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Page 35
As the country is well adapted for agriculture and the raising of
every thing that is produced here, the aforesaid Lords resolved to
take advantage of the circumstances, and to provide the place with
many necessaries, through the Honble. Pieter Evertsen Hulst, who
undertook to ship thither, at his risk, whatever was requisite, to
wit: one hundred and three head of cattle; stallions, mares, steers
and cows, for breeding and multiplying, besides all the hogs and sheep
that might be thought expedient to send thither; and to distribute
these in two ships of one hundred and forty lasts, in such a manner
that they should be well foddered and attended to....
In company with these, goes a fast sailing vessel at the risk of the
directors. In these aforesaid vessels also go six complete families
with some freemen, so that forty five newcomers or inhabitants are
taken out, to remain there. The natives of New Netherland are very
well disposed so long as no injury is done them. But if any wrong be
committed against them they think it long till they be revenged....
They are a wicked, bad people, very fierce in arms. Their dogs are
small. When the Honble. Lebrecht van Twenhuyzen, once a skipper, had
given them a big dog, and it was presented to them on ship-board, they
were very much afraid of it; calling it, also a Sachem of dogs, being
the biggest. The dog, tied with a rope on board, was very furious
against them, they being clad like beasts with skins, for he thought
they were game; but when they gave him some of their bread made of
Indian corn, which grows there, he learned to distinguish them, that
they were men.
The Colony was planted at this time, on the Manhates where a Fort was
staked out by Master Kryn Frederyeke, an engineer. It will be of large
dimensions....
The government over the people of New Netherland continued on the 15th
of August of this year in the aforesaid Minuit, successor to Verhulst,
who went thither from Holand on 9th January, Anno, 1626, and took up
his residence in the midst of a nation called Manhates, building a
fort there, to be called Amsterdam, having four points and faced
outside entirely with stone, as the walls of sand fall down, and are
now more compact.
The population consists of two hundred and seventy souls, including
men, women, and children. They remained as yet without the Fort, in no
fear, as the natives live peaceably with them. They are situate three
miles from the Sea, on the river by us called Mauritius, by others,
Rio de Montagne....
After the Right Honble Lords Directors of the Privileged West India
Company in the United Netherlands, had provided for the defence of New
Netherland and put everything there in good order, they taking into
consideration the advantages of said place, the favorable nature of
the air, and soil, and that considerable trade and goods and many
commodities may be obtained from thence, sent some persons, of their
own accord, thither with all sorts of cattle and implements necessary
for agriculture, so that in the year 1628 there already resided on the
island of the Manhates, two hundred and seventy souls, men, women, and
children, under Governor Minuit, Verhulst's successor, living there in
peace with the natives. But as the land, in many places being full of
weeds and wild productions, could not be properly cultivated in
consequence of the scantiness of the population, the said Lords
Directors of the West India Company, the better to people their lands,
& to bring the country to produce more abundantly, resolved to grant
divers privileges, freedoms, and exemptions to all patroons, masters
or individuals who should plant any colonies and cattle in New
Netherland, and they accordingly have constituted and published in
print (certain) exemptions, to afford better encouragement and infuse
greater zeal into whomsoever should be inclined to reside and plant
his colonie in New Netherland.
[1] From Wassenaer's "Description of the first settlement of New
Netherland." Printed in Hart's "American History Told by
Contemporaries." Wassenaer was a Dutchman, and wrote
contemporaneously with the events he describes. After Hudson's
discovery of the Hudson River, Dutch ships were sent over to
Manhattan Island to establish an agency for the collection of furs.
Rude cabins were pitched and lived in at the southern end of the
island but these did not constitute a permanent settlement; they
were a mere trading-post. The trade became so profitable, however,
that something more permanent was desired, and in 1623 the West
India Company dispatched ships with thirty families as the nucleus
of a colony to be established near the present site of Albany. Not
until two years later was it decided that the headquarters of the
colony should be on Manhattan Island. Two ships were then sent out
to establish there a permanent and more extensive settlement.
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