120. Dutch Traders.

The Dutch claimed that part of North America which Henry Hudson had discovered; and after his return the merchants of Holland sent out trading

vessels to the new country.

They established trading

1610

posts on the Hudson, or North, River and on Manhattan Island, and went back to Holland. Their ships were loaded with valuable furs bought from the Indians.

1614

121. New Netherlands. Seven years after Captain Smith began his work at Jamestown, cabins were built on Manhattan Island, with a log fort for their protection, and the place was named New Amsterdam. After this, a number of Holland merchants united in forming the Dutch West India Company, and obtained a charter from their government allowing them to trade in the territory lying between South Virginia and New France. The country embraced in this charter was called New Netherlands, and extended from the Connecticut River to the Delaware. Trading posts for purchasing furs were soon established.

122. Peter Minuit (mîn'-u-it) was sent to New Netherlands as its first governor. He bought Manhattan Island for beads, trinkets, and cheap goods worth sixty guilders, or 1626 about twenty-four dollars. The people of New

Netherlands now proposed a covenant of friendship with the Plymouth colony. The Plymouth governor accepted the proposal, but reminded them that the forty-first degree of latitude was the boundary of New England and that the Dutch had no rights beyond it.

123. New Settlements. The settlers from Holland carried on a profitable trade in furs, but New Amsterdam grew slowly. Farther up the river Fort Orange was built. On Long Island, Staten Island, and out in New Jersey, wherever the rich soil or great numbers of beavers attracted, their settlements

were extended. They were careful to pay the Indians for all the land occupied.

1642

A com

124. Trouble with Indians. The rum sold to the Indians sometimes made them quarrelsome. They did some things which the traders resented with cruelty, and the savages began to attack the settlements. pany of Indians who had been fighting with the Mohawks, fled to the banks of the Hudson, near Manhattan Island, and asked the Dutch for help. Instead of helping them, the governor sent a band of men to surprise

and the inmates killed by the furious savages. Among the victims was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson.

125. Dutch Homes.

-The people in New Netherlands were

very different from the Puritans in New England. Some of

them were rich men, and they brought with them costly furniture. Their houses were built of wood, with "many doors and windows," and with their gables toward the street. A stoop, or porch, formed the entrance, where the men often sat and smoked their pipes. Painted tiles were built around the fireplaces. Pine knots or tallow candles gave light at night. The Dutch housekeepers were cleanly and orderly. The floors were covered with white sand, in which fanciful figures were drawn with the broom. Instead of clocks and watches, the Dutch used hourglasses and sundials. There were also many windmills, such as were about their old homes in Holland.

126. Dutch Customs. - Some of the old customs which these people brought with them from Holland are still retained by us. From them the children have learned to expect visits from "Santa Claus" or St. Nicholas, on Christmas eve, and to color eggs at Easter time. The women and girls learned to spin flax on the spinning wheel, which formed a part of the furniture in every house, just as the sewing machine does to-day. They wove all the linen used in the household; it was folded away in large chests made for the purpose. Νο young woman was considered ready to be married, until the linen chest was filled with all that she would need in her husband's home. Besides weaving the linen, the women knitted all the stockings and did all the sewing for the family.

The women wore high-heeled shoes with brightly colored stockings and skirts. They brushed their hair smoothly back under white muslin caps. The men wore woolen coats trimmed with large, bright buttons, and knee breeches and long stockings. At the knee and on the shoes were fastened large silver buckles. The hair was allowed to grow long and was gathered into a cue or long braid at the back of the head.

127. The Duke of York. When the people in New Netherlands heard of the liberties which the charters had given to New England, they felt that their Dutch governors and patroon1

1 Patroons. The West India Company, which was composed of merchants in Holland, induced people to come to New Netherlands by offering to every FIELD'S GR. SCH. H.-6

masters were making slaves of them, and they wished for more freedom. The English had always claimed New Netherlands, because it was discovered by the Cabots, and because Henry Hudson was an Englishman. When Charles II was restored to the throne, he gave this territory to his brother James, then Duke of York, who in 1664 sent over an armed fleet to take possession. When the troops arrived, the people, dissatisfied with their rulers, were unwilling to fight, and though Governor Stuyvesant desired to resist, he was obliged to surrender to the British commander all the region claimed by the Dutch. Its name was changed to New York in honor of the duke, and Fort Orange was called Albany. New Amsterdam has been known as New York ever since.

PETER STUYVESANT

1664

128. The Dutch and the English. The settlers did not receive from the English what they expected. They were not allowed to choose their rulers, but had to submit to the control of governors sent over by the duke. When the English had been in New York about nine years, war began between England and Holland, and a Dutch fleet

1673 took possession of the city of New York. In little more than a year from that time, a treaty between England and Holland gave New Netherlands again to the English. Major Edmund Andros, afterwards such a tyrant in the New England colonies, was sent out as governor by King James II, formerly the Duke of York. The settlers in New York complained so bitterly against Andros, that a new governor was appointed; and the people of that colony were allowed to man who would bring a colony of fifty persons, a body of land sixteen miles in length, provided the land had not been occupied, and on condition that he paid the Indians for it. He was to have entire control of the colony with the title of " patroon or "lord," but was not allowed to manufacture wool or cotton.

elect representatives for a legislature, and to adopt the same form of government as the other English colonies. New York continued to be an English colony until the Revolution.

129. Indian Treaty. - Because of some movements of the French, the governor of New York and the governor of Virginia in 1684 made a treaty with the Five Nations, or Iroquois Indians, living in the northern and western part of New York. This treaty protected the English from the French in Canada for many years.

1684

1689

130. Jacob Leisler. - When the news of the crowning of William and Mary reached New York, the governor hurried back to England. Ten men, calling themselves a "committee of safety," commissioned a captain of militia, named Jacob Leisler (lis'-ler), to take possession of the fort. About five hundred armed men joined him. He publicly promised to submit to the governor whom the king should appoint, whenever he should arrive. The next spring Leisler took possession of Albany, to which town the mayor of New York had fled.

Leisler kept his place at the head of the government for nearly three years without opposition from the king. When Governor Sloughter was sent to New York, Leisler and his son-in-law, Milbourn, were imprisoned and tried for treason. Sloughter, while intoxicated, was persuaded to sign a warrant for their execution, and the next day they were hanged. Those who opposed Leisler were the aristocrats, the descendants of the old patroons, who wished a rich man to be allowed as many votes as he had estates.1

1 The Pirates. At this period commerce suffered greatly from pirates. Their number had increased to a fearful extent, when several members of Parliament, encouraged by the king, fitted out a vessel and placed Captain Kidd of New York in command, to go in search of the sea robbers and to protect the commerce of the country. Soon after leaving England, Kidd made a bargain with his sailors to change the object of their enterprise, and he became one of the most notorious pirates. After several years of daring robbery, he was captured near Boston, and executed in England.

Some years after, Bonnet, Worley, and Blackbeard, three famous pirates, with their rendezvous on the southern coast, were also captured and killed.