Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664

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>*.XIBRARY OF CONGRESS y 1

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Preface

There is no one classical narrative of the history of New Netherland — nothing corresponding in position to Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation or Governor Winthrop's Journal. A volume intended to convey the best contemporary representation of New Netherland history must perforce be composed of several pieces, most of them not of high literary merit, but having the advantage of showing New Netherland and its events from various angles. The limits of the volume have not permitted the inclusion of every interesting or important contemporary narrative of the colony, but it is believed that all the best are here. One piece, the "Description of the Towne of Mannadens as it was in September, 1661," has not been printed before.

Most of the early narratives of New Netherland are written in Dutch. Hence the first difficulty with such a volume, next after that of selection, is that of securing good translations of seventeenth-century Dutch pieces, some of them distinctly crabbed and rough in style. The old translations, published fifty or sixty years ago in the Collections of the Neiv York Historical Society, the Documentary History of the State of New York, and similar volumes, are in some cases very bad, and in nearly all cases susceptible of considerable improvement. For the purposes of the present book they have been carefully revised or remade, by comparison with the originals. The introductions to several of the pieces express the editor's obligations to friends who have aided him in this revision. In the case of certain of the pieces, of which the originals are manuscripts at the Hague, this work of revision was performed by Professor William I. Hull, of Swarthmore College, and Dr. Johannes de Hullu, of the Rijksarchief (Dutch National Archives) ; others, of which the John Carter Brown Library contained printed copies, were revised by Professor A. Clinton Crowell, of Brown University; one, from a manuscript in New York, by Mr. S. G. Nissenson. In other instances the editor himself did this part of the work. If, however, the volume, as is believed, substitutes unusually correct translations for the imperfect vi PREFACE

versions hitherto current, the credit is largely due to the scholarship and patience of Mr. A. J. F. van Laer, archivist of the State of New York, who has, with great care, gone over all the translations of which the Dutch originals were accessible to him in Albany, and, the editor will freely admit with regard to his own portion of the work, has greatly improved it.

It may be well to mention that, the provinces of Holland and Zeeland having adopted the reformed calendar in 1582, dates in Dutch narratives of the seventeenth century will usually be found expressed in New Style, while the English used Old Style; that the Dutch were accustomed to use a man's patronymic after his Christian name, in such a manner that names of the form Jacobsz, Jacobsen, Jacobzoon (meaning the son of Jacob) are sometimes employed as middle names, and often with entire omission of the surname, e. g., Cornelis Jacobsz for Cornells May or Cornells Jacobsz May; and that the first volume of John Romeyn Brodhead's History of the State of New York (New York, 1853) still remains the best history of New Netherland.

Of the illustrations in the volume, the most curious is certainly the map by "a former commander in New Netherland" (Minuit?), which appears as the frontispiece. A correspondent of the editor. Dr. Johannes de Hullu, of the Dutch National Archives at the Hague, while examining a bound volume of manuscripts which had once belonged to a Dutch antiquary of the seventeenth century, found this map, hitherto unknown. The antiquary was Arend van Buchell (Arnoldus Buchellius), who died in 1641. He had been a director of the East India Company, and from 1621 to 1630 a shareholder in the West India Company, of which his brother-in-law was one of the first directors. Portions of his interesting diaries have lately been published in Holland,^ but contain nothing relating to New Netherland. The map bears the inscription : " Ick hebbe gesien in seecker boeck byde hand van een die het commando in nieu Neerlant ofte HoUant gehadt hadde de baye vant lant aldaer de onse eenige colonien gebout hebben, aldus": or, in translation, "I have seen in a certain book from the hand of one who had had the command in New Netherland or [New] Holland the bay of the country where our people have planted some colonies, thus." Then follows what is apparently a reference: "siets," i. e., "look (or looks) south," meaning, perhaps,

* Diarium van Arend van Buchell, ed. Brom and Langeraad, published as Vol. XXI. of the third series of the Werken of the Utrecht Historical Society.

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to inform the reader that the bay, the chief object of the map, extends southward from the town. Upon the map itself the editor sought the counsel of Mr. J. H. Innes, author of New Avisierdam and Its People (New York, 1902), whose authority in such matters is of the highest. Mr. Innes has kindly prepared a statement, printed after the present preface, as to the historical aspects of this newly discovered map.

The second of the illustrations, which, like the third, we owe to the kindness of Mr. Wilberforce Eames, of the Lenox Library, is a fac-simile of the title-page of the pamphlet of 1030 in which the company first printed its Privileges and Exemptions of 1629. That pamphlet is the first separate publication relating to New Netherland. Its text is to be found translated on pp. 90-96 of the present volume. The title-page would be translated: "Privileges granted by the Meeting of the Nineteen of the Chartered West India Company to all those who shall plant any Colonies in New Netherland, published in order to make known what Profits and Advantages are to be obtained in New Netherland for [or by] the Colonists, their Patroons and Masters, and also the Shareholders who plant Colonies there," with the motto:

" West India can bring Netherland great gain, Lessen the might, divert the wealth, of Spain.'

The title-page is embellished with an interesting picture of contemporary ships, flying the Dutch tricolor, and coming to land on the American coast.

Later in the volume is presented a reproduction, in the original size, of the map of New Netherland which appeared in the second edition (1656) of Adriaen van der Donck's Beschryvinge van Nieuw- Nederlant. The map was reduced from a larger one published shortly before (1655) by Nicholas Visscher. At the foot of the map appears a view of New Amsterdam, showing the fort, the windmill, the church, the flag-staff, the gibbet, the tavern, and perhaps eighty houses — such a town as might, perhaps, have a population of a little less than a thousand inhabitants. It has been supposed that we owe this view to Augustin Herrman, a skilful draughtsman (see p. 289, post). In a letter of Governor Stuyvesant to the directors of the West India Company, dated October 6, 1660, he says: * "After the closing of our letter the burgomasters [of New Amsterdam] have shown us the ' A^. Y. Col. Docs., XIV. 486.

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plan of the city, which we did not think would be ready before the sailing of this ship. In case you should be inclined to have it engraved and publish it, we thought it advisable to send you also a small sketch of the city, drawn in perspective by Sieur Augustin Heermans, three or four years ago, or perhaps you will hang it up in some place or other there." Nevertheless, the view on the Van der Donck map may be that of Herrman, published soon after it was drawn, without Stuyvesant's knowing the fact.

It does not appear that the plan of New Amsterdam, alluded to above, and drawn in the summer of 1660 by the surveyor Jacques Cortelyou, was ever engraved or is now extant. But there is preserved in the British Museum ("King's MSS., Maps, K. cxxi. 35"), but without note of its origin, a very interesting plan entitled "A Description of the Towne of Mannados or New Amsterdam as it was in September, 1661." This map has, by kind permission of the authorities of the British Museum, been photographed for reproduction in this volume, and the reproduction appears as the fourth and last of our illustrations. One cannot but be struck by the close resemblance between the original title written on the map, and that of the description printed on pp. 417-424, yost^ both documents being in English; but the explanation is lacking, as we know nothing of the origin of either. Upon the map the date 1664 has been inserted below the original title and date, and British ships and flags have been added. This led the late Dr. George H. Moore, who claimed its discovery, to give it, without warrant, the name of "The Duke's Plan," as if it had been demonstrably made for the benefit of James, Duke of York. Dr. Moore wrote this name upon it in the colored lithographic fac-simile in which it was first published, in Valentine's Mamial of the Corinnon Council of New York for 1859. All subsequent reproductions, except the present and that in Janvier's Founding of New York, have been made from Moore's lithograph or his manuscript, and have repeated the unwarranted designation. It will be observed that the plan has the gates of the fort, correctly, in the middle of its north and south sides, not, as stated in the "Description " in the text, on the east and west. The palisade so strongly marked on the plan, at the upper end of the town, follows from its east end the present line of Wall Street, which takes its name therefrom.

J. Franklin Jameson.

NOTE ON THE BUCHELLIUS CHART

(Map op New Netherland "by a Former Governor")

The early chart, found among the papers of Arnoldus Buchellius, of a portion of the New Netherland coast is of great historical interest. Though very crude, either in its original form or in the copy made for Buchellius, it shows a fairly correct conception of the geographical features of the land, with one or two notable exceptions; from the latter some important deductions arise, which will be considered hereafter. It will be desirable to discuss in some detail the geographical features of the chart in order if possible to draw some information from them which will aid in determining its approximate date.

At the left-hand side of the chart we have what is probably the earliest delineation of a fairly distinct character now extant of the modern Delaware Bay. It appears here as Godenis (or Godeins) Bay, named from Samuel Godyn, president of the Chamber of Amsterdam of the West India Company, The main affluent of the bay, the modem Delaware River, appears on the chart under the otherwise unknown appellation of Wilhelmus rivier. The unnamed affluent of the bay is undoubtedly what is known at present as the Mauritius River, a small stream flowing through the southern part of New Jersey. It appears to be gready exaggerated in size, but hardly more so than on the famous Herrman map of Virginia and Maryland of 1670, or on Roggeveen's map of 1676. It is to be remembered, too, that the old cartographers were in the habit of including in their delineations of streams the marshes near their mouths ordinarily overflowed by the tides; and these are quite extensive in the case of the New Jersey stream.*

' The name Mauritius River was applied at a very early date to the Hudson, in honor, as is well known, of Prince Maurice, son of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and it was for a score of years the ordinary appellation of that river; see pp. G7, 75, 188, 259. Upon the discovery of the great river of the south, however, convenience seems to have led to the designation of the two chief waterways of New Netherland as the Noort Rivier and the Zuydt Rivier. These terms were in official use as early as 1629 (see Privileges and Exemptions,

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The land-locked lagoons and marshes of the New Jersey coast next appear, separated from the ocean by the five large islands or sand-hills which are conspicuous on the early maps, as on those of Van der Donck and Herrman. Then follows, in a much distorted form, the passage into the outer bay of New York, between Sandy Hook and Coney Island. Above this lies the modern Raritan Bay, called Sand Bay by the Paskaert of about 1621, as also on the Carte Figurative of about 1614, but here designated as Conratz bay, undoubtedly in honor of Albert Coenraets Burgh, one of the first patroons under the charter of Privileges and Exemptions. It was, in fact, spoken of as Conraet's Bay in the Letter of De Rasieres in 1627, and it appears under that name upon the map of "Nova Anglia, Novum Belgium," etc., by Johannes Jansonius, in Merca tor's Atlas (English edition of 1636).* Three affluents of this bay are shown: the first of these, coming from the southwest, is evidently the Middletown Point Creek, with its estuary of three-quarters of a mile in width; the next, flowing from the south of west, appears to be the Cheesequake Creek, a stream of no great size at present, but flowing through a marshy basin a mile in width and extending three miles into the land. The last of these affluents is the Raritan River, coming from the northwest; its broad estuary is shown to the northward of what the cartographer seems to have been inclined to regard as an island of considerable size, but was not sure of it. As a matter of fact, it is probably the tract of land known at present as Sayreville and South Amboy; it is really a peninsula, but it is so surrounded by water and by extensive salt meadows that to any observer coasting the shore of the bay it would appear as an island.

Staten and Manhattan islands come next in order, but they are so distorted that some special attention will be paid to them hereafter. Newark Bay, with its "kill" emptying into the North River, follows; the inscription upon the chart seems plainly to be pauwe bay, that name having been given to honor Michiel Pauw, proprietor of the colony of Pavonia. Into this last-named bay a stream is shown flowing from the northwest; it is called upon the chart de chine rivier, and is doubtless the modern Passaic River, but upon the Paskaert it

p. 92). Doubtless in order to avoid an apparent disregard of the memory of Prince Maurice, his name was soon applied to the river in New Jersey, and so appears on the Herrman map.

' This map seems to have been constructed about 1628 or 1629, and is apparently the same as the one upon page 89 of De Laet's Beschrijvinghe van West Indien (second edit., 1630).

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is called R. Achter Kol. A faintly drawn semi-circular mark near the shore, shown upon the chart at this place, resembles at first sight a water stain, but it is believed by the writer to have been intended to designate the limits of Pauw's recently established colony.

The fact that the names of the three patroons appear upon the chart, and that they are not found collectively upon any other map known to be in existence, fixes the date of the chart within narrow limits. It was in December, 1628, according to die statement of the patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer, in the Van Rensselaer Rowicr Manuscripts, that Samuel Godyn sent over Giles Houset and Jacob Jansz to examine the lands upon the bay of the South River, and to purchase the same from the natives. On June 19, 1G29, in conformity with the then recently ratified charter of Privileges and Exemptions, he registered himself in Amsterdam as the patroon of a colony to be established on the bay of the South River (west side). Godyn was followed by Albert Coenraets, who on November 1, 1629, registered as patroon of a colony to be established on the east side of the South Bay extending from the mouth of the bay to the narrows of the South River. As by the fifth article of the Privileges and Exemptions the patroons were allowed to extend their colonies as far inland as occasion required, Conratz bay of the chart really lay at the rear of his colony. Finally, on January 10, 1630, Michiel Pauw registered himself as patroon of the colony of Pavonia on the North River. All of these enterprises were unfortunate and short-lived. The settlement established by Godyn in 1631 was destroyed by the Indians, probably in the same year; Coenraets made no attempt to settle his colony; and Pauw, after the experience of two or three unprofitable years with his own, joined the others in surrendering their rights to the West India Company before the spring of 1634.^ It is quite evident, therefore, that the chart is not likely to have been prepared before the year 1630, nor any considerable length of time after 1634.

If we turn our attention again to the chart we shall notice the remarkable fact that the main channel seaward from Manhattan Island and from the North River is placed to the right or west of Staten Island; that the west side of Manhattan Island, instead of running in a straight direction, as it really does, is thrown into a great obtuse angle, while on the contrary the east side is represented as

' See the Van Rensselaer Bowier Mamiscripts, pp. 138, 154, 155, 164, 175, 314, 316.

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nearly straight, with no indications of the great projection of Corkers Hoek. Now it is quite impossible to conceive how a person with a sufficient ability to draw the chart itself, however crude it may be, could have made such a mistake as this if he constructed his chart at the Manhattans or its vicinity, where one glance seaward would show him the general contours of the harbor. The writer, therefore, is led to the conclusion that the chart was not prepared in New Netherland at all, but in Holland, from the most convenient materials at hand for the cartographer. Now let us see if there was any material then extant which can furnish a clew to the origin of the error, it being borne in mind that to construct anything like an accurate delineation of a complicated coast line from mere memory is next to impossible.

About the close of 1627, or in the first two or three months of 1628, there was a view of the fort and of the recently commenced village of New Amsterdam taken from the heights of Long Island. The person taking it is not known, but is believed by the writer to have been Kryn Frederickz, a skilful engineer and surveyor, who was in charge of the construction of Fort Amsterdam at this time. This view is remarkable as having been taken with the camera obscura, then recently brought into use. This instrument, when used in its primitive form without reflecting mirror or compound lens, takes, as is well known, an accurate but reversed picture. The object of the draughtsman was undoubtedly to present a view of the fort then in process of construction as it should appear when constructed according to certain plans then proposed but not ultimately carried out. The rest of the picture he evidently regarded as mere accessories of little importance. It is likely that he was aware that the view was reversed, but the process of restoring it to its proper form was a difficult one, and the lines of the fort in its position on the point of the island between two rivers were sufficiently well shown for his purposes, no doubt; at any rate the view in this condition found its way to Holland. In 1651, when Joost Hartgers was about to publish his Beschrijvinghe van Virginia, he came upon this view (probably among the records of the West India Company), and inserted it in his work, still in its reversed condition, as did Adriaen van der Donck in 1655 in the first edition of his Beschrijvinge van Niew Nederlant. It was reproduced from time to time, exciting no special comments except as to its supposed clumsy and uncouth drawing, until, in 1901, when the writer was engaged in the preparation of his work on Ne\v

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Amsterdam and lis People, he discovered that the view was a reverse, and restored it for the first time to its proper state, when its great historical importance became at once manifest.' As all the erroneous contours of the New York harbor which have been set forth above in relation to the chart under discussion appear at a glance in the reversed view of 1627-1628, there can be no reasonable doubt that the view was used in drawing up the Buchellius chart.

There remains a further word to be said as to the probable author of the chart. By the words used in the inscription, "one who had had the command in New Netherland," nothing else can reasonably be inferred except that an ex-director-general is referred to. Arnoldus Buchellius died in 1641, and prior to that time three of the directors-general contemporaneous with the patroons had returned to the Netherlands; these were Pieter Minuit, director-general from 1626 to 1632 (died cir. 1638), Sebastiaen Jansz Krol, from 1632 to 1633, and Wouter van Twiller, from 1633 to 1638. Van Twiller, however, had so little to do with the patroons, who had become only a memory long before his term of office expired, that he may be safely left out of the account. As between Minuit and Krol, there is one thing which seems to be of controlling importance. Minuit was a German, who had been long resident in the Netherlands, but who never lost his national characteristics. His writings exist, says Mr. A. J. F. van Laer, editor of the Van Rensselaer Bowier Manv^cripts, "in good Dutch, though with distinctly German spelling." In the light of these remarks, when we find upon the Buchellius chart the German forms: bay, for the Dutch baai; cleine, for kleyn; and Conrat, for Cocnrad, the writer is led to the conclusion that the Buchellius chart was prepared in Holland by Pieter Minuit. His further conclusions are that it represents the period of 1631-1632; and he is also led to suspect that it may have been so prepared by Minuit upon his application for a command upon the South or "Wilhelmus Rivier" in the service of the crown of Sweden, the "Wilhelmus" being, perhaps, Willem Usselinx, projector of the Swedish West India Company.

J. H. Innes.

' The view is discussed at some length in a note on page 2 of New Amsterdam and Its People.