Van Rensselaer His Domain: a New Loo Rensseflaers
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
van Rensselaer His Domain: A New Loo Rensseflaers Jan Folkerts State ArcMves %nOverijssel at Zwolle he person of Kiliaen van Rensselaer,founder of the the close tie between trade and agriculture in the seven- patroonship of Rensselaerswijck, has fascinated his- teenth-century Dutch Republic. In the last few decades torians of different generations and even today still several historians have shown that commercial agricul- excites the imagination. Perhaps it is exactly the ture in the northern Low Countries formed a solid base paradoxical element in Van Rensselaer’s career that for the economic expansion in the late sixteenth and intrigues us so much. Here is a great propagandist for seventeenthcenturies.3 colonization of North America who’ himself never set foot on American soil: a sly merchant who gathered a In this way we will get a more balanced picture not fortune in Holland in a short time, but invested thousands only of Van Rensselaer’smotives, but also of the results of guilders in an American patroonship, which yielded of his American undertaking. And if we want to judge him hardly a dime. And what about a man with an open the results of his agricultural experiment, we must know eye for the great possibilities of modem agriculture, who what concrete expectations Kiliaen van Rensselaerhad at the same time acquired a manor with subordinate of his patroonship. In what follows I will try to find an tenants, but who looked-in the eyes of some answer to these questions. Successively, Van observers-like a feudal baron, driven by the profit Rensselaer’s motives, his profit expectations, and the motive? real results of his agriculture will be treated. Former authors have not been able to resist the ten- Whoever occupies himself with Kiliaen van dency to put one or some aspectsof Van Rensselaer’s Rensselaer’scareer, soon comesacross his origin in the complicated personality in the middle, and in so doing Veluwe. It is true, Kiliaen van Rensselaerwas born in the have sketcheda sometimesone-sided picture of the man small town of Hasselt, in Overijssel, but he descended who hasbeen of invaluable importance for the settlement from a family who named themselves after the estate of the northern Hudson valley in the seventeenthcentury. Rensselaerbetween Nijkerk and Putten, on the western fringe of the Veluwe. Kiliaen still had somepossessions Nissenson, author of the standard work on there. It is out of the question-as it was sometimes Rensselaerswijck,The Patroon’s Domain, thought that suggestedin the past-that the first patroon should be of agriculture and colonization were only pretensesfor Van noble descentPThe Rensselaerpossession was an estate Rensselaer and other great shareholders of the Dutch like many others in theseregions. At this time the Veluwe West India Company in order to be able to extort was still called the wild arnd barren countryP and the patroonships from the Company. In so doing they wilderness in the middle of it was hardly inhabited. could-according to Nissenson-fasten their hold on the Agriculture provided only a slender existence. fur trade.’ At a young age Kiliaen van Rensselaerwas boarded At the other end of the spectrum we find the out with a relative, Wolfert van Bijler, who had a Dutchman Jessurunwho, in his book about the patroon jeweller’s firm in Amsterdam. This Van Bijler had published in 1917, sketches an idyllic picture of Van commercial relations far acrossthe borders of the Dutch Rensselaeras a selfless idealist who only in the very last Republic. In 1608 Kiliaen handled Van Bijler’s affairs at place thought of his own profit.2 To form a correct the court of Rudolf II in Prague. Some years later he assessment of Van Rensselaer’s importance for the carried on trade for himself as Kiliaen van Rensselaer development of the area around present-dayAlbany we and Co. This firm later merged with the business house must see the establishmentof patroonshipsin relation to of Johan van Wely to the firm of Jan van Wely and Co, 295 296 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS which had a capital of 192,000 Dutch florins. Van be consideredsuccessful by 1630. By the gloomy tidings Rensselaercontributed one eighth to it. For our subject that were coming in from North America the contrast it is of importance that as early as 1620 Van Rensselaer between supporters and opponents of colonization was appearedto be concernedwith land reclamation, namely further driven to extremes.Supporters were especially to in the Gooi. Eight years later in this region he became be found among the commissionersfor New Netherland the owner of the estate Crailo near Huizen, which to a in the Chamber of Amsterdam of the Dutch West India great extent consisted of unreclaimed land.6 One year Company. Van Rensselaer was their mlost important before, in December 1627, he had married as his second spokesman; to his faction belonged among others: wife Anna van Wely, the daughter of his deceased Samuel Godijn, Samuel Blommaert, Hendrii Hamel, partner. This marriage probably strongly enlarged Van Pieter Ever&en Hulft, Jonas Witsen, Johannes de Laet Rensselaer’strading capital, especially considering that and Michiel PauwP Both within the Amsterdam Anna’s father, who was Prince Maurits’s court jeweller, Chamberand in the Heren XIX this group was confronted was known to be very rich.7 Like so many merchantsof with fierce resistance of those who put the,profits of the his time Van Rensselaermust have considered the open- fur trade fiit. ing of wilderness regions in his native country as a favorable possibility for investment and perhaps his If we can rely on Van Rensselaer’scommunications, descent from the Veluwe contributed to the fact that he there was little patience with New Netherland in the directed himself also to the less fertile and sandy soil of Chamber of Amsterdam. The guilt for the course of the Gooi. These two aspects:his knowledge of farming events in North America was entirely fastened on the on the Veluwe and his connections with reclamations on commissionersfor New Netherland. The commissioners the ‘difficult’ soil of the Gooi are-in my opinion--of and great shareholderssoon realized that nothing was to essential importance if one wants to understand Van be expected from the Company as regards colonization Rensselaer’saims with his American patroonship. and they made proposals to take up that colonization at their own cost, in exchange for certain privileges. Van Rensselaer’srelations with the Dutch West India Company date from the very first beginning of this The discussion about these things took place in the commercial undertaking. Whoever reviews the history first months of 1628. If we assumethat the situation in of New Netherland from 1624 to 1630 gets the impres- the colony must have been discussedin Amsterdamthen, sion that the colony, begun so hopefully, was more or as it was in the fall of 1627, scarcely two years after the less forgotten by the Company after someyears. Maybe great shipment of colonists and cattle, it becomes clear the defeat in Brazil and the first disappointmentsin New that conclusions were very quickly drawn about the Netherland had called for caution, and the Company slight success of the American territory. If we are to directors tightened the purse strings. According to Van believe Van Rensselaer, the conflict about the way in Rensselaer the colony was grossly neglected by the which New Netherland ought to be exploited dated Company. The fact that it took a number of years to already from before 1624, and the first settlement had cultivate sufficient land in order to make the colony been the result of his efforts. When the opponents got self-supporting, was not reckoned with. Insufficient wind of the first setbacks,which had to be absorbed at supplies were sent to the colonists, so that they were Manhattan, they “gave the dog a bad name and hung compelled to barter merchandise against food with the him.” The opponents especially disliked Van Indians, as a result of which the Company suffered great Rensselaer’sproposal to curtail the fur trade somewhat, losses.Besides, they had neglected to replace promptly simultaneously with the colonization, last the Indian the cattle that had died. Another cause of the problems hunters in the colony’s hinterland destroy the supply of the first colonists confronted was-according to Van beavers.” Perhaps Van Rensselaer had the misfortune Rensselaer-the bad connection with the fatherland, Not that the setbacksatManhattan coincided with a collapse three small ships, but one bigship should,havebeen sent .of the fur trade, which was not the result ,of a careful yearly.8 ,pdlicy as Van Rensselaer advocated, but of a war between the Mohawk and the Mahican in the northern Even when taking the ,iiew that the Company,only ‘Hudson Valley, which came to an end only in 1629. aimed at making New Netherland.self-supporting by establishing a limited number of farms (the twelve that ~PietHein’s conquest of the Spanish slilver fleet in were originally planned at Manhattan)(the colony cannot .1628 must haveccontributedto~thefacttbatthe.attention ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ be~li~~~ ~~~~~~~/ ba Fig. 51. Title page of “Vryheden,” published 1630. Courtesy of the New-York Historical Society9New York City. 298 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS of Directors and chief participants of the Company again political development had attained in the Nether- was directed to rich Brazil, and that they willingly left lands.“‘5 According to Condon the Freedoms and the experiment with settlement and agriculture in their Exemptions were “quite anachronistic in the far from North American colony to someprivate people. feudal condition of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century.“16 Were the patroonships really at right angles At last in 1629, after long preparations, a charter was to the political and judicial conditions found in the Dutch drawn up, in which a number of attractive conditions for Republic? When we take the situation in [theprovince of settlement was offered to private founders of colonies.