Inspired by the stories, both realistic and imaginary, about the Americas from explorers, adventurers, missionaries, geographers, and people with vivid imaginations, several European countries established, or attempted to establish, American colonies during the seventeenth century. In his book Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Spanish Missions and Southeastern Indians, archaeologist Jerald Milanich describes the reasons for the European expansion: \u201cThe driving force behind these initiatives was a desire for wealth: precious stones or metals, fertile lands suitable for productive plantations, human populations to be sold into slavery, and animals and plants that could be hunted or harvested and exported.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among the European nations attempting to establish American colonies was the Dutch Republic. Unlike the other European nations, however, the Dutch Republic was not a monarchy. In 1581, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden) was recognized by other European countries as a sovereign state. The new republic controlled a worldwide network of seafaring trade routes and it had a huge fleet of 2,000 ships, larger than the fleets of England and France combined. In his book The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America, Russell Shorto writes: \u201cIt has long been recognized that the Dutch Republic in the 1600s was the most progressive and culturally diverse society in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1621, the Dutch West India Company was formed to exploit the resources of the Americas and to establish a colony among the intelligent natives. The Dutch West India Company (Westindische Compagnie) was a chartered company controlled by investors who had been given a charter for a trade monopoly. The Company\u2019s primary purpose in establishing the Province of New Netherland was to make money for the investors. With regard to the powers of the new company, historian Matthew Dennis, in his book Cultivating a Landscape of Peace: Iroquois-European Encounters in Seventeenth-Century America, reports: \u201c\u2026it commanded the authority to maintain naval and military forces, to make war and peace with indigenous powers, to colonize and settle the lands it acquired, and to exercise judicial and administrative functions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dutch West India Company (WIC) sought to establish permanent trading settlements along the Hudson, Connecticut, and Delaware Rivers. These settlements would become the Province of New Netherland (Nieuw Nederland). Russell Shorto writes of New Netherland: \u201cIt extended roughly from present-day Albany, New York, in the North to Delaware Bay in the south, comprising all or parts of what became New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.\u201d Russell Shorto also reports: \u201cThe company would exploit it for furs and timbers, and also use it as a transportation hub, with ships cycling from Europe to South America and the Caribbean, and then to the North American harbor and so back home.\u201d To get colonists for this new venture, the company promised them land in exchange for six years of service to the company.<\/p>\n
The Dutch presence in North America was not particularly long\u2014about 40 years\u2014and, at its peak, New Netherland had a population of about 9,000 in about 20 settlements, with New Amsterdam having a population of about 2,500. Russell Shorto writes: \u201cThe Dutch preferred to set up military-trading posts at strategic spots and let the locals bring trade goods to them. The trading companies did not see themselves in the business of establishing permanent colonies.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1624, Dutch colonists\u201430 families\u2014arrived on Manhattan Island and laid out New Amsterdam, a trading factory. The name Manhattan is from the Munsee Indian name of the island: Manhattoe.<\/p>\n
In 1625, Johannes de Laet (1581-1649), Dutch geographer and director of the Dutch West India Company, wrote about the Dutch colonization efforts in New Netherlands: \u201cOur countrymen have continued to make voyages thither each year, and continuously some of our people remain there for the purpose of trafficking with the natives; and on this account the country has justly received the name New Netherland.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1626, WIC completed construction of Fort Amsterdam to protect the entrance to the Hudson River. The Fort contained a barracks, a church, a house for the WIC director, and a warehouse. Being concerned about the legality of the Dutch colony, WIC director Peter Minuit (1580-1638) negotiated the \u201cpurchase\u201d of Manhattan with Seyseys, a Canarse chief, for 60 guilders worth of trade goods. It should be noted, however, that this was not Canarse Indian land but actually belonged to the Reckgawawanc and Weckquaesgeeks. In his book Native American Place Names in New York City, ethnohistorian Robert Steven Grumet reports: \u201cThe notorious deed to the 1626 sale of Manhattan Island for twenty-four dollars worth of trade goods has never been located. A deed on file in the New York State Library archives in Albany is an obvious fake.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1628, the Reverend Jonas Michaelius, writes: \u201cAs to the natives of this country, I find them entirely savage and wild, strangers to all decency, yea, uncivil and stupid as garden stakes, proficient in all wickedness and ungodliness, devilish men who serve nobody but the devil, that is, the spirit which in their language they call Menetto, under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty and beyond human skill and power.\u201d Historian Matthew Dennis writes: \u201cThe minister also believed that the Indian languages were very difficult to learn; communication of religious ideas with them, he suggested, would be nearly impossible. His preferred program of conversion and civilization was to separate children from parents and raise them under Dutch supervision, something never seriously considered in New Netherland.\u201d Russell Shorto \u00a0describes the missionary this way: \u201cThe Reverend Jonas Michaelius might well have won a contest for the moodiest, bitchiest resident of New Amsterdam.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1630, Peter Minuit, on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, bought Staten Island from the Tappan Indians.<\/p>\n
In 1635, WIC traders begin producing standardized seashell ornaments for the Indian trade. They use these ornaments to supplant the Native manufacture of wampum. In an article in American Archaeology, Julian Smith reports: \u201cThe Dutch were master capitalists who recognized the natives\u2019 demand for shell ornaments, created standardized products and marketed them to different groups through a trade network they had established to exchange other goods, and then moved on when the market changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1637, the Dutch in New Amsterdam continued negotiating with Indian leaders for the purchase of more land. The sachems of the Keshaechquereren participated in a series of land sales in northern Brooklyn and the Marechkawieck\u00a0sachems Seyseys\u00a0and Neumers\u00a0sold land at Hell Gate.<\/p>\n
In 1638, Willem Kieft (1597-1647) was appointed by the Dutch West India Company as Director of New Netherland. <\/p>\n
In 1639, Mechoswodt, the chief sachem of the Massapequa placed the entire western half of Long Island under Dutch protection.<\/p>\n
In 1639, the Dutch resolved to exact tribute from local Indians, stating that these Indians were under Dutch protection. Dutch governor Willem Kieft suggested that the Indians should be taxed: \u201cWhereas the Company is put to great expense both in building fortifications and in supporting soldiers and sailors, we have therefore resolved to demand from the Indians who dwell around here and who heretofore we have protected against their enemies, some contributions in the form of skins, maize and swawan, and if there be any nation which is not in a friendly way disposed to make such contribution it shall be urged to do so in the most suitable manner.\u201d Dutch residents who had lived in the area long enough to know the Tappan, Hackinsack, Wickquaesgeck, and Raritan, told the governor that this was the wrong thing to do. Russell Shorto reports: \u201cThe Indians, these residents knew, were far from simple in their understanding of the real estate transactions they had made with the Europeans. The armful of goods mentioned in each title transfer was not, in their eyes, an outright purchase price, but a token that represented the arrangement to which they were agreeing.\u201d This arrangement involved sharing the land and entering into a defensive alliance.<\/p>\n
In 1640, a group of Matinecocks\u00a0tore down the coat of arms of the Dutch Estate General and substituted for it a fool\u2019s head. The Dutch \u201c\u2026resolved to send a sloop with soldiers thither to bring said Indians under our obedience and contribution.\u201d In spite of the resolution, the Dutch did not launch an attack. However, Governor Kieft began a war to exterminate the Indians (this is described in its own essay).<\/p>\n
In 1647, the Dutch West India Company dismissed Willem Kieft and sent Peter Stuyvesant (1610-1672) to assume leadership of their colonies. Stuyvesant had studied languages and philosophy at the University of Franeker until he was expelled for seducing his landlord\u2019s daughter. He joined the Dutch West India Company in 1630. He lost his right leg in an 1644 battle with the Spanish and had it replaced with a wooden peg. He viewed the loss of his leg at a sign from God that he was to do great things. <\/p>\n
In 1648, the Dutch estimated that 80,000 beaver pelts per year were passing through New Amsterdam on their way to European markets. In addition, they noted the growing importance of tobacco: Amsterdam was now the tobacco capital of Europe. The Dutch created a variety of tobacco blends to suite a range of prices and tastes. Tobacco grown in the English colony of Virginia was often shipped to Europe through New Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
In 1652, Mattano, the sachem of the NayackIndians, under threat of Dutch attack, agreed to sell tribal lands in Brooklyn, New York to the Dutch. The conditions of the deed require that the Nayack \u201c\u2026remove immediately from the land now occupied by them, called Naieck, and never to return to live in the district.\u201d Following the sale most of the Nayack moved to Staten Island.<\/p>\n
The Peach War broke out in 1655 when about 600 Indians landed at the southernmost point of Manhattan Island and attacked New Amsterdam. Russell Shorto reports: \u201cSimilar raids took place to the north on the mainland and on Staten Island, where Indians burned down homes, killed several dozen Europeans, and took more hostages.\u201d In trying to make sense of this war, the Dutch blamed it on an incident in which a Dutch settler killed a Munsee\u00a0woman who was picking peaches in his orchard. Hence it was called the Peach War.<\/p>\n
The attacks occurred at a time when the Dutch troops were attacking Swedish settlements on the Delaware River. Some historians feel that the Swedes may have encouraged the Munsee to attack the Dutch and thus draw the Dutch invaders away from the Swedish settlements. Another explanation offered by some historians is that the Swedes had spent 17 years cultivating trading relationships with the Susquehannock and so when the Dutch destroyed this relationship, the Indians retaliated. Russell Shorto writes: \u201cIn doing so, they were in effect protecting the Swedes, who brought them valuable supplies and who, being weaker than the Indians, deserved their protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1660, Pieter Stuyvesant, the Director-General of New Netherland, presided over the courts of Beverwyck and Rensselaerwyck to promulgate an ordinance for the regulation of the fur trade and prohibiting the sale of alcohol to the Indians.<\/p>\n
The end of New Netherland began in 1664 when King Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland decided to annex New Netherland. In August 1664, English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam and demanded that the Dutch surrender. Under the terms of the treaty, the New Netherlanders were to keep their religious liberty. A series of treaties (1667, 1673, 1674) finalized the transfer of New Netherland to England.<\/p>\n
More Colonial Histories<\/p>\n
History 101: New Netherland<\/a><\/p>\n History 101: Fort Orange, a Dutch trading post<\/a><\/p>\n History 101: The Governor Kieft War against the Indians, 1640-1645<\/a><\/p>\n History 101: Spanish colonization in New Mexico in 1598<\/a><\/p>\n