The most remarkable of all the contemporary Dutch books appeared also anonymously in 1662.[835] The description of the country given in this work adds nothing new to our store of information, and the book itself has therefore been ranked by American historians with such compilations as the works of Montanus, Melton, and others, who simply reprinted De Laet, Van der Donck, etc. It is, however, of great value, for through it we obtain an insight into the Dutch politics of the day, which had so far-reaching an influence on the history of New Netherland and on its colonization. The fight between the Gomarian (Orangist) and the Arminian[836] (Liberal) parties, which had so long prevented the first organization of the West India Company, had never been settled and was now revived. The De Witts, as leaders of the Arminians, were as much opposed to this organization as Oldenbarnevelt had been. Whether the ulterior loss of New Netherland, to which this opposition finally led, embarrassed them as much as is stated[837] or not, it was certainly at this time (1662) in the programme of the Arminian party to destroy the West India Company, and by reforming the government of New Netherland build up the country. This seems to have been the motive for writing the Kort Verhael, which, according to Asher,[838] was written by a journalist, opposing the third ultra-radical and the Orangist parties, in conjunction with a Mennonist. It will be remembered that in 1656-1657 part of the South River (Delaware) territory had been surrendered, for financial reasons, to the authorities of Amsterdam, and had ceased to be in the jurisdiction of the Governor-General of New Netherland. The plan[839] submitted to the burgomasters in the Requests and Representations, etc., aimed at a further curtailing of the Company’s territory in that region by planting there a colony of Mennonists, with the most liberal self-government, under the supreme jurisdiction of the city of Amsterdam; while the vehemence with which Otto Keye and his work favoring Guiana at the expense of New Netherland are attacked shows that the Anti-Orangists, though bent upon ruining one of the principal factors of the Orange party, were by no means inclined to give up New Netherland as a colony. A work from which copious extracts are given in the Kort Verhael, and called Zeker Nieuw-Nederlants geschrift,—“A Certain New Netherland Writing,”—seems to be lost to us; also a work, Noort Revier,—“North River,”—mentioned by Van der Donck.
The works of Montanus,[840] Melton,[841] and a few others[842] deserve no more mention than by title, as being compilations of extracts from books already referred to; and with these closes the list of such contemporary and almost contemporary Dutch works on New Netherland as are either purely descriptive or both descriptive and historical.
Of the contemporary Dutch works of purely historical character, not one treats of New Netherland alone; but the Dutch historians of the time could not well write of the res gestæ of their nation without referring to what they had done on the other side of the Atlantic. The first of them in point of time, Emanuel van Meteren,[843] gives us in his Historie van de Oorlogen en Geschiedenissen der Nederlanderen,[844] a minute description of the discoveries made by Hudson, and must be specially consulted for the history of the origin of the West India Company. Although credulous to such an extent that the value of his painstaking labors is frequently endangered by the gross errors caused by his credulity, he had no chance of committing mistakes where, as in the case of the West India Company, everything was official. His information regarding Hudson’s voyage of 1609, we may assume, was derived from Hudson himself on his return to England, where Van Meteren lived as merchant and Dutch consul until 1612, the year of his death.
The next Dutch historian whose work is one of our sources, Nicolas Jean de Wassenaer,[845] takes us a step farther; but he too fails to give us much more than a record of the earliest years of the existence of the West India Company. His account of how this Company came to be organized differs somewhat as to the motives from all others.[846]
With the works of Aitzema,[847] Saken van Staat en Oorlogh in ende omtrent de Vereenigde Nederlanden, 1621-1669, and Herstelde Leeuw, 1650,[848] and with Costerus’s Historisch Verhael, 1572-1673, we come to the end of the list of Dutch historians giving us information of the events in New Netherland. But I cannot allow the reader to take leave of these Dutch books without a few words concerning the first book printed which treated of New Netherland. The Breeden Raedt aende Vereenichde Nederlandsche Provintien ... gemaeckt ende gestelt uijt diverse ... memorien door I. A. G. W. C., Antwerpen, 1649,[849] is neither purely historical nor descriptive, but its polemic character requires such constant allusion both to the events in, and to the geography of, New Netherland, that we must class it among the most important sources for our history. Its authorship is unknown, and has been subject to many surmises.
It may cause astonishment that the writers of Holland, a country then renowned for its learning, should not have thought it worth their while to write a history of their transatlantic colonies. But we must bear in mind, first, that the settlement of New Netherland was neither a governmental nor a popular undertaking; second, that in the beginning the West India Company had no intention of making it a colony, and that the people, who came here under the first governors as the Company’s servants, and also those who later came as freeholders, were hardly educated enough, even if they had not been too busy with their own affairs, to pay much attention to, or write of, public matters. The few educated men were officers of the Company, and did not care to lose their places by speaking with too much frankness of what was going on. Whatever they desired to publish they had to submit to the directors of the Company, and it is not likely that any unpleasant information would have passed the censor. Third, the Company did not desire any information whatever concerning New Netherland, except what they thought fit, to be given to the public,[850]—hence the obstacles which prevented Adrian Van der Donck from writing the history of New Netherland in addition to his Description,[851] and the scanty information which the contemporary historian has to give us.
Subsequent Dutch writers found a good deal to say about the Dutch colonies on the Hudson and Delaware rivers. The most trustworthy among them is Jean Wagenaar,[852] who, beginning life as a merchant’s clerk, felt a strong desire for acquiring fame as an author. He studied languages and history, and at last wholly devoted himself to Dutch history. His Vaderlandsche Historie is held in Holland to be the best historical work written, although his political bias as an opponent of the House of Orange is evident. Wagenaar is, however, more an annalist than a historian. As official historiographer, and later Secretary of the City of Amsterdam, he had free access to the archives; hence his statements are not to be discredited. His account of the circumstances under which Hudson was sent out in 1609 differs materially from all other writers. “The Company,” he says, “sent out a skipper to discover a passage to China by the northwest, not by the northeast.” A resolution of the States of Holland, quoted by Wagenaar, proves that previous to Hudson’s voyage the Dutch knew that they would find terra firma north of the Spanish possessions, and contiguous to them.[853]
The scantiness of information concerning New Netherland in Dutch books explains why we can learn still less from the writings of other nations; for sectional or national feeling caused either a complete silence on colonial affairs, or incorrect and contradictory statements, leading many to rely on hearsay, unsupported by records.
Among the earliest works (not in Dutch) speaking of New Netherland, we have the work of Levinus Hulsius (Hulse), a native of Ghent, distinguished for his learning, and after him his sons, who published, at Nürnberg, Frankfort, and Oppenheim, a Sammlung von 26 Schiffahrten in verschieden fremde Landen,—“Collection of twenty-six Voyages in many Foreign Countries,”—between the years 1598 and 1650; the twelfth part of this work chronicles the attempts of the English and Dutch to discover a passage by way of the North Pole, and includes Hudson’s voyage.[854] The twentieth part refers likewise to voyages to this continent, and specially to our coast. Other German works of this early period can only be mentioned by their title, because for the above reasons they are not sufficiently correct to be considered trustworthy sources of information.[855] Their titles show them to be not much more than “hackwork,” with little value to the contemporary or any later reader. But when we find that a celebrated geographer of the time, Philipp Cluvier (born at Dantzic, 1580, died 1623), omits all mention of the existence of such countries as New England and New Netherland, we can well understand how difficult it must have been to gather material for a universal geography.[856] Later editors of the same work, writing in 1697, had then apparently only just learned that up to 1665 a part of North America was called Novum Belgium. Hardly less ignorant, though he mentions Virginia and Canada in describing the bounds of Florida, is Gottfriedt in his Neuwe Archontologia Cosmica, Frankfort, 1638; yet he too was a distinguished geographer.[857]
Turning to the English, we find a few credible and a great many very fantastic and unreliable writers, treating either specially or incidentally of New Netherland. The first mention of the Dutch on the Hudson is made in a little work, republished in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society,[858] in which it is stated that an English sea-captain, Dermer, “met on his passage [from Virginia to New England] with certain Hollanders who had a trade in Hudson’s River some years before that time (1619).” This is probably the first application of Hudson’s name to the river. In a letter[859] from the same traveller, dated at a plantation in Virginia, December, 1619, he describes his passage through Hellgate and Long Island Sound, but does not say anything about the settlement on Manhattan Island.