Part 3 (1/2)
In this emergency Kieft called a meeting at which the prominent burghers chose a committee of twelve to advise the Director. This took place in 1641. The Council was headed by Captain David de Vries, whose portrait with its pointed chin, high forehead, and keen eyes, justifies his reputation as the ablest man in New Netherland. He insisted that it was inadvisable to attack the Indians--not to say hazardous.
Besides, the Company had warned them to keep peace. It is interesting to speculate on what would have been the effect on the colony if the Company's choice had fallen upon De Vries instead of on Kieft as Director.
Although restrained for the time, Kieft never relinquished his purpose.
On February 24, 1643, he again announced his intention of making a raid upon the Indians, and in spite of further {65} remonstrance from De Vries he sent out his soldiers, who returned after a ma.s.sacre which disgraced the Director, enraged the natives, and endangered the colony.
Kieft was at first proud of his treachery; but as soon as it was known every Algonquin tribe around New Amsterdam started on the warpath.
From New Jersey to the Connecticut every farm was in peril. The famous and much-persecuted Anne Hutchinson perished with her family; towns were burned; and men, women, and children fled in panic.
On the approach of spring, when the Indians had to plant their corn or face famine, sachems of the Long Island Indians sought a parley with the Dutch. De Vries and Olfertsen volunteered to meet the savages. In the woods near Rockaway they found nearly three hundred Indians a.s.sembled. The chiefs placed the envoys in the center of the circle, and one among them, who had a bundle of sticks, laid down one stick at a time as he recounted the wrongs of his tribe. This orator told how the red men had given food to the settlers and were rewarded by the murder of their people, how they had protected and cherished the traders, and how they had been abused in return. At length De Vries, like the practical man that he was, {66} suggested that they all adjourn to the Fort, promising them presents from the Director.
The chiefs consented to meet the Director and eventually were persuaded to make a treaty of peace; but Kieft's gifts were so n.i.g.g.ardly that the savages went away with rancor still in their hearts, and the war of the races continued its b.l.o.o.d.y course. It is no wonder that when De Vries left the Governor on this occasion, he told Kieft in plain terms of his guilt and predicted that the shedding of so much innocent blood would yet be avenged upon his own head. This prophecy proved a strangely true one. When recalled by the States-General in 1647, Kieft set out for Holland on the s.h.i.+p _Princess_, carrying with him the sum of four hundred thousand guilders. The s.h.i.+p was wrecked in the Bristol channel and Kieft was drowned.
The evil that Kieft did lived after him and the good, if interred with his bones, would not have occupied much s.p.a.ce in the tomb. The only positive advance during his rule--and that was carried through against his will--was the appointment of an advisory committee of the twelve men, representing the householders of the colony, who were called together in the emergency following {67} the murder of Claes Smits, and in 1643 of a similar board of eight men, who protested against his arbitrary measures and later procured his recall.
After the departure of Kieft the most picturesque figure of the period of Dutch rule in America appeared at New Amsterdam, Petrus or Pieter Stuyvesant. We have an authentic portrait in which the whole personality of the man is writ large. The dominant nose, the small, obstinate eyes, the close-set, autocratic mouth, tell the character of the man who was come to be the new and the last Director-General of New Netherland. As Director of the West India Company's colony at Curacao, Stuyvesant had undertaken the task of reducing the Portuguese island of St. Martin and had lost a leg in the fight. This loss he repaired with a wooden leg, of which he professed himself prouder than of all his other limbs together and which he had decorated with silver bands and nails, thus earning for him the sobriquet of ”Old Silver Nails.”
Still, so the legend runs, Peter Stuyvesant's ghost at night ”stumps to and fro with a shadowy wooden leg through the aisles of St. Mark's Church near the spot where his bones lie buried.” But many events were to happen {68} before those bones were laid in the family vault of the chapel on his _bouwerie_.
When Stuyvesant reached the country over which he was to rule, it was noted by the colonists that his bearing was that of a prince. ”I shall be as a father over his children,” he told the burghers of New Amsterdam, and in this patriarchal capacity he kept the people standing with their heads uncovered for more than an hour, while he wore his hat. How he bore out this first impression we may gather from _The Representation of New Netherland_, an arraignment of the Director, drawn up and solemnly attested in 1650 by eleven responsible burghers headed by Adrian Van der Donck, and supplemented by much detailed evidence. The witnesses express the earnest wish that Stuyvesant's administration were at an end, for they have suffered from it and know themselves powerless. Whoever opposes the Director ”hath as much as the sun and moon against him.” In the council he writes an opinion covering several pages and then adds orally: ”This is my opinion. If any one have aught to object to it, let him express it!” If any one ventures to make any objection, his Honor flies into a pa.s.sion and rails in language better fitted to the fish-market than to the council-hall.
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When two burghers, Kuyter and Melyn, who had been leaders of the opposition to Kieft, pet.i.tioned Stuyvesant to investigate his conduct, Stuyvesant supported his predecessor on the ground that one Director should uphold another. At Kieft's instigation he even prosecuted and convicted Kuyter and Melyn for seditious attack on the government.
When Melyn asked for grace till his case could be presented in the Fatherland, he was threatened, according to his own testimony, in language like this: ”If I knew, Melyn, that you would divulge our sentence [that of fine and banishment] or bring it before Their High Mightinesses, I would cause you to be hanged at once on the highest tree in New Netherland.” In another case the Director said: ”It may during my administration be contemplated to appeal; but if anyone should do it, I will make him a foot shorter, and send the pieces to Holland and let him appeal in that way.”
An answer to this arraignment by the burghers of New Netherland was written by Van Tienhoven, who was sent over to the Netherlands to defend Stuyvesant; but its value is impaired by the fact that he was _schout fiscaal_ and interested in the acquittal of Stuyvesant, whose tool he was, {70} and also by the fact that he was the subject of bitter attack in the _Representation_ by Adrian Van der Donck, who accused Van Tienhoven of continually s.h.i.+fting from one side to another and a.s.serted that he was notoriously profligate and untrustworthy. One pa.s.sage in his reply amounted to a confession. Who, he asks, are they who have complained about the haughtiness of the Director, and he answers that they are ”such as seek to live without law or rule.” ”No one,” he goes on to say, ”can prove that Director Stuyvesant has used foul language to or railed at as clowns any respectable persons who have treated him decently. It may be that some profligate person has given the Director, _if he has used any bad words to him_, cause to do so.”
It has been the fas.h.i.+on in popular histories to allude to Stuyvesant as a doughty knight of somewhat choleric temper, ”a valiant, weather beaten, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited, old governor”; but I do not so read his history. I find him a brutal tyrant, as we have seen in the affair of Kieft _versus_ Melyn; a narrow-minded bigot, as we shall see later in his dealing with the Quakers at Flus.h.i.+ng; a bully when his victims were completely in his power; and a loser {71} in any quarrel when he was met with bl.u.s.tering comparable to his own.
In support of the last indictment let us take his conduct in a conflict with the authorities at Rensselaerswyck. In 1646 Stuyvesant had ordered that no building should be erected within cannon-shot of Fort Orange. The superintendent of the settlement denied Stuyvesant's right to give such an order and pointed to the fact that his trading-house had been for a long time on the border of the fort. To the claim that a clear s.p.a.ce was necessary to the fort's efficiency, Van Slichtenhorst, Van Rensselaer's agent, replied that he had spent more than six months in the colony and had never seen a single person carrying a sword, musket, or pike, nor had he heard a drum-beat except on the occasion of a visit from the Director and his soldiers in the summer. Stuyvesant rejoined by sending soldiers and sailors to tear down the house which Van Slichtenhorst was building near Fort Orange, and the commissary was ordered to arrest the builder if he resisted; but the commissary wrote that it would be impossible to carry out the order, as the settlers at Rensselaerswyck, reenforced by the Indians, outnumbered his troops. Stuyvesant then recalled his soldiers and ordered Van {72} Slichtenhorst to appear before him, which the agent refused to do.
In 1652 Stuyvesant ordered Dyckman, then in command at Fort Orange, not to allow any one to build a house near the fort or to remain in any house already built. In spite of proclamations and other bl.u.s.ter this order proved fruitless and on April 1, 1653, Stuyvesant came in person to Fort Orange and sent a sergeant to lower the patroon's flag. The agent refusing to strike the patroon's colors, the soldiers entered, lowered the flag, and discharged their guns. Stuyvesant declared that the region staked out by posts should be known as Beverwyck and inst.i.tuted a court there. Van Slichtenhorst tore down the proclamation, whereupon Stuyvesant ordered him to be imprisoned in the fort. Later the Director transported the agent under guard to New Amsterdam.
Stuyvesant's arbitrary character also appears in his overriding of the measure of local self-government decreed by the States-General in 1653.
Van der Donck and his fellows had asked three things of their High Mightinesses, the States-General: first, that they take over the government of New Netherland; second, that they establish a better city government in New Amsterdam; and third, {73} that they clearly define the boundaries of New Netherland. The first of these requests, owing to the deeply intrenched interest of the West India Company, could not be granted, the last still less. But the States-General urged that munic.i.p.al rights should be given to New Amsterdam, and in 1652 the Company yielded. The charter limited the number of _schepens_ or aldermen to five and the number of burgomasters to two, and also ordained that they as well as the _schout_ should be elected by the citizens; but Stuyvesant ignored this provision and proceeded to appoint men of his own choosing. The Stone Tavern built by Kieft at the head of Coenties Slip was set apart as a _Stadt-Huys_, or City Hall, and here Stuyvesant's appointees, supposed to represent the popular will, held their meetings. It was something that they did hold meetings and nominally at least in the interest of the people. Another concession followed. In 1658 Stuyvesant yielded so far to the principles of popular government as to concede to the _schepens_ and burgomasters of New Amsterdam the right to nominate double the number of candidates for office, from whom the Director was to make a choice.
In 1655, during the absence of Stuyvesant on the South River, the Indians around Manhattan {74} appeared with a fleet of sixty-four war canoes, attacked and looted New Amsterdam, then crossed to Hoboken and continued their b.l.o.o.d.y work in Pavonia and on Staten Island. In three days a hundred men, women, and children were slain, and a hundred and fifty-two were taken captive, and the damage to property was estimated at two hundred thousand guilders--approximately eighty thousand dollars. As usual the Dutch had been the aggressors, for Van Dyck, formerly _schout fiscaal_, had shot and killed an old Indian woman who was picking peaches in his orchard.
It must be set down to Stuyvesant's credit that on his return he acted toward the Indians in a manner that was kind and conciliating, and at the same time provided against a repet.i.tion of the recent disaster by erecting blockhouses at various points and by concentrating the settlers for mutual defense. By this policy of mingled diplomacy and preparation against attack Stuyvesant preserved peace for a period of three years. But trouble with the Indians continued to disturb the colonies on the river and centered at Esopus, where slaughters of both white and red men occurred. Eight white men were burned at the stake in revenge for shots fired by Dutch soldiers, and an Indian chief was {75} killed with his own tomahawk. In 1660 a treaty of peace was framed; but three years later we find the two races again embroiled.
Thus Indian wars continued down to the close of Dutch rule.
In spite of these troubles in the more outlying districts, New Amsterdam continued to grow and thrive. In Stuyvesant's time the thoroughfares of New Amsterdam were laid out as streets and were named.
The line of houses facing the fort on the eastern side was called the Marckveldt, or Marketfield, taking its name from the green opposite, which had been the site of the city market. De Heere Straat, the princ.i.p.al street, ran north from the fort through the gate at the city wall. De Hoogh Straat ran parallel with the East River from the city bridge to the water gate and on its line stood the _Stadt-Huys_. 'T Water ran in a semi-circular line from the point of the island and was bordered by the East River. De Brouwer Straat took its name from the breweries situated on it and was probably the first street in the town to be regulated and paved. De Brugh Straat, as the name implies, led to the bridge crossing. De Heere Graft, the princ.i.p.al ca.n.a.l, was a creek running deep into the island from the East River and protected {76} by a siding of boards. An official was appointed for the care of this ca.n.a.l with orders to see ”that the newly made _graft_ was kept in order, that no filth was cast into it, and that the boats, canoes, and other vessels were laid in order.”
The new city was by this time thoroughly cosmopolitan. One traveler speaks of the use of eighteen different languages, and the forms of faith were as varied as the tongues spoken. Seven or eight large s.h.i.+ps came every year from Amsterdam. The Director occupied a fine house on the point of the island. On the east side of the town stood the _Stadt-Huys_ protected by a half-moon of stone mounted with three small bra.s.s cannon. In the fort stood the Governor's house, the church, the barracks, the house for munitions, and the long-armed windmills.
Everything was prospering except the foundation on which all depended.