Part 7 (1/2)
Yea, the seeds of war, according to the declaration of Director Kieft, were first sown by the Fatherland; for he said he had Express orders to exact the contribution from the Indians; Which would have been very well if the land had been peopled, But as it was, it was premature.
Trade, without which, when it is legitimate, no country is prosperous, is by their acts so decayed, that it amounts to nothing. It is more suited for slaves than freemen, in consequence of the restrictions upon it and the annoyances which accompany the exercise of the right of inspection. We approve of inspection, however, so far as relates to contraband.
This contraband trade has ruined the country, and contraband goods are now sent to every part of it by orders given by the Managers to their officers. These orders should be executed without partiality, which is not always the case. The Recognition(1) runs high, and of inspection and confiscation there is no lack; hence legitimate trade is entirely diverted, except a little, which exists pro forma, as a cloak for carrying on illicit trading. In the mean time the Christians are treated almost like Indians, in the purchase of the necessaries with which they cannot dispense. This causes great complaint, distress and poverty: as, for example, the merchants sell those goods which are liable to little depreciation at a hundred per cent. and more profit, when there is particular demand or scarcity of them. And the traders who come with small cargoes, and others engaged in the business, buy them up from the merchants and sell them again to the common man, who cannot do without them, oftentimes at a hundred per cent. advance, or higher and lower according to the demand. Upon liquors, which are liable to much leakage, they take more, and those who buy from them retail them in the same manner, as we have described in regard to dry wares, and generally even more cunningly, so that the goods are sold through first, second and sometimes third hands, at one and two hundred per cent. advance. We are not able to think of all the practices which are contrived for advancing individual and private gain. Little attention is given to populating the land. The people, moreover, have been driven away by harsh and unreasonable proceedings, for which their Honors gave the orders; for the Managers wrote to Director Kieft to prosecute when there was no offence, and to consider a partial offence an entire one, and so forth.
It has also been seen how the letters of the Eight Men were treated, and what followed thereupon;(2) besides there were many ruinous orders and instructions which are not known to us. But leaving this at present, with now and then a word, at a convenient point, let us proceed to examine how their officers and Directors have conducted themselves from time to time, having played with the managers as well as with the people, as a cat does with a mouse. It would be possible to relate their management from the beginning, but as most of us were not here then and therefore not eye-witnesses, and as a long time has pa.s.sed whereby it has partly escaped recollection, and as in our view it was not so bad then as afterwards when the land was made free and freemen began to increase, we will pa.s.s by the beginning and let Mr. Lubbert van Dincklaghen, Vice Director of New Netherland, describe the government of Director Wouter van Twiller of which he is known to have information, and will only speak of the last two sad and dire confusions (we would say governments if we could) under Director Kieft, who is now no more, but the evil of it lives after him; and of that under Director Stuyvesant which still stands, if indeed that may be called standing which lies completely under foot.
(1) Export duty.
(2) Nevertheless, the remonstrance of the Eight Men, October 28, 1644, _N.Y. Coll. Doc._, I. 209, did cause the reform of the system of provincial government and the recall of Kieft.
The Directors here, though far from their masters, were close by their profit. They have always known how to manage their own matters very properly and with little loss, yet under pretext of the public business.
They have also conducted themselves just as if they were the sovereigns of the country. As they desired to have it, so it always had to be; and as they willed so was it done. ”The Managers,” they say, ”are masters in Fatherland, but we are masters in this land.” As they understand it it will go, there is no appeal. And it has not been difficult for them hitherto to maintain this doctrine in practice; for the people were few and for the most part very simple and uninformed, and besides, they needed the Directors every day. And if perchance there were some intelligent men among them, who could go upon their own feet, them it was sought to oblige. They could not understand at first the arts of the Directors which were always subtle and dark, so that these were frequently successful and occasionally remained effective for a long time. Director Kieft said himself, and let it be said also by others, that he was sovereign in this country, or the same as the Prince in the Netherlands. This was repeated to him several times here and he never made any particular objection to it. The refusing to allow appeals, and other similar acts, prove clearly that in our opinion no other proof is needed. The present Director does the same, and in the denial of appeal, he is also at home. He likes to a.s.sert the maxim ”the Prince is above the law,” and applies it so boldly to his own person that it confutes itself. These directors, having then the power in their hands, could do and have done what they chose according to their good will and pleasure; and whatever was, was right, because it was agreeable to them. It is well known that those who a.s.sume power, and use it to command what they will, frequently command and will more than they ought, and, whether it appear right or not, there are always some persons who applaud such conduct, some out of a desire to help on and to see mischief, others from fear; and so men still complain with Jan Vergas de clementia ducis, of the clemency of the duke.(1) But in order that we give n.o.body cause to suspect that we blow somewhat too hard, it will be profitable to ill.u.s.trate by examples the government of Mr. Director Kieft at its close, and the administration of Mr. Director Stuyvesant just prior to the time of our departure. We frankly admit, however, that we shall not be able to speak fully of all the tricks, because they were conducted so secretly and with such duplicity and craft. We will nevertheless expose some of their proceedings according to our ability, and thus let the lion be judged of from his paw.
(1) Juan de Vargas, the chief member of the Duke of Alva's ”Council of Blood,” who complained that the duke's methods were too lenient.
Casting our eyes upon the government of Director Kieft, the church first meets us, and we will therefore speak of the public property ecclesiastical and civil. But as this man is now dead, and some of his management and doings are freely represented by one Jochem Pietersz Cuyter and Cornelis Melyn,(1) we will dispose of this point as briefly as we possibly can.
(1) Stuyvesant, soon after his arrival, at the instance of Kieft, condemned Kieft's chief opponents, Kuyter and Melyn, for lese-majesty, and banished them, forbidding them to appeal. On reaching Holland, however, after their dramatic escape from the s.h.i.+pwreck of the Princess, they appealed, and secured a reversal of their condemnation.
Before the time that Director Kieft brought the unnecessary war upon the country, his princ.i.p.al aim and endeavors were to provide well for himself and to leave a great name after him, but without any expense to himself or the Company, for this never did anything remarkable for the country by which it was improved. Thus he considered the erection of a church a very necessary public work, the more so as it was in contemplation to build one at that time at Renselaers-Wyck. With this view he communicated with the churchwardens--of which body he himself was one--and they willingly agreed to and seconded the project. The place where it should stand was then debated. The Director contended that it should be placed in the fort, and there it was erected in spite of the others, and, indeed, as suitably as a fifth wheel of a wagon; for besides that the fort is small and lies upon a point of land which must be very valuable in case of an increase of population, the church ought to be owned by the congregation at whose cost it was built. It also intercepts and turns off the southeast wind from the grist-mill which stands close by, for which reason there is frequently in summer a want of bread from its inability to grind, though not from this cause alone.
The mill is neglected and, in consequence of having had a leaky roof most of the time, has become considerably rotten, so that it cannot now go with more than two arms, and it has been so for nearly five years.
But to return to the church--from which the grist-mill has somewhat diverted us--the Director then resolved to build a church, and at the place where it suited him; but he was in want of money and was at a loss how to obtain it. It happened about this time that the minister, Everardus Bogardus, gave his step-daughter in marriage; and the occasion of the wedding the Director considered a good opportunity for his purpose. So after the fourth or fifth round of drinking, he set about the business, and he himself showing a liberal example let the wedding-guests subscribe what they were willing to give towards the church. All then with light heads subscribed largely, competing with one another; and although some well repented it when they recovered their senses, they were nevertheless compelled to pay--nothing could avail to prevent it. The church was then, contrary to every one's wish, placed in the fort. The honor and owners.h.i.+p of that work must be judged of from the inscription, which is in our opinion ambiguous, thus reading: ”1642.
Willem Kieft, Director General, has caused the congregation to build this church.”(1) But whatever be intended by the inscription, the people nevertheless paid for the church.
(1) The inscription was in existence till 1835. This third church stood near what is now called the Bowling Green. The inscription, though susceptible of misconstruction, is not really ambiguous. Its proper interpretation is: ”1642, Willem Kieft being Director General, the congregation caused this church to be built.”
We must now speak of the property belonging to the church, and, to do the truth no violence, we do not know that there has ever been any, or that the church has any income except what is given to it. There has never been any exertion made either by the Company or by the Director to obtain or establish any.
The bowl has been going round a long time for the purpose of erecting a common school and it has been built with words, but as yet the first stone is not laid. Some materials only are provided. The money nevertheless, given for the purpose, has already found its way out and is mostly spent; or may even fall short, and for this purpose also no fund invested in real estate has ever been built up.
The poor fund, though the largest, contains nothing except the alms collected among the people, and some fines and donations of the inhabitants. A considerable portion of this money is in the possession of the Company, who have borrowed it from time to time, and kept it.
They have promised, for years, to pay interest. But in spite of all endeavor neither princ.i.p.al nor interest can be obtained from them.
Flying reports about asylums for orphans, for the sick and aged,(1) and the like have occasionally been heard, but as yet we can not see that any attempt, order or direction has been made in relation to them. From all these facts, then, it sufficiently appears that scarcely any proper care or diligence has been used by the Company or its officers for any ecclesiastical property whatever--at least, nothing as far as is known--from the beginning to this time; but on the contrary great industry and exertion have been used to bind closely to them their minions, or to gain new ones as we shall hereafter at the proper time relate. And now let us proceed to the consideration of what public measures of a civil character had been adopted up to the time of our departure, in order to make manifest the diligence and care of the Directors in this particular.
(1) Seventeenth-century Dutch towns abounded in inst.i.tutions of this sort.
There was not at first, under the government of Director Kieft, so much opportunity as there has since been, because the recognition of the peltries was then paid in the Fatherland, and the freemen gave nothing for excise; but after that public calamity, the rash war, was brought upon us, the recognition of the peltries began to be collected in this country, and a beer-excise was sought to be established, about which a conference was had with the Eight Men, who were then chosen from the people. They did not approve of it as such, but desired to know under what regulations and upon what footing it would take place, and how long it would continue. Director Kieft promised that it should not continue longer than until a s.h.i.+p of the Company should arrive with a new Director, or until the war should be at an end. Although it was very much distrusted by all, and therefore was not consented to, yet he introduced it by force. The brewers who would not agree to it had their beer given over to the soldiers. So it was enforced, but it caused great strife and discontent.
From this time forward the Director began to divide the people and to create factions. Those who were on his side could do nothing amiss, however bad it might be; those who were opposed to him were always wrong even if they did perfectly right, and the order to reckon half an offence a whole one was then strictly enforced. The jealousy of the Director was so great that he could no bear without suspicion that impartial persons should visit his partisans.
After the war was, as the Director himself said, finished--though in our opinion it will never be finished until the country is populated--every one hoped that this impost would be removed, but Director Kieft put off the removal until the arrival of a new Director, which was longed for very much. When finally he did appear,(1) it was like the crowning of Rehoboam, for, instead of abolis.h.i.+ng the beer-excise, his first business was to impose a wine-excise and other intolerable burdens, so that some of the commonalty, as they had no spokesman, were themselves constrained to remonstrate against it. Instead however of obtaining the relief which they expected, they received abuse from the Director. Subsequently a written answer was given them, which the Director had, as usual, drawn up at such length and with such fulness that plain and simple people, such as are here, must be confused, and unable to make anything out of it. Further attempts have accordingly been made from time to time to introduce new taxes and burdens. In fine it was so managed in Director Kieft's time, that a large yearly sum was received from the recognition and other sources, calculated to amount annually to 16,000 guilders,(2) besides the recognition which was paid in the Fatherland and which had to be contributed by the poor commonalty; for the goods were sold accordingly, and the prices are now unbearably high. In Director Stuyvesant's administration the revenue has reached a much higher sum, and it is estimated that about 30,000 guilders(3) are now derived yearly from the people by recognitions, confiscations, excise and other taxes, and yet it is not enough; the more one has the more one wants. It would be tolerable to give as much as possible, if it was used for the public weal. And whereas in all the proclamations it is promised and declared that the money shall be employed for laudable and necessary public works, let us now look for a moment and see what laudable public works there are in this country, and what fruits all the donations and contributions have hitherto borne. But not to confuse matters, one must understand us not to refer to goods and effects that belong to the Honorable Company as its own, for what belongs to it particularly was never public. The Company's effects in this country may, perhaps, with forts, cannon, ammunition, warehouses, dwelling-houses, workshops, horses, cattle, boats, and whatever else there may be, safely be said to amount to from 60,000 to 70,000 guilders,(4) and it is very probable that the debts against it are considerably more. But pa.s.sing these by, let us turn our attention to the public property, and see where the money from time to time has been used. According to the proclamations during the administration of Director Kieft, if we rightly consider, estimate and examine them all, we cannot learn or discover that anything--we say anything large or small--worth relating, was done, built or made, which concerned or belonged to the commonalty, the church excepted, whereof we have heretofore spoken. Yea, he went on so badly and negligently that nothing has ever been designed, understood or done that gave appearance of design to content the people, even externally, but on the contrary what came from the commonalty has even been mixed up with the effects of the Company, and even the Company's property and means have been everywhere neglected, in order to make friends, to secure witnesses and to avoid accusers about the management of the war.
The negroes, also, who came from Tamandare(5) were sold for pork and peas, from the proceeds of which something wonderful was to be performed, but they just dripped through the fingers. There are also various other negroes in this country, some of whom have been made free for their long service, but their children have remained slaves, though it is contrary to the laws of every people that any one born of a free Christian mother should be a slave and be compelled to remain in servitude. It is impossible to relate everything that has happened.
Whoever did not give his a.s.sent and approval was watched and, when occasion served, was punished for it. We submit to all intelligent persons to consider what fruit this has borne, and what a way this was to obtain good testimony. Men are by nature covetous, especially those who are needy, and of this we will hereafter adduce some few proofs, when we come to speak of Director Kieft's government particularly. But we shall now proceed to the administration of Director Stuyvesant, and to see how affairs have been conducted up to the time of our departure.
(1) Stuyvesant arrived from Holland by way of the West Indies in May, 1647.
(2) Equivalent to $6,400.