CH. XVIII. of trade and the privilege of becoming members of the guilds.* 1657. Petition of This example was soon followed in New Amsterdam. Its inhabitants, while they welcomed all who came intending to make New Netherland their permanent home, were exceedingly jealous of itinerant traders; and it had become the established law that those who wished to engage in commerce must keep "fire and light" in the provManhattan, too, had been declared, in the charter of Freedoms, to be the emporium of New Netherland, and had been invested with the important privilege of "staple right." The residents, however, found that their metropolitan immunities were constantly infringed; and every year larger numbers of "Scotchmen," or peddlers, came over, who, proceeding at once into the interior, finished their trade, and returned to Europe without contributing 92 Jan. any thing to the advantage of the country. The burgomasthe author- ters and schepens of New Amsterdam, therefore, addressNew Am- ed a petition to the director, setting forth these circumburgher stances, and asking that, in consideration of the burdens which the citizens were obliged to bear, and the loyalty they had always exhibited, they should be favored with "some privileges." As the "burgher right" was "one of the most important privileges in a well-governed city," they prayed that no persons except city burghers should be allowed to carry on business in the capital, and none but "settled residents" to trade in "any quarter hereabout, without this place.' ities of sterdam for privileges. 30 Jan. Concession of Great The provincial government considering the petition favorably, ordained that "the arriving traders," before sellburghering their goods, should "set up and keep an open store and Small right. within the gates and walls" of New Amsterdam, and obtain from the burgomasters and schepens the Common or Small burgher-right; for which they should pay twenty guilders to the support of the city. "In conformity to the laudable custom of the city of Amsterdam in Europe," a * Wagenaar's Amsterdam, i., 583; iii., 141-161; ante, p. 453. This distinctive system, however, not working well, was abolished in 1668. 1657. Amplifica Great burgher-right was also established, "for which those CH. XVIII. who may request to be therein shall pay fifty guilders. All such, and such only, shall hereafter be qualified to fill all the city offices and dignities; II., be exempt for one year and six weeks from watches and expeditions; and, III., be free in their proper persons from arrest by any subaltern court or judicial benches of this province." At the request of the municipal authorities, the present and future bur-2 Feb. gomasters and schepens, and the director, counselors, cler- tion. gymen, and military officers, with their male descendants, were declared to belong to the class of Great burghers. Great The class of Small burghers was to include all natives and small all who had resided in the city a year and six weeks, all who had married or should marry the daughters of burghers, all who kept stores or did business within the city, and all salaried officers of the company. Thus absurdly imitating an invidious policy, which the mother city was soon obliged to abandon, Stuyvesant attempted to establish in New Amsterdam that most offensive of all distinctions, an aristocracy founded on mere wealth.* burghers. burghers. 12 Feb. lands on River to the sterdam. In the mean time, the West India Company, embarrassed by its losses in Brazil and Guinea, and heavily in debt to the city of Amsterdam for the aid which it had afforded 1656. in fitting out the South River expedition, had offered to offer of transfer to its burgomasters and schepens Fort Casimir and the South the lands in its neighborhood, where the city might estab- city of Amlish a colony. The proposition was received with favor, 3 March. as soon as the States General had ratified the Hartford treaty. Beside the hope of more effectually securing the Dutch possession of New Netherland, a nobler motive was presented. Hundreds of Waldenses, escaping from the persecutions of the Duke of Savoy, had fled for refuge to Amsterdam. There they were cordially received; and the city government, not content with giving them an 29 March. asylum, liberally appropriated large sums from its treas- 30 June. ury for their support. With such materials, the city of * New Amst. Rec., ii., 704, 722-724, 741-745; iii., 267-272; Alb. Rec., vii., 389–392; xv., 54 · ante, p. 194, 243, 489. See also Kent's City Charters, 243-246. CH. XVIII. Amsterdam now undertook to found a colony of its own in New Netherland.* 1656. 12 July. ony at New Amstel. An agreement was soon made, by which, for the sum of seven hundred thousand guilders, the company transferred to the city of Amsterdam all the Dutch territory on the South River, from the west side of Christina Kill to the "Boomtje's Hook," now corrupted into "Bombay Hook," City's col- at the mouth of the river. This region was named “Nieuwer-Amstel," after one of the suburbs belonging to the city, between the River Amstel and the Haerlem Sea. Six commissaries were appointed by the burgomasters to manage the colony, who were "to sit and hold their meetings at the West India House on Tuesdays and ThursConditions. days." A set of "conditions" was drawn up, offering a free passage to colonists, lands on the river side for their residence, and provisions and clothing for one year. The city engaged to send out "a proper person for a schoolmaster, who shall also read the holy Scriptures in public and set the Psalms." The municipal government was to be regulated "in the same manner as here in Amsterdam." The colonists were to be exempted from taxation for ten years; after that time they should not "be taxed higher than those who are taxed lowest in any other district under the government of the West India Company in New Netherland." Specific regulations were adopted with respect to trade; and besides the recognitions payable to the West India Company on goods exported from Holland, four per centum was to be paid in New Netherland.† 16 August. All these arrangements were ratified and confirmed by the States General, upon condition that a church should be organized and a clergyman established as soon as there were two hundred inhabitants in the colony. Prepara * Hol. Doc., xv., 1, 2, 117, 118, 191; Commelin's Amsterdam, 115-117; Wagenaar's Amsterdam, i., 594; Lambrechtsen, 63-65; Report of Mr. Sidney Lawrence to the Senate of New York, 3d February, 1844, Sen. Doc., No. 42, page 6. †These "conditions" are appended to the second edition of Van der Donck's Description of New Netherland, which was published this year; ante, p. 561, note. Transla tions are in Hazard, ii., 543; i., N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., 291; ii., 1, 238; O'Call., ii., 328. Abstracts are in S. Hazard, Ann. Penn., 220; Dunlap, ii., Appendix, xii. Dunlap errs in dating them in 1623, and in making them refer to New Amsterdam. 1656. rector. tions were immediately made to organize the colony, of CH. XVIII which Jacob Alrichs, an uncle of Beck, the vice-director at Curaçoa, was appointed director. Martin Kregier, of Jacob AlNew Amsterdam, upon Stuyvesant's "good report," was richs dicommissioned as captain of a company of sixty soldiers, 5 Dec. and Alexander d'Hinoyossa, who had formerly served in Brazil, was made lieutenant. Ordinances were also pass- 9 Dec. ed requiring the colonists to take an oath of allegiance to the States General, the burgomasters of Amsterdam, and the director and council of New Netherland, and likewise to promise faithfully to observe the articles which defined their duties and obligations to the city. These, among other things, required them to remain four years at New Amstel, unless they gave satisfactory reasons for leaving, or repaid, within the proper time, the expenses incurred on their account. Company's tions to sant. The West India Company informed Stuyvesant of all 19 Dec. these arrangements, and instructed him to transfer the ter- instrucritory which the city had purchased to Alrichs on his ar- Stuyverival in New Netherland. At Forts Christina and New Gottenburg, "now called by us Altona and the island of Kattenberg," he was to maintain for the present a small garrison. "The confidence which we feel," they added, "about the success and increase of this new colony, and of which we hope to see some prominent features next spring, when to all appearance large numbers of the exiled Waldenses, who shall be warned, will flock thither as to an waldenasylum, induces us to send you orders to endeavor to purchase, before it can be accomplished by any other nation, all that tract of land situated between the South River and the Hook of the North River, to provide establishments for these emigrants.”* ses. Embarka About one hundred and sixty-seven colonists embarked 25 Dec. in three vessels-the Prince Maurice, the Bear, and the tion of colFlower of Guelder-and set sail from the Texel on Christmas-day. Evert Pietersen, who had passed a good exam Hol. Doc., viii., 138-177; xv., 6-10, 119, 121, 184, 191-203; Alb. Rec., iv., 223; xviii., 400; S. Hazard, Ann. Penn., 223, 225, 226; Lambrechtsen, 649. onists. 1656. CH. XVIII. ination before the Classis, accompanied the emigrants as schoolmaster and Zieken-trooster, "to read God's word and lead in singing," until the arrival of a clergyman. A storm separated the squadron; and, after a long voyage, the Prince Maurice, with Alrichs, Kregier, D'Hinoyossa, Van Sweringen the supercargo, and most of the emigrants 1657. on board, struck about midnight on the south coast of Shipwreck Long Island, at a place called "Sicktewacky," or Secontague, near Fire Island Inlet. The next morning, the crew and passengers escaped through the ice to a barren shore, "without weeds, grass, or timber of any sort to make a fire." The shipwrecked emigrants were visited before long 12 March. by some of the neighboring Indians, by whom Alrichs sent a letter to Stuyvesant imploring help. 8 March. on Long Transfer of mir to Alrichs. Yachts were immediately dispatched from New Amsterdam, and the director went in person to the scene of the dis20 March. aster. The emigrants and most of the cargo were brought in safety to New Amsterdam, where the other vessels had 12 April. meanwhile arrived. In a few days, Stuyvesant, in obediFort Casi- ence to the company's orders, formally transferred to Alrichs "the Fortress Casimir, now named New Amstel, with all the lands dependent on it, in conformity with our first purchase from and transfer by the natives to us on the nineteenth of July, 1651, beginning at the west side of the Minquas, or Christina Kill, named in their language Suspencough, to the mouth of the bay or river included, named Boomtje's Hook, in the Indian language Canaresse, and this as far in the country as the limits of the Minquas' land.' A vessel was immediately chartered, and Alrichs sailed for the South River, with from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and eighty emigrants. Upon his arrival at New Am- Fort Casimir, Alrichs received from Jacquet a surrender of ized organ his authority, and the government of the colony of New Amstel was formally organized.* 17 April. Colonists sail to the South Riv er. 21 April. stel The region north of Christina Kill remained under the jurisdiction of the West India Company, in obedience to * Alb. Rec., xii., 405-411; xv., 124, 125; S. Hazard, Ann. Penn., 229-233; O'Call., ii., 335; Lond. Doc., iv., 173; N. Y. Col. MSS., iii., 344; Letter of Classis of Amst., 25th May, 1657; Montanus, 124; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 131; ante, p. 529. |