The beauty and glory of such a river were not, unaided, sufficient to induce the pioneer to leave his home in civilization and go into a wilderness thousands of miles away. Such a river as the Hudson could not have its origin in a low, marshy country, and its flow seaward, in any but a healthy region, but the inducement to seek that country must be more than the mere sentiment of beauty. There must seem to be a prospect of bettering one’s condition, so far as physical comforts, or civil and religious rights are concerned. Hudson, after his exploration of the Hudson river, on his return to Europe, took back there many very valuable furs which he obtained from the Indians in exchange for trinkets of little cost and of still less real value. This fur and peltry trade was eagerly sought by the Europeans, especially the French, English and Dutch, and the latter were greatly favored for a time, for the Indians from the far north and northwest came to or near Albany to market their goods and buy their supplies. In the years 1610, 1611, 1612, 1613 and 1614 enterprising Amsterdam merchants sent out vessels to and up the Hudson river to obtain furs and peltry and made large profits. In 1614 the territory 75 extending from Cape Cod to the Delaware river, places which Hudson in his third voyage had touched, was claimed by the Netherlands and called New Netherlands, and in that year the Holland government granted a special charter to a company of Amsterdam merchants and others of the United New Netherlands Company giving them the monopoly until January 1, 1618, of all travel and trade in the New Netherlands, during which time they were at liberty to make four voyages. For a period of five years, from 1618 to 1623, there seems to have been a free trade in the New Netherlands—presumably the fur trade proving less profitable.
June 3, 1621, the government of Holland, called the “Lords States General,” incorporated the Dutch West India Company, clothing it with almost kingly powers, to carry on trade and planting settlements from Cape Horn to Newfoundland for a term of twenty-four years.
Its special object was the jurisdiction and exclusive control in New Netherlands. Its government was to be composed of nineteen directors from the five different cities of Holland. The Amsterdam Chamber was to have control of New 76 Netherlands. The company was not fully organized until the spring of 1623. The English never recognized the Dutch claim for the territory called New Netherlands, and as early as 1613 demanded the surrender of the “Dutch trading house” on Manhattan Island, and ten years later the English Ambassador at The Hague protested against the encroachment of the Dutch fur traders—the English claiming the territory under the discoveries of the Cabots in 1497 and 1498. In April, 1623, thirty families, mostly Walloons, or French Protestants, came over and landed at New Amsterdam (New York) and eight of the families came up to Albany and there built Fort Orange near Steamboat Square, about two miles above Fort Nassau, built several years before.
Prior to the coming of the company of the Walloons to the New Netherlands the famous Pilgrim colony had received a patent granted by the Virginia Company giving them the right to settle “about the Hudson river,” and when the “Mayflower” left Southampton, England, that was her destination, but mistaking the route and contrary winds drove her to the Massachusetts coast and there that colony was settled in 1620 at Plymouth 77 Rock. Had the Pilgrims settled in the New Netherlands in 1620 the result doubtless would have been different, but it is doubtful if it would have been better or even so good. It is well to bear in mind that the early settlements in New England were made by persons seeking to avoid persecution on account of their religious creeds, at variance with Roman Catholicism and the established Episcopal Church, and that they might found and establish a home where they could enjoy religious and civil rights. “The Pilgrims” settled at Plymouth in 1620 and “the Puritans” in Salem in 1629. Miles Standish was a prominent figure and character among the Pilgrims, though himself not a Pilgrim. Bradford, Brewster, Winslow, and Carver were the trusted leaders among the Pilgrims. Among the Puritans John Endicott and John Winthrop were easily the chiefs. The “Puritans” were members of the established (Episcopal) church. They sought to have that church purified. They wanted the clergy to give up wearing the surplice, making the sign of the cross in baptism and using the ring in the marriage service—Roman Catholic observances. The Separatists (afterward known 78 in America as the Pilgrims) were a branch of the Puritans—ultra Puritans who utterly repudiated Roman Catholic ceremonials and everything in imitation of or like and therefore separated from the established (Episcopal) church.
The Dutch did not come to the New Netherlands on religious considerations, for Holland tolerated religious freedom, but they came for gain—immediate gain from the fur and peltry trade. They did not early come to settle and for nearly twenty years after Hudson’s exploration and glowing account of it very, very few indeed who came over to engage in, or employed in the fur trade, became settlers. It is said that Sarah Rapelje, a daughter of one of the Walloon settlers, born June 7, 1625, was the first white child born in the New Netherlands. The first reference to the population at Fort Orange (Albany) published seems to have been in a work published in Amsterdam in 1628, which says: “There are no families at Fort Orange. They keep twenty-five or twenty-six traders there.”
The report made by the Nineteen in 1629 to the Lords States General said: “All who are inclined to do any sort of work here procure enough to eat 79 without any trouble and therefore are not willing to go far from home on an uncertainty.” It was apparent that if the Dutch West India Company was to prove a success in the New Netherlands a different course must be pursued, for Virginia and New England were being settled and their territory, in many respects better, was not.
The Dutch West India Company, modeled after the Dutch East India Company, having powerful fleets, sailing along the coasts of South America and the West Indies, preying on the Spanish commerce, capturing their vessels and cargoes and amassing wealth thereby, sought to induce men of wealth, daring, and ambition to relieve them of the undertaking of settling and developing the New Netherlands, which, instead of a source of revenue, had become a burden. They hit upon what was called the Patroon scheme—based upon the Feudal System—a system of land tenure and service prevalent in Europe during the Middle Ages—a system inevitably tending to exalt the Patroon into a lordly baron and to degrade his subject into a serf.
One who sought the distinction of the title of a Patroon (or Patron) of New Netherlands was 80 entitled to hold as a perpetual inheritance, handing it down in the line of the oldest son, an estate having sixteen miles frontage on one side of a navigable river or eight miles on each side, extending as far into the country as the occupiers would permit. The Patroon must obtain Indian title, which usually cost but a trifle. He was empowered to hold civil and criminal courts on his estate and his decisions were practically final. He appointed the officers and magistrates in all the cities and towns in his territory. In order to be invested with this honor, these privileges and powers, he bound himself to take or send over at least fifty emigrants over fifteen years of age to settle on his patent within the next four years.
The emigrants taken or sent by the Patroons to New Netherlands were bound for a specified number of years as apprentices to serve their masters, agreeing not to hunt or fish without the master’s permission, agreeing to grind their grain in his mill and pay his price for grinding. They were pledged not to weave any cloth for themselves or others, but to buy it from the company under the penalty of banishment. They were bound to pay rent in everything they produced. 81 The Patroon and his emigrants were to support a schoolmaster, a minister and a comforter for the sick.
Such in brief was the Patroon system.
The most desirable locations for selections in the New Netherlands were along the Hudson and Delaware rivers, known, of course, by the directors of the Dutch West India Company; prominent among them was Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a wealthy dealer in diamonds and pearls in Amsterdam.
Van Rensselaer, doubtless, informed of the great advantages of Albany, as the great rendezvous of the Indians to market their furs and near the confluence of the two most important rivers of New York, instructed his agents to obtain title from the Indians and he succeeded in procuring a princely estate along the Hudson river above and below Albany, a distance of twenty-four miles and extending east and west forty-eight miles—a territory ample for a kingdom—greater than the area of North Holland and very little less than that of South Holland.
Other directors of the Dutch West India Company promptly made what they thought the most 82 desirable locations along the Hudson river. Manhattan Island (New York) being reserved by the company, and along the Delaware—immense tracts, though none so extensive as Van Rensselaer’s, and became Patroons. Such grants and under such circumstances soon excited jealousy and sharp criticism in Holland and the Patroons felt compelled to make concessions and yield some of their privileges.
Kiliaen Van Rensselaer was a man of energy and executive ability, and strove to increase the growth, importance, and prosperity of Rensselaerwyck in accordance with the Patroon system. It has been said that he visited his estate in the New Netherlands in 1637, but no proof has been found and the report is discredited. A distant landlord frequently is in ignorance, and sometimes designedly kept so, of the actual state of affairs in his estate, which would be remedied if he were present. The Patroon was represented in New Netherlands, when absent, by agents, partners, or directors. Kiliaen admitted into a limited partnership in his estate three prominent members of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company, namely, Samuel Godyn, 83 Johannes de Laet, and Samuel Blommaert, in order the sooner and more effectively to present to the public the attractions of Rensselaerwyck, and, presumably, also to abate the ill feeling against him in the Netherlands for his having taken advantage of his position to secure such an immense estate. Van Rensselaer dominated that partnership and again became sole proprietor. Kiliaen died in 1646 and his son, Johannes, then a minor, under the right of primogeniture, became Patroon and continued to be until 1658, when he died. His interests in Rensselaerwyck were cared for at first by Van Slechtenhorst, or until 1652, and then by the Patroon’s half brother, Jan Baptiste.
In 1658 Jeremias, the second son of Kiliaen, became director and subsequently proprietor of Rensselaerwyck and was the first of the Patroons to reside in, or even visit, the estate in New Netherlands.
There were eight of the Van Rensselaers called Patroons, namely and in the order of primogeniture except in the case of Jeremias:
First.—Kiliaen, from 1629 to 1646.
Second.—Johannes, from 1646 to 1658.
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Third.—Jeremias, from 1658 to 1674.
Fourth.—Kiliaen 2d, from 1674 to 1720.
Fifth.—Stephen, from 1720 to 1747.
Sixth.—Stephen 2d, from 1747 to 1769.
Seventh.—Stephen 3d, from 1769 to 1839.
Eighth.—Stephen 4th, from 1839 to 1868.
Under the Constitution and laws of the United States in 1787 the Rensselaerwyck could no longer be entailed and it was divided by Stephen 3d (the seventh Patroon) between his sons Stephen 4th (called Patroon merely by courtesy) and William Patterson—the former getting the mansion, title, and the estate in Albany, and the latter the estate east of the Hudson.
During the Patroonship of the Van Rensselaers—a period of about 150 years—many important events occurred, changing the relations of nations, the forms of government, and affecting Patroon interests. The Patroons were reputable men of affairs and some of them of superior abilities and generally discharged their duties creditably. To trace their acts through their rule would now be not only tedious but useless. There arose a controversy between the Dutch West India Company 85 and the Patroon concerning the territory surrounding Fort Orange (in Albany) built by the company, which was finally decided in favor of the Patroon, as the territory surrounding the fort and the fort itself was within his patent. The fur trade early was very important and as the English, claiming the territory under the right of prior discovery, sought this trade, their vessels sailed up the Hudson and set up trading posts. The Patroon attempted to prevent traders from coming to his colony to deal with the colonists and Indians and with that object in view ordered one Nicolaas Coorn to fortify Beeren Island (about eleven miles below Albany), a commanding position, and there demand of each skipper of a vessel passing, except those of the Dutch West India Company, a toll of five guilders ($2) as a tax and also to lower his colors in honor of the Patroon. Govert Loockermans, sailing the vessel “Good Hope” up the river in 1644, was ordered, as he was passing the fort, to lower her colors, which he refused to do and Coorn gave him three cannon shots. In pursuing this course the Patroon virtually said, I own not only the territory on both sides of the river but the river itself for that distance. 86 The Patroon was compelled to back down and pay damages.
The Netherlands, an ancient kingdom, formerly included Belgium (now a separate kingdom, Brussels, its capital) and ten provinces besides North and South Holland, its largest and most important ones, with Amsterdam and The Hague as the capitals. Frequently the name of Holland is used when Netherlands should have been.
The Lords States General (in many respects like our Congress, composed of the Senate and House of Representatives) was the legislative body of the Netherlands, and in June, 1621, granted a charter to the Dutch West India Company, giving it the exclusive privileges, for a period of twenty-four years, as follows: To traffic on the coast and in the interior of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope; in America and the West Indies with the power to make engagements, contracts, and alliances with the rulers and people designated in the charter; to build forts, to appoint and discharge officers, to advance the settlement of unoccupied territory, to enlarge the channels of commerce, and to multiply the sources of revenue.
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The company was required to report, from time to time, its doings, and in the appointment of civil and military officers and instructions given to them the Lords States General were to be consulted and the commissions must bear their seal. If troops were needed the Lords States General would furnish them but the company must pay all the expenses. The charter intrusted the government of the company to five chambers of managers consisting of nineteen members, eight from the Amsterdam Chamber, four from the Zealand, two from the Maas, two from North Holland, two from the Frieland, and the government one.
This company, under its charter, introduced the Patroon system granting certain rights and privileges (very liberal ones and in some respects extraordinary) and reserving the traffic in furs and peltry and in manufactured goods and ............