First Permanent Settlements.-The first attempt to establish a permanent colony was made by this company in 1623. About thirty families of Walloons, who, like the Puritans, had fled from religious persecution to Belgium, were sent over to serve the company, under Captain Mey. Eight persons were left at Manhattan, where Fort Amsterdam was begun. Another party settled on Long Island where the Brooklyn navy yard is now located. The rest went up the Hudson and built Fort Orange where Albany now stands. Eighteen families under Adrian Joris were left to make a permanent settlement. A fourth colony was established near Gloucester, N. J., and a second Fort Nassau built there. This was the beginning of real colonization in New Netherland.

First Directors.-Captain Mey's ship returned to Holland laden with furs, but its commander remained in the province as its first director or governor. After a few months, however, he was succeeded by William Verhulst. In 1625 horses, cattle, swine, sheep, seeds, and other things needed for farming arrived. The popu lation numbered about two hundred. New Netherland was now definitely founded. By 1626 samples of "wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary-seed, beans, and flax" were sent to Holland, together with 7,246 beaver-skins, 853 otter-skins, 81 mink-skins, 36 wildcat-skins, and 34 rat-skins, and some samples of oak and hickory timber.

Peter Minuit was the first governor appointed by the company (1626). To assist him he was given a Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and on the coast of America from the Straits of Magellan to the remotest north."

"council invested with all local, legislative, judicial, and executive powers, subject to the supervision . . of the Chamber at Amsterdam." He found a village of thirty families on Manhattan, and bought the island of the Indians "for the value of sixty guilders," or about twenty-four gold dollars, in beads and cloth.1 The southern part of the island was marked out for a "battery," and there Fort Amsterdam was built. From the settlements at Fort Orange and New Amsterdam small groups went forth to colonize New Netherland. Brooklyn was probably settled as early as 1625 at Walloon Bay. In 1636 a house was built at Gowanes, on Long Island, and ten years later a town government was organized.

Land Titles.-Minuit began a correspondence with the Puritans at Plymouth, shortly after his arrival, to establish friendly relations. In 1627 a trade treaty was made, but William Bradford, the Puritan governor, warned the Dutch" to clear their title " to New Netherland without delay. England's eye was on New Netherland, which she claimed as hers by right of discovery, and which she was to conquer in just thirty-seven years. Meanwhile some Dutch traders had bought of the Indians land at the mouth of the Connecticut River. When their trade was threatened by the Puritans, they purchased another tract sixty miles up-stream, and built Fort Good Hope in 1633. Governor Winthrop of

At the same time Governor's Island and Staten Island were purchased. The 22,000 acres on Manhattan are now the most valuable in the world. Had the amount paid for the island been put on interest at six per cent (compound), it would now amount to about $122,500,000.

Massachusetts Bay told them that these were English lands and refused to arbitrate the question. Soon the English had a colony at Windsor, and within twenty years they were in complete possession of the Connecticut Valley.

Patroon System.-To increase the income from the fur-trade, the company planned to people the fertile lands. The population was only about two hundred and seventy in 1628. To encourage emigration, a charter, granted in 1629, gave to any member of the company, who bought a piece of land from the natives and planted a colony of forty-eight persons on it within six years, a manor six miles along the coast, or on both sides of a navigable river," with the title of patroon. These lords were to have feudal rights over their tenants, trading privileges along the seacoast, freedom to fish and to make salt, and a representative in the governor's council.

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Van Rensselaer and Pauw. The offer produced immediate results. In 1630 Killian Van Rensselaer, director of the company, bought a tract on the Hudson at Albany. In 1637 Rensselaerwyck was forty-eight miles long and twenty-four miles wide and covered nearly three counties. When the first patroon died (1646), over two hundred colonists had been sent to his estate. Michael Pauw secured Hoboken and Staten Island. Others settled on the Delaware. Of the eight patroons in the company only one, Van Rensselaer, made a success. The system was a hindrance to the colony's prosperity. The patroons quarreled with their

1 These are Dutch miles, which are equal to four English miles each. Docs. rel. to N. Y. Col. Hist., VII., 334.

tenants, with the governors, and with the company, which they sought to exclude from trade in their districts, although they bought and sold where they pleased. Finally, to settle disputes, the company purchased the claims of some patroons and regulated the pretensions of the rest.

Swedes on the Delaware.-After Minuit's recall (1631), he went to Sweden and persuaded the great Oxenstierna1 to send him to America to plant a colony. Without permission from the Dutch, he settled up the Delaware on the patroon grant now vacant. He bought the territory between Cape Henlopen and the Delaware Falls of the red men in 1638 and called it New Sweden. At Wilmington they built dwellings, a church, and a fort, and called the place Christina.

Walter Van Twiller, who followed Minuit as governor, was slow, inefficient, given to drink, and always wrangling with his officers. But he was shrewd in business ways, so that on his retirement in 1637 he was a rich man. He owned a fertile tract on Long Island, where Flatlands sprang up, and also some of the small islands around Manhattan. Under Van Twiller the little town on Manhattan was named New Amsterdam.

1 He was an educated Swedish statesman, who served as chancellor under Gustavus Adolphus and took a leading part in the Thirty Years' War. He ruled Sweden during the minority of the daughter of Gustavus, and died in 1654.

CHAPTER V.-THE ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR KIEFT

William Kieft, the next governor (1638), found the company's interests sadly neglected. The six boweries, or farms, on Manhattan Island were without tenants or stock, the windmills were broken, and the fort needed repair. The company was cheated out of its profits in the fur-trade by private traders and even by the agents themselves. The patroon system and the paternalism of the corporation kept the colony a mere trading-post. Kieft reduced his advisory council to one person and ruled as an autocrat.

Beneficial Changes.-The company now made some changes which mark a new era. Monopolies in trade and land were abolished. The fur-trade and ownership in land were thrown open to the world. The prohibition on manufactures was removed. A farmer willing to go was carried to New Netherland with his family free of charge and was given a farm, house and barn, horses, stock, and tools, for which he paid about two hundred dollars rent yearly for six years. The company retained only small duties on trade and the transportation service. The patroons were restricted to a water-front of one mile and a depth of two, but still held their feudal rights (1640).

Results of the Changes.-The effect of these measures was soon seen. The few farms on Manhattan increased to over thirty. Large companies as well as single families came. De Vries planted a colony on Staten Island (1638), and others followed. Englishmen arrived from