The Story of New Netherland/Chapter 6
The funny fellows, both penmen and artists, who saw American Dutchmen a century or two after New Netherland had passed away, and who have essayed to write or picture the history of New Amsterdam, give us the impression that most of the Dutch colonists were old and fat, stupid, choleric, and lazy, and lived in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Thus these caricaturists cast a glow more humorous than luminous over the early history of the State of New York. In picturing van Twiller, the successor of Minuit, some of them have made a big blunder, for they have confounded father and son. They have set before us their idea of the fourth Director of New Netherland, from the father, Walter van Twiller, born in 1580, instead of the real person, his son, Walter, who first saw the light, as the Nijkerk records show, May 22, 1606. So far from being the aged, fat, and overgrown person represented in caricature, Van Twiller was youthful and inexperienced, and his faults were those of a young man unused to authority and hampered by his instructions.
In Guelderland, the van Twiller estate, mentioned as early as A. D. 1530, lay in the hamlet of Schlechtenhorst in the Nijkerk Commune. Walter, or Wouter, as the old spelling is, was betrothed with Marita van Rensselaer, daughter of Henrick, July 11, 1605, and was married three weeks later. Walter, their son, the future Director, was the firstborn in a family of nine children, sons and daughters. Several of the sons came to New Netherland in the service of their uncle, Kilian van Rensselaer.
The West India Company, instead of choosing Isaac de Rasieres Director-General, appointed Walter van Twiller, who was taken as a clerk from the counting-house at Amsterdam. Though with some experience on a cattleship voyage to America, he was, when but twenty-seven years old (instead of fifty-three), made Governor of New Netherland. He showed more energy, perhaps, in developing the colony than wisdom in dealing with men. He was an expert agriculturist, an energetic manager, a steadfast friend, a shrewd diplomatist, and a most gallant admirer and protector of women. His chief fault lay in being "a jolly good fellow." He was too fond of drinking, and withal too ready to be the nephew of his uncle in enriching himself and his family connections at the expense of the Company. One can read his true story in the Van Rensselaer-Bowier Manuscripts, published in 1908 by the New York State Education Department.
Thore was very good reason, also, why van Twiller seemed to be slow in both judgment and action, when any question of hostilities with the English came up. However much the Yankees might crowd out the Dutchmen in Connecticut or trespass even upon New Netherland’s home domain, van Twiller had strict orders from the Company and from the States-General not to make war. In 1633 Spain was yet unbeaten. The Dutch war of independence, not yet over, was to last fifteen years longer. Holland and England having made an alliance of friendship, it was manifestly impossible for van Twiller, in dealing with trespassers, to take such measures against Englishmen as would result in bloodshed. It was expected that the King would restrain his subjects.
Spain was renewing her activities in war, and the Dunkirk pirates were lively when the Company sent over the new Director-General in the warship Salt Mountain, with twenty cannon and one hundred and four soldiers, under Captain Hesse. Conrad Notelman was the schout, or sheriff. Besides these worthies, there were the typical Dutch reinforcements, the Domine, Rev. Everardus Bogardus, and the accredited schoolmaster, Adam Roelandsen, and Jacob van Curler, his young friend, schoolmate, and relative from Nijkerk. They often went gunning together in the New, as they had done in the Old Netherland.
Only a few days after the new Director had arrived, he found out how forward the Englishmen were in trading wherever they pleased; well knowing, as they did, not only how weak their own King Charles was, but how anxious the Dutch were to avoid rupture with him.
Jacob Eelkins, who in 1618, in the employ of Amsterdam Dutch merchants, had built Fort Nassau on the Hudson River (near Albany) and made a compact of peace with the Iroquois and sold them firearms, was now in the employ of a London firm of merchants. He knew the exact state of political affairs, and was familiar with the talk in England. On April 13, 1633, on a vessel named the William and flying the English flag, he appeared in the Hudson River and was moving northward. Van Twiller ordered him to stop and come ashore. Eelkins obeyed, but claimed that he was in Virginia on English property and had a right to trade with the savages. Van Twiller denied this, but let him go on deck again. What was his surprise to see Eelkins weigh anchor and proceed up the river. Thereupon, instead of firing on the bold poacher, the impulsive young Governor ordered a barrel of wine to the river shore and invited everybody to drink at the Company's expense. He proposed the health of Prince Frederick Henry, the power-holder of the Netherlands, and quaffed confusion to his enemies. Thus was the title to New Netherland properly confirmed! Eelkins, however, was caught and expelled from the country in disgrace.
On the Connecticut River, van Twiller had a still more serious problem to face. By right of Captain Block's exploration, the Dutch claimed the land west of this Fresh River as port of New Netherland. In 1632, large tracts of land on both sides of the river were bought from the Indians, a fort was built where Hartford now stands, and a flourishing trade began. Charmed by the sweet birdsong, which so reminded them of home, the Dutchmen named the place at the mouth of the stream after the lapwing, or phœbe bird, Kievit's Hoek, or Lapwing's Point; but the fort, in expectation of profits, they named the House of Good Hope.
Carrying out his orders, van Twiller sent as a commandant of the new fort his playmate from boyhood, Jacobus van Curler, then only twenty three years old, born at Nijkerk, June 11, 1610. A capable artilleryman, Hans Janse Eencluys, of whom we shall hear again in Schenectady, had charge of the two little cannon mounted on platforms. Unless a shot, by an extremely lucky hit, should strike a fast passing boat low down amidships, there was little risk to a blockade runner in taking his chances while moving up the river.
All this did Holmes and the Plymouth men know well, when, in September, 1633, to occupy Windsor, they sailed safely past van Curler, who had peremptory and peaceful orders. The alliance must not be violated. With the European situation as it was, little could result from the Director's actions, except some funny moves in the game of bluff. The English, who cared very little either for King Charles Stuart, then on his shaky throne, or for Their High Mightinesses at the Hague, were pouring into Connecticut by hundreds, and were determined to occupy the land. A great migration from Massachusetts set in, and soon Windsor and Hartford had a population of nearly a thousand persons. Literally, they swamped out the Dutchmen. Even when van Twiller sent a company of seventy soldiers to make a military demonstration, as if to drive out the English from their fortified blockhouse at Windsor, no one besides the trumpeter could or did do anything, for orders were peremptory against bloodshed; so, after seeing the place and its cannon, all marched back to Manhattan. The time for a war between the two nations had not come.
Nevertheless, the Dutch nobly sustained their part in keeping order. When Captain Stone, the Virginian, was murdered by some Pequot Indians, van Curler had the murderers seized and hanged, and then made friendly overtures to the Boston people.
Van Twiller, in spite of his requests, received no permission from home to fight the English, however they might insult, dare, or trespass; but when he heard of Indian disorders, he took vigorous action. His chivalry could never be called in question. In November, 1635, young John Winthrop landed with a party at Kievit's Hoek, tore down the arms of the States-General, and calling the place Saybrook after his patrons, had a fort built by Lyon Gardner. The House of Good Hope up the river was thus virtually blockaded. Nevertheless, when in 1637 Wethersfield was attacked and nine men were killed and two English girls taken captive, van Twiller at once despatched a sloop from Manhattan with orders to rescue the maids at any cost. At the Thames River, a half-dozen Pequots, invited on board, were offered ransom for the captives. This being refused by the braves, the skipper held them as hostages until the girls were returned and later safely delivered to their friends.
The golden age of the Dutch West India Company and the reign of van Twiller, from 1633 to 1637, covered the same years. A luxuriant crop of windmills of the approved pattern sprang up on favorable elevations on Manhattan, and many other signs of prosperity were visible. Besides the Governor's mansion erected within the fort, barracks for the troops and the second church edifice rose to view. It was six-sided, or hexagonal, in shape, with a roof running up to a point and surmounted by a belfry, on which was the cock of St. Nicholas, — the symbol of vigilance and the resurrection. There were several churches of this model in the colonies of Java and the West Indies. In 1656, one was built at the Hague, and a fine one in Rotterdam was erected according to this fashion as late as 1847.
It is generally believed that van Twiller looked after his own interests more than those of "John Company," and that he was a debauched and dishonest man; yet, as simple fact, very little was actually proved against him. He lived the strenuous life, and so was often misunderstood. He was given to excess of conviviality, but with all his faults he had unbounded energy. He was certainly an enthusiastic agriculturist, and did much to develop dairying, fruit culture, and farming. Besides repairing the fort, erecting new windmills, obtaining large grants from the Indians, and developing the trade with the Indians and commerce with the West Indies, he was active in many other good things, about which his burlesquers and detractors are silent. He was such a friend to the Indians that later, during his successor's wicked war, the red men called loudly for van Twiller as their just benefactor. In the delicate matter of the boundary line between Connecticut and New Netherland, he was diplomatic and courteous. He firmly insisted on an appeal to the transatlantic sovereigns in Europe, and argued that local governors in America should not settle such important questions. Under him, the new church was erected. His knowledge of land and cattle served him well, and he became the largest private farm owner, after the Patroons, in the colony. With full faith in its future, he bought about fifteen thousand acres including several small islands, and part of Long Island. Nutten, one of these islands, famous for its nut trees, and a favorite place for the Dutch buys of Manhattan to visit by swimming or rowing, is still called, because of his purchase, Governor's Island. He gave to Gravesend, one of the English villages on Long Island, an astonishingly liberal charter, which contrasts strongly with Stuyvesant's bigotry.
It may be that van Twiller abused his official position, laying his fingers on choice bits of territory, and that striking hands with some members of his council, he gained his ends. Perhaps he favored the Patroon's colony at Rensselaerwijk too much. It is certain that while the Company's farms hardly paid expenses of their keep, van Twiller and some of his friends were getting rich and had fine pastures and gardens. He came into collision with men of good sense, and at last had arrayed against him all the forces of decency and restraint, military, popular, and ecclesiastical.
Being a son of thunder, rather than of consolation, Domine Bogardus, disapproving of van Twiller's folly, rebuked him for peculation; or, as we now call it, "graft." He even called him a "devil's child," and threatened to expose him more fully from the pulpit. To reinforce the Domine, the schout, van Dincklagen, after remonstrating vainly with the Director-General, crossed the ocean to denounce him to the States-General. Under pressure of the National Congress, the Company investigated the numerous complaints, and van Twiller was dismissed from office. He took his humiliation very lightly, however. With his houses and lands, live stock and tobacco plantations, he continued to amass riches. He was known as one of the wealthiest landowners in the colony.
When his indulgent uncle, Kilian van Rensselaer, the Patroon, died in 1646, van Twiller, being named as executor of his estate, returned finally to Nijkerk to care for the property and bring up the son and heir, Johannes, who was still under age, and his son Nicholas, born in 1636, of whom we shall hear again. Van Twiller also kept up controversies with the corporation, by which he was described as "an ungrateful man who had sucked his wealth from the breasts of the Company which he now abuses."
Van Twiller set an example to his successor Kieft. Though never followed by Stuyvesant, this "slow" or "smart" Dutchman, who was as "brainy" as most of the men who win fame on Wall Street, gave quick precedents to the later English governors, almost every one of whom was a land speculator to a disgraceful and often dishonest extent. For not making war on the English trespassers, however, van Twiller was no more to blame than was a certain captain of the United States navy in 1846, who, though in command of a seventy-four-gun ship of the line and a frigate, even when pushed rudely by an Asiatic sailor, obeyed his orders, and refrained not only from blood reprisal, but from retaliation of any sort. In due time, when, her freedom fully won from Spain, Holland in the war caused by the British Navigation Act — the same which brought on our own Revolutionary War — was goaded to fight her insolent foe on the sea, the record of the two Tromps and of de Ruyter showed what Dutchmen could do when honor demanded.
Negro slavery was introduced into New Netherland by the West India Company against the wish of the people. Eleven black men and some black women formed the first consignment in 1626, and more came in 1629. This proceeding was not in accordance with law. Yet it tallied with the spirit of the age. The Dutch common people were opposed to slavery, but the Company forced it upon them. In 1646, at the request of Domine Megapolensis and the congregations on Manhattan, the elderly slaves were given their freedom, but only on the hard conditions of furnishing to the Company one fat hog and twenty-two bushels of grain annually during the lifetime of each manumitted person, while their children remained in servitude. Slavery in New Netherland was very mild in form, and not until after the English conquest was there severity, with the consequent alleged negro plots and race wars. The black slave, like "the strictly brought up child who knows nothing of strictness," scarcely felt his bonds. Besides being almost wholly a house servant, given a patch of land to cultivate for himself, and always allowed to buy his freedom, he took Pinxter Day as his own for a carnival of fun. No surer proof of the general kindness of the Dutch to their black servants can be imagined than that fixed in Article LIX, in the legislation of the Reformed Dutch Church in regard to baptism and membership and the free privileges of the Church: "In the Church there is no difference between bond and free, but all are one in Christ."