No. i63. New Nether- land in 1640. By DAVID PETERSON DE VRIES. From his " Short Historical and Journal Xotes." Saw land again from on board [Dec. 26, 1638], and at noon came in sight of the highlands of Sandy Hook, and at four o'clock reached the point, where the pilots wanted to cast anchor and fire a gun, in order that some one might come off and pilot the ship in. I told him that his cannon were not heavy enough for them to hear the report at the fort, which was five miles dis- tant. Then the skipper said he would return to the West Indies, as he saw the island covered with snow, and wait there till sum- mer. I answered him that, if we could not get in here, I would take him to the South River. But I could not make him under- stand that there was any South River, inasmuch as he had old false charts by which he wanted to sail. As there were some passengers who had dwelt several years in Xew Xetherland, they urged him to ask me to take him in, as I had been there with my own ship at night, as before related. The skipper then came to me, and asked me if I would sail the ship in, as I was well acquainted here. I answered him that I would do so for the sake of the passengers who were on board; and that he, at another time, if he took freight, should employ pilots who were acquainted with the places. So I brought the ship that same evening before Staten Island, which belonged to me, where I intended to settle my people, and at dark let our anchor fall in eight fathoms. The 27th, in the morning, the weather became very foggy, so that one could hardly see from the stem to the stern of the ship. The skipper then asked me whether we should lie there, as there was nothing in sight. I told him to weigh anchor, 353 2 and. although it was growing darker, I would, with that breeze, bring him before the fort in an hour. The anchor being raised, we quickly sailed to the fort, where there was great rejoicing, inasmuch as they were not expecting any ship at that time of year. Found there a commander, named William Kieft, who was sent to the station from France, and had come in the spring, having wintered in the Bermudas, because they did not dare to venture upon the coast of New Xetherland, in consequence of the ignorance of their pilots. Going ashore, I was made welcome by the commander, who invited me to his house. Axxo 1639. The 5th January I sent my people to Staten Island to begin to plant a colony there, with assistance to build. The 4th of June I started north in a yacht to the Fresh River, where the West India Company have a small fort called the House of Hope, and at night came to anchor in Oyster Bay, which is a large bay which lies on the north side of the great Island, which is about thirty miles long. This bay put up into the island, and is about two miles wide from the mainland. There are fine oysters here, whence our nation has given it the name of Oyster Bay. The 6th had good weather at break of day, and got under sail, and at evening arrived at the Rodenberghs * (Red Hills), which is a fine haven. Found that the English had begun to build a town on the mainland, where there were already three hundred houses and a fine church built. The 7th, having weighed anchor, arrived at the Fresh River about two o'clock in the afternoon, where at the mouth of the river the English have made a strong fort. There was a gov- ernor, Lion Gardiner, who had a Xetherland wife from Worden, and he himself had formerly been an engineer and working- baas in Holland. They cannot sail with large ships into this river; and vessels must not draw more than six -feet water to navigate up to our little fort, which lies fifteen miles from the mouth of the river. Besides, there are many bare places, or stone reefs, over which the Indians go with canoes. Remained at night at this English fort, where we were well treated by the governor. The 8th took our leave and went up the river; and, having proceeded about a mile up the river, we met, between two high steep points, some Indians in canoes, who had on English gar- * New Haven. 334 "1) 3 ments, and among them was one who had on a red scarlet man- tle. I inquired how he came by the mantle. He had some time ago killed one Captain Stone, with his people, in a bark, from whom he had obtained these clothes. This was the captain of whom I have before spoken in my first voyage to America, who had the misfortune of his boatmen eating each other; and he had now lost his own life by the Indians. The 9th arrived with the yacht at the House of Hope, where one Gysbert Van Dyck commanded with fourteen or fifteen soldiers. This redoubt stands upon a plain on the margin of the river; and alongside it runs a creek to a high woodland, out of which comes a valley, which makes this hill, and where the English, in spite of us, have begun to build up a small town, and had built a fine church and over a hundred houses. The commander gave me orders to make a protest against them, as they were using our own land, which we had bought of the Indians. Some of our soldiers had forbidden them to put the plough into it; but th^y had disregarded them, and had cud- gelled some of the company's soldiers. Going there, I was in- vited by the English governor to dine. When sitting at the table, I told him that it was wrong to take by force the com- pany's land, which it had bought and paid for. He answered that the lands were lying idle; that, though we had been there many years, W% had done scarcely anything; that it was a sin to let such rich land, which produced such fine corn, lie uncul- tivated; and that they had already built three towns upon this river, in a fine countrv. There are many salmon up this river. These English live soberly, drink only three times at a meal, and whoever drinks himself drunk they tie to a post and whip him, as they do thieves in Holland. The 12th. Among the incidents which happened while I was here was that of an English ketch arriving here from the north, with thirty pipes of Canary wine. There was a mer- chant with it, who was from the same city, in England, as the servant of the minister of this town, and was well acquainted with him. Now this merchant invited the minister's servant on board the vessel to drink with him; and it seems that the man became fuddled with wine, or drank pretty freely, which was observed by the minister. So they brought the servant to the church, where the post stood, in order to whip him. The merchant then came to me, and requested me to speak to the minister, as it was my fault that he had given wine to his countryman. I 335 4 accordingly went to the commander of our little fort, or redoubt, and invited the minister and the mayor and other leading men, with their wives, who were very fond of eating cherries, as there were from forty to fifty cherry-trees standing about the redoubt, full of cherries. We feasted the minister and the governor and their wives, who came to us; and, as we were seated at the meal in the redoubt, I, together with the merchant, requested the minister to pardon his servant, saying that he probably had not partaken of any wine for a year, and that such sweet Canary wine would intoxicate any man. We were a long while before we could persuade him; but their wives spoke favorably, whereby the servant got free. . . These people give out that they are Israelites, and that we at our colony are Egyptians, and that the English in the Virginias are also Egyptians. I frequently told the governor that it would be impossible for them to keep the people so strict, as they had come from so luxurious a country as England. The 14th took leave of the House of Hope. This river is a fine pleasant stream, where many thousand Christians could obtain farms. The 15th, early in the morning, we arrived again at the mouth of the river, and ran out of it. Sailed this day four miles past Roode-bergh, and came into a river where the English had begun to make a village, and where over fifty houses were in process of erection, and a portion finished. The 1 6th weighed anchor, and sailed by two places which the English had built up, and at noon arrived where two Eng- lishmen had built houses. One of the Englishmen was named Captain Patrick, whose wife was a Dutch woman from The Hague. Afte~ we had been there two or three hours, proceeded on our voyage, and at evening reached the Minates, before Fort Amsterdam, where we found two ships had arrived from our Patria, one of which was a ship of the Company, the Herring, the other was a private ship, the Fire oj Troy, from Hoorn, laden with cattle on account of Jochem Pietersz, who had for- merly been a commander in the East Indies, for the King of Denmark. It was to be wished that one hundred to three hun- dred such families, with laborers, had come, as this would very soon become a good country. The 10th February. I have begun to make a plantation, a mile and a half, or two miles above the fort, as there was there a fine location, and full thirtv-one morgens of maize-land, where 336 5 there were no trees to remove; and hay-land lying all together, sufficient for two hundred cattle, which is a great article there. I went there to live, half on account of the pleasure of it, as it was all situated along the river. I leased out the plantation of Staten Island, as no people had been sent me from Holland, as was stipulated in the contract which I made with Frederick de Vries, a manager of the West India Company. The 15th of April, I went with my sloop to Fort Orange, where I wanted to examine the land, which is on the river. Arrived at Tapaen in the evening, where a large valley of about two or three hundred morgens of clay soil lies under the mountain, three or four feet above the water. A creek, which comes from the highland, runs through it, on which fine water-mills could be erected. I bought this valley from the Indians, as it was only three miles above my plantation and five miles from the fort. There was also much maize-land, but too stony to be ploughed. The 25th. Opposite Tapaen lies a place called Wickquaes- geck, where there is much maize-land, but stony or sandy, and where many fir-trees grow. We generally haul fine masts from there. The land is also mountainous. The 16th, went further up the river. Passed the Averstro, where a kill runs out, formed from a large fall, the noise of which can be heard in the river. The land is also very high. At noon passed the highlands, which are prodigiously high stony moun- tains; and it is about a mile going through them. Here the river, at its narrowest, is about five or six hundred paces wide, as well as I could guess. At night came by the Dance-chamber , where there was a party of Indians, who were very riotous, seek- ing only mischief, so that we were on our guard. The 27th, we came to Esoopes, where a creek runs in; and there the Indians had some maize-land, but it was stony. Ar- rived at evening, as it blew hard, before the Cats-kill. Found the river up to this point stony and mountainous, unfit for habi- tations. But there was some lowland here, and the Indians sowed maize along the Cats-kill. The 28th, arrived at Beereti (Bears') Island, where w T ere many Indians fishing. Here the land begins to be low along the margin of the river, and at the foot of the mountains it was good for cultivation. At evening we reached Brand-pylen's Island, which lies a little below Fort Orange, and belongs to the patroons, Godyn, Ronselaer, Jan de Laet, and Bloemart, who had also 337 6 there more farms, which they had made in good condition at the Company's cost, as the Company, had sent the cattle from Fatherland at great expense; and these individuals, being the commissioners of New Xetherland, had made a good distribu- tion among themselves, and, while the Company had nothing but an empty fort, they had the farms and trade around it, and every boor was a merchant. The 30th of April. The land here is, in general, like it is in France. It is good, and very productive of everything neces- sary for the life of man, except clothes, linens, woollens, shoes, and stockings; but these they could have if the country were well populated, and there could be made good leather of the hides of animals, which multiply in great quantities. Good tan could be made of the bark of oak-trees. The land all along this river is very mountainous. Some cliffs of stone are ex- ceedingly high, upon which grow fine fir-trees, which may be discerned with the eye. There are, besides, in this country oaks, alders, beeches, elms, and willows, both in the woods and along the water. The islands are covered with chestnut, plum, and hazel-nut trees, and large walnuts of different kinds, of as good flavor as they are in Fatherland, but hard of shell. The ground on the mountains is bedecked with shrubs cf bil- berries or blueberries, such as in Holland come from Veeluwes. The level land, or old maize-land, is covered with strawberries, which grow here so plentifully that they answer for food. There are also in the woods, as well as along the river, vines very abun- dant of two kinds, one bearing good blue grapes, which are pleasant when the vines are pruned, and of which good wine could be made. The other kind is like the grapes which grow in France on trellises, — the large white ones which they make verjuice of in France. They are as large as the joints of the fingers, but require great labor, for these vines grow in this country on the trees, and the grapes are like the wild grapes which grow along the roads in France, on vines which are not pruned, and which are thick with wood, with little sap in it, for want of being attended to. There was this year, as they told me, a large quaiitity of deer at harvest and through the winter, very fat. having upon their ribs upwards of two fingers of tal- low, so that they were nothing else than clear fat. They also had this year great numbers of turkeys. They could buy a deer for a* loaf of bread, or for a knife, or even for a tobacco- pipe. At other time- they give cloth, worth six or seven guilders. 338 7 There are many partridges, heath-hens, and pigeons which fly together in thousands, and our people sometimes shoot thirty, forty, and fifty of them at a shot. Plenty of fowl, such as be- long to the river, and all along the river are great numbers of them of different kinds, such as swans, geese, pigeons, teal, and wild geese, which go up the river in the spring by thousands, from the seacoast, and fly back again in the fall. Whilst I was at Fort Orange, the 30th of April, there was such a high flood at the island on which Brand-pylen lived — who was my host at this time — that we were compelled to leave the island, and go with boats into the house, where there were four feet of water. This flood continued three days, before we could use the dwelling again. The water ran into the fort, and we were compelled to repair to the woods, where we erected tents and kindled large fires. These woods are full of animals, bears, wolves, foxes, and especially of snakes, black snakes, and rattlesnakes, which are very poisonous, and which have a rattle at the end of the tail, with many rattles, according to their age. As to what the land produces, the soil, which on the mountains is a red sand or cliffs of stone, but in the low plains often clay ground, is very fertile, as Brand-pylen told me that he had produced wheat on this island for twelve years succes- sively without its lying fallow. He also told me that here the Indians put their enemies to death, as horribly as this plate shows, and had for some time past done justice to their enemies in this place. They place their foe against a tree or stake, and first tear all the nails from his fingers, and run them on a string, which they wear the same as we do gold chains. It is considered to the honor of any chief who has vanquished or overcome his enemies, if he bite off or cut off some of their members, as whole fingers. Afterward the prisoner is compelled to sing and dance, entirely naked, before them; and, finally, when they burn the captive, they kill him with a slow fire, and then eat him up, the commoners eating the arms and buttocks, and the chiefs eat- ing the head. When these Indians fasten their enemy to the stake, he is compelled to sing, and accordingly begins to sing of his friends, who will avenge his death. They inflict a cruel death upon him, pricking his body with hot burning wood in different parts, till he is tormented to death. They then tear his heart out of his body, which every one eats a piece of, in order to embitter themselves against their enemies. Along this land runs an excellent river, which comes out of the Maquas Countv, 339 8 about four miles to the north of Fort Orange. I went there with some Indians, and passed by a farm upon which a boor lived, whom they called Brother Cornells. This river runs be- tween two high rocky banks, and falls over a rock as high as a church, with such a noise that it is frequently heard at the farm, and when I was there it made such a loud noise that we could hardly hear each other speak. The water flowed by with such force that it was all the time as if it were raining, and the trees upon the hills, as high as the dunes at home, have their boughs constantly wet as if with rain. The water is as clear as crystal and fresh as milk, and appears all the time as if a rainbow stood in it, but that arises from its clearness. There are a great many Indians here, whom they call Maquas, who catch many lam- preys, otherwise called pricks. The river is about six hundred to seven hundred paces wide at this place, and contains large quantities of fine fish, such as pike, perch, eels, suckers, thick- heads, sunrish, shad, striped bass, which is a fish which comes from the sea in the spring, and swims up the river into the fresh water as the salmon does.. There are sturgeon, but our people will not eat them; also trout, slightly yellow inside, which I myself have caught, and which are considered in France the finest of fish. There are several islands in this river, of thirty, fifty, and seventy morgens of land in size. The soil is very good. The temperature is in extremes, in the summer excessively hot, and in winter exceedingly cold, so that in one night the ice will freeze hard enough to bear one. The summer continues to All Saints' Day; and in December it will freeze so hard that if there be a strong current, which loosens it, it will freeze in a night what has run over it in the day. The ice continues gen- erally for three months, and, although the latitude is forty-three, it is, nevertheless, always frozen for that period; for, though sometimes it thaws in pleasant days, it does not continue to do so, but it freezes again until March, when the river first begins to open, sometimes in February, though seldom. The severest cold comes from the north-west, as in Holland from the north- east. The reason of this cold is that the mountains to the north of it are covered! with snow; and the north-west wind comes blowing over them, and drives all the cold down. This tribe of Indians was formerly a powerful nation, but they are brought into subjection, and made tributaries by the Maquas. They are stout men, well favored of countenance, body, and limb, but all of them have black hair and yellow skin. They go naked 340 9 in the summer. ... In winter they throw over them an un- prepared deer-skin or bear's hide, or a covering of turkey's feath- ers, which they know how to make; or they buy duffels of us, two ells and a half long, and unsewed, go off with it, surveying Lhemselves, and think that they appear fine. They make them- selves shoes and stockings of deer-skins, or they take the leaves of maize and braid them together, and use them for shoes. Men and women go with their heads bare. The women let their hair grow very long, tie it together a little, and let it hang down the back. Some of the men have it on one side of the head, others have a lock hanging on each side. On the top of the head they have a strip of hair froni the forehead to the neck, about three ringers broad, and cut two or three ringers long. It then stands straight up like a cock's-comb. On both sides of this cock's-comb they cut it off close, except the locks, as may be seen in the plate. They paint their faces red, blue, and brown, and look like the devil himself. They smear their foreheads with bear grease, ^hich they carry along with them in little baskets. It would be much better fcr them to wash themselves, if they only thought so, and they would net be troubled with lice. Whenever they go journeying, they take with them some maize and a kettle, with a weeden bowl and spoon, which they pack up together and hang on their backs. When they become hungry, they immediately make a fire and cock it. They make the fire by rubbing sticks together, and that very rapidly. . . . After I had observed the manners of these Indians, who carry on a fierce war with the French Indians, Corlear told me that he had been at their fort, where they had brought some Indians they had captured on the liver St. Lawrence, where the French live. They had taken three Frenchmen, one of whom was a. Jesuit, — whose release our people hoped to obtain, — and had killed one* All the children, of ten or twelve years of age, and the women whom they had taken in the war, they spared, except the very old women, whom they killed. Though they are so revengeful toward their enemies, they are very friendly to us. We have no fear of them; we go with them into the woods; we meet each other sometimes at an hour or two's dis- tance from any house, and we think nothing more of it than if a Christian met us. They also sleep in the chambers before * The Jesuit Father here referred to was Father Jogues. The person killed was Ren£ Goupil. 341 10 our beds, but lying down upon the bare ground, with a stone or piece of wood under the head. They are very slovenly and dirt}-. They do not wash their faces and their hands, but let all remain upon their yellow skin, just as the savages do at the Cape of Good Hope, and look like hogs. Their bread is maize, beaten between two stones, when they are travelling, but pounded sometimes, when they are in their houses, in a large block, hol- lowed out, as may be seen in the plate. They make cakes of it, and bake them in the ashes. Their other food is deer, turkeys, hares, bears, wild cats, and their own dogs, etc. They cook their fish as they take them from the water without cleaning them. They cook the deer with the entrails and all their con- tents, and very little; and, if the entrails are then too tough, they take one end in the mouth and the other in the hands, and between the hand and mouth they cut or separate them. They do the same thing generally with the flesh, for they carve little. They lay it in the fire as long as it takes to count an hundred, as in France a steak is laid upon a gridiron. It is then done enough; and, when they bite into it, the blood runs down the sides of the mouth. They will also eat up a piece of bear's fat as large as two fists, without bread or anything else. It is natural for them to have no beards, and not one among a hun- dred has any hair around his mouth. They also have a great conceit of themselves; and in praising themselves they say, "I am the devil," meaning that they are superior men. When they praise their tribe, they say they are great hunters of deer, or do this or that. So they say of all the Mahakunosers, — they "are great wise devils." They make their dwellings of the bark of trees, very close and warm, and kindle the fire in the middle. Their canoes or boats are made of the bark of trees and will carry five or six persons. They also hollow out trees, and use them for boats and skirl's, some of which are very large, and I have frequently seen eighteen or twenty seated in a hol- low log, going along the river; and I have myself had a wooden canoe, in which I could carry two hundred and twenty-five bushels of maize. The weapons in war were bows and arrows, stone axes, and clap-hammers, but they have now obtained guns from our people. He was a villain who first sold them to them, and showed them how to use them. They say it was the devil, and that they durst not touch them till an Indian came there with a gun, which they call Kallebacker. They also buy swords and iron axes from us. Their money is small bead- made on the 3\- seaside, of shells or cockles, which are found on the shore; and these cockles they grind upon a stone as thin as they wish them, and then drill a small hole through them, and string them on threads, or make bands of them the breadth of a hand or more, which they hang on the shoulders and round the body. They have also divers holes in their ears, from which they hang them, and make caps of them for the head. There are two kinds. The white are the least and the brown-blue are the most val- uable; and they give two white beads for one brown. They call them Zeewan, and have as great a fancy for them as many Christians have for gold, silver, and pearls. For our gold they have hardly any desire, and consider it no better than iron, and say that we are silly to esteem a piece of iron so highly, which if they had they would throw into the water. Though they bury their dead, they place them in a hole in a sitting posture, and not lying, and then throw trees and wood upon the grave, or enclose it with palisades. They have their set times when they go to fish. In the spring they catch immense numbers of shad and lampreys, which are very large. These they lay in the sun, upon the bark of trees, and dry thoroughly hard, and then put them in notessen or bags, which they plait of hemp, which grows wild, and keep the fish in them till winter, when their maize is ripe, from which they take the ears and pile them up in caves, and keep them there the whole winter. They also knit bow-nets and seines in their style. From religion, and all wor- ship of God, they are entirely estranged. They have, indeed, one whom they call by a strange name, w T ho is a genius, whom they regard instead of God, but they do not serve him or make offerings to him. They serve, revere, and make offerings to the devil, whom they call Ostkon, or Ayreskuoni; for, when they have any misfortune in war, they catch a beaf, which they cut into pieces and burn, and offer it to their Ayreskuoni, saying the following words in their language: " O, great and power- ful Ayreskuoni, we know that we have sinned against thee, be- cause we have not killed and eaten up the enemies we took cap- tive. Forgive us this. We promise that we will kill and eat up all those whom we shall hereafter take prisoners as heartily as we have killed and eaten up this bear." So when it is hot weather, and there comes a cooling wind, they immediately cry out, " Asoronusi" — that is, "I thank you, devil, I thank you, Oomke"; and when they are sick, and have any sore or pain in the limbs, and I ask them what ails them, they say that the 343 12 devil is in the body, or is sitting in the sore places and bites them there. They attribute to the devil whatever happens to them, otherwise they know of no worship of God. They ridicule us when we pray. Some of them, when it was told them what we prayed, stood in wonder, and asked me whether I had seen in our country Him whom I worshipped. . . . These Maeckquase Indians are divided into three tribes, one of which takes its desig- nation from the bear, another from the wild tortoise, the third from the wolf; and of these that of the tortoise is the greatest and most celebrated, and claims to be the oldest. These Indians each have upon their banners the animal after which the}' are named, and, when they go to war, carry it as a sign of terror to their enemies, as they suppose, and of courage to themselves. Their government rests with the oldest, wisest, best-spoken, and bravest men, who generally resolve, and the young men and the bravest execute, but, if the commonalty do not approve of the resolution, it is then submitted to the decision of the whole populace. The chiefs are generally the poorest among them, for instead of their receiving anything, as amongst Christians, from the commonalty, or of those in office enriching themselves by unrighteous means or otherwise, these Indian chiefs are made to give to the populace, especially whenever there is any one left dead in war, and they then give large presents to the next of blood kin to the deceased; and, if they then take a prisoner, they give him to the family to which the dead man belonged, and the prisoner is then adopted by that family in place of the deceased. There is hardly any punishment for murder and other crimes, but each one is his own judge, and the bereaved friends revenge themselves upon the murderer until he buys his peace by presents to the relatives. Although they are cruel, and live without any punishment of evil-doers, there is not one- fourth part as much roguery and murder among them as there is among Christians, so that I have frequently wondered what murders happened in Fatherland, notwithstanding such severe laws and penalties, while these Indians, living without laws or fear of punishment, kill very few, and then only in anger and personal combat." We are, therefore, entirely without fear in going with the Indians, and walk an hour with them in the woods without harm. After I hud observed the above-written cir- cumstanced and manners of the Indians, I set out again for the river. The 14th May, took my leave of the Commander at I t 344 i.3 Orange, and the same day reached Esopers, where a creek runs in, and where there is some maize-land upon which some Indians live. The 15th, got under sail at break of day, with the ebb-tide, and at noon came to the Dance-chamber, where there were many Indians fishing; passed the Highlands, and at evening anchored at Tapaen, and remained there all night, near the Ind- ians, who were fishing. The 1 6th, weighed anchor, and sailed, with the ebb and a strong breeze from the north-west, in three hours to the Fort. The above-named river has nothing but mountains on both sides, little capable of sustaining a population, as there are only cliffs and stones along the river, as I have related before. There is here and there some maize-land, from which the Indians re- move the stones and cultivate it. The tide flows up to Fort Orange by the pressure of the sea. The 1 6th July, Cornelis Van Thienhoven, Secretary of Xew Netherland, departed with a commission from the head men and council of New Netherland, with a hundred armed men, to the Raritanghe, a nation of Indians who live where a little stream runs up about five miles behind Staten Island, for the purpose of obtaining satisfaction from the Indians for the hos- tilities committed by them upon Staten Island, in killing my swine and those of the Company, which a negro watched, — whom I had been solicited to place there, — in robbing the watch-house, and in attempting to run off with the yacht Vrede, of which Cornelis Pietersz was master, and which met with an accident, and for other acts of insolence. Van Thienhoven having arrived there with the said troop, demanded satisfaction according to his orders. The troop wished to kill and plunder, which could not be permitted, as Van Thienhoven said he had no orders to do so. Finally, on account of the pertinacity of the troop, the said Van Thienhoven went away, protesting against any injury which should happen by reason of their disobedience and viola- tion of orders; and, having gone a quarter of a mile, the troop killed several of the Indians, and brought the brother of the chief a prisoner, for whom Van Thienhoven had been surety before in eighty fathoms of Zeewan, otherwise he, too, must have been put to death. Whereupon the Indians, as will here- after be related, killed four of my men, burned my house, and the house of David Pietersz De Vries.* I learned also from * This is probably a mistake for Frederick de Yries. 345 14 Thienhoven that one Loockmans, standing on the mast, had misused the chief's brother . . . with a piece of wood, and that such acts of tyranny were perpetrated by the officers of the Company as were far from making friends with the inhabitants. The 20th of October, I went with my sloop to Tapaen in order to trade for maize or Indian corn. I found the Company's sloop there for the purpose of levying a contribution from the Indian Christians, of a quantity of corn. The Indians called to me and inquired what I wanted. I answered that I desired to exchange cloth for corn. They said they could not help me. I must go up the river, and, should the Company's sloop in the mean time get away, they would then trade with me; that they were very much surprised that the Sachem, who was now at the Fort, dare exact it; and he must be a very mean fellow to come to this country without being invited by them, and now wish to compel them to give him their corn for nothing; that they had not raised it in great abundance, as one chief had gen- erally but two women who planted corn, and that they had cal- culated only for their own necessities, and to barter some for cloth. So this affair began to cause much dissatisfaction among the Indians. The ist of December. I have begun to take hold of Vries- sendale, as it was a fine place, situated along the river, under the mountains, and at an hour and a half's journey there is a valley where hay can be raised for two hundred head of cattle, and where there is thirty morgens of corn-land, and where I have sown wheat which grew higher than the tallest man in the country. Here were also two fine falls from the mountains, where two good mills could be erected for grinding corn and sawing plank. It was a beautiful and pleasant place for hunt- ing deer, wild turkeys, and pigeons; but the evil of it was that, though I earnestly took hold of the place, I was not seconded by mv partner, according to our agreement, who was Fred- erick De Vries, a manager of the Company, and who thought that colonies could be built up without men or means, as his idea was that Godyn, Gilliam* Van Rensselaer, Moemart, and Jan de Laet had established their colonies with the means of the Company, which had brought there all the cattle and the farmer-, and then the work began to progress. These persons were managers of the Company and commissioners of New Wui- erland, and helped themselves by the cunning tricks of m< r- * Kili u n. 346 15 chants; and the Company, having about that time come into possession of Peter Heyn's. booty, bestowed not a thought upon their best trading-post at Fort Orange, or whether they would make farms there or not; but these fellows, through Rensselaer, who was accustomed to refine pearls and diamonds, succeeded in taking it from the other managers — partners. Michael Pauw, discovering that they had appropriated the land at Fort Orange to themselves, immediately had the land lying opposite Fort Amsterdam, where the Indians are compelled to cross to the fort with their beavers, registered for himself, and called it Pavonia. The Company, seeing afterwards that they were affected, much contention and jealousy was caused among them, because they who undertook to plant colonies with their own money should have taken the property of the Company. Thus was the coun- try kept by these disputes, so that it was not settled; for there were friends enough who would have peopled the country by patroonships, but they were always prevented by the contention of the managers, who were not willing to do anything themselves, for they would rather see booty arrive than to speak of their colonies; but, had the land been peopled, the fruit thereof would have been long continued, while their booty has vanished like smoke. There may be some managers and book-keepers who are well off by it, but it does no good to the community, as the cultivation of the soil where every one is well off, and there is a steady income, is better than all the booty which we see con- sumed in bawdy-houses; for where is now all the booty of which the Dunkirkers have robbed us, and also all the booty of Flush- ing, which was taken from the Portuguese? It has also van- ished like smoke, and those privateers who have taken it have gone to naught. . . . Axxo 1 64 1. The 20th August, the ship Eyckenboom (Oak- tree) arrived here, in which came a person named Malyn, who said that Staten Island belonged to him, that it was given by the managers to him and to Heer Vander Horst, which I could not believe, as I had sailed in the year thirty-eight to take possession of said Island, and my men were now upon it. I thought better things of the managers than this, as the sixth article of privileges mentions that the first occupants shall not be prejudiced in their right of possession. The 1st of September, my men on Staten Island were killed by the Indians; and the Raritans told an Indian, who worked for my people, that we might now come to fight them on account 347 i6 of our men; that we had before come and treated them badly on account of the swine; that there had been laid to their charge what thcw were not guilty of, and what had been done by the Company's men when they were on their way to the South River, who came ashore on Staten Island to cut wood and haul water, and then at the same time stole the hogs, and charged the act upon the innocent Indians, who, although they are bad enough, will do you no harm if you do them none. Thus I lost the be- ginning of my colony on Staten Island, by the orders of Com- mander Kieft, who wished to charge upon the Indians what his own people had done. The 2d of November, there came a chief of the Indians of Tankitekes, named Pacham, who was great with the governor of the fort. He came in great triumph, bringing a dead hand hanging on a stick, and saying that it was the hand of the chief who had killed or shot with arrows our men on Staten Island, and that he had taken revenge for our sake, because he loved the Swannakens (as they call the Dutch), who were his best friends. The same day Commander Kieft asked me whether I would permit Malyn to go upon the point of Staten Island, where the maize-land lay, saying that he wished to let him plant it, and that he would place soldiers there, who would make a signal by raising a flag, to make known at the fort whenever ships were in the bay, to which I have consented, — but am not to be preju- diced thereby, — and to let him have twelve to fourteen or fifteen morgens of land, without abridging my right, as he intended to distil brandy and make goat's leather. Axxo 1642. As I was daily with Commander Kieft, gen- erally dining with him when I went to the fort, he told me that ne had now had a fine inn, built of stone, in order to accommodate the English who daily passed with their vessels from New Eng- land to Virginia, from whom he suffered great annoyance, and who might now lodge in the tavern. I replied that it happened well for the travellers, but there was great want of a church, and that it was a scandal to us when the . English passed there, and saw only a mean barn in which we preached; that the first thing which the English built, after their dwellings, was a fine church, and we ought to do so, too, as the West India Company was deemed to be a principal means of upholding the Reformed Religion against the tyranny of Spain, and had excellent ma- terial therefor, — namely, fine oak-wood, good mountain stone, and lime burnt of oyster shells, much better than our lime in 348 17 Holland. He then inquired who would superintend the work. I answered the lovers of the Reformed Religion who were truly so. He then said that I must be one of them, as I proposed it, and must give an hundred guilders. I told him that I was sat- isfied, and that he must be the first to give, as he was commander, and then elect Jochem Pietersz Kuyter, a devout person of the Reformed Religion, who had good workmen who would quickly prepare the timber, and also elect Damen, because he lived close by the fort; that we four, as church wardens, should undertake the work of building the church; that the commander should give several thousand guilders on behalf of the Company, and then it would immediately be seen whether the rest would be subscribed by the community; that the church should be built in the fort, to guard against any surprise by the Indians. Thus were the walls of the church speedily begun to be laid up with quarry-stone, and to be covered by the English carpenters with slate, or rather with oak-shingles, which, by exposure to the wind and rain, turn blue, and look as if they were slate. About the same time a harmless Dutchman, named Claes Rademaker (wheelwright), was murdered by an Indian. He lived a short mile from the fort by the Densel-b&y, where he had built a small house, and had set up the trade of wheelwright. It was on the road over which the Indians from Wickquasgeck passed daily. It happened that an Indian came to this Claes Rademaker for the purpose of trading beavers with him for duffels-cloth, which goods were in a chest. This chest he had locked up, and stooped down in order to take his goods out, when this murderer, the Indian, seeing that the man had his head bent over into the chest, and observing an axe standing behind him, seized the axe, and struck Claes Rademaker on the neck therewith, who fell down dead by the chest. The murderer then stole, all the goods and ran off. The commander sent to Wickquasgeck to inquire why this Dutchman had been so shamefully murdered. The murderer answered that, while the fort was being built, he came with his uncle and another Indian to the freshwater, bringing beavers, in order to trade with the Dutchmen, that some Swannekes (as they call the Neth- erlander) came there, took away from his uncle his beavers, and then killed him. He was then a small boy, and resolved, when he should grow up, he would revenge that deed upon the Dutch, and since then he had seen no better chance to do so than with Claes Rademaker. Thus these Indians resemble 349 i8 the Italians, being very revengeful. Commander Kieft after- wards made an attempt to send some soldiers there, of whom Van Dvck, the ensign-bearer, had the command, but in conse- quence' of the darkness of the night the guides missed the way, and arrived there too late in the day, so that the attempt failed, and they returned again without effecting anything. Another expedition against these Indians was subsequently sent, which also miscarried. When Commander Kieft saw that these ex- peditions against the Indians miscarried, and that trouble would follow, and found that the people began to reproach him with being himself safely protected in the fort, out of which he had not slept a single night during all the years he had been there, and with seeking the war in order to make a bad reckoning with the Company, and began to feel that the war would be laid to his charge, he called the people together to choose twelve men to aid him in the direction of the affairs of the country, of which number I was, as a patroon, chosen one. Commander kieft then submitted the proposition whether we should avenge the murder of Claes Rademaker by declaring war upon the Indians or not. We answered that time and opportunity must be taken, as our cattle were running at pasture in the woods, and we were living far and wide, east, west, south, and north of each other; that we were not prepared to carry on a war with the Indians until we had more people, like the English, who make towns and villages. I told Commander Kieft that no profit was to be derived from a war with the Indians; that he was the means of mv people being murdered at the colony which I had com- manded on Staten Island in the year forty; and that I well knew that the managers did not desire a war waged against the Indians, lor when we made our colony in the year 1630, in the South River at Swanendael, otherwise called Hoere-kil, our people were all murdered through some trifling acts of the commander whom we had stationed there, named Gilles Oset, as I have alreadv mentioned in the beginning of my journal; that it was then proposed to the Company to make war upon the Indians but the Company would not permit it, and replied that we must keep at peace with the Indian. This I related toWte Kieft bi t he would not listen to it. It becomes the manager, to take care what persons they appoint as Directors, for hereon !]c|mmi2 oV^ k 3 60* 4-1