Dutch history and the relation with pre English America
A Brief Outline of Dutch History and
the Province of New Netherland
Although most Americans are familiar with the basic outline of the British
colonization of America, and even know some information on the Spanish and
French settlements, their is less familiarity with the history and geography of
another new word settler, namely the Dutch. Not only did they settle the colony
of New Netherland but coins from both the United Provinces of the Netherlands
and the Flemish area held by Spain, which we now call Belgium, circulated in
America. The following summaries are presented to clarify statements in the
various sections of this site that mention events concerning the Dutch; below
are capsule histories (a) on the formation of the states of Belgium and the
Netherlands and (b) the development of the province of New Netherland in
America.
The Division of Belgium and the Netherlands
For the most part the cities and provinces in the area known as the Low
Countries developed independently from the Ninth through the mid Fourteenth
centuries. From 1363-1472 the area was gradually assimilated by four generations
of the Dukes of Burgundy from Philip the Bold to Charles the Bold. Eventually
the lands passed by marriage to the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Upon
Charles's abdication in 1556 the lands reverted to his son Philip II of Spain.
Philip then sent his sister Margaret of Parma to rule the area. The Calvinist
Dutch in the northern provinces especially disliked the Spanish Catholics. They
feared the Inquisition would be brought to the Netherlands, and that personal
and economic as well as religious freedom would be lost, so they revolted.
Philip then sent Ferdinand Alverez, the Duke of Alba to bring order to the area.
On August 8, 1567 the Spanish Duke of Alba entered Brussels as military dictator
with some 10,000 troops. Thousands of people from both the northern and the
souththern provinces fled the Low Countries, including the prominent noble
William of Orange, Count of Nassau. Alba suppressed anyone who opposed him
including William of Orange, whose lands he confiscated.
The Calvinist northern provinces began allying themselves with Alba's
enemies, namely William of Orange. On April 1, 1572 the Dutch struck back, a
navel force under Captain van der Marck took the city of Brill. The revolt
quickly spread throughout the north. On July 15, 1572 the northern provinces of
Holland and Zeeland acknowledged William of Orange as their Stadtholder and a
government was established in Delft. This was the beginning of a bloody civil
war against the Spanish which continued until 1579.
On January 5, 1579 the southern regions of Atrois, Hainaut and the town of
Douay joined together for mutual protection under the Spanish king in the League
of Arras (Artois). Soon thereafter, on January 29, 1579 the northern provinces
united in the Union of Utrecht. In 1582 the large provinces of Brabant and
Flanders joined the southern alliance. This southern area, what is now know as
Belgium, was predominantly Catholic, and included the provinces of Flanders,
Antwerp, Hainault, Brabant, Namur, Liege, Limburg, and Luxembourg (Limburg is
now part of the Netherlands and Luxembourg is an independent state). The
northern provinces, on the other hand, were collectively known as the United
Provinces of the Netherlands or the Dutch Republic, and were often referred to
by the name of their principle province, that is, Holland. This northern
Calvinist area consisted of the seven provinces of Frisia, Groningen,
Overijssel, Holland, Gelderland, Utrecht and Zeeland. From the formation of the
Union of Utrecht these provinces were able to remain a separate republic but it
was not until the Treaty of Westphalia, at the conclusion of the Thirty Years
War in 1648, that the independence of the Republic of the United Provinces of
the Netherlands was finally recognized.
The southern provinces, which are now known as Belgium, continued under
Spanish Hapsburg rule until the death of Charles II in 1700. The lands then
reverted to the new Bourbon king of Spain, Philip Duke of Anjou. In 1701 the
French king Louis XIV compelled Philip, who was his grandson, to turn the
southern provinces over to France. However by the Treaty of Utrecht at the
conclusion of the War of Spanish Succession the lands were given to the Austrian
Hapsburg line which held the area until they were overthrown by the French
Republic in 1794.
Coin from both of the northern and southern regions circulated in the
American colonies, including the Cross Dollar of Brabant and the Lion Dollars of
the various provinces of the United Netherlands.
The New Netherland Colony
The Early Years, 1609-1621
In 1602 the States General of the United Provinces, known as the Netherlands,
chartered the United East India Company (the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie,
called the VOC) with the mission of exploring for a passage to the Indies and
claiming any unchartered territories for the United Provinces. On September 3,
1609 the English explorer Henry Hudson, on behalf of the United East India
Company, entered the area now known as New York in an attempt to find a
northwest passage to the Indies. He searched every costal inlet and on the 12th
took his ship, the Halve Maen (Half Moon), up the river which now bears
his name, as far as Albany and claimed the land for his employer. Although no
passage was discovered the area turned out to be one of the best fur trading
regions in North America.
As early as 1611 the Dutch merchant Arnout Vogels set sail in the ship St.
Pieter for what was probably the first Dutch trading expedition to the
Hudson Bay. This secretive mission was so successful in 1612 Vogels chartered
the ship Fortuyn which made two, back to back trips to the area. The
initial trip of the Fortuyn was under the command of Captain Adriaen
Block. Two months before the Fortuyn returned on her second trip, Adriaen
Block landed in Hudson Bay in a different ship. Block did not try to keep his
activities a secret, he traded liquor, cloth, firearms and trinkets for beaver
and otter pelts; however, before he could leave the Hudson for an early spring
crossing to Amsterdam he saw the arrival of another Dutch ship, the Jonge
Tobias, under the command of Thijs Volckertsz Mossel. Competition to exploit
the newly discovered land was underway.
On October 11, 1614 merchants from the cities of Amsterdam and Hoorn formed
The New Netherland Company receiving a three year monopoly for fur trading in
the newly discovered region from the States General of the United Provinces. In
1615 the company erected Fort Orange on Castle Island near Albany and began
trading with the Indians for furs. Although merchants came to New Netherland for
business purposes, the area was not colonized and at the end of the three year
period the company's monopoly was not renewed. At that point the land was opened
to all Dutch traders. Eventually the States General decided to grant an monopoly
to a company that would colonized the area. There was a need to have a permanent
political presence in their colonies in New Netherland, Brazil and Africa
against the possibility of an English, French or Spanish challenge.
The Dutch West India Company and Colonization
In 1621 the newly incorporated Dutch West India Company (the Westindische
Compagnie or WIC) obtained a twenty four year trading monopoly in America and
Africa and sought to have the New Netherland area formally recognized as a
province. Once provincial status was granted in June of 1623 the company began
organizing the first permanent Dutch settlement in New Netherland. On March 29,
1624 the ship, Nieu Nederlandt (New Netherland) departed with the first
wave of settlers, consisting not of Dutch but rather of thirty Flemish Walloon
families. The families were spread out over the entire territory claimed by the
company. To the north a few families were left at the mouth of the Connecticut
River, while to the south some families were settled at Burlington Island on the
Delaware River. Others were left on Nut Island, now called Governor's Island, at
the mouth of the Hudson) River, while the remaining families were taken up the
Hudson to Fort Orange (Albany). Later in 1624 and through 1625 six additional
ships sailed for New Netherland with colonists, livestock and supplies.
It soon became clear the northern and southern outposts were untenable and so
had to be abandoned. Also, due to a war between the Mohawk and Mahican tribes in
1625, the women and children at Fort Orange were forced to move to safety. At
this point, in the spring of 1626, the Director General of the company, Peter
Minuit, came to the province. Possibly motivated to erect a safe haven for the
families forced to leave Fort Orange, at some point between May 4 and June 26,
1626 Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Indians for some 60
guilders worth of trinkets. He immediately started the construction of Fort New
Amsterdam under the direction of the company engineer Cryn Fredericksz.
Because of the dangers and hardships of life in a new land some colonists
decided to return to the homeland in 1628. By 1630 the total population of New
Netherland was about 300, many being French speaking Walloons. It is estimated
about 270 lived in the area surrounding Fort Amsterdam, primarily working as
farmers, while about 30 were at Fort Orange, the center of the Hudson valley fur
trade with the Mohawks.
New Netherland was a company owned and operated business, run on a for profit
basis by the directors of the West India Company. The intent of the firm was to
make a profit for the investors who had purchased shares in the company. WIC
paid skilled individuals, as doctors and craftsmen, to move to New Netherland
and also sent over over and paid soldiers for military protection of the
settlements; the company also built forts and continually sent over provisions
for the settlers. All the New Netherland positions one would usually consider
government or public service jobs, were in fact, company jobs held by WIC
employees. Laws were made by the company appointed Director General in the
province with the consent of the company directors in Amsterdam; even the New
Netherland provincial treasury was actually the company treasury. All taxes,
fines and trading profits went to the company and the company paid the bills.
Basically the company profit was whatever was left after expenses had been paid
(it should be noted expenses included ample salaries for the Amsterdam
directors). WIC soon discovered the expenses associated with establishing and
expanding a new colony were considerable. In order to increase their profit
margin the company sought to find what might be thought of as subcontractors.
The first attempt at partnerships was the Patroonship plan.
The Patroonship plan was first conceived in 1628 as a way to attract more
settlers without increasing company expenses. Under the plan a Patroon would be
granted a large tract of land and given the rights to the land as well as legal
rights to settle all non capital cases, quite similar to a manorial lord. In
return the Patroon would agree to bring over settlers and colonize the land at
their own expense. No one accepted a patroonship under these conditions because
the lucrative fur and fishing trades were left as a monopoly of the company. One
of the most prominent Amsterdam merchants and a principle shareholder in the
Dutch West India Company, Kiliaen van Rensselear, had the plan modified. In the
revised plan issued on June 7, 1629, the terms were much more favorable:
colonization requirements were less stringent, the allocation of land to the
patroon was larger and there were broad jurisdictional rights over the
colonists. Additionally patroons were allowed to trade with New England and
Virginia and, most importantly, they were allowed to engage in both the fur
trade, subject to a company tax of one guilder per pelt, and could participate
in the fish trade. Under this arrangement Kiliaen van Rensselear became Patroon
to the largest and most lucrative fur trading area in New Netherland, that is,
the area along the Hudson River out to Fort Orange, which he named the colony of
Rensselaerswyck.
Under the Patroonship arrangement New Netherland continued to expand with
more colonists and settlements taking hold. The nerve center of New Netherland
was along the Hudson River from New Amsterdam (New York City) northwest to Fort
Orange (Albany). The colony of Rensselaerswyck, encompassing Fort Orange, was
the center of the fur trade while New Amsterdam was the shipping hub for Dutch
traders. The northern border was not well defined but was taken to be the
Connecticut River, which they called the Fresh River. Based on this border the
Dutch felt they had a claim to New Haven and southern Connecticut; this was
clarified at a convention in Hartford in September of 1650 limiting the Dutch to
the territory west of Greenwich Bay (similar to the present day border NY-CT
border). To the south, New Netherland took all of New Jersey establishing Fort
Nassau in 1626 near the southern end of New Jersey (at Gloucester, New Jersey)
along the Delaware River, which they called the South River. They also
established a whaling village on the southern shore of Delaware Bay called
Swanendael (Valley of the Swans) near what is now Lewes, Delaware; although the
village was soon destroyed in an Indian raid. The Dutch also constructed Fort
Beversrede in 1648 on the Schuylkill River (at Philadelphia) and Fort Casimir in
1651 (at Newcastle, DE) to defend their territory against the Swedes and Finns
of the Swedish West India Company in Delaware. In 1655 New Netherland defeated
New Sweden and occupied the Swedish stronghold, Fort Christiana (Wilmington).
Merchants
In another attempt to increase revenue from the settlement, in 1638 the West
India Company abandoned its trading monopoly. Again the company felt they could
share the expenses and risks associated with trade by opening up the area to
other merchants and collecting fees from them. With the passage of the Articles
and Conditions in 1638 and the Freedoms and Exemptions in 1640 the company
allowed merchants of all friendly nations trade in the area, subject to a 10%
import duty, a 15% export duty and the restriction that all merchants had to
hire West India Company ships to carry their merchandise. Of course the West
India Company continued in the fur trade. Some of the first merchants to take
advantage of this situation were WIC employees who left the company to act as
agents for Dutch merchant firms and also trade on their own, such as Govert
Loockermans and Augustine Heermans. Lookermans was a WIC employee from
1633-1639, when he left the company to become the local agent for both the
powerful Verbrugge family and for himself. He was suspected of smuggling on
several occassions and incurred several fines as well as the disapproval of the
Verbrugge firm. Heermans first came to New Netherlands in 1633 as a company
surveyor in the Delaware region. In 1643 he moved to New Amsterdam where he
acted as an agent for the Dutch firm of Gabry and Company and also worked for
himself in the fur and tobacco trade. Others WIC employees as Oloff Stevenson
van Cortlandt, who had come over in 1637 as a WIC soldier, rose within the
company. He was awarded the job of Commissary, supervising the arrival and
storage of provisions. In this position he made numerous business contacts and
joined in various trading ventures. He was able to acquire various properites
within the city of New Amsterdam and by 1648 owned and operated a brewry.
Another of these early independent merchants was Arnoldus van Hardenburg, from
an Amsterdam merchant family, who came over to make his fortune. Some English
colonists also took advantage of the new trading privileges. Isaac Allerton, an
original Plymouth settler, who became a founder of Marblehead, Massachusetts
went to New Amsterdam as did Thomas Willet of Plymouth. Allerton was knows as an
uncrupulous individual who overcharged customers and manipulated his account
books. Willet sometimes worked with Allerton and was of the same demeanor, he
was once accused of bribing an an inspecion official to look the other way while
he imported contraband items. Another Englishman, Thomas Hall, had independently
moved into the Delaware valley where the Dutch discovered him in 1635 and took
him to New Amsterdam as a prisoner. Hall he seems to have soon been released and
in 1639 went in partnership with another Englishman, George Holmes, in the
acquisition of a tobacco plantation, leading to a career as a tobacco grower and
wholesaler (see, Maika, pp. 40-59).
As these smaller scale merchants and traders became successful both for
themselves and for their employeers some of the more prominent Amsterdam
merchant establishments decided to follow the lead of the Rensselear family,
hoping to increase their profits by expanding into the new market. The most
important and earliest participants were Gillis and Seth Verbrugge who traded
from the 1640's-mid 1650's and even attempted to establish a potash factory in
New Amsterdam (used in the production of soap). In the 1650's and 1660's they
were followed by two other major merchant firms who entered the fur trade,
namely the Dirck and Abel de Wolff Company and the firm of Gillis van Hoonbeeck.
From the mid 1640's through the mid 1660's these three firms along with the
Rensselear family accounted for more than 50% of the New Netherland trade.
Up to 1651 Dutch merchants could also trade with New England and Virginia as
well as New Netherland. However once the British instituted the Navigation Act
of 1651, non English ships were no longer allowed to transport goods from
English ports. This forced the Verbrugge family to abandon their lucrative
Virginia tobacco trade and eventually took them out of the new world market. The
De Wolff family was more diversified that the Verbrugge, trading in Baltic
grain, French wine and West African slaves as well as New Netherland furs. Also,
rather than invest in ships this firm rented space on other ships and so
remained competitive. Van Hoonbeeck entered the New Nwtherland market late, but
was able to take advantage of the Verbrugge's Company fall.
The result of this situation was that a few powerful Amsterdam merchants
along with the West India Company controlled New Netherland trade. Oliver A.
Rink has succinctly explained the situation as follows:
Unlike New England, the individuals largely responsible for exploiting New
Netherland's resources were merchants of the home country. Secure in their
Amsterdam countinghouses, the merchants grasped control of the colony's
lifeline to Holland and held fast. Profits from their enterprises flowed
into coffers in Amsterdam, thus depriving New Netherland of capital and the
opportunity to develop a viable, colony-based merchant community. (Rink, Holland on the Hudson, pp. 212-213)
Demographics
Another important element in the New Netherland province that differed from
the British colonies was demographics. It has been estimated that probably one
half of the population was not Dutch. The size of the province has been
estimated at between 2,000 to 3,500 in 1655 growing to a total of about 9,000 by
1664. A significant number of the inhabitants were Germans, Swedes and Finns
that emigrated in the period after 1639. This number was increased by 300 to 500
with the capture of New Sweden on September 24, 1655. The impact of these German
and Scandinavian Lutheran immigrants is brought out in a controversy that arose
because the Lutherans in Middleburg, Long Island were holding church services
without an approved preacher. The New Amsterdam pastors brought this situation
to the attention of the Director General, Pieter Stuyvesant at the end of 1655,
requesting the services be halted. The dispute dragged on for years until a
resolution was formulated by the West India Company directors in Amsterdam. It
was decided to permit the Lutherans the right to worship by slightly adjusting
the catechism. In order not to offend the Lutherans, the Company bluntly stated
the complaining New Amsterdam Calvinist pastors would be replaced by younger
ministers who were more liberal, unless the dispute was put aside.
There were also about 2,000 English inhabitants in the area of New
Netherland, primarily from New England, living on Long Island or in communities
along the Connecticut border. The English obtained the Eastern portion of Long
Island, (as far as the western end of Oyster Bay) in the border agreement
reached at the Hartford Convention of 1650. In fact, five of the ten villages in
the vicinity of New Amsterdam were English (namely, Newtown, Gravesend,
Hemptead, Flushing and Jamaica while Brooklyn, Flatlands, Flatbush, New Utrecht
and Bushwick were Dutch). There were also a number of "half free" African
slaves, who were required to make a fixed yearly payment to the company for
their freedom. In September of 1654 a group of 23 Jews were brought to New
Amsterdam from the colony in Brazil (which was called New Holland), where the
Portuguese had just defeated the Dutch West India Company following an eight
year rebellion. In 1655, the same year charges were made against the Lutherans,
the New Amsterdam preachers requested the province get rid of the Jews. This
matter was brough to the company directors in Amsterdam who recommended the Jews
be segregated and allowed to practice their religion, but not be permitted to
build a synagogue. In this case toleration was granted because some of the Dutch
West India Company stockholders were Jewish merchants. In fact, in 1658 when one
of these New Netherland Jews, named David de Ferrera, was given a overly harsh
punishment for a minor offence, it took the intervention of an important Jewish
stockholder in the company, Joseph d'Acosta, to have the punishment reduced.
A French Jesuit priest named Father Isaac Jogues visited New Netherland in
1643-1644. After returning to Canada Father Jogues wrote a brief description of
New Netherland, completed on August 3, 1646. In his work the ethnic diversity of
the island of Manhattan was described as follows:
On the island of Manhate, and in its environs, there may well be four or
five hundred men of different sects and nations: the Director General told
me that there were men of eighteen different languages; they are scattered
here and there on the river, above and below, as the beauty and convenience
of the spot has invited each to settle: some mechanics however, who ply
their trade, are ranged under the fort; all the others are exposed to the
incursions of the natives,..." (Narratives, pp. 259-260)
British Claims and Conquest
As New Netherland prospered the British set their sights on the province,
stating they had a claim to the land as part of John Cabot's discoveries. In May
of 1498 the Genoese born Cabot, working for Britain, had explored the coast of
the new world from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England down to Delaware.
As this trip predated Hudson's voyage by over a century the British felt they
had prior claim to the land.
In the mid Seventeenth century the British and Dutch saw each other as a
direct competitor, consequently several times during this period they were at
war. During the first Anglo-Dutch war of 1652-1654 Oliver Cromwell planed to
attack New Netherland with the help of the New England colonists but the plan
was never carried out. Following that conflict the two nations continued to be
trading rivals and were suspicious of each other. With the restoration of
Charles II to the British throne in 1660 the United Netherlands feared an
English attack, so in 1662 they made an alliance with the French against the
English. In response to this alliance in March of 1664, Charles II formally
annexed New Netherland as a British province and granted it to his brother
James, Duke of York and Albany (later James II), as Lord Proprietor. The Duke
sent a fleet under the command of Sir Richard Nicolls to seize the colony. On
September 8, 1664, the Director General Pieter Stuyvesant surrendered Fort
Amsterdam and on September 24, 1664, Fort Orange capitulated. Both the city of
New Amsterdam and the entire colony were renamed New York, while Fort Amsterdam
was renamed Fort James and Fort Orange became Fort Albany.
The loss of the New Netherland province led to a second Anglo-Dutch war
during 1665-1667. This conflict ended with the Treaty of Breda in August of 1667
in which the Dutch gave up their claim to New Amsterdam in exchange for Surinam
(just north of Brazil). Amazingly, within six months, on January 23, 1668, the
Dutch made an alliance with Britain and Sweden against the French king Louis
XIV, who was trying to capture the Spanish held areas in the Netherlands.
However, in May of 1670 Louis XIV made a secret alliance with Charles II (the
Treaty of Dover) and in 1672 he made another separate treaty with Sweden. Then
on March 17, 1673 Louis and Charles joined together in a war on the United
Netherlands. During this war, on August 7, 1673, a force of 600 Dutch soldiers
under Captain Anthony Colve entered the Hudson River. The next day they attacked
Fort James and took the fort on the 9th, As the British governor, Francis
Lovelace was absent, the surrender was made by Captain John Manning. When
Lovelace returned on Saturday August 12th, he was siezed and put in jail. With
the fall of the fort the Dutch had retaken New York, they then took control of
Albany and New Jersey, changing the name of the area to New Orange in honor of
William III of Orange.
However these gains were temporary, as the lands were restored to the British
at the end of the conflict by the Treaty of Westminster on February 9, 1674. The
British governor, Major Edmund Andros, arrived in Manhattan on November 1st and
gave the Dutch a week to leave. On November 10, the transfer was completed and
Governor Colve and his soldiers marched out of the province. From that point the
British controlled both the city and province of New York. Indeed, New York City
remained the premier British military stronghold in America during the
Revolutionary War and was not liberated until the British evacuation in 1783.
Reference
Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of
Dutch New York, Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1986; Dennis J. Maika, Commerce and
Community: Manhattan Merchants in the Seventeenth Century, Ph.D.
Dissertation, New York University, 1995; John Franklin Jameson, Narratives of
New Netherland, 1609-1664, New York: Scribner, 1909.
