Special Histories.—New York: Roberts (Commonwealths), and Brodhead: O'Callaghan, New Netherlands; G. Schuyler, Colonial New York, I.; W. Griffis, New Netherland; histories of New York city by Innis, Janvier, Lamb, Rensselaer, Roosevelt, Stone, and Wilson.—Delaware: Conrad and Scharf; Jameson, Willem Usselinx.—New Jersey: Lee, Mulford, Raum, and Tanner; F. Stockton, Stories of New Jersey; A. Melick, Old New Jersey Farm.—Pennsylvania: S. Fisher, Making of Pennsylvania; H. Jenkins, Pennsylvania; I. Sharpless, Two Centuries of Pennsylvania, and Quaker Government; A. Myers, Irish Quakers; O. Kuhns, German and Swiss Settlements; J. Sachse, Pennsylvania Germans, and German Pietists; Scharf and Westcott, Philadelphia.
Contemporary Accounts.—Josselyn, Two Voyages (1675); Dankers Sluyter, Voyage to New York (1679); Penn, Some Account (1681); Budd, Good Order Established (1685); Sewel, History of Quakers (1722); Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania; Gabriel Thomas, West Jersey. Reprints: Colonial Documents and Records of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; Half Moon Series; American History told by Contemporaries, I. part vi.; Jameson, Original Narratives; publications by colonial and town record commissions, and historical and antiquarian societies.
83. Dutch Settlement (1609-1625).
Hudson's discovery.
In September, 1609, Hendrik Hudson, an English navigator in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed up the river to which his name has been given by the English—the Dutch called it North River—as far as the future site of Albany. He found "that the land was of the finest kind for tillage, and as beautiful as the foot of man ever trod upon." Six weeks earlier Champlain, the commander of New France, had been on the shores of Lake Champlain about one hundred miles to the north, fighting the native Iroquois. The object of Hudson's search was a familiar one in his time,—the discovery of a water-passage through the continent that might serve as a short-cut to India, where his masters were engaged in trade. He did not find what he sought, but opened the way to a lucrative traffic with the American savages, whose good graces the thrifty Dutch strove to cultivate. The French leader's introduction to the Iroquois had been as an enemy, but the explorer from Holland came as a friend: the Dutch reaped advantage from the contrast.
Early Dutch trading-posts.
Dutch traders annually visited the region of Hudson River during the next few years. There was at first no attempt at colonization, for Holland just at that time was not prepared to give offence to her old enemy, Spain, which claimed most of North America by the right of discovery and Pope Alexander's bull of partition. Nevertheless, the country was styled New Netherland, and Holland recognized it as a legal dependency. A Dutch navigator, Adrian Block, as the result of an accident, spent a winter on either Manhattan or Long Island, and built a coasting-vessel (1614) for trafficking in furs. A small trading-house, called Fort Nassau, was also erected this year on the site of Albany; a similar establishment, without defences, and surrounded by a few huts for traders, was built on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the river, the following season (1615); a new Fort Nassau was afterwards (1623) set up on the Delaware River, four miles below the site of Philadelphia, but was soon abandoned.
The New Netherlands Company.
In 1615 the New Netherland Company obtained a trading charter from the States-General of Holland. The corporation was granted a monopoly of the Dutch fur-traffic in New Netherland for three years, and conducted extensive operations between Albany and the Delaware, coastwise and in the interior. The Dutch thus far had not ventured to exercise political control over the New Netherland. The country was still claimed by the English Virginia Company. The land originally granted to the Pilgrims from Leyden by the latter company was described as being "about the Hudson's River." We have seen how the party on the "Mayflower" were prevented by storms—or possibly by the design of the captain—from reaching their destination and planting an English colony in the neighborhood of the Dutch trading posts.
The Dutch West India Company.