History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Frederic Shonnard

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СКАЧАТЬ per cent, on merchandise brought thither from New Netherland. These certainly were not onerous customs exactions. Respecting individuals, of whatever nationality, desiring to acquire and cultivate land, the director and council were instructed " to accommodate everyone, according to his condition and means, with as much land as he can properly cultivate, either by himself or with his family." The land thus conceded was to become absolute private property, and to be free from burdens of every kind until after it had been pastured or cultivated four years; but subsequently to that period the owner was to pay to the company " the lawful tenths of all fruit, grain, seed, to bacco, cotton, and such like, as well as of the increase of all sorts of cattle." Those establishing themselves in New Netherland under this offer were bound to submit themselves to the regulations and orders of the company, and to the local laws and courts; but there was no stipulation for the renunciation of allegiance to foreign potentates. Considering the illiberal tendency of international relations prevalent in the seventeenth century, and the native self-sufficient character of the Dutch race, this whole measure is remarkable for its broad and generous spirit. There was no allusion in it to the subject of religious conformity, and the perfect toleration thus implied afforded a strong inducement to persons growing restive under the narrow institutions of the English colonies. This element, migrating from New England, found the shores of Westchester County most convenient for settlement, and became one of the most important and aggressive factors of our early population.

      The noteworthy measure of 1638, whose pro visions we have just analyzed, was supplemented in July, 1640, by an act of the States General effecting a thorough revision of the charter of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629. The patroonships were not abrogated, but the right to be chosen as patroons was no longer confined to members of the company, and the privileges and powers of the patroons were subjected to considerable modification. The legal limits of their estates were reduced to four English miles along the shore, although they might extend eight miles landward in; and the planting of their "colonies" was required to be completed within three instead of four years. Trade privileges along the coast outside of the Dutch dominions were continued as before; but within the territory of New Netherland no one was permitted to compete with the ships of the company, excepting that fishing for cod and the like was allowed, on condition that the fisherman should sail direct to some European country with his catch, putting in at a Netherlands port to pay a prescribed duty to the company. In this act much greater relative importance was attached to the subject of free colonists, or colonizers other than patroons, than in the original charter of 1629, the object manifestly being to assure the public that New Netherland was not a country set apart for lords and gentlemen, but a land thrown open in the most comprehensive way to the common people. Free colonists were defined to be those who should " remove to New Netherland with five souls above fifteen years," and all such were to be granted by the director-general " one hundred morgens (two hundred acres) of land, contiguous one to the other, wherever they please to select." The colonists were put on precisely the same footing as the patroons in matters of trade privilege, and, in fact, enjoyed all the material rights granted to the patroons except those of bearing a title and administering great landed estates, which, however, were equally within their reach in case of their ability to comply with the requirement for the transportation from the old country and introduction into the new of fifty bona fide settlers. The company assumed the responsibility of providing and maintaining " good and suitable preachers, schoolmasters, and comforters of the sick"; and it extended to the free colonists, no less than the colonists of the patroons, exemption from all taxes for a certain period. The former clause regarding negroes was renewed in about the same language, as follows: "The company shall exert itself to provide the patroons and colonists, on their order, with as many blacks as possible, without, however, being further or longer obligated thereto than shall be agreeable."

      Thus from 1629 to 1640 three distinct plans for promoting the settlement of New Netherland were formulated and spread before the public. The first plan, after being tested for nine years, was found a complete failure, because based upon the theory that colonization should naturally and would most effectively proceed from the patron age of the rich, who, acquiring as a free gift the honors of title and the dignities of landed proprietorship, would, it was thought, readily support those honors and dignities by the substance of an established vassalage. It was soon found that such a theory was quite incapable of application to a country as yet undeveloped, and that the sole reliable and solid colonization in the conditions which had to be dealt with would be that pursued on the democratic principle and under taken in their independent capacity by citizens of average means and ordinary aims. It stands to the credit of the West India Company and the Dutch government that, having discovered their fundamental error of judgment in the first plan of settlement, they lost no time in framing another, which was made particularly judicious and liberal in its scope and details, and was as successful in its workings as the original scheme had been disappointing.

      We have now arrived at the period indicated at the beginning of this chapter as that of the appearance of the first known settlers within the original historic borders of our County of Westchester. The attention of the Dutch pioneers on Manhattan Island had early been directed to this picturesque and pleasant region, and it is a pretty well accepted fact that some land purchases were made from the Westchester Indians antedating 1631), although the records of these assumed transactions have been lost. The most ancient deed to Westchester lands which has been preserved to the present day bears date of August 3, 1639, and by its terms the Indians dispose of a tract called Keskeskeck; the West India Company being the purchasers, through their representative, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, provincial secretary to Director Kieft.

      In the next year Van Tienhoven was dispatched by Kieft on similar important business to this same section; and, April 19, bought from the Siwanoy Indians all the lands located in the southeastern portion of Westchester County, running as far eastward in Connecticut as the Norwalk River. The instructions under which he acted directed him to purchase the archipelago, or group of islands, at the mouth of the Norwalk River, together with all the adjoining territory on the main land, and " to erect thereon the standard and arms of the High and Mighty Lords States-General; to take the savages under our protection, and to prevent effectually any other nation encroaching on our limits." The purchase of 1640 was in the line of state policy, being conceived and consummated as a countercheck to the English, who, having by this time appeared in considerable numbers on the banks of the Connecticut River, were making active pretensions to the whole western territory along the Sound and in the interior, and were thus seriously menacing the integrity of the Dutch colonial empire.

      We may here appropriately pause to glance at some pertinent aspects of British colonial progress in New England — aspects with which, we shall be bound to grant, those of contemporaneous Dutch development in New Netherland do not compare over-favorably.

      The Pilgrims of the "Mayflower" landed on Plymouth Rock late in the month of December, 1620, a little more than two years before the original company of Walloons came to New York Bay on the ship "New Netherland." The first British settlement in New England and the first Dutch settlement in New Netherland were thus inaugurated almost simultaneously, the former having a slight advantage as to time, and the latter a considerable one in the possession of a more genial climate, a less stubborn soil, and a superior natural location, as also in the enjoyment of a more powerful, interested, and liberal home patronage. From the parent settlement at Plymouth, the English not only rapidly advanced into the whole surrounding country, but in the course of a few years sent colonizing parties to quite remote localities; and wherever an English advance colony gained a foot hold, there permanent and energetic settlement was certain very speedily to follow. As early as 1633 a number of Englishmen from Massachusetts, desiring to investigate the Indian stories of a better soil to the south, came and established themselves in the Connecticut Valley. Shortly afterward a patent for this region was obtained from the British crown by Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and others. In 1636 John Winthrop, son of Governor Winthrop, settled on the Connecticut with a goodly company; and in 1638 Theophilus Eaton, with the noted Rev. John Davenport, led a large band of settlers to the same locality, planting the New Haven colony. Rhode Island was brought under settlement also at that period by Roger Williams and other dissidents from the intolerant religious institutions of Massachusetts.

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