Execution

of John

unquestioned authority. The exigencies of their own condition, the maintenance of social order and of mutual rights, the suggestions of common sense, and the dictates of their own consciences, made the body of the law. Not till the first serious crime was committed among them-the murder of a fellow-colonist by one Billington. John Billington- was it thought necessary to seek for counsel, for precedent and sanction in English law. The advice of Governor Winthrop and other leading men of Massachusetts Bay was asked, as to what should be done under such novel and distressing circumstances, and the conclusion of the united council was that the man should die, and the land be purged of blood.

1 See Historical Memoir of the County of New Plymouth, pp. 227, 228, by Francis Baylies.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ORDER OF PATROONS ESTABLISHED IN NEW NETHERLAND. - DIVISION AND MONOPOLY OF LANDS. THE COMPANY OVERREACHED BY THE PATROONS. - MASSACRE OF THE COLONISTS OF SWAANENDAEL. WOUTER VAN TWILLER APPOINTED GOVERNOR. WEAKNESS AND ABSURDITIES OF HIS ADMINISTRATION. - SUPERSEDED BY WILLIAM KIEFT. POPULAR MEASURES OF THE COUNCIL AT AMSTERDAM. — PURCHASE OF LANDS FROM PATROONS. INCREASE OF IMMIGRATION. PROMISE OF PROSPERITY TO THE COLONY.- - PORTENTS OF COMING CALAMITIES.A COUNCIL OF TWELVE APPOINTED.

Policy of
Company.

WITH the short-sighted selfishness that belongs to every great monopoly, the West India Company attempted to assure the growth and prosperity of their colony by means the least likely to secure that end. In the Netherlands the feudal system had grad- West India ually given way, as everywhere else in Europe, with the increasing intelligence of the people. Titles of nobility still existed, but they had come to be held in little esteem; and wherever great manorial privileges were still tolerated, it was rather as the right of landlords than of chiefs. But this system a great Netherland commercial company now proposed to reestablish upon the virgin soil

of a new continent, where that pretence of right, which centuries of endurance were supposed to give it in the Old World, had no existence.

The plan of the directors at Amsterdam was to establish seigniories in the hands of a few great proprietors, whose wealth and ambition would make them lords of people as well as of lands. To the Company, would be saved by this course, they argued, all the enormous cost and care of emigration, the necessity of supporting a small army of officers, and much of the expense of carrying on a government. The colony would increase in wealth and numbers through the labors of the great proprietors, while the chief function of the Company would be to absorb the growing trade and commerce, and to wax fat in opulence and power.

The "Charter of Privileges and Exemptions," issued by the West India Company's College of Nineteen on June 7, 1629, provided that any person, a member of this Company (for to this restriction the College adhered even in their new measure), who should purchase of the Indians and found in any part of New Netherland except Manhattan, a colony of fifty persons over fifteen years of age, should be in all respects the feudal lord or patroon of the territory of which he should thus take possession. Not only should he have a full and inheritable title and proprietorship, but the power to establish officers and magis

Proprietary privileges.

trates in all towns and cities on his lands; to hold manorial courts, from which in higher cases the only appeal was to the director-general of New Netherland; to possess the "lower jurisdictions, fishing, fowling and grinding, to the exclusion of all others;" to make use of all "lands, rivers, and woods, lying contiguous to his own;" in short, to hold and govern his great manors with as absolute rule as any baron of the Middle Ages, with the added advantage of distance from all other constituted authority except that of the corporation of which he was himself a member. The lands which such proprietors could take under these conditions might have a frontage of sixteen miles on one bank, or eight miles on each bank, of any navigable river; with the privilege of extending the estates "so far into the country as the situation of the occupiers would permit." The patroons could trade along the American coast within the Company's nominal jurisdiction, if they brought the goods obtained to the headquarters at Manhattan and paid a tariff of five per cent.; they could engage in the fur trade where the Company itself had

1629.]

A MONOPOLY WITHIN A MONOPOLY.

431

tenants un

ter.

no factories, on much the same conditions; and avail themselves of the sea-fisheries on paying three guilders a ton for what they caught. Their power over their people was almost unlimited; for no" man or woman, son or daughter, man-servant or maid- Condition of servant" could leave a patroon's service during the time laborers and they had agreed to remain, except by his written consent; der the charand this rule held in spite of any and all abuses or breaches of contract on the patroon's part. The Company promised to protect and defend the proprietors in the exercise of all these privileges, requiring in return only that each should make an annual report of the condition of his colony. The only privilege that attached to tenants under the patroons was their exemption for ten years from all taxation; though a certain temporary aid was granted to them by the Company's promise to furnish for their assistance" as many

the Company's ships were also inserted in the charter, but they were in every way favorable to the great proprietors.

Results of

oly.

This creation of a monopoly within a monopoly, had some immediate results that might have been foreseen. The same principle which the Company was carrying out against the rest of the world, its richer and shrewder members enforced against the monoptheir less fortunate fellow-shareholders. Before the charter was published some of the directors in the Amsterdam Council had their preparations fully made to seize upon the benefits they knew to be in prospect. No sooner were the "privileges and exemptions" actually made law, than Samuel Godyn, a director, The first informed his colleagues that he and his fellow-director, patroons. Samuel Blommaert, had already perfected their arrangements to oc

cupy "the Bay of the South River," and had secured their title and privileges as patroons by purchase of that region, and by due notice to Minuit, at Manhattan. So prompt had been their action that the purchase had been made two days before even the first passage of the charter; but of course it was decided to come within its rules, and the first patroon's patent was duly delivered during the next year.1

Lands acquired by

Other Amsterdam directors had also availed themselves of their position to forestall the ordinary stockholders, and were but little behind Godyn and Blommaert. In the spring of 1630, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, a wealthy dealer and worker in precious stones, bought from the Indians, through Krol, the Company's commissary at Fort Orange, an immense tract of land on the west side of the North River. It extended from Barren (originally Beeren, or Bear's) Island, about twelve miles below Albany, to Smack's Island, and two days' journey inland; and to this he added later in the year, and after beginning its colonization, another territory to the northward, carrying his boundaries nearly to the confluence of the Mohawk. On the east side of the river he bought, in August, a third tract patroons. with a river front extending from Castle Island to Fort Orange, and from "Poetanock, the Mill Creek, northwards to Negagonce." Michael Pauw, another director, had meanwhile acquired the territory opposite Manhattan Island, on the west bank, which still bears, in the name Hoboken, a part of its old title "HobokanHacking;" he soon after secured the whole of Staten (then Staaten) Island; and later still the region where Jersey City now stands, and all its neighborhood. While Van Rensselaer called his estate simply Rensselaerswyck (or Manor), Pauw bestowed upon his the more sonorous latinized title of "Pavonia." Fort Orange, reserved for the Company in the north, stood isolated in the midst of Van Rensselaer's vast domain, while the post at Manhattan lay opposite the long river-front of Pauw's possessions. The land of both patroons far exceeded the terms of even the liberal charter, absorbing some of the Company's most profitable trading-regions. Van Rensselaer's purchases were ratified at Fort Amsterdam on the very day on which the charter was first officially proclaimed there; and Pauw's final purchase but three months after.

When the action of these enterprising capitalists was revealed to

1 July 15, 1630. "It was the first European title, by purchase from the aborigines, within the limits of the present State of Delaware; and it bears date two years before the charter of Maryland, granted to Lord Baltimore by Charles I.” — Brodhead, vol. i., p. 200. Mr. Brodhead found the original patent at Amsterdam, in 1841. It has the names of both proprietors, but the English version among old Delaware documents, has only Godyn's. Compare O'Callaghan, vol. i., p. 122, note; and Moulton.