverpool, London and other English ports; the entire number of ships sailing from these ports then engaged in the slave traffic was 192, and in them space was provided for the transport of 47,146 negroes. The native chiefs on the African coasts took up the hunt for human beings and engaged in forays, sometimes even on their own subjects, for the purpose of procuring slaves to be exchanged for western commodities. They often set fire to a village by night and captured the inhabitants when trying to escape. Out of every lot of 100 shipped from Africa, about 17 died either during the passage or before the sale at Jamaica, while not more than 50 lived through the "seasoning" process and became effective plantation laborers. Slavery in N.Y. was continued till 1827. It was then abolished by terms of an act passed by the N.Y. Assembly ten years earlier.
Henry Hudson, English navigator, made four important voyages to find a passage to China by the northeast or northwest route; it was on the third venture undertaken at the instance of the Dutch East India Co., that he found the Hudson, probably a greater discovery than the one he undertook to make. With a mixed crew of 18 or 20 men he started on his voyage in the "Half Moon," April 6, 1609, and soon was among the ice towards the northern part of Barents Sea. His men mutinied and he was forced to seek the passage farther south. Thus eventually he entered the fine bay of what is now N.Y. harbour, Sept. 3, 1609. John Fiske says: "In all that he attempted he failed, and yet he achieved great results that were not contemplated in his schemes. He started two immense industries, the Spitzbergen whale fisheries and the Hudson Bay fur trade; and he brought the Dutch to Manhattan Island. No realization of his dreams could have approached the astonishing reality which would have greeted him could he have looked through the coming centuries and caught a glimpse of what the voyager now beholds in sailing up the bay of New York." The Dutch called the Hudson the North River (a name which is still used) in contra-distinction to the Delaware which they called the South River.
The lower Hudson is really a fiord—a river valley into which ocean water has been admitted by the sinking of the land, transforming a large part of the valley into an inlet, and thus opening it to commerce as far as Troy (about 150 M.), up to which point the river is tidal and, therefore, partly salt. The Hudson extends above Troy for 150 M. farther, but navigation is interrupted by shallows and swift currents. Below Troy the fall is only five feet in a distance of 145 M. This lower, navigable portion of the Hudson was the only feasible route through the Atlantic highlands, and in consequence it has been one of the most significant factors in the development of the United States. New York City likewise owes its phenomenal development largely to this great highway of commerce.
The invention and successful operation of the steamboat, the first line of which was established on the Hudson by Fulton in 1807, gave early impetus to the importance of N.Y.C., and the building of the Hudson River R.R., one of the first successful railways, now a part of the New York Central Lines, and the opening of the Erie Canal (1825) connecting the Hudson with the Great Lakes and the far interior, were among other contributory factors in the city's growth.
15 M. YONKERS, Pop. 100,226.
(Train 51 passes 8:56; No. 3, 9:15; No. 41, 1:29; No. 25, 3:11; No. 19, 5:59. Eastbound No. 6 passes 8:52; No. 26, 9:12; No. 16, 3:31, No. 22, 4:56.)
When the Dutch founded New Netherlands, the present site of Yonkers was occupied by an Indian village, known as Nappeckamack, or "town of the rapid water," and a great rock near the mouth of the Nepperhan creek (to the north of the station) was long a place of Indian Worship.
In the early days, the Hudson River Valley from Manhattan to Albany was occupied by Algonquin tribes, while the central part of the state along the Mohawk Valley had been conquered by the famous Iroquois Confederation, of which the Mohawks were the most warlike. The Mohawks soon drove out the Mohicans, who claimed as their territory the east bank of the Hudson. On the whole, the Dutch lived peaceably with their Indian neighbors, but an attempt of Gov. Kieft to collect tribute from them led to an Indian war (1641), which resulted in the destruction of most of the outlying settlements. Later a treaty of alliance was made with the Iroquois Confederation, which protected the early settlements in N.Y. from those attacks which occurred so frequently elsewhere in this period. The treaty was renewed when the British took possession of New Netherlands, and lasted until the Revolutionary War.
The land where Yonkers now stands was part of an estate granted in 1646 by the Dutch government to Adrian Van Der Donck, the first lawyer and historian of New Netherlands. The settlement was called the "De Jonkheer's land" or "De Yonkeer's"—meaning the estate of the young lord—- and afterwards Yonkers. Subsequently the tract passed into the hands of Frederick Philipse, the "Dutch millionaire," as the English called him, some of whom alleged that he owed a large part of his fortune to piratical and contraband ventures. The suspicion was strong enough to force Philipse out of the governing council of the colony, and he returned to his manor where he died (1702) at the age of 76.