to CHAP. increasing emigration. Manhattan was already the XV. chosen abode of merchants; and the policy of the government invited them by its good will. If Stuyvesant sometimes displayed the rash despotism of a soldier, he was sure to be reproved by his employers. Did he change the rate of duties arbitrarily? The directors, 1650 sensitive to commercial honor, charged him "to keep 1660. every contract inviolate." Did he tamper with the currency by raising the nominal value of foreign coin? The measure was rebuked as dishonest. Did he attempt to fix the price of labor by arbitrary rules? This also was condemned as unwise and impracticable. Did he interfere with the merchants by inspecting their accounts? The deed was censured as without precedent "in Christendom;" and he was ordered to "treat the merchants with kindness, lest they return, and the country be depopulated." Did his zeal for Calvinism lead him to persecute Lutherans? He was chid for his bigotry. Did his hatred of "the abominable sect of Quakers" imprison and afterwards exile the blameless Bowne? "Let every peaceful citizen," wrote the directors, "enjoy freedom of conscience; this maxim has made our city the asylum for fugitives from every land; tread in its steps, and you shall be blessed."2 Private worship was, therefore, allowed to every religion. Opinion, if not yet enfranchised, was already tolerated. The people of Palestine, from the destruction of their temple, an outcast and a wandering race, were allured by the traffic and the candor of the New World; and not the Saxon and Celtic races only, the 1 Albany Records, iv. 19, 25, 84, 128, 212. 2 Ibid. xviii. 221; iv. 427. Com pare, on Quaker persecutions, xix. 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 18–24; xx. 213, 214, 231-233, 291. XV. children of the bondmen that broke from slavery in CHAP. Egypt, the posterity of those who had wandered in Arabia, and worshipped near Calvary, found a home, liberty, and a burial-place on the Island of Manhattan.1 The emigrants from Holland were themselves of the most various lineage; for Holland had long been the gathering-place of the unfortunate. Could we trace the descent of the emigrants from the Low Countries to New Netherlands, we should be carried not only to the banks of the Rhine and the borders of the German Sea, but to the Protestants who escaped from France after the massacre of Bartholomew's eve; and to those earlier inquirers who were swayed by the voice of Huss in the heart of Bohemia. New York was always a city of the world. Its settlers were relics of the first fruits of the reformation, chosen from the Belgic provinces and England, from France and Bohemia, from Germaand Switzerland, from Piedmont and the Italian Alps. ny The religious sects, which, in the middle ages, had been fostered by the municipal liberties of the south of France, were the harbingers of modern freedom, and had therefore been sacrificed to the inexorable feudalism of the north. After a bloody conflict, the plebeian reformers, crushed by the merciless leaders of the military aristocracy, escaped to the highlands that divide France and Italy. Preserving the discipline of a benevolent, ascetic morality, with the simplicity of a spiritual worship, "When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones," it was found, on the progress of the reformation, that they had by three centuries anticipated Luther and Calvin. 1 Albany Rec. iv. 203, 212; xv. 140, 141; xi. 21, 240, and 140, 141, 159. XV. CHAP. The hurricane of persecution, which was to sweep Protestantism from the earth, did not spare their seclusion; mothers with infants were rolled down the rocks, and the bones of martyrs scattered on the Alpine 1656. mountains. Was there no asylum for the pious Wal19. denses? The city of Amsterdam offered the fugitives Dec. a free passage to America, and a welcome reception was prepared in New Netherlands' for the few who were willing to emigrate. The persecuted of every creed and every clime were invited to the colony. When the Protestant churches in Rochelle were razed, the Calvinists of that city were gladly admitted; and the French Protestants came in such numbers, that the public documents were sometimes issued in French as well as in Dutch and English. Troops of orphans were sometimes shipped for the milder destinies of the New World; a free passage was offered to mechanics; for "population was known to be the bulwark of every state." The government of New Netherlands had formed just ideas of the fit materials for building a commonwealth; they desired "farmers and laborers, foreigners and exiles, men inured to toil and penury.' "3 The colony increased; children swarmed in every village; the new year and the month of May were welcomed with noisy frolics: new modes of activity were devised; lumber was shipped to France; the whale pursued off the coast; the vine, the mulberry, planted; flocks of sheep as well as cattle were multiplied; and tile, so long 1 Albany Records, iv. 223. Lambrechtsten, p. 65, without quoting his authority, says six hundred came over. There could not have been so many. On a later occasion, 1663, the proposed emigration failed. Albany Records, iv. 223. 2 Albany Records, xiv. 233; iv. 425, 461; xviii. 295. 3 Ibid. xviii. 35; viii. 143. 6 Ibid. iv. 91, 73, 92, 260, 326. Vander Donk, c. xiv. XV. imported from Holland,' began to be manufactured CHAP. near Fort Orange. New Amsterdam could, in a few years, boast of stately buildings, and almost vied with 1664 Boston. "This happily-situated province," said its inhabitants, "may become the granary of our Fatherland; should our Netherlands be wasted by grievous wars, it will offer our countrymen a safe retreat; by God's blessing, we shall in a few years become a mighty people." Thus did various nations of the Caucasian race assist in colonizing our central states. The African also had his portion on the Hudson. The West India Company, which sometimes transported Indian captives to the West Indies, having large establishments on the coast of Guinea, at an early day introduced negroes 1626. into Manhattan, and continued the negro slave-trade without remorse. We have seen Elizabeth of England a partner in the commerce, of which the Stuarts, to the days of Queen Anne, were distinguished patrons; the city of Amsterdam3 did not blush to own shares in a slave-ship, to advance money for the outfits, and to participate in the returns. In proportion to population, New York had imported as many1 Africans as Virginia. 1661. That New York is not a slave-state like Carolina, is due to climate, and not to the superior humanity of its founders. Stuyvesant was instructed to use every exertion to promote the sale of negroes. They were imported sometimes by way of the West Indies, often directly from Guinea, and were sold at public auction to the highest bidder." The average price was less than 8 5 Albany Records, iv. 371. 6 Ibid. iv. 2; viii. 14. The Rec- 8 Ibid. xviii. 72. XV. CHAP. one hundred and forty dollars. The monopoly of the traffic was not strictly enforced; and a change of policy sometimes favored the export of negroes to the English The enfranchised negro might become a colonies.1 With the Africans came the African institution of abject slavery; the large emigrations from Connecticut engrafted on New Netherlands the Puritan idea of popular freedom. There were so many English at Manhattan as to require an English secretary, preachers who could speak in English as well as in Dutch, and a publication of civil ordinances in English. Whole towns had been settled by New England men, who, having come to America to serve God with a pure conscience, and desiring to provide for the outward comforts and souls' welfare of their posterities, planted New England liberties in a Congregational way, with the consent, and under the jurisdiction of the Dutch." Their presence and their activity foretold a revolution. In the Fatherland, the power of the people was unknown; in New Netherlands, the necessities of the colony had given it a twilight existence, and delegates from the Dutch towns, at first twelve, then perhaps 1642. eight in number, had mitigated the arbitrary authority of Kieft. There was no distinct concession of legislative power to the people; but the people had, without a teacher, become convinced of the right of resistance. 1644. The brewers refused to pay an arbitrary excise: "Were Aug. 18. we to yield," said they, "we should offend the eight men, and the whole commonalty." The large proprietaries did not favor popular freedom; the commander 1644. of Renselaer Stein had even raised a battery, that "the 1 Albany Records, iv. 333, 172, 371, 456 ; xix. 26; xi. 35. 2 Ibid. xxii. 331. But compare ii. 242. 3 Albany Records, iv. 74. 4 Ibid. xix. 409-419. |