Part 1 (1/2)
Narrative of New Netherland.
by Various.
Editor: J. F. Jameson.
INTRODUCTION
THE established church in the United Netherlands was the Reformed Church. Its polity was that of Geneva or of Presbyterianism. The minister and ruling or lay elders of the local church formed its consistory, corresponding to the Scottish or American kirk session. The next higher power, administrative or judicial, resided in the cla.s.sis, consisting of all the ministers in a given district and one elder from each parish therein, and corresponding to the presbytery. It had power to license and ordain, install and remove ministers. Above this body stood the provincial synod, and above that the (occasional) national synods. In 1624 the synod of North Holland decreed that supervision over the churches in the East Indies should belong to the churches and cla.s.ses within whose bounds were located the various ”chambers” of the East India Company. The same rule was applied in the case of the West India Company's settlements. Under this rule the first minister sent out to New Netherland was placed under the jurisdiction of the Cla.s.sis of Amsterdam, since the colony was under the charge of the Amsterdam Chamber. Many extracts from the minutes of that cla.s.sis, and what remains of its correspondence with the ministers in New Netherland, are printed in the volumes published by the State of New York under the t.i.tle _Ecclesiastical Records, State of New York_ (six volumes, Albany, 1901-1905). From 1639, if not earlier, a committee of the cla.s.sis, called ”Deputati ad Res Exteras,” was given charge of most of the details of correspondence with the Dutch Reformed churches in America, Africa, the East and foreign European countries.
As mentioned by Wa.s.senaer, ”comforters of the sick,” who were Ecclesiastical officers but not ministers, were first sent Out to New Netherland. The first minister was Reverence Jonas Jansen Michielse, or, to employ the Latinized form of his name which he, according to clerical habit, was accustomed to use, Jonas Johannis Michaelius. Michaelius was born in North Holland in 1577, entered the University of Leyden as a student of divinity in 1600, became minister at Nieuwbokswoude in 1612 and at Hem, near Enkhuizen, in 1614. At some time between April, 1624, and August, 1625, he went out to San Salvador (Bahia, Brazil), recently conquered by the West India Company's fleet, and after brief service there to one Of their posts on the West African coast. Returning thence, He was, early in 1628, sent out to Manhattan, where he arrived April 7.
It is not known just when he returned to Holland, but he appears to have been under engagement for three years. In 1637-1638 we find the cla.s.sis vainly endeavoring to send him again to New Netherland, but prevented by the Company, which had a veto upon all such appointments in its dominions.
About half a century ago the following precious letter of Michaelius, describing New Netherland as it appeared in its earliest days to the eyes of an educated clergyman of the Dutch Church, was discovered in Amsterdam, and printed by Mr. J.J.Bodel Nijenhuis in the _Kerk-historisch Archief_, part I. An English translation of it, with an introduction, was then privately printed in a pamphlet by Mr. Henry C.
Murphy, an excellent scholar in New Netherland history, who was at that time minister of the United States to the Netherlands. This pamphlet, ent.i.tled _The First Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in the United States_ (The Hague, 1858), was reprinted in 1858 in _Doc.u.ments relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York_, II. 757-770, in 1881 in the _Collections of the New York Historical Society_, XIII, and in 1883, at Amsterdam, by Frederik Muller and Co., who added a photographic fac-simile of full size and a transcript of the Dutch text. In 1896 a reduced fac-simile of the original letter, with an amended translation by Reverence John G. f.a.gg, appeared in the _Year Book_ of the (Collegiate) Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of New York City, and also separately for private circulation, and in 1901 the Dutch text with Reverend Mr. f.a.gg's translation was printed in _Ecclesiastical Records_, I. 49-68, which also contains a photographic fac-simile of the concluding portion of the ma.n.u.script. Another is in _Memorial History_, I. 166. The original is in the New York Public Library (Lenox Building).
Reverend Adria.n.u.s Smoutius, to whom the letter was addressed, was an ultra-Calvinist clergyman, who led a stormy life, but from 1620 to 1630 was a minister of the collegiate churches of Amsterdam, and as such a member of the cla.s.sis under whose charge Michaelius served.
For many years this letter of August 11, 1628, was supposed to be the earliest extant letter or paper written at Manhattan. But a letter of three days earlier was recently discovered, which Michaelius wrote on August 8 to Jan Foreest, a magistrate of Hoorn and secretary to the Executive Council (Gecommitteerde Raden) of the States of the Province of Holland. This letter mentions epistles also sent to two clergymen in Holland and to the writer's brother. It was printed by Mr. Dingman Versteeg in _Manhattan in 1628_ (New York, 1904). All these letters were presumably prepared to be sent home on the same s.h.i.+p. The two which are extant parallel each other to a large extent. That which follows, though second in order of time, is intrinsically a little more interesting than the other. Mr. f.a.gg's translation has in the main been followed.
LETTER OF REVEREND JONAS MICHAELIUS, 1628
The Reverend, Learned and Pious Mr. Adria.n.u.s Smoutius, Faithful Minister of the Holy Gospel of Christ in his Church, dwelling upon the Heerengracht, not far from the West India House at Amsterdam. By a friend, whom G.o.d Preserve.
The Peace of Christ to You.
Reverend Sir, Well Beloved Brother in Christ, Kind Friend!
THE favorable opportunity which now presents itself of writing to your Reverence I cannot let pa.s.s, without embracing it, according to my promise. And, first to unburden myself in this communication of a sorrowful circ.u.mstance, it pleased the Lord, seven weeks after we arrived in this country, to take from me my good partner, who had been to me, for more than sixteen years, a virtuous, faithful, and altogether amiable yoke-fellow; and I now find myself alone with three children,(1) very much discommoded, without her society and a.s.sistance. But what have I to say? The Lord himself has done this, against whom no one can oppose himself. And why should I even wish to, knowing that all things must work together for good to them that love G.o.d? I hope therefore to bear my cross patiently, and by the grace and help of the Lord, not to let the courage fail me which in my duties here I so especially need.
(1) Two daughters and a son, Jan, whom he had placed in the house and custody of skipper Jan Jansen Brouwer.
The voyage was long, namely, from the 24th of January till the 7th of April, when we first set foot upon land here. Of storm and tempest which fell hard upon the good wife and children, though they bore it better as regards sea-sickness and fear than I had expected, we had no lack, particularly in the vicinity of the Bermudas and the rough coasts of this country. Our fare in the s.h.i.+p was very poor and scanty, so that my blessed wife and children, not eating with us in the cabin, on account of the little room in it, had a worse lot than the sailors themselves; and that by reason of a wicked cook who annoyed them in every way; but especially by reason of the captain himself,(1) who, although I frequently complained of it in the most courteous manner, did not concern himself in the least about correcting the rascal; nor did he, even when they were all sick, given them anything which could do them any good, although there was enough in the s.h.i.+p: as he himself knew very well where to find it in order, out of meal times, to fill his own stomach. All the relief which he gave us, consisted merely in liberal promises, with a drunken head; upon which nothing followed when he was sober but a sour face; and he raged at the officers and kept himself constantly to the wine, both at sea and especially here while lying in the river; so that he daily walked the deck drunk and with an empty head, seldom coming ash.o.r.e to the Council and never to Divine service.
We bore all with silence on board the s.h.i.+p; but it grieves me, when I think of it, on account of my wife; the more, because she was so situated as she was--believing that she was with child--and the time so short which she had yet to live. On my first voyage I roamed about with him a great deal, even lodged in the same hut, but never knew that he was such a brute and drunkard. But he was then under the direction of Mr. Lam,(2) and now he had the chief command himself. I have also written to Mr. G.o.dyn(3) about it, considering it necessary that it should be known.
(1) ”Evert Croeger, with whom, prior to this, I had made long voyages, but never before did I know him well.”--Letter of August 8 to Jan Foreest.
(2) Admiral Jan Dirckszoon Lam, who in 1625 and 1626 was in command of a Dutch squadron on the west coast of Africa.
(3) Probably Samuel G.o.dyn, a prominent director of the company.
Our coming here was agreeable to all, and I hope, by the grace of the Lord, that my service will not be unfruitful. The people, for the most part, are rather rough and unrestrained, but I find in almost all of them both love and respect towards me; two things with which hitherto the Lord has everywhere graciously blessed my labors, and which in our calling, as your Reverence well knows and finds, are especially desirable, in order to make our ministry fruitful.
From the beginning we established the form of a church; and as Brother Bastiaen Crol(1) very seldom comes down from Fort Orange, because the directors.h.i.+p of that fort and the trade there is committed to him, it has been thought best to choose two elders for my a.s.sistance and for the proper consideration of all such ecclesiastical matters as might occur, intending the coming year, if the Lord permit, to let one of them retire, and to choose another in his place from a double number first lawfully proposed to the congregation. One of those whom we have now chosen is the Honorable Director(2) himself, and the other is the storekeeper of the Company, Jan Huygen,(3) his brother-in-law, persons of very good character, as far as I have been able to learn, having both been formerly in office in the Church, the one as deacon, and the other as elder in the Dutch and French churches, respectively, at Wesel.(4)
(1) Sebastian Janszoon Krol came out to New Netherland in 1626 as a ”comforter of the sick” at Manhattan, but before long went up to Fort Orange, where he was chief agent for the company most of the time to March, 1632. Then, on Minuit's recall, he was director-general till Wouter van Twiller's arrival in April, 1633.
(2) Peter Minuit, born of Huguenot parentage in 1550 in Wesel, west Germany, was made director general of New Netherland in December, 1625, arrived in May, 1626, bought Manhattan Island of the Indians that summer, and remained in office till recalled early in 1632. In 1636-1637 he made arrangements with Blommaert and the Swedish government, in consequence of which he conducted the first Swedish colony to Delaware Bay, landing there in the spring of 1638, and establis.h.i.+ng New Sweden on territory claimed by the Dutch.
During the ensuing summer he perished in a hurricane at St.
Christopher, in the West Indies.