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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Written in 1890 specially for the HISTORIC TOWNS series and not published in magazine form. Issued simultaneously in New York and London. The second edition, which appeared in 1899, contains a postscript bringing the history down to that year. ed]

MRS. MARTHA J. LAMB'S "History of the City of New York," the other histories of the city by Miss Booth, and Messrs. Lossing, Todd, and Valentine; the Brodhead and O'Callaghan papers; Hammond's "Political History of New York"; Dougherty's "Constitutions of New York"; Cooper's "Satanstoe" and "Miles Wallingford"; Tuckerman's "Diary of Philip Hone"; Parton's "Topics of the Time"; Adams's "Chapter of Erie"; Shea's and De Courcey's "History of the Catholic Church in the United States" and Lounsbury's admirable "Life of Cooper"-the best piece of American literary biography ever yet done-are among the authorities consulted in preparing this volume. I wish to express my particular thanks to Mr. Brander Matthews, who indeed is responsible for my undertaking to write the book at all. .

The limited space allowed forbade the use of the vast mass of manuscript which was obtainable. The temptation was very great to attempt a more exhaustive study of the events of the last forty years, that is the history of modern and contemporary New York; for this is the most important and instructive portion of our history, with the possible exception of the Federalist period. But of course such a study would be entirely out of place in a book of this kind.

It has been my aim less to collect new facts than to draw from the immense storehouse of facts already collected those which were of real importance in New York history, and to show their true meaning and their relations to one another: to sketch the workings of the towns life, social, commercial, and political, at successive periods, with their sharp transformations [p. 360]

and contrasts; and to trace the causes which gradually changed a little Dutch trading--hamlet into a huge American city. I have also striven to make clear the logical sequence and continuity of these events; to outline the steps by which the city gradually obtained a free political life; and to give proper prominence to the remarkable and ever--recurring revolutions in the ethnic make--up of our mixed population--a population which from the beginning has been composed of many different race elements, and which has owed its marvelous growth more to immigration than to natural increase.

I had to content myself with barely touching on the social and political problems of the present day; for to deal with these at any length would turn the volume into a tract instead of a history. I have no wish to hide or excuse our faults; for I hold that he is often the best American who strives hardest to correct American shortcomings, and is most willing to profit by the wisdom and experience of other nations, especially of those that are nearest akin to us by blood, belief, speech, and law, and that are knit closest to us by the kindly ties of a former common history and common tradition.

Nevertheless, I am just as little disposed to give way to undue pessimism as to undue and arrogant optimism. Both our virtues and defects should be taken into account. For instance, there are great European cities with much cleaner municipal governments than ours; but on the other hand, the conditions of the masses of the population in these same cities is much worse than it is in New York. Our marked superiority in one respect is no excuse or palliation for our lamentable falling off in another; but it must at least be accepted as an offset. We have been favored with some peculiar advantages, and we have been forced to struggle against other peculiar disadvantages; and both must be given due weight.

In speaking to my own countrymen there is one point upon which I wish to lay especial stress; that is, the necessity for a feeling of broad, radical, and intense Americanism, if good work is to be done in any direction. Above all, the one essential for success in every political movement which is to do lasting good, is that our citizens should act as Americans; not as Americans with a prefix and qualification--not as Irish--Americans, German- -Americans, Native Americans--but as Americans pure and simple. It is an outrage for a man to drag foreign politics into our contests, and vote as an Irishman or German or other foreigner, as the case may be; and there is no worse citizen than the professional Irish dynamiter or German anarchist, because of his attitude toward our social and political life, not to mention his efforts to embroil us with foreign powers. But it is no less an outrage to discriminate against one who has become an American in good faith, merely because of his creed or birthplace. Every man who has gone into practical politics knows well enough that if he joins good men and fights those who are evil, he can pay no heed to lines of division drawn according to race and religion. It would be well for New York if a larger proportion of her native-- born children came up to the standard set by not a few of those of foreign birth. The two men who did most to give Brooklyn good municipal government were two mayors, one of German birth, the other of pure native American stock. My own warmest and most disinterested political friends and supporters in the city, and most trusty allies in the State Legislature, included men of Irish and German no less than of native American descent--but all of them genuine Americans, the former just as much so as the latter. No city could wish representatives more loyal and disinterested in their devotion to the welfare of the commonwealth--a devotion for which they were often ill rewarded. Of the last four mayors of New York, two have been of native and two of Irish stock; and no political line can be drawn among them which will not throw one Irishman and one American on one side, and one Irishman and one American on the other. In short, the most important lesson taught by the history of New York City is the lesson of [p. 359] Americanism--the lesson that he among us who wishes to win honor in our life, and to play his part honestly and manfully, must be indeed an American in spirit and purpose, in heart and thought and deed.

/s/ THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
SAGAMORE HILL, November, 1890.

CHAPTER I ---- DISCOVERY AND FIRST SETTLEMENT 1609-- 1626

EARLY in September, 1609, the ship Half-Moon, restlessly skirting the American coast, in the vain quest for a strait or other water route leading to India, came to the mouth of a great lonely river, flowing silently out from the heart of the unknown continent. The Half-Moon was a small, clumsy, high-pooped yacht, manned by a score of Dutch and English sea-dogs, and commanded by an English adventurer then in Dutch pay, and known to his employers as Hendrik Hudson. He, his craft, and his crew were all typical of the age--an age fertile in adventure--loving explorers, eager to sail under any flag that promised glory and profit, at no matter what cost of hardship and danger; an age fertile also beyond measure in hardy seamen, of whom the hardiest and bravest came from England and the Netherlands. It was a period when the greatest deeds were done on the ocean by these rough heroes of cutlass and compass. They won honor by exploring unknown seas and taking possession of and subjugating unknown lands, no less than by their prowess in the grim water fights which have made their names immortal. Their small ships dared the dangers of the most distant oceans, and shattered the sea-might of every rival naval power; and they themselves led lives of stormy peril and strong pleasure, and looked forward unmoved to inevitable death in some one of their countless contests with man or with the elements.

For a century and a quarter Spain and Portugal had not only taken the lead in, but had almost monopolized all ocean [p. 366] exploration and transoceanic settlement and conquest, while the most daring navigators were to be found in their ranks, or among the Italians who served both them and their rivals. Even at the beginning of the seventeenth century they were still the only peoples who had permanently occupied any portion of the New World; and their vast possessions included all of tropical, subtropical, and south--temperate America. But by this time, in a hundred fights the sea-beggars and sea-rovers of Holland and England had destroyed the cumbrous navies of the Spanish king, and won from those who fought for his flag the mastery of the ocean. Spain was still a great power; but it was a power whose might was waning. From the time when the races of middle and northern Europe first planted their standards in the New World they have stood toward the Spaniards and Spanish--Americans as aggressors. Their blows had to be parried and returned; sometimes they have been returned with good effect, but as a whole the Spanish people have always been on the defensive, fearing, not threatening, conquest.

Yet, though the career of Spain as a conquering power was thus cut short, two pregnant centuries passed by before her children lost any considerable portion of the land which she held when the ships of the English colonists first sighted the shores of America. During the early part of the seventeenth century the Atlantic coast from Acadia to Florida became dotted with the settlements of half a dozen different European nations. At irregular intervals along this extended seaboard the French, the English, the Dutch, the Swedes, as well as the Spaniards, built little forts and established small trading towns. When the English had fairly begun to take root in New England and Virginia, the Dutch still held the Hudson, and the Swedes the mouth of the Delaware; Acadia was still French, and Florida Spanish. It was altogether uncertain which one of these races would prove victor over the others, or whether any one would. There was at least a good chance that even the Spaniards would hold their own, and that [p. 367] temperate North America, like temperate Europe, would be held by many nations, differing one from the other in speech, in religion, and in blood. We have grown so accustomed to regarding America north of the Rio Grande as the natural heritage of the English-speaking peoples that we find it hard to realize how uncertain seemed the prospect at the period when colonization began. None could foretell which power would win in the struggle; and the fate of America was bound up in wars in which her future was hardly, if at all, considered. If Gustavus Adolphus had not fallen on the field of Littzen, and had he founded, as he hoped, a great Scandinavian kingdom encircling the Baltic, and with fleets as powerful as her armies, it may well be that the fame and terror of the Swedish name would have insured peace and prosperity to the transatlantic Swedish colonists. Had the Dutch fleets been but a trifle stronger, and had the Dutch diplomats prized Manhattan as they prized Java, the New Netherlands might never have become New York. It seemed, and was, perfectly possible in the seventeenth century that the nineteenth would see flourishing Dutch and Swedish states firmly seated along the Hudson and the Delaware, exactly as a thriving French commonwealth actually is seated along the lower St. Lawrence.

Thus it came about that the English colonists and their American descendants not only had to tame a wild and stubborn continent, and ever to drive back from before their advance the doomed tribesmen of the forest and prairie, but also had to wrest many of the fairest portions of the domain which the English- speaking Americans inherit, from the hands of other intruders of European blood. Many of the cities of the Union bear testimony by their early history to this fact. Albany, Detroit, and Santa Fe are but three out of many towns wherein the English reaped what the Dutch, the French, or the Spaniards had sown.

The history of New York deserves to be studied for more than one reason. It is the history of the largest English-speaking [p. 368] city which the English conquered but did not found, and in which though the English law and governmental system have ever been supreme, yet the bulk of the population, composed as it is and ever has been of many shifting strains, has never been English. Again, for the past hundred years, it is the history of a wonderfully prosperous trading city, the largest in the world in which the democratic plan has ever been faithfully tried for so long a time; and the trial, made under some exceptional advantages and some equally exceptional disadvantages, is of immense interest, alike for the measure in which it has succeeded and for the measure in which it has failed.

Hudson, on coming to the river to which his name was afterward given, did not at first know that it was a river at all; he believed and hoped that it was some great arm of the sea, that in fact it was the Northwest Passage to India, which he and so many other brave men died in vainly trying to discover. For a week he lay in the lower bay, and then for a day shifted his anchorage into what is now New York Harbor; his boats explored the surrounding shore-line, and found many Indian villages, for the neighborhood seemed well peopled. The savages flocked to see the white strangers, and eagerly traded off their tobacco for the knives and beads of the Europeans. Of course occasions of quarrel were certain to arise between the rough, brutal sailors and the fickle, suspicious, treacherous red men; and once a boat's crew was attacked by two canoes, laden with warriors, and a sailor was killed by an arrow which pierced his throat. Yet on the whole their relations were friendly, and the trading and bartering went on unchecked.

Hudson soon found that he was off the mouth of a river, not a strait; and he spent three weeks in exploring it, sailing up till the shoaling water warned him that he was at the head of navigation, near the present site of Albany. He found many small Indian tribes scattered along the banks, and usually kept on good terms with them, presenting their chiefs with trinkets of various kinds, and treating them for the first time to a taste of "fire- water," the terrible curse of their race ever since. In return he was well received when he visited the bark wigwams, his hosts holding feasts for him, where the dishes included not only wild fowl, but also fat dogs, killed by the squaws, and skinned with mussel-shells. The Indians, who had made some progress in the ruder arts of agriculture, brought to the ship quantities of corn, beans, and pumpkins from the great heaps drying beside their villages; and their fields, yielding so freely to even their poor tillage, bore witness to the fertility of the soil. Hudson had to be constantly on his guard against his new-found friends, and once he was attacked by a party of hostile warriors whom he beat off, killing several of their number. However, what far outweighed such danger in the gain--greedy eyes of the trade- -loving adventurers was the fact that they saw in the possession of the Indians great stores of rich furs; for the merchants of Europe prized furs as they did silks, spices, ivory, and precious metals.

Having reached the head of navigation the Half-Moon turned her bluff bows southward, and drifted downstream with the rapid current until she once more reached the bay. The brilliant fall weather had been varied at times with misty days and nights; and during the Half-Moon's inland voyage her course had lain through scenery singularly wild, grand, and lonely. She had passed the long line of frowning, battlemented rock walls that we know by the name of the Palisades; she had threaded her way round the bends where the curving river sweeps in and out among bold peaks- -Storm King, Crow's Nest, and their brethren; she had sailed in front of the Catskill Mountains, perhaps even thus early in the season crowned with shining snow. From her decks the lookouts scanned with their watchful eyes dim shadowy wastes, stretching for countless leagues on every hand; for all the land was shrouded in one vast forest, where red hunters who had never seen a white face followed wild beasts, upon whose kind no white man had ever gazed.

[p. 370] Early in October; Hudson set out on his homeward voyage to Holland, where the news of his discovery excited much interest among the daring merchants, especially among those whose minds were bent on the fur trade. Several of the latter sent small ships across to the newly found bay and river, both to barter with the savages and to explore and report further upon the country. The most noted of these sea-captains who followed Hudson was Adrian Block, who while at anchor off Manhattan Island lost his vessel by fire. He at once set about building another, and being a man of great resource and resolution; succeeded. Creating everything for himself, and working in the heart of the primeval -forest, he built and launched a forty-five-foot yacht which he christened the Onrest (the Restless), fit name for the bark of one of these daring, ever-roaming adventurers. This primitive pioneer vessel was the first ever launched in our waters, and her keel was the first which ever furrowed the waters of the Sound.

The first trading and exploring ships did well, and the merchants saw that great profits could be made from the Manhattan fur trade. Accordingly, they determined to establish permanent posts at the head of the river and at its mouth. The main fort was near the mouth of the Mohawk, but they also built a few cabins at the south end of Manhattan Island, and left therein half a dozen of their employees, with Hendrik Christiansen as head-man over both posts. The great commercial city of New York thus had its origin, not unfittingly, in a cluster of traders' huts. From this obscure beginning was to spring one of the mightiest cities of any age, marvelous alike for its wonderfully rapid growth and its splendid material prosperity. From the outset the new town, destined to be the largest in the New World, mayhap even the largest in all the world, took its place among those communities which owe their existence and growth primarily to commerce, their whole character and development for good and evil being more profoundly affected by commercial than by any other influences.

Christiansen was soon killed by an Indian. For two or three years his fellow traders lived on Manhattan Island much in the same way as men now live at the remoter outposts of the fur trade in the far Northwest of this continent. Some kept decent and straight; others grew almost as squalid and savage as the red men in whose midst they lived. They hunted, fished, and idled; sometimes they killed their own game, sometimes they got it by barter from the Indians, together with tobacco and corn. Now and then they quarreled with the surrounding savages, but generally they kept on good terms with them; and in exchange for rum and trinkets they gathered innumerable bales of valuable furs--mostly of the beaver, which swarmed in all the streams, but also of otter, and of the many more northern kinds, such as the sable and the fisher. At long intervals these furs were piled in the holds of the three or four small vessels whose yearly or half-yearly arrival from Holland formed the chief relief to the monotony of the fur traders' existence.

Even in its very founding, the direction in which the great city on Manhattan Island should develop was foreshadowed, and its course outlined in advance. The merchants who first sent over vessels and built a trading-post joined with others to form the "New Netherland Company"; for it was a time when settlement and conquest were undertaken more often by great trading companies than by either the national government or by individuals. The Netherlands Government granted this company the monopoly of the fur trade with the newly discovered territory for three years from 1615, and renewed the grant for a year at a time until 1621, when it was allowed to lapse, a more powerful competitor being in the field. The company was a mere trading corporation, and made no effort to really settle the land; but the fur trade proved profitable, and the post on Manhattan Island was continued, while another was built near the head of the Hudson, close to the present site of Albany.

In 1621, the great West India Company was chartered by [p. 372] the States General, and given the monopoly of the American trade; and it was by this company that the city was really founded, the first settlement being made which was intended to be permanent. All the magnificent territory discovered by Hudson was granted it under the name of the New Netherlands. The company was one of the three or four huge commercial corporations of imperial power that played no small part in shaping the world's destiny during the two centuries immediately preceding the present. It was in its constitution and history archetypal of the time. The great trading city of America was really founded by no one individual, nor yet by any national government, but by a great trading corporation, created however to fight and to bear rule no less than to carry on commerce. The merchants who formed the West India Company were granted the right to exercise powers such as belong to sovereign States, because the task to which they set themselves was one of such incredible magnitude and danger that it could be done only on such terms. They were soldiers and sailors no less than traders; it was only merchants of iron will and restless daring who could reap the golden harvests in those perilous seafields, where all save the strongest surely perished. The paths of commerce were no less dangerous than those of war.

The West India Company was formed for trade, and for peopling the world's waste spaces; and it was also formed to carry on fierce war against the public enemy, the King of Spain: It made war' or peace as best suited it; it gave governors and judges to colonies and to conquered lands; it founded cities, and built forts; and it hired mighty admirals to lead to battle and plunder the ships of its many fleets. Some of the most successful and heroic feats of arms in the history of the Netherlands were performed by the sailors in the pay of this company; steel in their hands brought greater profit than gold; and the fortunate stockholders of Amsterdam and Zealand received enormous dividends from the sale of the spoil of the sacked cities of Brazil, and of the captured treasure [p. 373] ships which had once formed part of the Spanish "silver fleet."

In the midst of this turmoil of fighting and trading, the company had little time to think of colonizing. Nevertheless, in 1624 some families of Protestant Walloons were sent to the Hudson in the ship New Netherland, a few of them staying on Manhattan Island. The following summer several more families arrived, and the city may be said to have been really founded, the dwellers on Manhattan Island after that date including permanent settlers besides the mere transient fur traders. Finally in May, 1626, the director, Peter Minuit, a Westphalian, appointed by the company as first governor of the colony, arrived in the harbor in his ship the Sea--Mew, leading a band of true colonists--men who brought with them their wives and little ones, their cattle and their household goods, and who settled down in the land with the purpose of holding it for themselves and for their children's children.

CHAPTER II -- THE DUTCH TOWN UNDER THE FIRST THREE DIRECTORS 1626-1647

WITH the arrival of Director Minuit, the settlement at the mouth of the Hudson first took on permanent form and became an organized community. He bought Manhattan Island from its Indian owners for the sum of sixty guilders, or about twenty-four dollars, and during the summer founded thereon a little town, christened New Amsterdam. It soon grew to contain some two hundred souls. Even at the beginning, the population was composed of peoples diverse in race and speech; not only were there Dutchmen and Walloons, but also even thus early a few Huguenots, Germans, and Englishmen.

The island was then a mass of tangled, frowning forest, fringed with melancholy marshes, which near the present site of Canal Street approached so close together from either side that they almost made another small island of the southern end. The settlers staked out a fort on the southernmost point, and huddled near it in their squalid huts; while they closely watched their cattle, which were in imminent danger from wolves, bears, and panthers whenever they strayed into the woodland.

Minuit was a kindly man, of firm temper, much energy, and considerable executive capacity; on the whole he was by far the best of the four directors who successively ruled the city and colony during the forty years of the Dutch supremacy. But the scheme of colonization was defective in more than [p. 375] one vital particular. The settlement was undertaken primarily in the interest of a great commercial corporation, and only secondarily in the interests of the settlers themselves. The world had not yet grasped the fact that those who went abroad to build mighty States in far-off lands ought by rights to be themselves the main beneficiaries of their toil and peril. A colony was considered as being established chiefly for the good of the people who stayed at home, not for the good of the colonists. The West India Company wished well to its settlers, who were granted complete religious freedom, and in practice a very considerable amount of civil liberty likewise; but, after all, the company held that the first duty of the New Netherlands colony was to return large dividends to the company's stockholders, and especially to advance the worldly welfare of the company's most influential directors. It sought to establish a chain of trading-posts which should bring great wealth to the mother country, rather than to lay the foundations of a transatlantic nation of Dutch freemen. Hence, the settlers never felt a very fervent loyalty for the government under which they lived, and in its moment of mortal peril betrayed small inclination to risk their lives and property in a quarrel which was hardly their own.

This attitude of the old West India Company was that naturally adopted by all such corporations. It was curiously paralleled, even in our own day, by the way in which the great Hudson Bay Company shut the fertile valleys of the Red River and the Saskatchewan to all settlement. It was a thoroughly unhealthy attitude.

Minuit was active in establishing friendly relations with the savages. His boats explored the neighboring creeks and inlets, and the Indians were well treated whenever they came to the little hamlet on Manhattan Island. In consequence they freely brought their stores of valuable furs for barter and sale. For two or three years the trade proved profitable, while, from other causes, the stock of the company rose to a high premium on the exchanges of Holland. [p. 376]

In 1628, for the purpose of promoting immigration, an act was passed granting to any man who should bring over a colony of fifty souls a large tract of land and various privileges, with the title of "Patroon." These patroons were really great feudal lords, who farmed out their vast estates to tenants who held the ground on various conditions. Their domains were often as large as Old World principalities; as an instance, Rensselaerswyck, the property of the Patroon Van Rensselaer, was a tract containing a thousand square miles. The introduction of this very aristocratic system was another evidence of the unwisdom of the governing powers. Moreover, the patroons, whose extensive privileges were curtailed in certain directions--notably in that they were forbidden to enter into the lucrative fur trade, the chief source of profit to the company--soon began to rebel against these restrictions. They quarreled fiercely with the company's representatives, and traded on their own account with the Indians; and the various private traders not only cut into the company's profits but also, being amenable to no law, soon greatly demoralized the savages.

The settlers on Manhattan Island were not treated as freemen, but as the vassals of the. company. For many years they were not even given any title to the land on which they built their houses, being considered simply as tenants at will. Minuit, it is true, chose from among them an advisory council, but it could literally only advise, and in the last resort the company had absolute power. The citizens had certain officers of their own, but they were powerless in the event of any struggle with the director. When the latter was, like Minuit, a sensible, well- disposed man, affairs went well enough, and the people were allowed to govern themselves, and were happy; but a director of tyrannous temper always had it in his power to rule the colony almost as if he were an absolute despot.

For six years Minuit remained in New Amsterdam, ruling the people mildly, preserving by a mixture of tact and firmness friendly relations with the Indians and with his English [p. 377] neighbors to the eastward to whom he sent a special embassy, which was most courteously. received--and keeping on good terms with the powerful and haughty patroons. During these years the trade of the colony increased and flourished, rich cargoes of valuable furs being sent to Holland in the homeward-bound ships, and the population of Manhattan Island gradually grew in numbers and wealth. Farms or "boueries" were established; and the settlers raised wheat rye, buckwheat, flax, and beans, while their herds and flocks throve apace. The company soon built a mill, a brewery, a bakery, and great warehouses, and society began to gain some of the more essential comforts of civilization. Nevertheless, the company quarreled with Minuit. He was accused of unduly favoring the patroons, whose private ventures in the fur trade were encroaching upon the company's profits, and moreover he had been drawn into a scheme of shipbuilding, which though successful--a very large and fine ship being built and launched in the bay--nevertheless proved much too expensive for the taste of his employers. Accordingly, he was recalled; and later on, deeming himself to have been ill treated, he took service under the Swedish queen.

His successor was Wouter van Twiller, who reached New Amsterdam early in 1633. Van Twiller was a good-natured, corpulent, wine-bibbing Dutchman, loose of life, and not overstrict in principle, and with a slow, irresolute mind. However, as he was an easy-going man, his rule did not bear hardly on the colonists, while he won for himself an honorable reputation by devoting much of his time to the construction of public buildings. Thus, he made a new fort of earthen banks with stone bastions, enclosing within its walls not only the soldiers' barracks, but also at first the governmental residence and public offices; he also built several windmills and the first church which was used solely as such, as well as houses for the dominie and for the schout-fiscal. The latter was the most important of the local officers; he possessed curious and extensive powers, being the chief executive of the local government [p. 378] and answering roughly to both the English sheriff and town constable, though with a far wider and more complicated range of duties. The colony had at this time received two important additions in the shape of the first schoolmaster--who failed ingloriously in his vocation, and then tried to eke out his scanty salary by taking in washing--and the first regular clergyman. The clergyman, Dominie Bogardus, was a man of mark and of high character, though his hot temper made him unpopular.

Van Twiller kept on fairly friendly terms with the Indians, though causes of quarrel between the settlers and the savages were constantly arising. Plenty of wrong was done on each side, and it would be hard to say where the original ground of offense lay. Probably the whites could not have avoided a war in the end; but they certainly by their recklessness and brutality did all in their power to provoke the already suspicious and treacherous red men. The history of the dealings of the Dutch with the Indians is not pleasant reading.

Under Van Twiller there were endless troubles with the English. Both England and Holland claimed the country from the Connecticut to the Delaware, each wishing it really more for purposes of trade than of colonization; and the quarrels generally arose over efforts of rival vessels of the two nationalities to control the trade with some special band of savages. In Van Twiller's time an English vessel entered the Hudson and sailed to the head of navigation, where she anchored and began to barter. with the savages for their furs; whereupon the Dutch soldiers from the neighboring fort fell upon her and drove her off, confiscating the furs. At the same time Van Twiller built a fort and established a garrison on the Connecticut, threatening to hold it by force against the English; but when the pinch came the Hollanders failed to make their threats good, and the Puritans from Plymouth sailed up the river and took possession of the banks in defiance of their foes.

Better luck attended Van Twiller's efforts on the Delaware [p. 379] the Cavaliers proving easier to deal with than the Roundheads. The Dutch had already built a colony on this river; but the colonists became embroiled with the Indians, who fell on them and massacred them to a man. Then a party of Virginians established themselves in one of the deserted Dutch forts, and set about founding a settlement and trading-post; but when the news was brought to the director at New Amsterdam, he promptly dispatched a party of troops against the invaders, who were all taken captive and brought in triumph to Manhattan Island. Van Twiller hardly knew what to do with them; so he scolded them soundly for the enormity of their offense in trespassing on Dutch territory, and then shipped them back to Virginia again.

The internal affairs of the colony went more smoothly. There were occasional quarrels with the powerful patroons, but the director was much too fond of his ease, and of wine and high living, to oppress or rule harshly the commonalty; and the value of the trade with the home country on the whole increased, though it never became sufficient to make the company take very much thought for its new possession. But Van Twiller though easy-going to the people was not an honest or faithful servant to the company in matters financial; and in 1637 he was removed from his office on the charge of having diverted the moneys of the corporation to his own private use.

His successor, Wilhelm Kieft, was much the worst of the four Dutch governors. Unlike his predecessor, he was industrious and temperate; but he possessed no talent whatever for managing men, and had the mean, cruel temper of a petty despot. His mercantile reputation was also none of the best; though during his administration he himself kept reasonably clear of financial scandals. In fact, the West India Company was tired of a colony which proved a drain on its revenue rather than a source of profit; and any second-rate man, who bade fair not to trouble the people at home, was deemed good enough to be governor of such an unpromising spot. [p. 380]

Kieft found the New Netherlands in a far from flourishing condition. The Dutch colonists, though stubborn and resolute, were somewhat sluggish and heavy-tempered, without the restless energy of their far more numerous and ever-encroaching neighbors on the east (the New Englanders), and lacking the intense desire for what was almost mere adventure, which drove the French hither and thither through the far-off wilderness. Population had increased but slowly, and the town which huddled round the fort on the south point of Manhattan Island was still little more than a collection of poor hovels. The Hollanders were traders and seafarers, and they found it hard to settle down into farmers, who alone can make permanent colonists. Moreover, at the outset they were naturally unable to adapt themselves to the special and peculiar needs of their condition. The frontier and frontier life date back to the days when the first little struggling settlements were dotted down on the Atlantic seaboard, as islets in a waste of savagery; but it always took at least a generation effectively to transform a European colonist into an American frontiersman. Thus the early Dutch settlers took slowly and with reluctance to that all-important tool and weapon of the American pioneer, the axe, and chopped down very little timber indeed. As a consequence, they lived in dugouts or cabins of bark and poles, lacking the knowledge to build the log huts, which always formed the first and characteristic dwellings of the true backwoodsmen. It was a good many years before the backwoods type, so characteristically American, had opportunity to develop.

Kieft was not well pleased with the colony, and the colony was still less pleased with Kieft. From the beginning he took the tone of a tyrant, treating the colonists as his subjects. He appointed as council but one man, a Huguenot of good repute, named La Montagne, and then, to prevent all danger of a tie, decreed that La Montagne should have but one vote and he himself two. He then filled the different local offices with his own flatterers and sycophants, and proceeded to govern [p. 381] by a series of edicts, which were posted on the trees, barns, and fences; some of them, such as those forbidding the sale of firearms and gunpowder to the Indians, were good; while great discontent was excited by others, such as the sumptuary laws (for he made a bold attempt to stop the drinking and carousing of the mirth-loving settlers), the establishing of a passport system, and the interference with private affairs by settling when people should go to bed, laborers go to work, and the like. The Dutch were essentially free and liberty-loving, and accustomed to considerable self-government; and the Manhattan colonists felt that they were unjustly discriminated against, and chafed under the petty tyranny to which they were exposed.

However, under Kieft the appearance of the town was much improved. Streets began to be laid out, and a better class of private houses sprang up, while a new church and the first tavern--a great clumsy inn, the property of the company--were built, and the farms made good progress, fruit trees being planted and fine cattle imported. New settlements were made on the banks of the Hudson and the Sound, on Staten Island, and on what is now the Jersey shore. The company made great efforts further to encourage immigration, allowing many privileges to the poorer class of immigrants, and continuing, in diminished form, some of the exceptional advantages granted to the rich men who should form small colonies. The colonists received the right to manufacture, hitherto denied them; but, unfortunately, the hereditary privileges of the patroons were continued, including their right of feudal jurisdiction, and the exclusive right to hunt, fish, fowl, and grind corn on their vast estates. The leader in pushing these new settlements, and one of the most attractive figures in our early colonial history, was the Patroon de Vries, a handsome, gallant, adventurous man, of brave and generous nature. He was greatly beloved by the Indians, to whom he was always both firm and kind; and the settlers likewise loved and respected him, for he never trespassed on their rights, [p. 382] and was their leader in every work of danger, whether in exploring strange coasts or in fronting human foes.

Besides the Dutch immigrants, many others of different nationalities came in, particularly English from the New England colonies; and all, upon taking the oath of allegiance, were treated exactly alike. There was almost complete religious toleration, and hence many Baptists and Quakers took refuge among the Hollanders, fleeing from the persecutions of the Puritans.

All this time there was continual squabbling with the neighboring and rival settlements of European powers. A large body of Swedes, under Minuit, arrived at and claimed the ownership of the mouth of the Delaware, bidding defiance to the threats the Dutch made that they would oust them; while the English, in spite of many protests, took final possession of the Connecticut valley and the eastern half of Long Island. But the distinguishing feature of Kieft's administration was the succession of bloody struggles waged between 1640 and 1645.

For these wars Kieft himself was mainly responsible, though the settlers and savages were already irritated with each other. Occasional murders and outrages were committed by each side. The Indians became alarmed at the increase in numbers of the whites, and the whites became tired of having a horde of lazy, filthy, cruel beggars always crowding into their houses, killing their cattle, and by their very presence threatening their families. A strong and discreet man might have preserved peace; but Kieft was rash, cruel, and irresolute, and precipitated the contest by ordering a brutal vengeance to be taken on the Raritan tribe for a wrong which they probably had not committed. They of course retaliated in kind, and there followed a series of struggles, separated by short periods of patched-up truce. Kieft took care to keep shut up in the fort; away from all possible harm, whereat the settlers murmured greatly. All their .wisest and best men, including the Patroon de Vries, the Councilman La Montagne, and Dominie Bogardus, protested against his course in bringing on the war. [p. 383]

Early in 1643, he caused by his orders one of the most horrible massacres by which our annals have ever been disgraced. The dreaded Mohawks had made a sudden foray on the River Indians, who, like the other neighboring tribes, were Algonquins; and the latter, fleeing in terror from their adversaries, took refuge close to the wooden walls of New Amsterdam, where they were at first kindly received. On Shrovetide night, Kieft, with a hideous and almost inconceivable barbarity and treachery, as short- sighted as it was cowardly, caused bodies of troops to fall onto parties of these helpless and unsuspecting fugitives, and butchered over a hundred.

This inhuman outrage at once roused every Indian to take a terrible vengeance, and to wipe out his wrongs in fire and blood. All the tribes fell on the Dutch at once, and in a short time destroyed every outlying farm and all the smaller settlements, bringing ruin and desolation upon the entire province, while the surviving settlers gathered in New Amsterdam and in a few of the best fortified smaller villages. The Indians put their prisoners to death with dreadful tortures, and in at least one instance the Dutch retaliated in kind. Neither side spared the women and children. The hemmed-in Dutch sent bands of their soldiers, assisted by parties of New England mercenaries, under a famous woodland fighter, Captain John Underhill, against the Indian towns. They were enabled to strike crippling blows at their enemies, because the latter foolishly clung to their stockaded villages, where the whites could surround them, keep them from breaking out by means of their superiority in firearms, and then set the wooden huts aflame and mercilessly destroy, with torch or bullet, all the inmates, sometimes to the number of several hundred souls. These Indian stockades offered the best means of defense against rival savages; but they were no protection against the whites, who, on the other hand, were much inferior to the red men in battle in the open forest. At first the Indians did not understand this; and in their ignorance they persisted [p. 384] in fighting their new foes in the very way that gave the latter most advantage. It was in consequence of this that the seventeenth-century Algonquins suffered not a few slaughtering defeats at the hands of the New Englanders and New Netherlanders.

Finally, crippled and exhausted, both sides were glad to make peace; and the whites again spread out to their ruined farms. In his dire need Kieft had summoned a popular meeting and chosen from among the heads of families a council of twelve men to advise him in the war. This popular meeting was the first of its kind ever held on Manhattan, and may be considered as the first foreshadowing of our whole present system of popular government. The Council of Twelve at once proceeded to protest against the director's arbitrary powers, and to demand increased rights for the people, and a larger measure of self-government. Instantly Kieft dissolved them; but later on, when the settlement seemed at the last gasp, a council of eight was chosen, this time by popular vote, and took advantage of the dread of the public enemy to demand the needed internal reforms. They protested in every way against Kieft's tyranny. The latter would not yield. The mutinous spirit became very strong; disorder, and even murder, took place, and affairs began to drift toward anarchy. Numerous petitions were sent to Holland asking Kieft's removal, and finally this was granted. The harassed colony was given a new director in the shape of a gallant soldier named Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived and took possession of his office in May, 1647

CHAPTER III ---- STUYVESANT AND THE END OF DUTCH RULE 1647-1664

GRIM old Stuyvesant had lost a leg in the wars. He wore in its place a wooden one, laced with silver bands --so that some traditions speak of it as silver. No other figure of Dutch, nor indeed of colonial; days is so well remembered; none other has left so deep an impress on Manhattan history and tradition as this whimsical and obstinate but brave and gallant old fellow, the kindly tyrant of the little colony. To this day he stands in a certain sense as the typical father of the city. There are not a few old New Yorkers who half-humorously pretend still to believe the story which their forefathers handed down from generation to generation--the story that the ghost of Peter Stuyvesant, the queer, kindly, self-willed old dictator, still haunts the city he bullied and loved and sought to guard, and at night stumps to and fro, with a shadowy wooden leg, through the aisles of St. Mark's Church, near the spot where his bones lie buried.

Stuyvesant was a man of strong character, whose personality impressed all with whom he came in contact. In many ways he stood as a good representative of his class--the wellborn commercial aristocracy of Holland. In his own person he illustrated, only with marked and individual emphasis, the strong and the weak sides of the rich traders, who knew how to fight and rule, who feared God and loved liberty, who held their heads high and sought to do justice according to their lights; but whose lights were often dim, and whose [p. 386] understandings were often harsh and narrow. He was powerfully built, with haughty, clear-cut features and dark complexion; and he always dressed with scrupulous care, in the rich costume then worn by the highest people in his native land. He had proved his courage on more than one stricken field; and he knew how to show both tact and firmness in dealing with his foes. But he was far less successful in dealing with his friends; and his imperious nature better fitted him to command a garrison than to rule over a settlement of Dutch freemen. It was inevitable that a man of his nature, who wished to act justly, but who was testy, passionate, and full of prejudices, should arouse much dislike and resentment in the breasts of the men over whom he held sway; and these feelings were greatly intensified by his invariably acting on the assumption that he knew best about their interests, and had absolute authority to decide upon them. He. always proceeded on the theory that it was harmful to allow the colonists any real measure of self-government, and that what was given them was given as a matter of grace, not as an act of right. Hence, though he was a just man, of sternly upright character, he utterly failed to awaken in the hearts of the settlers. any real loyalty to himself or to the government he represented; and they felt no desire to stand by him when he needed their help. He showed his temper in the first speech he made to the citizens, when he addressed them in the tone of an absolute ruler, and assured them that he would govern them "as a father does his children." Colonists from a land with traditions of freedom, put down in the midst of surroundings which quicken and strengthen beyond measure every impulse they may have in the direction of liberty, are of all human beings those least fitted to appreciate the benefits of even the best of paternal governments.

When Stuyvesant came to Manhattan the little Dutch dorp thereon was just recovering from the bloody misery of the Indian wars. No such calamities occurred again to check and blast its growth; and it may be said to have then fairly [p. 387] passed out of the mere pioneer stage. It was under Stuyvesant that New Amsterdam became a firmly established Dutch colonial town, instead of an Indian-harried village outpost of civilization; and it was only in his time that the Dutch life took on fixed and definite shape. The first comers were generally poor adventurers; but when it was plainly seen that the colony was to be permanent- -many well-to-do people of good family came over--burghers who were proud of their coats of arms, and traced their lineage to the great worthies of the ancient Netherlands. The Dutch formed the ruling and the most numerous class of inhabitants; but then, as now, the population of the city was very mixed. A great many English, both from old and New England, had come in; while the French Huguenots were still more plentiful--and, it may be mentioned parenthetically, formed, as everywhere else in America, without exception the most valuable of all the immigrants. There were numbers of Walloons, not a few Germans, and representatives of so many other nations .that no less than eighteen different languages and dialects were spoken in the streets. An ominous feature was the abundance of negro slaves--uncouth and brutal-- looking black savages, brought by slave-traders and pirates from the gold coast of Africa.

The population was diverse in more ways than those of speech and race. The Europeans who came to this city during its forty years of life represented almost every grade of Old World society. Many of these pioneers were men of as high character and standing as ever took part in founding a new settlement; but on the other hand there were plenty of others to the full as vicious and worthless as the worst immigrants who have come hither during the present century. Many imported bond servants and apprentices, both English and Irish, of criminal or semicriminal tendencies escaped to Manhattan from Virginia and New England, and, once here, found congenial associates from half the countries of continental Europe. There thus existed from the start a low, shiftless, evil class of whites in our population; while even beneath [p. 388] their squalid ranks lay the herd of brutalized black slaves. It may be questioned whether seventeenth-century New Amsterdam did not include quite as large a proposition of undesirable inhabitants as nineteenth-century New York.

The sharp and strong contrasts in social position, the great differences in moral and material well-being, and the variety in race, language, and religion, all combined to make a deep chasm between life in New Amsterdam and life in the cities of New England, with their orderly uniformity of condition and their theocratic democracy.

Society in the New Netherlands was distinctly aristocratic. The highest rank was composed of the great patroons, with their feudal privileges and vast landed estates; next in order came the well-to-do merchant burghers of the town, whose ships went to Europe and Africa, carrying in their holds now furs or rum, now ivory or slaves; then came the great bulk of the population-- thrifty souls of small means, who worked hard, and strove more or less successfully to live up to the law; while last of all came the shifting and intermingled strata of the evil and the weak-- the men of incurably immoral propensities, and the poor whose poverty was chronic. Life in a new country is hard, and puts a heavy strain on the wicked and the incompetent; but it offers a fair chance to all comers, and in the end those who deserve success are certain to succeed.

It was under Stuyvesant, in 1653, that the town. was formally incorporated as a city, with its own local schout and its schepens and burgomasters, whose powers and duties answered roughly to those of both aldermen and justices. The schouts, schepens, and burgomasters together formed the legislative council of the city; and they also acted as judges, and saw to the execution of the laws. There was an advisory council as well.

The struggling days of pioneer squalor were over, and New Amsterdam had taken on the look of a quaint little Dutch seaport town, with a touch of picturesqueness from its wild surroundings. As there was ever menace of attack, not [p. 389] only by the savages but by the New Englanders, the city needed a barrier for defense on the landward side; and so, on the present site of Wall Street, a high, strong stockade of upright timbers, with occasional blockhouses as bastions, stretched across the island. Where Canal Street now is, the settlers had dug a canal to connect the marshes on either side of the neck. There were many clear pools and rivulets of water; on the banks of one of them the girls were wont to spread the house linen they had washed, and the path by which they walked thither gave its name to the street that is yet called Maiden Lane. Manhattan Island was still, for the most part, a tangled wilderness. The wolves wrought such havoc among the cattle, as they grazed loose in the woods, that a special reward was given for their scalps, if taken on the island.

The hall of justice was in the stadt-huys, a great stone building, before which stood the high gallows whereon malefactors were executed. Stuyvesant's own roomy and picturesque house was likewise of stone, and was known far and near as the Whitehall, finally giving its name to the street on which it stood. The poorest people lived in huts on the outskirts; but the houses that lined the streets of the town itself were of neat and respectable appearance, being made of wood, their gable ends checkered with little black and yellow bricks, their roofs covered with tiles or shingles and surmounted by weathercocks, and the doors adorned with burnished brass knockers. The shops, wherein were sold not only groceries, hardware, and the like, but also every kind of rich stuff brought from the wealthy cities of Holland, occupied generally the ground floors of the houses. There was a large, bare church, a good public-school house, and a great tavern, with neatly sanded floor, and heavy chairs and tables, the beds being made in cupboards in the thick walls; and here and there windmills thrust their arms into the air, while the half-moon of wharves jutted out into the river.

The houses of the rich were quaint and comfortable, with [p. 390] steeply sloping roofs and crow-step gables. A wide hall led through the middle, from door to door, with rooms on either side. Everything was solid and substantial, from the huge, canopied, four-post bedstead and the cumbrous cabinets, chairs, tables, stools,. and settees, to the stores of massive silver plate, each piece a rich heirloom, engraved with the coat of arms of the owner. There were rugs on the floors, and curtains and leather hangings on the walls; and there were tall eight-day clocks, and stiff ancestral portraits. Clumsy carriages, and fat geldings to draw them, stood in a few of the stables; and the trim gardens were filled with shrubbery, fruit-trees, and a wealth of flowers, laid out in prim, sweet-smelling beds, divided by neatly kept paths.

The poorer people were clad--the men in blouses or in jackets, and in wide, baggy breeches; the women in bodices and short skirts. The schepens and other functionaries wore their black gowns of office. The gentry wore the same rich raiment as did their brethren of the Old World. Both ladies and gentlemen had clothes of every stuff and color; the former, with their hair frizzed and powdered, and their persons bedecked with jewelry, their gowns open in front to show the rich petticoats, their feet thrust into high-heeled shoes, and with silk hoods instead of bonnets. The long coats of the gentlemen were finished with silver lace and silver buttons, as were their velvet doublets, and they wore knee-breeches, black silk stockings, and low shoes with silver buckles. They were fond of free and joyous living; they caroused often, drinking deeply and eating heavily; and the young men and maidens loved dancing-parties, picnics, and long sleigh-rides in winter. There were great festivals, as at Christmas and New Year's. On the latter day every man called on all his friends; and the former was then, as now, the chief day of the year for the children, devoted to the special service of Santa Claus.

All through Stuyvesant's time there was constant danger of trouble with the Indians. Men were occasionally killed on both sides; and once a burgher was slain in the streets of the [p. 391] town by a party of red warriors. There were even one or two ferocious local uprisings. By a mixture of tact and firmness, however, Stuyvesant kept the savages under partial control, checked the brutal and outrage-loving portion of his own people, and prevented any important or far-reaching outbreak. Yet he found it necessary to organize more than one campaign against the red men; and these, though barren of exciting incident, were invariably successful, thanks to his indomitable energy. By the exercise of similar qualities, he also kept the ever-encroaching New Englanders at bay; while in 1655 he finished the long bickerings with the Swedes at the mouth of the Delaware by marching a large force thither, capturing their forts, and definitely taking possession of the country--thereby putting an end to all chance for the establishment of a Scandinavian State on American soil. Once the New Englanders on Long Island began to plan a revolt; but he promptly seized their ringleaders-- including the Indian fighter, Underhill--fined, imprisoned, or banished them, and secured temporary tranquillity.

From the outset, Stuyvesant's imperious nature kept him embroiled with the colonists. In some respects this was well for the commonwealth, for in this way he finally curbed the feudal insolence of the patroons, after nearly coming to a civil war with the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck; but generally he managed merely to harass and worry the settlers until they became so irritated as to be almost mutinous. He struggled hard, not only to retain his own power as dictator, but to establish an aristocratic framework for the young society. With this end in view, he endeavored to introduce as a permanent feature the division of the burghers into two classes, minor and major--the major burghers' rights being hereditary, and giving many privileges, among others the sole right to hold office. He failed ignominiously in this, for the democratic instincts of the people, and the democratic tendencies of their surroundings, proved too strong for him. He himself strove to be just toward all men: but he chose his personal [p. 392] representatives and agents without paying the least heed to the popular estimate in which they were held. In consequence, some of those most obsequious to him turned out mere profligate, petty tyrants, to whom, nevertheless, he clung obstinately, in spite of all complaints, until they had thoroughly disgusted the people at large. He threw his political opponents into jail without trial, or banished them after a trial in which he himself sat as the judge, announcing that he deemed it treason to complain of the chief magistrate, whether with or without cause; and this naturally threw into a perfect ferment the citizens of the popular party, who were striving for more freedom with an obstinacy as great as his own. Abandoning the policy of complete religious toleration, he not only persecuted the Baptists and Quakers, but even the Lutherans also. He established impost and excise duties by proclamation, drawing forth a most determined popular protest against taxation without representation. When the city charter was granted, he proceeded to appoint the first schout, schepen, and burgomasters who took office under it, instead of allowing them to be elected by the citizens--though this concession was afterward wrung from him. He was in perpetual conflict with the council the "Nine Men," as they were termed-- who stood up stoutly for the popular rights, and sent memorial after memorial to Holland, protesting against the course that was being pursued. The inhabitants also joined in public meetings, and in other popular manifestations, to denounce the author of their grievances; the Dutch settlers, for the nonce, making common cause with their turbulent New England neighbors of the city and of Long Island. Stuyvesant himself sent counter- protests; and also made repeated demands for more men and more money, that he might put into good condition the crumbling and ill-manned fortifications, which, as he wrote home, would be of no avail at all to resist any strong attack that might be made by the ever-threatening English. But the home government cared for its colonies mainly because they were profitable. This Stuyvesant's province was [p. 393] not; and so, with dull apathy, the appeals for help were disregarded, and the director and the colonists were left to settle their quarrels as best they might.

Thus, with ceaseless wrangling, with much of petty tyranny on the one hand, and much of sullen grumbling and discontent on the other, the years went by. Stuyvesant rarely did serious injustice to any particular man, and by his energy, resolution, and executive capacity he preserved order at home, while the colony grew and prospered as it never had done before; but the sturdy and resolute, though somewhat heavy, freemen over whom he ruled, resented bitterly all his overbearing ways and his deeds of small oppression, and felt only a lukewarm loyalty to a government that evidently deemed them valuable only in so far as they added to the wealth of the men who had stayed at home. When the hour of trial came, they naturally showed an almost apathetic indifference to the overthrow of the rule of Holland.

Whenever the English and Dutch were at war, New Amsterdam was in a flutter over the always-dreaded attack of some English squadron. At last, in 1664, the blow really fell. There was peace at the time between the two nations; but this fact did not deter the England of the Stuarts from seizing so helpless a prize as the province of the New Netherlands. The English Government knew well how defenseless the country was; and the king and his ministers determined to take it by a sudden stroke of perfectly cold-blooded treachery, making all their preparations in secret, and meanwhile doing everything they could to deceive the friendly power at which the blow was aimed. Stuyvesant had continued without cessation to beseech the home government that he might be given the means to defend the province; but his appeals were unheeded by his profit-loving, money-getting superiors in Holland. He was left with insignificant defenses, guarded by an utterly insufficient force of troops. The unblushing treachery and deceit by which the English took the city made the victory of small credit to them; but the Dutch, by their supine, short [p. 394] sighted selfishness and greed, were put in an even less enviable light.

In September, 1664, three or four English frigates and a force of several hundred land troops under Colonel Richard Nicolls suddenly appeared in the harbor. They were speedily joined by the levies of the already insurgent New Englanders of Long Island. Nicolls had an overpowering force, and was known to be a man of decision. He forthwith demanded the immediate surrender of the city and province. Stuyvesant wished to fight, even against such odds; but the citizens refused to stand by him, and New Amsterdam passed into the hands of the English without a gun being fired in its defense

CHAPTER IV ---- NEW AMSTERDAM BECOMES NEW YORK. THE BEGINNING OF ENGLISH RULE 1664-1674

THE expedition against New Amsterdam had been organized with the Duke of York, afterward King James II, as its special patron, and the city was rechristened in his honor. To this day its name perpetuates the memory of the dull, cruel bigot with whose short reign came to a close the ignoble line of the Stuart kings.

With Manhattan Island all the province of the New Netherlands passed under the English rule; and the arrogant red flag fluttered without a rival along the whole seaboard from Acadia to Florida. Yet the settlements were still merely little dots in the vast wooded wilderness which covered all the known portions of the continent. They were strung at wide intervals along the seacoast, or the courses of the mighty rivers, separated one from another by the endless stretches of gloomy, Indian-haunted woodland. Every step in the forest was fraught with danger. The farms still lay close to the scattered hamlets, and the latter in turn clung to the edges of the navigable waters, where travel was so much easier and safer than on land. New Amsterdam, when its existence as such ceased, held some fifteen hundred souls (many of them negro slaves); yet the sloops that plied from thence to Fort Orange--now Albany--or to any other of the small river towns, were obliged to go well armed, and to keep a keen watch night and day for the war canoes of hostile Indians.

The conquered province had been patented to the Duke of [p. 396] York, and Nicolls acted as his agent. The latter was a brave, politic man of generous nature and good character, and he executed well the difficult task allotted him, doing his best to conciliate the colonists by the justice and consideration with which he acted, and at the same time showing that timidity had no share in influencing his course. By the terms of the surrender the Dutch settlers were guaranteed their full civil and religious rights, and as a matter of fact they were gainers rather than losers by the change. Their interests were as carefully guarded as were those of the English settlers, their prejudices were not shocked, and if anything they were allowed greater, rather than less, privileges in the way of self-government. Moreover, it must be remembered that the change was not so violent as if a city peopled exclusively by one race had been suddenly conquered by the members of another. Under Dutch rule all foreigners had been freely naturalized, and had been allowed to do their share of administration-for our city has always allowed every privilege to that portion of her citizens (generally the majority) born without her limits. The Dutch element was largest among the wealthy people, to whom fell the duty of exercising such self-- government as there was; but there were also plenty of rich men among the French Huguenots and English settlers. It is probable that at least a third of the population, exclusive of the numerous negro slaves, and inclusive of the Huguenots, was neither Dutch nor English; and to this third the change was of little moment. The English had exercised considerable influence in the government throughout Stuyvesant's rule, and even before, ranking as third in numbers and importance among the various elements of the composite population; while on the other hand the Dutch continued, even after the surrender, to have a very great and often a preponderant weight in the councils of the city. The change was merely that, in a population composed of several distinct elements, the one which had hitherto been of primary became on the whole of secondary importance; its place in the lead being usurped by [p. 397] another element, which itself had already for many years occupied a position of much prominence. There was of course a good deal of race prejudice and rancor; and the stubborn Dutch clung to their language, though with steadily loosening grasp, for over a century. But the lines of cleavage in the political contests did not follow those of speech and blood. The constitution of the Dutch settlement was essentially aristocratic; and the party of the populace was naturally opposed to the party of the patroons and the rich merchants. The settlers who came from England direct, belonged to the essentially aristocratic Established Church. They furnished many of the great officials; and many of the merchants, and of those who became large landowners, sprang from among them. These naturally joined the aristocratic section of the original settlers. On the other hand the New Englanders, who were of Puritan blood--and later on the Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland--were the staunchest opponents of Episcopacy and aristocracy, and became the leaders of the popular party. Similarly, the Huguenots and the settlers of other nationality separated (though much less sharply) on lines of property and caste; and hence the fluctuating line which divided the two camps or factions was only secondarily influenced by considerations of speech and nationality.

Nicolls made the necessary changes with cautious slowness and tact. For nearly a year the city was suffered to retain its old form of government; then the schout, schepens" and burgomasters were changed for sheriff, aldermen, mayor, and justices. Vested rights were interfered with as little as possible; the patroons were turned into manorial lords; the Dutch and Huguenots were allowed the free exercise of their religion; indeed, the feeling was so friendly that for some time the Anglican service was held in the Dutch Church in the afternoons. No attempt was made to interfere with the language or with the social and business customs and relations of the citizens. Nicolls showed himself far more liberal than Stuyvesant in questions of creed; and one of the first things [p. 398] he did was to allow the Lutherans to build a church and install therein a pastor of their own. He established a fairly good system of justice, including trial by jury, and practically granted the citizens a considerable measure of self-government. But the fact remained that the colony had not gained its freedom by changing its condition; it had simply exchanged the rule of a company for the rule of a duke. Nicolls himself nominated all the new officers of the city (choosing them from among both the Dutch and the English), and returning a polite but firm negative to the request of the citizens that they might themselves elect their representatives. He pursued the same course with the Puritan Long Islanders; and the latter resented his action even more bitterly than did the Dutch.

However, his tact, generosity, and unfailing good temper, and the skill with which he kept order and secured prosperity, endeared him to the colonists, even though they did at times just realize that there was an iron hand beneath the velvet glove. He completely pacified the Indians, who during his term of command remained almost absolutely tranquil, for the first time in a quarter of a century. He put down all criminals, and sternly repressed the licentiousness of his own soldiery, forcing them to behave well to the citizens. His honesty in financial matters was so great that he actually impoverished himself during his administration of the province. Meanwhile, the city flourished; for there was free trade with England and the English possessions, and even for some time a restricted right to trade with certain of the Dutch ports.

Nicolls soon wearied of his position, and sought leave to resign; but he was too valuable a servant for the duke to permit this until the war with Holland, which had been largely brought on by the treacherous seizure of New Amsterdam, at length came to a close. The Peace of Breda left New York in the hands of the English; for the cold northern province, where now are States already far more populous than Holland [p. 399] land, or than the England of that day, was then considered of less value than any one of half a dozen tropical colonies. On both sides the combatants warred for the purpose of getting possessions which should benefit their own pockets, not to found States of freemen of their own race; they sought to establish trading-posts from whence to bring spices and jewels and precious metals, rather than to plant commonwealths of their children on the continents that were waiting to be conquered. The English were inclined to grumble, and the Dutch to rejoice, because the former received New York rather than Surinam. As for Nicolls, when his hands were thus freed he returned home, having shown himself a warm friend to the colonists, especially the Dutch, who greatly mourned his going.

His successor was an archetypical Cavalier named Francis Lovelace. He had stood loyally by the king in disaster and prosperity alike" and was a gallant, generous, and honest gentleman; but he possessed far less executive capacity than his predecessor. However, he trod in the footsteps of the latter so far as he could, and strove to advance the interests of the city in every way, and to conciliate the good-will of the inhabitants. He associated on intimate terms with the leading citizens, whether English, French, or Dutch, and established a social club which met at their different houses--all three languages being spoken at the meetings. Being fond of racing, he gave prizes to be run for by swift horses on the Long Island race-course. Like his predecessor, his chief troubles were with the hard-headed and stiff-necked children of the Puritans on Long Island. When he attempted to tax them to build up the fort on Manhattan, they stoutly refused, and sent him an indignant protest; while on the other hand he was warmly supported by his Dutch and English councilors in New York. With the Indians he kept on good terms.

The city prospered under Lovelace as it had prospered under Nicolls. Its proprietor, the Duke of York, was a mean and foolish tyrant; but it was for his interest while he was [p. 400] not king to treat his colony well. Though an intolerant religious bigot, he yet became perforce an advocate of religious tolerance for New York, because his own creed, Roman Catholicism, was weak, and the hope of the feeble never rests in persecution. New York was thus permitted to grow in peace, and to take advantage of her great natural resources. Trade increased and ships were built; while in addition to commerce, many of the seafaring folk took to the cod and whale fisheries, which had just been started off the coasts. The whales were very plentiful, and indeed several were killed in the harbor itself. The merchants began to hold weekly meetings, thus laying the foundation for the New York Exchange; and wealth increased among all classes, bringing comfort, and even some attempt at luxury, in its train.

This quick and steady growth in material prosperity was rudely checked by the fierce war which again broke out between England and Holland. Commerce was nearly paralyzed by the depredations of the privateers, and many of the merchants were brought to the verge of bankruptcy, while the public distress was widespread. It was known that the Dutch meditated an effort to recapture the city; and Lovelace made what preparations he could for defense. He busied himself greatly to establish a regular mail to Boston and Hartford, so that there might be overland communication with his eastern neighbors; and it was on one of his absences in New England that the city was recaptured by its former owners.

In July, 1673, a Dutch squadron under two grim old seadogs, Admirals Evertsen and Binckes, suddenly appeared in the lower bay. The English commander in the fort endeavored to treat with them; but they would hearken to no terms save immediate surrender, saying that "they had come for their own, and their own they would have." The Dutch militia would not fight against their countrymen; and the other citizens were not inclined to run any risk in a contest that concerned them but little. Evertsen's frigates sailed up to within musket-shot of the fort, and firing began on both sides. After [p. 401] receiving a couple of broadsides which killed and wounded several of the garrison, the English flag was struck, and the fort was surrendered to the Dutch troops, who had already landed, under the command of Captain Anthony Colve. So ended the first nine years of English supremacy at the mouth of the Hudson.

The victors at once proceeded to undo the work of the men they had ousted. Dutch was once more made the formal official language (though it had never been completely abandoned), and the whole scheme of the English Government was overturned. In the city itself the schepens, burgomasters, and schout again took the place of sheriff, mayor, and aldermen. There was very little violence, although one or two houses were plundered, and a citizen here and there insulted or slightly maltreated by the soldiers--much as had happened after the original conquest, with the important exception that it was now the Dutch who did the maltreating, and the English who were the sufferers.

When the province was lost it was a mere proprietary colony of the West India Company; but this corporation had died prior to 1673, and the province was regained by the victory of a national Dutch force, and was held for the whole nation. Evertsen, acting for the home government, made Colve the director of the province. Colve was a rough, imperious, resolute man, a good soldier, but with no very great regard for civil liberty. The whole province was speedily reduced. The Dutch towns along the Hudson submitted gladly; but the Puritan villages on Long Island were sullen and showed symptoms of defiance, appealing to Connecticut for help. However, Colve and Evertsen, backed up by trained soldiers and a well-equipped squadron, were not men to be trifled with. They gave notice to the Long Islanders that unless they were prepared to stand the chances of war they must submit at once; and submit they did, Connecticut not daring to interfere. The New Englanders had been willing enough to bid defiance to, and to threaten the conquest of, the New Netherlands [p. 402] while the province was weakly held by an insufficient force; but they were too prudent to provoke a contest with men of such fighting temper and undoubted capacity as Evertsen and Colve, and the war-hardened troops and seamen who obeyed their behests.

Colve ruled the internal affairs of the colony with a high hand. He made the citizens understand that the military power was supreme over the civil; and when the council protested against anything he did, he told them plainly that unless they submitted he would summarily dismiss them and appoint others in their places. Military law was established, and heavy taxes were imposed; moreover, as the taxes took some time to collect, those who were most heavily assessed were forced to make loans in advance. Altogether the burghers probably failed to find that the restoration of Dutch rule worked any very marked change in their favor.

This second period of Dutch supremacy on Manhattan Island lasted for but a year and a quarter. Then in November, 1774, the city was again given up to the English in accordance with the terms of peace between the belligerent powers, which provided for the mutual restitution of all conquered territory. With this second transfer New Amsterdam definitely assumed the name of New York; and the province became simply one of the English colonies in America, remaining such until, a century afterward, all those colonies combined to throw off the yoke of the mother country and become an independent nation.

Thus the province of the New Netherlands had been first taken by the English by an attack in time of peace, when no resistance could be made, and had been left in their possession because it was deemed of infinitely less consequence than such colonies as Java and Surinam; it had then been reconquered by the Dutch, in fair and open war, and had been again surrendered because of an agreement into which the home government was forced, owing to the phases which the European struggle had assumed. The citizens throughout these changes [p. 403] played but a secondary part, the fate of the city and province being decided, not by them, but by the ships and troops of Holland and England. Nor were the burghers as a whole seriously affected in their civil, religious, or social liberties by the changes. The Dutch and English doubtless suffered in turn from certain heartburnings and jealousies, as they alternately took the lead in managing the local government; but the grievances of the under party were really mainly sentimental, for on the one hand no material discrimination was ever actually made against either element, and on the other hand the ruler for the time being, whether Dutch direcktor or English governor, always made both elements feel that compared to him they stood on a common plane of political inferiority.

Sir Edmund Andros was appointed by the English king as the governor who was to receive New York from the hands of Director Colve. This he did formally and in state, many courtesies being exchanged between the outgoing and incoming rulers; among the rest, Colve presented Andros with his own state-coach and the three horses that drew it. Andros at once reinstated the English form of government in both province and city, and once more, and this time finally, made the English the official language. New York was still considered as a proprietary colony of James; New Jersey was severed from it, and became a distinct province. The city itself, which had numbered some fifteen hundred inhabitants at the date of the original conquest from the Dutch, included about three thousand when English rule was for the second time established.

CHAPTER V ---- NEW YORK UNDER THE STUARTS 1674-1688

ANDROS was a man of ability and energy, anxious to serve his master the duke, and also anxious to serve the duke's colony, in so far as its interests did not clash with those of the duke himself. He was of course a devoted adherent of the House of Stuart, an ardent Royalist, and a believer in the divine right of kings, and in government by a limited ruling class, not by the great mass of the people governed. Yet, in spite of his imperious and fiery temper, he strove on the whole to do justice to the city of mixed nationalities over whose destinies he for the time being presided, and it throve well under his care. But though he tried to rule fairly, he made it distinctly understood that he, acting in the name of his overlord the duke, was the real and supreme master. The city did not govern itself; for he appointed the mayor, aldermen, and other officers. Even some of his decrees which worked well for the city showed the arbitrary character of his rule, and illustrated the vicious system of monopolies and class and sectional legislation which then obtained. Thus he bestowed on New York the sole right to bolt and export flour. This trebled her wealth during the sixteen years that elapsed before it was repealed, but it of course caused great hardship to the inland towns. Unmixed good, however, resulted from his decree putting an end to the practice of holding Indians as slaves.

It might have been expected that after the conquest of New York the incoming English would have been divided by [p. 405] party lines from the Dutch, and that they would have been in strong alliance with their English neighbors to the eastward. The extreme Royalist tone of the new government, and the anti-Puritan or Episcopal feeling of the most influential of the new settlers, were among the main causes which prevented either of these results from being brought about. The English Episcopalians and Royalists hated their sour, gloomy, fanatical countrymen of different belief much more bitterly than they did their well-to- do Dutch neighbors; and the middle-class citizens, Dutch and English alike, were bound together by ties of interest and by the stubborn love of liberty which was common to both races.

The high-handed proceedings of Andros roused more or less openly avowed ill feeling among the poor but independent citizens of all nationalities; and he clashed rather less with the Manhattaners than with the Long Islanders. Moreover, under his rule New York's attitude as regards the Puritan commonwealths of New England continued as hostile as ever, Andros adopting toward them the exact tone of his Dutch predecessors. He asserted the right of his colony to all land west of the Connecticut. He actually assembled a large body of troops wherewith to subdue the New England towns on its banks, and only halted when it became evident that such a proceeding would without fail be desperately resisted, and would surely bring on an intercolonial war.

Andros was certainly true to his master; yet James became suspicious of him, and, after he had been governor for over six years, suddenly summoned him home, and sent over a special agent, or spy, to examine into the affairs of the colony. Early in January, 1681, Andros left for London, where he speedily cleared his name of all suspicion, and came into high favor once more. New York meanwhile was left under the charge of Lieutenant- Governor Brockholls, a Roman Catholic, and of course a high Tory- -an inefficient man, utterly unable to cope with the situation. He was hampered rather than aided by the duke's special agents, who bungled [p. 406] everything, and soon became the laughing- stock of the population. In consequence, the province speedily fell into a condition not very far removed from anarchy. The traders refused to pay customs duties, and Brockholls was too timid to try to collect them; and the taxes, generally, fell into arrears. Disorderly meetings were held in various places, and mob violence was threatened--the Puritan element of course taking the lead. Equally of course, and very properly, the friends of free government took advantage of the confusion to strike a blow for greater liberty. When under a despotic rule which nevertheless secured order and material prosperity, there was small hope of effecting a change; but the instant the tyrant for the time being became weak, there was a chance of success in moving against him, there being no longer, to the minds of the citizens, any substantial offset to atone for his tyranny. Accordingly, a New York jury formally presented to the court that the lack of a Provincial Assembly was a grievance. Popular feeling declared itself so strongly to this effect that the court adopted the same view. Accordingly, it accepted as its own and forwarded to the duke a petition drawn up by the high sheriff of Long Island. This petition set forth that New York had long groaned under the intolerable burden of being subjected to an arbitrary and irresponsible government, whereby the colonists were forced against their wills to pay revenue, while their trade was burdened, and they themselves practically enthralled. The document pointed by way of contrast to the freer and more flourishing colonies by which New York was flanked on either hand, and besought that thereafter the province should be ruled by a governor, council, and assembly, the latter to be elected by the colonial freeholders.

The stoppage of the collections of taxes caused the colony to become a drain instead of a source of revenue to James; and the duke seriously considered the project of selling such an unproductive province. Finally however he decided, as an alternative, to grant the wished-for franchise, and see if that would improve matters; being, it is said, advised to take [p. 407] this course by William Penn, whose not overcreditable connection with the Stuarts occasionally bore good fruit. As the person to put his plans into execution and to act as first governor under the new system, the duke chose Thomas Dongan, a Roman Catholic Irish gentleman of good family, the nephew of the Earl of Tyrconnel. Dongan acted with wise liberality, both in matters political and in matters religious, toward the province he was sent to govern; for he was a man of high character and good capacity. Yet it is impossible to say how much of his liberality was due to honest conviction, and how much to the considerations of expediency that at the moment influenced the House of Stuart. It was an age of religious intolerance and of government by privileged classes; and the religion to which Dongan and his royal master adhered was at that time, wherever it was dominant, the bitterest foe of civil and religious liberty. But in England the nation generally was Episcopalian; and Duke James, a Catholic, was perforce obliged to advocate toleration for all sects as a step toward the ultimate supremacy of his own. So in New York, Dongan the Catholic found himself ruler of a province where there were but a few dozen citizens of his own faith, the mass of the people being stanch Protestants, of several jarring creeds; and he was not drawn by any special bonds of sympathy to the class of Crown officials and the like, who were mostly of the very church which in England was supreme over his own. His interests and sympathies thus naturally inclined him to side with the popular party, and to advocate religious liberty. As he was also vigilant in preserving order and warding off outside aggression, and devoted to the well-being of the colony, he proved himself perhaps the best colonial governor New York ever had.

Dongan reached New York in 1683, and from the first was popular with the colonists. He at once issued writs for the election of the members of the long-desired Provincial Assembly. They were elected by the freeholders; and with their meeting, in the fall of the same year, the province [p. 408] took the first real step--and a very long one--toward self-government. Dongan of course appointed his own council; and he generally placed thereon representatives of the different nationalities and creeds. New York City was of course the governmental seat or capital, as well as the metropolis of' the province.

The Assembly, the popular branch of the government, consisted of eighteen members, the majority being Dutch. They promptly passed a number of acts, all of which were approved by Dongan and his council. By far the most important was the special "charter of Liberties and Privileges," granted by the duke to the province. By this the right of self-taxation was reserved to the colonists, except that certain specific duties on importations were allowed to the duke and his heirs. The main features of self-government, so long and earnestly desired by the people, were also secured; and entire liberty of conscience and religion was guaranteed to all. This charter was sent over to the duke, by whose suggestion several small amendments were made therein; he then signed and. sealed but did not deliver it. Thus it never formally went into effect; yet the government of New York was carried on under its provisions for several years.

One of the acts of this first Assembly was well in line with the policy of extreme liberality toward all foreign-born citizens which New York has always consistently followed: it conferred full rights of citizenship upon all white foreigners who should take the oath of allegiance. The especial purpose of passing the act was to benefit the Huguenots, who were being expelled from France by tens of thousands, thanks to the cruel bigotry of the French king, Louis XIV.

With the return of order and the dawn of liberty, the city once more began to flourish. Trade increased, the fisheries did well, new buildings were put up, and taxes were paid without grumbling. Addresses of gratitude were sent to the duke, and the citizens were fervent in their praise of Dongan. Even the religious animosities were for the moment softened. The [p. 409] old church in the fort was used every Sunday by the representatives of all three of the leading creeds, the services being held in as many different languages--the Dutch in the morning, the French at midday, and the English, by the Episcopalians, in the afternoon; while Dongan and his few fellow religionists worshipped in a little chapel. Even the austere Calvinist dominies could not refrain from paying their meed of respect to the new governor.

As soon as the Assembly adjourned, Dongan granted new "liberties and privileges" to the city itself. In accordance with these new articles, the aldermen were elected by the freeholders in the various wards, the mayor being appointed by the governor. The board of aldermen was a real, not (as in our day) a nominal, legislative body, and enacted by--laws for the government of the city. Some of them were of very stringent character; notably those which provided against any kind of work or amusement on the Sabbath, and which forbade all assemblages of the numerous negro slaves--for the slaveholding burghers were haunted by the constant terror of a servile insurrection.

Affairs went on smoothly until the death of Charles II and the accession to the throne of New York's ducal proprietor, under the title of James II. Dongan made journeys hither and thither through his province, pacifying the Indians, and seeing to the best interests of his own people. He was especia1ly zealous in keeping guard over the northern frontier, already threatened by the French masters of Canada, so long the arch--foes of the northeastern English colonies. Although Dongan was a Roman Catholic, he did not show any of that feeling which made some of his coreligionists sacrifice country to creed, nor did he ever become a tool of France, like so many of the Stuart courtiers of his day. On the contrary, he was active in thwarting French intrigues in the north, giving full warning concerning them to his royal master, to whom his active and loyal patriotism could hardly have been altogether pleasant. [p. 410]

At any rate, no sooner had the duke become king than he dropped the mask of liberality, and took up his natural position as a political and religious tyrant. Under the influence of Dongan, he did indeed grant to the city itself a charter of special rights and privileges, which formed the basis of those subsequently granted in colonial times. The instrument not only confirmed the city in the possession of the privileges it already possessed, but allowed it a large quantity of real estate, from some of which the municipality draws a revenue to the present day, while the rest has been given over for the common use of the people. But on the main point of self-government the king was resolved to retrace his steps. He would not consummate his action giving a liberal charter to the province, and though in 1684 Dongan summoned the Assembly to meet on his own responsibility, it was never thereafter called; and New York's share in self- government came to an end as far as the Stuarts were concerned.

In 1688 Dongan himself was deprived of the control of the province he had ruled so faithfully and wisely. The king was bent upon being absolute master of the colonies no less than of the home country; and in the spring of that year he threw New England, New York, and New Jersey into one province, abolishing all the different charters, and putting the colonists under the direct control of the royal governor. Dongan was too liberal a man to be intrusted with the carrying out of such a policy. Sir Edmund Andros was sent over in his stead, to act as the instrument for depriving the people of such measure of freedom as they possessed. The bitterness of the religious feeling of the day may be gathered from the fact that many of the more bigoted Protestants of Manhattan actually welcomed the change of governors, being unable to pardon their friend because he was not of their creed, and greeting their foe warmly because, forsooth, they did not quite so widely disagree with his theological tenets.

However, the mass of the people in both New York and [p. 411] New England speedily became welded into one in opposition to the absolutism of the Stuart king, as typified by his lieutenant. Hollander and Puritan were knit together by the bond of a common hatred to the common oppressor; the Puritan as usual taking the lead. They were outraged because of the loss of their political rights; and they feared greatly lest they should soon also lose their religious freedom. Moreover, the colonies were already jealous of one another, and deeply imbued with the Separatist feeling; and they counted the loss of their special charters, and the obliteration of their boundary lines that they might be put under one government, as grievances intolerable and not to be borne. Nor did they have to bear them long. That very year William of Orange landed in England and drove the last Stuart king from his throne. The news reached America early in 1689, when Andros was in Boston, and the New Englanders rose instantly and threw him into prison, while his governmental fabric throughout the provinces perished almost in a day.

The accession of the Dutch prince to the throne of England added another to the forces that were tending to make the various ethnic elements of New York fuse together. All New Yorkers could be loyal to the Dutch prince who wore an English crown, and who was their special champion against a hostile creed and race. For the next eighty years Holland was England's ally, so that the Hollanders in America saw nothing at work in European politics which should make them unfriendly to their English fellow citizens; and the one great enemy of both races was France. Their interests and enmities were the same, and were also identical with those of the Huguenots, who formed the third great element in the population. It was this identity of interests and enmities, no less than the similarity in religious belief, which made it possible for the two races already in the land to merge so easily into the third and later-coming race. The comparative rapidity of this fusion in New York is noteworthy. It stands in sharp contrast to the slowness of the intermingling where the [p. 412] English or their successors have conquered and moved into communities of Catholic French and Spaniards.

From 1689 onward, the antagonisms of race were only secondary causes of party and factional hostility in New York. The different nationalities remained far less stubbornly apart than was the case in the neighboring colony of Pennsylvania, for instance. Even when the bulk of one nationality was found to be opposed to the bulk of another, the seeming race antagonism was usually merely incidental, the real line of division being drawn with regard to other matters, such as divided the aristocratic and popular parties elsewhere. No element of the population kept obstinately aloof from the rest as did a large section of the Pennsylvanian Germans, to their own lasting harm. The different races gradually grew to speak the same language, and then intermarried and merged together; for in America the intermarriage and fusion of races follows, but does not precede, their adoption of a common tongue. The Revolution and the preliminary agitation greatly hastened this fusion; but it was already well under way before the first mutterings of the Revolution were heard.

CHAPTER VI ---- THE USURPATION OF LEISLER 1689--1691

THE overthrow of the Stuart dynasty, and the consequent sudden fall of Andros, brought about the collapse of the existing government in New York. There followed a period of turmoil and disorder, marked by a curious party fight and revolution, or rather attempted revolution, which in its various phases well illustrated the peculiar characteristics of New York life.

The relaxing of the bonds of authority allowed the jealousies between the different classes of the population to come to a head. The mass of the citizens--the men of small means, who in the best of times had enjoyed but little influence in the political life of the colony--were sullenly hostile to the aristocratic and conservative class of Crown officials, patroons, rich merchants, and the like. The ferment in men's minds enormously increased the activity of the forces that were tending to collision. After Andros was imprisoned the conservative faction wished to continue in power the existing officers, appointed by King James, until they could be replaced by others bearing commissions from King William. The popular party, on the other hand, was for immediate action. Their leaders were inspired by the course of the New England colonies, which had promptly set up their former chartered governments. Their proposal was to turn out all of the Stuart officials, and to put in their places men known to be faithful to the new order of things, who should govern until the will of the Prince of Orange was known. Of course [p. 414] all of the official class and the English Episcopalians, as well as the Hollanders and Huguenots of property, generally took the conservative view; the other was adopted by the poor people and radical liberals and Protestants, very many of the Puritans uniting with the Dutch and French Calvinist working men, small traders, sailors, and farm-- laborers. The popular party was at first joined by a very large number of respectable men, well-to-do or of small means, who afterward became alienated by the sweeping measures of the extremists and by the fickleness and violence of the mob. The greater number of the citizens whose tongue was French or Dutch were in its ranks, while the aristocratic faction contained a large share of the English element; but the difference was one of caste and instinct, not of speech or race. Indeed, the leaders of the aristocratic wing, after the lieutenant-governor (Nicholson), were the three members of the deposed governor's council, Bayard, Van Cortlandt, and Phillipse, all of Dutch birth or ancestry. On the other hand their opponents were led by a German named Jacob Leisler, who was strongly seconded by his son- -in-law, one Jacob Milborne. New York City, then as now, contained within its population many different races only beginning to fuse together; and then, as now, the lines of party were only subordinately affected by the lines of race--each faction possessing representatives of all the different elements, while the leaders were found, as is still the case, among men of diverse origin and nationality. Religious animosities, as ever since, had much effect in sharpening party differences.

Leisler was a merchant of property, a deacon in the Dutch Reformed Church, and a captain of one of the six militia train- bands over which Bayard was colonel. He was a zealous Protestant and Republican, a fanatical hater of the Roman Catholic Church, and only less opposed to the Episcopacy of the English. He seems to have been an earnest man, of much power and energy, honest in his purpose to help the poorer people and to put down civil and religious tyranny. It is easy to imagine circumstances in which he would have done much good to the community wherein he lived. But he was of coarse, passionate nature, and too self-willed and vain not to have his head turned by sudden success and the possession of power. Moreover, like most popular leaders of his stamp, the very sincerity of his convictions made him feel that the cause of the people was indeed his own, and therefore that the converse of the proposition was also true. Such a man when he himself becomes a ruler is of course likely to continue to exercise against the people the very qualities which in the beginning he has exercised on their behalf; and this without any, or at most with but little, conscious change of intent. Yet with all Leisler's faults it must be remembered that fundamentally he was right, for he struggled to procure enlarged liberties for the people.

The tyranny of King James had been two-sided--he had striven to make the power of the sovereign absolute, and, less directly, to make the Romish Church arbiter of men's consciences. The New York commonalty detested his officers, both as representing the civil power that actually had oppressed them and as standing for the religious power that possibly would oppress them. They naturally bore especial hatred to such of the officials as were Catholics; and it was this feeling that brought about the first break between the popular party and the upholders of the existing order of things.

Leisler imported a cargo of wine from Europe, but refused to pay the duties on the ground that the collector of the port was a Catholic. The council sided with the collector, and high words passed between them and Leisler, ending with a furious quarrel and the interchange of threats. The common folk at once made the cause of the recalcitrant wine-merchant their own, and adopted him as their champion--a position for which he was well fitted by his truculent daring and energy. Many wild stories were afloat as to the plots which were being concocted by the governmental officers, whom most of the citizens firmly believed to be under the influence of [p. 416] the Catholics, and in secret league with the fallen monarch. It was rumored, now that they were about to surrender the city to the French, now that they were plotting to procure an uprising of the Catholics and massacre of the Protestants. As the latter outnumbered the former twenty to one, this fear shows the state of foolish panic to which the people had been wrought; but foolish or not, their excitement kept rising, and they became more and more angry and uneasy.

The outbreak was finally precipitated by a misunderstanding between the governing authorities and some of the trainbands; for the latter had been called in to assist the handful of regular troops who were on guard in the fort. The quarrel arose over a question of discipline between the lieutenant governor and the militia officers. The former chafed under the suspicions of the citizens--which he was perhaps conscious that he merited, at least to the extent of being but a lukewarm supporter of the new order of things--and lacked the tact to handle himself properly in such an emergency. He ended by bursting into a passion, and dismissing the militia officers from his presence with the remark that he would rather see the town on fire than be commanded by them.

This was the spark to the train. The indignant militiamen were soon spreading the report that the governor had threatened in their presence to burn the town. The burghers readily believed the truth of the statement, and under Leisler's lead determined to take the reins of the government into their own hands. At noon of May 31, 1689, Leisler summoned the citizens to arms by beat of drum, mustering his own train-band before his house. The suddenness of the movement, and Leisler's energy, paralyzed opposition. The lieutenant-governor yielded up the fort, no time being given him to prepare for resistance; and the city council were speedily overawed by the militia, who marched into their presence as they sat in the City Hall. The popular party for the first time was in complete control of the city.

There was much justification for this act of the common [p. 417] people and their leaders. Doubtless their fears for their own lives and property were exaggerated; but there was good ground for uneasiness so long as the city was under the control of the Stuart adherents. The exiled House of Stuart became at once the active ally of the most bitter enemies of England, Holland, and their colonies. King James identified his cause with that of the church and the nation from whose triumph the New Yorkers had most to fear. Many of the officers whom he had left in high places proved willing to betray their countrymen for the sake of their king; and even attempted treachery might bring manifold and serious evils upon a small colonial city like New York. If there was really but little danger from the Catholics, there was beyond question a great deal to be feared from the French; and all those who held commissions from the House of Stuart, if they were loyal to the king who had appointed them, were bound to render assistance to the common public enemy, France. Leisler and the burghers were on the whole right in feeling that they were warranted in overthrowing the old government. In this they were supported, at least passively, by the bulk even of the conservative citizens; they were opposed chiefly by the rich and aristocratic families, who were hostile to all popular movements, and perhaps leaned secretly to the side of the Stuarts and absolute government. Of course the timid and wealthy persons of no convictions objected to change of any sort. Had Leisler contented himself with merely establishing a temporary government to preserve order and ward off outside aggression until the new officials should arrive from England, he would have deserved the good-will of all the citizens.

Unfortunately, he lacked the self-restraint and clear- sightedness necessary to the pursuit of such a course; and he speedily established as arbitrary and unjust a government as that he overthrew. For a short time he ruled wisely and with moderation, oppressing no one. Then his head became turned by his position. He was always boasting of his feat in, as he [p. 418] asserted, saving the city from destruction; and he kept comparing himself to Cromwell, announcing that to rescue the people from their oppressors, there was need of sword-rule in New York. The English Episcopalians naturally detested his sway from the beginning, as did those wealthy French and Dutch families that had previously possessed a share of the governing power. All of these people were closely watched; and though at first not actually molested, they soon began to suffer petty oppression and injustice at the hands of the rougher of Leisler's lieutenants. As they grew more set against Leisler their hatred was repaid in kind. From time to time both their persons and their property were put in actual jeopardy by some freak of jealous suspicion or wounded vanity on the part of the popular dictator. The mass of the people did not care much for the ills that befell these first sufferers; but before many months were over, they themselves were forced to bear their share of unjust treatment, and then of course they became very loud in their indignation. Leisler was doubtless in part actuated by honest distrust of his opponents, and belief that he himself could do most good to the city and especially to the common folk, and in part by the ambitions to which his success had given birth. He found it difficult to know where to stop in pursuing his dictatorial policy. His suspicion of the Episcopalians grew to include the Puritans. His animosity toward the aristocratic families was far from being altogether causeless; for they were undoubtedly bitterly hostile not only to him but to the popular cause he represented. But he soon began to confound his aristocratic enemies with the people of means generally; and his baser supporters, under plea of enthusiasm for Protestantism and liberty, menaced indiscriminately every man of property, so that all the most thrifty and successful people of the community, including the Dutch and Huguenot clergy, became banded together against him. The decent working men also grew alarmed at his excesses and irritated at the pride he displayed and at the insolence of some of his subordinates, their own former equals.

Soon after Leisler had overthrown the lieutenant-governor and taken the reins of power, a royal proclamation was brought over which continued in office all Protestant officials. The old council greeted this proclamation with exultation, for if obeyed it restored them to office; but Leisler, fearing for his life if his foes returned to power, and furious at seeing his work thus undone, determined to disobey the command of the sovereigns, treasonable though such conduct was. At the head of his troops, he dispersed the council, and continued his own appointees in place. The mob was at this time heartily in his favor, and cheered on the train-bands; and finally Bayard and Van Cortlandt were chased from the city.

Leisler had summoned a convention which, when it met, contained of course only the extreme men; not a few of its members were Republicans, or avowed adherents of the policy of Oliver Cromwell. They chose a committee of safety, ten in number, consisting of Hollanders, Huguenots, and English Puritans. They were all furious Protestants and ultraliberals; and they speedily nominated Leisler as commander-in-chief, with extensive and indeed arbitrary powers. Soon afterward a letter was received from the sovereigns which was directed to the "commander-in- chief" of the province of New York. It was meant for Nicholson, whom the home government supposed to be still in power, but by an oversight his name was not put in the document; and the delighted Leisler insisted that he himself was the man for whom it was intended. He promptly assumed the title of lieutenant-governor, chose his own council, and formally entered on his duties as the royal representative and ruler of the colony. He treated the city as under martial law, yet in certain matters he showed his leaning toward democracy. Thus instead of appointing a mayor he allowed the freeholders to elect one-the first and, until 1834, the last elective mayor of New York. The opposition to his rule outside of Manhattan Island was very strong [p. 420] from the outset; and Albany, under the lead of Schuyler, refused to recognize his authority until forced to do so by the pressing danger from the Canadian-French and their savage allies.

In outside matters the usurping governor showed breadth of mind--notably in calling a congress of the colonies, the first of its kind, which met in New York in the spring of 1690. The purpose of the meeting was to plan a joint attack on Canada; for Count Frontenac's war-parties were cruelly harassing the outlying settlements of both New York and New England. A small army of Connecticut men and New Yorkers was assembled, and marched to the head of Lake Champlain, but owing to mismanagement accomplished nothing; and the expedition was finally abandoned after a bitter quarrel between Leisler and his New England allies. Nothing against France was accomplished beyond a couple of brilliant raids made by Schuyler up to the walls of Montreal, and the capture of a number of French ships by Leisler's New York privateers. Yet, though this intercolonial congress produced such small results, it marks an era in the growth of the provinces which afterward became the United States. It was the first occasion on which the colonies ever showed the least tendency to act together, or on which they appeared as aught but a jumble of mutually hostile communities. Up to this time their several paths of development had been entirely separate, and their interests independent and usually conflicting; but after this date they had a certain loose connection with one another, and it becomes possible to treat their history in some degree as a whole.

In domestic affairs, Leisler sometimes did well and sometimes ill. He summoned two popular assemblies: They were filled with his supporters, ratified all his acts, and gave him power to go to any lengths he chose. He allowed his subordinates to maltreat the Long Islanders, Dutchmen and Puritans alike, who accordingly sent long petitions for redress to England. He opened letters, plundered houses, confiscated estates [p. 421] to satisfy taxes, and imprisoned numbers of the leading citizens whom he believed to be his enemies. He treated the Calvinist dominies as roughly as their flocks, and all the men of property became greatly alarmed. The leading Dutch and French citizens made common cause with the English, and sent a vigorous remonstrance to the home government praying for relief, and denouncing Leisler as an "insolent alien" who had tyrannized over the city, holding the lives and property of, all citizens at his mercy, and setting up as rulers men of the meanest station and capacity, and often of criminal antecedents. Doubtless much of this opposition was due merely to an aristocratic dislike of anything like democracy; but Leisler's "government of the people" had beyond question begun to degenerate into government by the mob and by a tyrant. His overbearing conduct alienated the mass of the mechanics, craftsmen, and laborers; and he was soon left unsupported save by the men he had put in office, and by the militia, in whose ranks he had left only his own adherents.

The repeated petitions of the citizens attracted the attention of King William; and to stop the disorders a governor (Sloughter) and a lieutenant-governor (Ingoldsby) were duly commissioned, and sent out to the colony with an adequate force of regular troops. The ship carrying the governor was blown out of its course; and when Ingoldsby, early in February, 1691, landed on Manhattan Island, Leisler refused to recognize his authority. The mass of the citizens supported Ingoldsby, while the militia stood by Leisler. For six weeks the two parties remained under arms, threatening each other, Ingoldsby's headquarters being in the City Hall and Leisler's in the fort. Then a skirmish took place in which several of Ingoldsby's regulars were killed or wounded, while Leisler's militia, shielded by the fort, escaped unharmed. The very day after this, Governor Sloughter's ship appeared in the harbor, and he immediately landed and took command. The following morning Leisler's militia deserted him, and he and his chief officers were promptly seized and imprisoned. [p. 422]

They were tried for high treason, and Leisler and Milborne, the two ringleaders, were adjudged guilty and hanged; most of the respectable citizens, including the clergymen of every denomination, demanding their death as affording the only warrant for the future safety of the colony. The Leislerian or democratic party was cowed, and for the moment did nothing save feebly and ineffectually to protest against the execution of the sentence.

The popular party of New York had certainly failed to show governmental capacity, moderation toward opponents, or power to curb the oppressive tyranny of its own leaders. Its downfall was as complete as the triumph of the aristocratic element. The government of the colony was at once put on the basis on which it stood until the outbreak of the Revolution. There was a governor appointed by the king, and a council likewise appointed; while the Assembly was elected by the freeholders. The suffrage was thus limited by a strict property qualification. Liberty of conscience was granted to all Protestant sects, but not to the Catholics; and the Church of England was practically made the State Church, though the Dutch and French congregations were secured in the rights guaranteed them by treaty. It was thus essentially a class or aristocratic government--none 'the less so because to European eyes the little American aristocracy seemed both poor and rude. In a frontier community such as New York then was it was comparatively easy for any man to acquire property and position, and thus step into the ranks of the relatively large ruling class.1

[1 Many of the leading families in colonial times were descended from the Old World gentry. Many others sprang from successful adventurers of almost unknown ancestry; and there was every gradation between these two extremes. The Livingstons, for instance, one of the really noted New York families, were descended from a young Scotch factor, just like hundreds of penniless, pushing young Scotchmen who have come to this country in the steerage of sailing ship or steamer during the present century. Of the men of high social standing in the Old World who came over to make their fortunes in the New probably the majority failed, and their descendants slipped down into the lower ranks of the population. [p. 423] Nevertheless, democracy, as such, had small share in the government.]

However, the Leislerians soon plucked up heart, and appeared once more in public, claiming their fallen chief as a martyr, and troubling their foes for a generation ere they gradually lost their identity and became merged in the general mass of the popular party. Though this element of the population, owing to the restricted suffrage, possessed less than its due weight in the government, yet it always had allies and mouthpieces in the Assembly. These advocates of popular rights rarely made a fight for the granting of political power to the masses, but they were kept busy in battling against the prerogatives of the Crown and the power of the great patroons and rich merchants. For the next three-quarters of a century the struggle for popular rights in New York took the form, not of a demand for democratic government and manhood suffrage, but of a contest waged on behalf of the men of small property against the authority of a foreign monarchy and the rule of a native oligarchy.

CHAPTER VII --- THE GROWTH OF THE COLONIAL SEAPORT 1691--1720

FOR three-quarters of a century after the collapse of Leisler's rebellion the internal and external politics of New York City ran in monotonous grooves; and were largely merged in those of the province, the interests of the town and country being as a rule identical. There. was a succession of long wars with France, the New Yorkers, like the other English colonists, and like England herself, soon coming to look upon the French as their hereditary and natural foes. This continuous struggle with a powerful common enemy was a potent cause in keeping the colonists of Manhattan, like those of the rest of America, loyal to the mother country; and the growth of sentiments and interests hostile to the latter, though steady, was unappreciated even by the colonists themselves. Their internal politics were marked by unceasing struggles in the Assembly--struggles, sometimes between the aristocratic and popular factions, sometimes between one or the other or both of these factions and whoever happened for the time to represent the Crown. The overthrow of the Stuart dynasty had resulted in an immense gain for liberty, and for free and orderly government in New York. The last Stuart king had never granted the liberties he had promised to the colonists; but by his successor they were immediately given in full. Hitherto New York's share in self-government had depended purely on the pleasure of her successive rulers. Under, and owing to, William of Orange she made the first noteworthy advance [p. 425] in the direction of self-government by right, irrespective of the views of the royal governor who might be over her.

Throughout all this period New York was a little seaport town, without manufactures, and dependent upon ocean industries for her well-being. . There was little inland commerce; everything was done by shipping. The merchants were engaged in the river trade with Albany and the interior, in the coast trade with the neighboring colonies, in the fisheries, and in the sea trade with England, Africa, and the East and West Indies. Every few years there occurred a prolonged maritime war with either France or Spain, and sometimes with both. Then the seas were scourged and the coasts vexed by the warships and privateers of the hostile powers; and the intervals of peace were troubled by the ravages of pirate and picaroon. Commerce was not a merely peaceful calling; and those who went down to the sea in ships led troublous lives.

The seafaring folk, or those whose business was connected with theirs, formed the bulk of New York's white population. The poor man went to sea in the vessel the richer man built or owned or commanded; and where the one risked life and limb, the other at least risked his fortune and future. Many of the ventures were attended with great danger. even in times of peace. Besides the common risks of storm and wreck, other and peculiar perils were braved by the ships that sailed for the Guinea coast, to take part in the profitable but hideously brutal and revolting trade for slaves. The traffic with the strange coast cities of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean likewise had dangers all its own. Pirate and sultan and savage chief. had all to be guarded against, and sometimes outwitted, and sometimes outfought.

Moreover, the New York merchants and seamen were themselves ready enough to risk their lives and money in enterprise where the profits to be gained by peaceful trade came second, and those by legal warfare or illegal plundering first. In every war the people plunged into the business of privateering with immense zest and eagerness. New York Province [p. 426] dreaded the Canadians and Indians, but New York City feared only the fleets of France; her burghers warred, as well as traded, chiefly on the ocean. Privateering was a species of gambling which combined the certainty of exciting adventure with the chance of enormous profit, and it naturally possessed special attractions for the bolder and more reckless spirits. Many of the merchants who fitted out privateers lost heavily, but many others made prizes so rich that the profits of ordinary voyages sank into insignificance by comparison. Spanish treasure-ships, and French vessels laden with costly stuffs from the West Indies or the Orient, were brought into New York Harbor again and again--often after f2ghts to the s