The naviga

tion acts of

1660 and

The navigation act of 1660, like Cromwell's act of 1651, on which it was based, was aimed in part at the Dutch carrying trade. It also introduced a new principle. It not only reënacted in a stricter form the shipping clause, limiting colonial commerce to English and colonial vessels, but provided further that certain "enumerated articles," sugar, tobacco, cotton, and dyewoods, could be shipped only to England. The object of this restriction was to provide raw materials for English manufacturers.

1663

A later act of 1663 went a step further and provided that with a few exceptions no goods from foreign countries could be shipped to the colonies except through English ports. Thus the colonies were to provide the raw material for the mother country and buy all their manufactured goods from her. The colonies were, however, given a monopoly of tobacco. Its importation from foreign countries and its production in England, Ireland, and the Channel Islands were both prohibited.

The voyage

1609

In 1660 the English colonies in New England were separated from those in Maryland and Virginia by the Dutch settlements along the Hudson and the Delaware, or the North and South rivers, as they were then of Henry called. The Dutch claims were based on the Hudson, voyage of Henry Hudson, an English seaman in the service of the Dutch East India Company who, in 1609, sailed with a crew of eighteen or twenty men, partly English and partly Dutch, in his good ship the Half Moon in search of a sea route to India. He took a northern course, but encountering ice and storm turned south, and finally entered the river which now bears his name. He explored this river as far as Albany before abandoning the search for a passage through the continent. Later he sailed under the English flag in search of a northwest passage and discovered and explored Hudson Bay. Here he was set adrift in an

open boat by a mutinous crew and was never heard of

more.

Trading posts on Manhattan and at Albany

The Dutch East India Company paid little attention to the discovery of Hudson, but individual merchants became interested in the fur trade, and the island of Manhattan and the site of Albany soon became centers of a lively traffic with the Indians. Trading posts were established but there appears to have been no intention at first of colonizing the region. In 1614 Adrian Block sailed through East River, which he called "Hellegat" after a river in Holland, and explored parts of the New England coast, ascending the Connecticut River as far as the site of Hartford. His name has clung to Block Island. About the same time Cornelius May sailed south and explored the Delaware, giving his name to one of the capes at the mouth of the bay.

Settlement under the

India Company

In 1621, the Dutch West India Company was chartered by the states-general with the double purpose of trade and colonization, and in 1623 the first settlers arrived at Manhattan. They were distributed at various Dutch West points: one party was sent to the Delaware and built Fort Nassau opposite the site of Philadelphia; another party proceeded up the Hudson to Fort Orange within the present limits of Albany; while others formed settlements on Long Island and on Staten Island. In 1626 Peter Minuit arrived as the first governor or director of New Netherland. He secured from the Indians a title to the Island of Manhattan in exchange for "Patroon" goods of the value of about twenty-four dollars and began the erection of Fort Amsterdam. The directors of the West India Company were at this time more interested in plundering Spanish galleons than in planting colonies, so they left the latter work largely to individual enterprise. In order, however, to encourage the settlement of New Netherland they issued in 1629 the famous charter

The

system

of "Freedoms and Exemptions," creating a privileged class of land-holders known as patroons. Any member of the Company who should carry over within four years at his own expense fifty settlers over fifteen years of age, was promised a tract of land with a frontage of sixteen miles on one side of the Hudson, or any other navigable river, or eight miles on both sides, extending as far back into the country as the situation would permit. The patroon was to enjoy over such an estate most of the rights and privileges of a feudal lord of a manor.

These terms were favorable to the patroons but offered little inducement to the free citizens of the Netherlands who were not accustomed to feudal restrictions. Under William Kieft, who became governor in 1638, trouble with the Indians on the lower Hudson finally led to a disastrous war, 1641-1645. His successor, the famous Peter Stuyvesant, 1647-1664, was the ablest of the Dutch governors, and under him New Netherland grew and expanded.

In 1638 a little colony sent out by the Swedish West India Company appeared in the Delaware, and built Fort Christina near the site of Wilmington. Other Swedes fol

The

lowed and settlements were made on both sides Swedish of the river. In 1655 Governor Stuyvesant, being settlements at peace with the English and his Indian neigh-on the bors, led an expedition against Fort Christina.

and annexed the Swedish settlements.

As long as the Dutch held the central position on the Atlantic seaboard between the New England and the Chesapeake Bay colonies it was almost impossible to carry out the navigation acts. Virginia tobacco found its way to Europe in Dutch ships and

The English

conquest of

New

Netherland,

through the same agency European goods were 1664

carried to the American colonies. It was of vital importance, therefore, to the new colonial policy to annex the Dutch settlements. Stuyvesant found it impossible to

check the advance of New Englanders along the sound either on the mainland or on Long Island, and conflicts were continually arising. Although the English were the aggressors, they were continually complaining to the home government of injuries inflicted by the Dutch. England and Holland were also fierce commercial rivals in the West Indies and on the coast of Africa.

King Charles's brother, James, Duke of York, and his friends Berkeley and Carteret were interested in various commercial enterprises, and they suggested to the king a plan for the conquest of New Netherland. The king not only sanctioned the scheme, but issued a royal charter granting the Dutch territory in America to his brother as lord proprietor. As soon as he received his charter the Duke of York commissioned Richard Nicolls as lieutenant governor, and the latter with a fleet of four vessels appeared before New Amsterdam in August, 1664, and demanded the surrender of the city. On receipt of the letter Stuyvesant flew into a great rage and tore it to pieces without reading it to the members of his council, but the latter gathered up the fragments and forced him to surrender without striking a blow. The province and city were renamed New York after the duke and most of the settlements were given English names. In 1685 the Duke of York became King of England and his proprietary rights were merged with the crown. Thus New York became a royal province.

The Duke of York gave away part of his province before it was conquered. On June 30, 1664, while the expedition of New Jersey, Nicolls was on its way to America, he granted the 1664-1702 region between the Hudson and the Delaware to his friends Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. As the latter had been at one time governor of the island of Jersey the province was named in his honor New Jersey.

There were at this time a few Dutch settlements at Hoboken and other points on the Hudson, and the Dutch and

Swedish settlements on the Delaware. After the English conquest many New Englanders came into New Jersey, settling at Elizabeth, Newark, and other points in the northern part of the province. These settlements became known as East Jersey, while those along the Delaware became known as West Jersey.

In 1674, two London Quakers, Edward Byllynge and John Fenwick, bought out Berkeley's interest for £1000. It was agreed that they should

have West Jersey, while Carteret retained East Jersey. The next year Byllynge failed and his interests were conveyed to William Penn and two other Quakers for the benefit of his creditors. Penn and his associates also acquired Fenwick's share. In July, 1676, the proprietors of West Jersey signed with Carteret a deed establishing a new dividing line between East and West Jersey, running from

Little Egg Harbor to the Delaware Water Gap.

In 1682, Penn and eleven associates acquired from the heirs of Carteret the province of East Jersey. Thus both provinces fell under Quaker control. Several Scotchmen were associated in this transaction with Penn and this fact resulted in Scotch immigration to the colony. In 1688 the Jerseys were temporarily annexed to New York and placed under the rule of Andros. The rights of the proprietors had become confused as the result of so many transfers and con