SKETCHES

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MANNERS AND SCENERY IN AMERICA.

CHAPTER I

Province of New York.-Origin of the Settlement at Albany.-Singular Possession held by the Patroon.-Account of his Tenants.

It is well known that the province of New York, anciently called Munhattoes by the Indians, was originally settled by a Dutch colony, which came from Holland, I think, in the time of Charles the Second. Finding the country to their liking, they were followed by others more wealthy and better informed. Indeed, some of the early emigrants appear to have been people respectable both from their family and character. Of these the principal were the Cuylers, the Schuylers, the Rensselaers, the Delancys, the Cortlandts, the Tenbroecks, and the Beekmans, who have all of them been since distinguished in the civil wars, either as persecuted loyalists or triumphant patriots. I do not precisely recollect the motives assigned for the voluntary exile of persons who were evidently in circumstances that might admit of their living in comfort at home, but am apt to think that the early settlers were those who adhered to the interest of the Stadtholder's family, a party which, during the minority of King William, was almost persecuted by the high republicans. They who came over at a later period probably belonged to the party which opposed the Stadtholder, and which was then in its turn depressed. These persons afterwards distinguished themselves by an aversion, nearly amounting to antipathy, to the British army, and indeed to all the British

colonists. Their notions were mean and contracted; their manners blunt and austere; and their habits sordid and parsimonious. As the settlement began to extend they retired, and formed new establishments, afterwards called Firkkill, Esopus, &c.

To the Schuylers, Cuylers, Delancys, Cortlandts, and a few others, this description did by no means apply. Yet they too bore about them the tokens of former affluence and respectability, such as family plate, portraits of their ancestors executed in a superior style, and great numbers of original paintings, some of which were much admired by acknowledged judges. Of these the subjects were generally taken from sacred history.

I do not recollect the exact time, but think it was during the last years of Charles the Second, that a settlement we then possessed at Surinam was exchanged for the extensive (indeed at that time boundless) province of Munhattoes, which, in compliment to the then heir-apparent, was called New York. Of the unexplored part of that country, the most fertile and beautiful was situated far inland, on the banks of the Hudson River. This copious and majestic stream is navigable 170 miles from its mouth, for vessels of sixty or seventy tons burden. Near the head of it, as a kind of barrier against the natives, and a central resort for traders, the foundation was laid of a town called Oranienburgh, and afterwards by the British, Albany.

After the necessary precaution of erecting a small stockaded fort for security, a church was built in the centre of the intended town, which served in different respects as a kind of landmark. A gentleman of the name of Rensselaer was considered as in a manner lord paramount of this city, a preeminence which his successor still enjoys, both with regard to the town and the lands adjacent. The original proprietor obtained from the High and Mighty States a grant of lands, which, from the church, extended twelve miles in every direction, forming a manor twenty-four Dutch miles in length, and the same in breadth, including lands not only of the best quality of any in the province, but the most happily situated for the purposes both of commerce and of agriculture This great proprietor was looked up to as much as republicans in a new country could be supposed to look up to any one. He

was called the Patroon, a designation tantamount to lord of the manor. Yet, in the distribution of these lands, the sturdy Belgian spirit of independence set limits to the power and profits of this lord of the forests, as he might then be called. None of these lands were either sold or alienated. The more wealthy settlers, as the Schuylers, Cuylers, &c., took very extensive leases of the fertile plains along the river, with boundless liberty of woods and pasturage to the westward. The terms were, that the lease should hold while water runs and grass grows, and the landlord to receive the tenth sheaf of every kind of grain the ground produces. Thus, ever accommodating the rent to the fertility of the soil, and changes of the seasons, you may suppose the tenants did not greatly fear a landlord, who could neither remove them, nor heighten their rents. Thus, without the pride of property, they had all the independence of proprietors. They were like German princes, who, after furnishing their contingent to the emperor, might make war on him when they chose. Besides the profits (yearly augmenting) which the patroon drew from his ample possessions, he held in his own hands an extensive and fruitful demesne. Yet, preserving in a great measure the simple and frugal habits of his ancestors, his wealth was not an object of envy, nor a source of corruption to his fellow-citizens. To the northward of these bounds, and at the southern extremity also, the Schuylers and Cuylers held lands of their own. But the only other great land- • holders I remember, holding their land by those original tenures, were Philips and Cortlandt; their lands lay also on the Hudson River, half way down to New York, and were denominated Philips's and Cortlandt's manors. At the time of the first settling of the country, the Indians were numerous and powerful along all the river; but they consisted of wandering families, who, though they established some sort of local boundaries for distinguishing the hunting grounds of each tribe, could not be said to inhabit any place. The cool and crafty Dutch governors, being unable to cope with them in arms, purchased from them the most valuable tracts for some petty consideration. They affected great friendship for them; and, while conscious of their own weakness, were careful not to provoke hostilities; and they silently and insensibly established themselves to the west.

CHAPTER II.

Account of the Five Nations, or Mohawk Indians.-Building of the Fort at Albany.-John and Philip Schuyler.

On the Mohawk River, about forty miles distant from Albany, there subsisted a confederacy of Indian tribes, of a very different character from those mentioned in the preceding chapter; too sagacious to be deceived, and too powerful to be eradicated. These were the once renowned five nations, whom any one, who remembers them while they were a people, will hesitate to call savages. Were they savages who had fixed habitations; who cultivated rich fields; who built castles, (for so they called their not incommodious wooden houses, surrounded with palisadoes;) who planted maize and beans, and showed considerable ingenuity in constructing and adorning their canoes, arms, and clothing? They who had wise though unwritten laws, and conducted their wars, treaties, and alliances, with deep and sound policy; they whose eloquence was bold, nervous, and animated; whose language was sonorous, musical, and expressive; who possessed generous and elevated sentiments, heroic fortitude, and unstained probity-were these indeed savages? The ⚫difference

"Of scent the headlong lioness between

And hound sagacious, on the tainted green,"

is not greater than that of the Mohawks in point of civility and capacity, from other American tribes, among whom, indeed, existed a far greater diversity of character, language, &c., than Europeans seem to be aware of. This little tribute to the memory of a people who have been, while it sooths the pensive recollections of the writer, is not so foreign to the subject as it may at first appear. So much of the peace and safety of the infant community depended on the friendship and alliance of these generous tribes; and to conciliate and retain their affections so much address was necessary, that common characters were unequal to the task. Minds liberal and upright, like those I am about to describe, could alone excite that esteem, and preserve that confidence, which

were essential towards retaining the friendship of those valuable allies.

From the time of the great rebellion, so many English refugees frequented Holland, that the language and manners of our country became familiar at the Hague, particularly among the Stadtholder's party. When the province of New York fell under the British dominion, it became necessary that everybody should learn our language, as all public business was carried on in the English tongue, which they did the more willingly, as, after the revolution, the accession of the Stadtholder to the English crown very much reconciled them to our government. Still, however, the English was a kind of court language; little spoken, and imperfectly understood in the interior. Those who carried over with them the French and English languages soon acquired a sway over their less enlightened fellow-settlers. Of this number were the Schuylers and Cuylers, two families among whom intellect of the superior kind seemed an inheritance, and whose intelligence and liberality of mind, fortified by well-grounded principle, carried them far beyond the petty and narrow views of the rest. Habituated at home to centre all wisdom and all happiness in commercial advantages, they would have been very ill-qualified to lay the foundation of an infant state in a country that afforded plenty and content, as the reward of industry, but where the very nature of the territory, as well as the state of society, precluded great pecuniary acquisitions. Their object here was to tame savage nature, and to make the boundless wild subservient to agricultural purposes. Commercial pursuits were a distant prospect; and before they became of consequence, rural habits had greatly changed the character of these republicans. But the commercial spirit, inherent in all true Batavians, only slept to wake again, when the avidity of gain was called forth by the temptation of bartering for any lucrative commodity. The furs of the Indians gave this occasion, and were too soon made the object of the avidity of petty traders. To the infant settlement at Albany the consequences of this short-sighted policy might have proved fatal, had not these patriotic leaders, by their example and influence, checked for a while such illiberal and dangerous practices. It is a fact singular and worth attending to, from the lesson it exhibits, that in all our distant colonies