Part 2 (1/2)

Trade is free to all; this gives the Indians all things cheap, each of the Hollanders outbidding his neighbor, and being satisfied provided he can gain some little profit.

This settlement is not more than twenty leagues from the Agniehronons,(1) who can be reached by land or water, as the river on which the Iroquois lie,(2) falls into that which pa.s.ses by the Dutch; but there are many low rapids, and a fall of a short half league, where the canoe must be carried.

(1) The Mohawks.

(2) Mohawk River.

There are many nations between the two Dutch settlements, which are about thirty German leagues apart, that is, about fifty or sixty French leagues.(1) The Wolves, whom the Iroquois call Agotsaganens,(2) are the nearest to the settlement of Renselaerswick and to Fort Orange. War breaking out some years ago between the Iroquois and the Wolves, the Dutch joined the latter against the former; but four men having been taken and burnt, they made peace. Since then some nations near the sea having killed some Hollanders of the most distant settlement, the Hollanders killed one hundred and fifty Indians, men, women and children, they having, at divers times, killed forty Hollanders, burnt many houses, and committed ravages, estimated at the time that I was there at 200,000 l. (two hundred thousand livres).(3) Troops were raised in New England. Accordingly, in the beginning of winter, the gra.s.s being trampled down and some snow on the ground, they gave them chase with six hundred men, keeping two hundred always on the move and constantly relieving one another; so that the Indians, shut up in a large island, and unable to flee easily, on account of their women and children, were cut to pieces to the number of sixteen hundred, including women and children. This obliged the rest of the Indians to make peace, which still continues. This occurred in 1643 and 1644.(4)

(1) One hundred and fifty English miles.

(2) The Mohicans.

(3) Livres tournois or francs, worth two or three times as much as francs at the time.

(4) See _The Journal of New Netherland_.

From Three Rivers in New France, August 3, 1646.

”JOURNAL OF NEW NETHERLAND” 1647

Reference material and source.

”Journal of New Netherland, 1647.” In J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original Narratives of Early American History). NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.

INTRODUCTION

AN account of the great Indian war which so desolated the province of New Netherland, and of some other actions of Kieft's administration, written from his point of view or that of his supporters, must be regarded as an important piece of evidence. It is the more to be welcomed because on the whole our evidences for New Netherland history come mainly from opponents of the provincial administration and of the West India Company. The archives of the company disappeared almost completely many years ago, the bulk of them having apparently been sold as waste paper not many years before Brodhead went to Holland upon his memorable search. Of Kieft's papers, we may suppose that the greater part were lost when the Princess was s.h.i.+pwrecked on the Welsh coast in September, 1647, and the deposed director and all his possessions were lost.

The doc.u.ment which follows was found by Broadhead in the Royal Library of the Hague. It is still there and is designated No. 78 H 32. I has an outside cover forming a t.i.tle-page, with ornamental lettering, but it is not the ”book ornamented with water-color drawings” which Kieft is known to have sent home. A photograph of the first page, which the editor has procured, does nothing to show the authors.h.i.+p, for it is written in the hand of a professional scrivener. Mr. Van Laer, archivist of the State of New York, a.s.sures the editor that it is not the hand of Keift or that of Cornelis van Tienhoven, the provincial secretary.(1) But that it was either inspired by Kieft, or emanated from one of his supporters, is plain not only from its general tone but from its citations of doc.u.ments. Of the doc.u.ments to which its marginal notes refer, some of those that we can still trace are noted in the archives of the Netherlands as ”from a copy-book of Director Kieft's.” The rest, or the original copy-book, may have perished with him.

(1) Mr. J.H. Innes tells me that it resembles that of Augustin Herrman.

The piece was first printed in 1851, in the _Doc.u.mentary History of the State of New York_, IV. 1-17. It was printed for the second time in 1856, in _Doc.u.ments relating to the Colonial History of New York_, I.

179-188. For the present issue this early and imperfect translation has been revised with great care by Dr. Johannes de Hullu of the National Archives of the Netherlands, who has used for this purpose the original ma.n.u.script in the Royal Library.

JOURNAL OF NEW NETHERLAND, 1647

Journal of New Netherland, 1647, described in the Years 1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645 and 1646.

Brief Description of New Netherland.

NEW NETHERLAND (so called because it was first frequented and peopled by the free Netherlanders) is a province in the most northern part of America lying between New England (which bounds it on the northeast side) and Virginia lying to the southwest of it. The ocean washes its whole length along a clean sandy coast, very similar to that of Flanders or Holland, having except the rivers few bays or harbors for s.h.i.+ps; the air is very temperate, inclining to dryness, healthy, little subject to sickness. The four seasons of the year are about as in France, or the Netherlands. The difference is, the spring is shorter because it begins later, the summer is warmer because it comes on more suddenly, the autumn is long and very pleasant, the winter cold and liable to much snow. Two winds ordinarily prevail: the N.W. in winter and the S.W. in summer; the other winds are not common; the N.W. corresponds with our N.E. because it blows across the country from the cold point as our N.E.

does. The S.W. is dry and hot like our S.E. because it comes from the warm countries; the N.E. is cold and wet like our S.W. for similar reasons. The character of the country is very like that of France; the land is fairly high and level, especially broken along the coast by small rocky hills unfit for agriculture; farther in the interior are pretty high mountains (generally exhibiting great appearance of minerals) between which flow a great number of small rivers. In some places there are even some lofty ones of extraordinary height, but not many. Its fertility falls behind no province in Europe in excellence of fruits and seeds. There are three princ.i.p.al rivers, to wit: the Fresh, the Mauritius and the South River,(1) all three reasonably wide and deep, adapted for the navigation of large s.h.i.+ps twenty-five leagues up and of common barks even to the falls. From the River Mauritius off to beyond the Fresh River stretches a channel that forms an island, forty leagues long, called Long Island, which is the ordinary pa.s.sage from New England to Virginia, having on both sides many harbors to anchor in, so that people make no difficulty about navigating it in winter. The country is generally covered with trees, except a few valleys and some large flats of seven or eight leagues and less; the trees are as in Europe, viz. Oak, hickory, chestnut, vines. The animals are also of the same species as ours, except lions and some other strange beasts, many bears, abundance of wolves which harm n.o.body but the small cattle, elks and deer in abundance, foxes, beavers, otters, minks and such like. The birds which are natural to the country are turkeys like ours, swans, geese of three sorts, ducks, teals, cranes, herons, bitterns, two sorts of partridges, four sorts of heath fowls, grouse or pheasants. The river fish is like that of Europe, viz., carp, sturgeon, salmon, pike, perch, roach, eel, etc. In the salt waters are found codfish, haddock, herring and so forth, also abundance of oysters and clams.