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Home , Fort Ninigret, New Amsterdam, New Netherland

Butch Trade with Ne gland Charlotte Wilcoxen Former Research Assoeiab3 Albany lnstltu%e of History &

I n the first half of the seventeenthcentury New England and thence shipping it in Dutch bottoms,“2 and were was an amorphouscollection of settlementswith widely committing other illegal practices contrary to the varying ideologies and goals. Almost the only attributes . And in June, 1663, the British govern- all of thesehad in common were their virtually undiluted ment dispatched to the of New England an English blood and at certain periods their economic official paper, complaining of their complaisance in vulnerability. allowing Dutch, Spanish and Venetian ships to trade in their ports? Similar protestsand orders flowed intermit- Generations of Americans grew up in an English- tently from the British governmental offices throughout oriented educational atmospherewhere one of the his- the seventeenthcentury, only to be craftily circumvented torical superstitions drilled into our grade-school heads by the Dutch and the English colonials, working was the sacred nature and unchallenged supremacy of together. British maritime trade laws in the colonial period. Within recent years research historians and archaeologists, Justin Winsor claimed that the Dutch had been trading working in a variety of interlocking disciplines, have on the New England coast since 1598,4which supports revealed the cracks in this structure. In the early seven- the earlier claim of Isaack de Rasiere, West India Com- teenth century, severalnations tradedhere, often in viola- pany agent at New , who in 1627 wrote tion of British statutes,and none with such insouciance William Bradford that the Dutch had been trading there as the Dutch, who were traders by tradition and masters for twenty-six years.’ This trade of coursewas primarily of the art. with the indigenous people, or with the French settle- ments in Maine and Canada. Throughout the seventeenthcentury the exigencies of European politics had their echo in the American JamesBradley, of the MassachusettsHistorical Com- colonies, and Britain’s attitudes toward the Dutch trade mission, remarks that “The initial pattern of Dutch trade here varied with the changes in its diplomatic relation- was random cruising along the mid-Atlantic and north ships with the . Thus, the Treaty of Atlantic coasts, the ships of several small rival com- Southampton (September7, 1625) between the British panies competing with one another.” Bradley further and the Dutch marked a relaxation of barriers in provid- points out that Dutch traders “continued to work the ing that “the ports shall be open and free for the subjects southerncoast of New England well into the seventeenth of both parties as well as merchants,” and that “[Dutch] century,” that is, for many years after the Dutch had merchant ships can take shelter in English ports without bowed out asa political power in ? Many unloading cargoesor paying duties.“’ Yet such trading sourcedocuments support thesestatements. amnestiescould be quickly supersededby the passageof the strictest of navigation laws, or nullified by actual war What are believed to be Dutch-supplied artifacts have between England and Holland. been found on the site of Pentagoetand at other settle- ments in Maine.7 Apparently some of the early Maine In 1651, after the blood bath of the Civil War, the sites there were excavated some years ago by non- Commonwealth government, free at last to get on with professionals, whose records were not complete. The the country’s business,passed the first Navigation Act, Plymouth people had a trading post and settlement there which sharply curbed the trade of the English colonies in 1625, however, and they almost certainly traded with with foreign powers. A minute of the English Privy the Dutch at that time. Pentagoet was later a French Council of 1662, concerning the “secret trade with the settlement,and still later an English one. And the Dutch Dutch,” charges that the plantations were “delivering took it from the English in 1674 in the course of one of tobaccoat sea. . . carrying the sameto New England. . . the AngleDutch wars.

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As the number of English settlementsgrew in New Jansz Damen gave power of attorney to England, it becameevident to all of thesethat they could sell the ship St. Pieter in New England.lc Allerton was not count on the mother country for the economic support originally a Plymouth settler who had lived in Holland, they needed. This was in part because some of the and more than any other New Englander, except perhaps settlements were founded as private fur trading Thomas Willett, identified himself with the Dutch and enterprisessupported by entrepreneurswhose operating was deeply involved with them in trade. capital often proved unequal to the demand;but in large part the problems of the New England settlers came Undoubtedly, the final circumstance that drove the about because,to put it crudely, the British government New Englanders into the arms of the Dutch, commer- and the British commercial world had not yet got their cially speaking, was the troubles in England leading to colonial act together. the Civil War, which so preoccupied the governing authorities there that they seriously neglected the The period of the 1640swas a particularly critical one colonies. The outbreak of the war itself, in 1642, inten- for the New England colonists. There developeda drastic sified the isolation of the New England settlers. As shortageof credit, which in turn affected the fur tradeby Bailyn says in his book on New England merchants in limiting the supply of trade goods they could import. In the seventeenthcentury, the war “snapped1the organizing addition, English merchants of that period knew little cords of public life” in England.*’ Left to fend for about the taste of the Indians in goods, and there is themselves, the New England people had no recourse documentary evidence that both the French in Canada other than to trade with the Dutch. and the English in New England recognized the superior appealto the native Americans of Dutch trade goods,and As one studies the numerous documentsthat testify to were eager to obtain these.Ready money was so drasti- the activity and continuity of the trade between New cally short in New England at this time that it was Englanders and the Dutch, there appearsto have existed necessaryfor the Massachusettslegislature to pass acts between the two a kind of love-hate relationship. Both encouraging the use of barter in trade.* The Dutch had acknowledged this, yet neither allowed it to destroy a long been comfortable with barter as a means of ex- mutually beneficial commerce, though this was change; and it was the Dutch, too, who introduced the occasionally interrupted by bickering. However, both New England tradersto the useof wampum and who first sides were singularly indifferent to the attitudes of their supplied them with it. respective governments toward their trade.

Once the supply of beaver was exhausted in the New England area, their was on the way out. Unlike Plymouth the French and the Dutch, they could not expand E. B. O’Callaghan, a basic historian of the westward or northward because those two nations Dutch period, states that the Dutch and the Plymouth blocked them in these directions. The New Englanders settlers had not met until 1627,12which is difficult to had to turn to other industries to survive; and one of these understand, considering the Pilgrim’s residence in they began seriously to consider was shipping, by which Holland prior to their coming to New England and the they would eventually achieve a lucrative foreign trade. early Dutch presence up and down the New England The New Englanders needed ships immediately, how- coast.At any rate, in 1627Isaack de Rasiere,agent of the ever, and turned to the Dutch to supply these until they West India Company who was then in N~ewAmsterdam, could build their own. wrote a letter to Bradford in Plymouth, suggesting that “. . . If it so fall out that any goods that Among the various documentary sources that testify comes to our hands from our native countrie, may be to this commercein maritime craft are the Boston Aspin- serviceable unto you, we shall take our selves bound to wall PapersPand the New York Historical Manuscripts: help and accomodatetherwith; either for beaver or any Dutch. The latter are indispensible to anyone doing re- other wares or marchandise that you should be pleased search in New York’s early history. The Dutch were to deale for.“13 Governor Bradford immediately replied, usually the vendors in these sales, though occasionally saying, “Your freindly offer to accomodateus with any the role was reversed. Typical is a court record of a commodities . . . is to us very acceptable.” Yet he added transaction at in a paragraph asking that the people of New Netherland whereby on 26 January 1645,Jan Evertsen Bout and Jan “would forebearto trade with the natives in this bay, and DUTCH TRADE WITH NEW ENGLAND 237 river of Narragansett . . . which is as it were at our ships between English suppliers and New England mer- doors.“r4 Later, writing about these exchanges in his chants were an exceptionally useful bond.“20 This is History of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford stated that it something that impresses one in going through the was the Dutch who at this time introduced the people of Aspinwall Papers, which are the records of a Boston Plymouth to the use of wampum in the Indian trade, and notary from 16$4-1651. Yet even this consanguinity adds,‘After this ther was many passagesbetweene them between the merchants of the town of Boston and the bothandtheyhad... profitable commercetogether for City of London was not enough to freeze out the Dutch diverce years . . . *‘I5 Weedenquotes Bradford as saying trade, though it may have modified the type of goods that in this trade the Dutch received tobacco from exchanged. Plymouth in exchange for Dutch consumergoods.” John Winthrop’s Journal records that a Dutch pink One of those serio-comic embroilments in which the arrived in Boston in May 1633,21and in October of the colonial Americans sometimes found themselves in- same year a bark from IvIassachusettsBay visited New volved occurred in connection with the Dutch-Plymouth Amsterdam, where they were kindly entertained, and tradewhen in the year 1634,acertain Captain Stonefrom traded for beaver?2 He further notes, “Our neighbors of the Island of St. Christopher, while on a visit to New Plymouth and we oft trade with the Dutch at Hudson’s Amsterdam,persuaded Twiller, the Dutch governor> river, “23 and he lists among the commodities received to let him seize a trading bark from Plymouth moored from the Dutch tiere, sheep and beaver, brass cannon, there. Stone and followers went aboardthe bark when its sugar, wine, linen and other commodities. We find an masterand mate were ashoreand ordered the crew to set echo of this in a New Netherland document for 1650 sail. Then as William Bradford tells it in his history of showing that at that time New Netherland officials com- Plymouth, “They all sailed away toward .“‘7 plained that Stuyvesant “hath sold the Company’s guns I-Iowever, some Dutch seamenat the harbor, resenting and cannon, with all sorts of munitions of war, to the the treatment given their friends from Plymouth, gave English at Boston.“24 chaseand recaptured the bark. The early Boston records, as well as those of New One would expect this to be the end of Captain Stone, Netherland, all testify to this constant contact in trade but Bradford recounts that he “came afterwards to between IvktssachusettsBay and the Dutch. Weeden,the Plymouth and had friendly and civil1 entertaimente,” New England historian, says,“The Boston trade with the after which he unsuccessfully tried to stab Governor Dutch had assumed such proportions by’ 1643 that a Bradford, and was expelled from the colony. Later, special act was passed there to regulate the Dutch returning to New England again, he incurred the coin. ‘Y’sThis need to use Dutch currency also indicates displeasure of the Western Niantic Indians who, in that the Massachusettspeople lacked English money. Bradford’s words, “knockt him in the head as he lay in his cabine.“‘* Given the characterof Captain Stone,one IvIuch of the Boston trade cleared through New cannot judge the Indians too harshly. Later this became Amsterdam, but free trading ships from Holland also one of the alleged causes of a bitter war between the appearin theserecords, though in violation of West India Niantics and the settlers.” Company regulations. Long after the original navigation act of 1651, the British Lords of trade were so exercised Plymouth becamea backwatertown when it no longer over Boston’s evasion of their trade laws that they sent had accessto peltry, but until then its tradewith theDutch Edward Randolph over to look into this. He reported, was considerable. “All nations have free liberty to vend their commodities t.here.“26Certainly, no one who understandsthoroughly Dutch trading proclivities could doubt that the Dutch were among those who took full advantageof this, even Although the MassachusettsBay Colony madea tardy if documentary sourceswere not there to show it. entry on the colonial scene,within a few years Boston was the only town in North America that could rival New The Aspinwall Papershave Dutch names,anglicized Amsterdam in its commerce. It was heavily populated to such a degree that one only knows they are Dutch with people closely related to influential London mer- becauseof the familiar Dutch name combinations, and chantsof the time, and, as Bailyn wrote, “Blood relation- the accompanying namesof their ships. One Dutchman 238 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS appearsas Christopher Johnson-in reality Christoffel before she had been delivered to the purchaser,Comelis Jansen,master of the Oranjeboom, out of Amsterdam. ClaesenSnoy, masterof the ship St. Beninjo, a Dutch free trading vessel then lying at New Haven, asked permis- In studying the ceramic artifacts found on early seven- sion of theNew Netherland authorities to proceedtoNew teenth century Boston archaeological sites, one finds Amsterdamto trade. Although this would be in violation Dutch types, yet the number of theseis fewer than those of regulations, Stuyvesant found on Virginia and sites. At the Virginia granted the requeston the grounds that he,had no means plantation sites and at Jamestown,one is amazedat the of forcibly seizing the St. Beninjo, and thought the local sheer quantity of these. It is true, however, that Boston merchantsmight as well profit from the trade.29A short and the two southerncolonies occupied different societal time later the master and one of the owners of the St. frames,the one representedby small town sitesof Puritan Beninjo arrived in on Govert Aertsen’s sloop, homes that had a contained economy; the other by the having left their ship in New Haven. The New Nether- plantation households of a free-spending, tobacco-rich land authorities had by this time estabhshed that the people. Inevitably their material cultures diverged. ship’s cargo included contrabandin the form of guns and powder, and they decided on a plan to seize her. Since Whatever the reasonfor this difference in the artifacts, the Swol was scheduledto be delivered to her new owner it does not nullify the documentary evidence that the in New Haven, they determined to equip that craft with Dutch commodity trade with Boston was a flourishing a fighting crew and ammunition sufficient to take the St. one. Beninjo by force and bring her to Manhattan, which was subsequentlyaccomplished.30 In consequenceof clashes of interest between the New Netherland recordsand the recordsof the Colony Dutch and the Connecticut settlers on the north shore of of Connecticut both contain references to trading , on the South River (), and on the contractsbetween private individuals from the two areas. , where the Dutch had in 1633 estab- For the most part theseare insignificant in the number of lished Fort Goed Hoop, Dutch relationships with Con- personsand goods involved, yet they may be considered necticut were stormier than with the other New England as a kind of tip of the iceberg of a wider trade. There is colonies. So inflamed was the situation by 3 April 1642 no time here to consider the sheer bulk of charges, that on that date the Council for New Netherland forbade counter charges, and conflicting land claims that fre- its citizens to trade with Connecticut because of the quently interrupted the trade between the Dutch and English takeover there of Dutch-claimed territory.” Connecticut. Yet the trade persisted-without doubt be- This was a most significant action when it is considered causeit was to the interest of both sides. that the Dutch rarely let hostilities interfere with their trade. In the end, however, the mutual cupidity of the Dutch and the Connecticut settlers proved stronger than the wrangling of their officials, and trade between the Strong documentary evidence supports the Dutch two continued throughout the century, though perhaps claim voiced by Petrus Stuyvesant on several occasions never in such volume or in such friendliness as with the that it was the Dutch who originally named Rhode other . Island-by them spelled Roode Eylant-meaning “Red Island.“3 ’ Rhode Island histories usual1.yattribute the As in the case of Massachusetts,contracts involving derivation of the name to the Island of Rhodes. Whether the exchange of ships between New Netherland and or not at Charlestown, Rhode Island, was Connecticut appearoften enough in the court records to a Dutch fort or an Indian one, as has been disputed, there indicate a brisk trade in that area. In a bill of sale of is documentary and archaeological evidence that the September, 1647, Petrus Stuyvesant conveyed to Dutch were trading there in the .32Paul Huey has StephenGoodyear, deputy governor of New Haven, the establishedthat a heavily ornamentedbrass circlet found former West India Company ship, Sw01.~*This had a archaeologically at Fort Ninigret is identical to the one rather interesting sequel. As has been noted earlier, a recovered from the wreck of the Dutclh ship Batavia certain amount of the Dutch tradewith New England was which sank off Western Australia in 1629.33 Other carried on sub rosa by Dutch free traders operating out artifacts believed to be Dutch have lbeen found at of Holland. In 1647 shortly after the sale of the Swof,but Ninigret?4 DUTCH TRADE WITH NEW ENGLAND 239

Fig. 43. Resolution to furnish Govert Aertsen with a certificate, to be shown to the magistratesof New England, that he is not Govert Loockermans. NYCM, IV/385. Coureesyof the New York StateLibrary, Albany.

In certain respects the Dutch and the liberal Rhode though as JeremiasClercq and Ryckart Smit-a reversal Islanders had more in common than either had with the of the New England habit of anglicizing the Dutch authoritarian government of MassachusettsBay. After names. its founding, Rhode Island was for a time dependenton the Indian trade, yet like other English colonies, found it The coming of membersof the Society of Friends to difficult to maintain credit for tradegoods in England, or Rhode Island, in 1657, was another factor that even to obtain from there trade goods pleasing to the encouraged the Dutch trade there, since the Indian. It was natural, then, that they should turn to the perhapshad even more reason than the earlier settlers to Dutch at nearby Manhattan to supply them. dislike and distrust the men of MassachusettsBay. In May, 1658, the Rhode Island general assembly forbade With the events leading to the Civil War in England, the seizureof Dutch ships in NarragansettBay, unlessby the problem of tradegoods became acute. On 19 Septem- special order from England or by an order of the Rhode ber 1642, the general court of Newport ordered the Island general assembly itself.37 This was probably in governor to “treat with the Dutch to supply us with answer to the privateering against Dutch ships that had necessaries,and to take of our commodities at such rate come about in Rhode Island with the commencementof as may be suitable.“35 Bridenbaugh, another authorita- the first Anglo-Dutch war in 1652,and which appearsto tive New England historian, commentsthat “Throughout have been distasteful to many Rhode Islanders since it the forties [], most of the growing carrying trade causedan interruption in their trade with the Dutch. between New Netherland and Rhode Island went on in Dutch bottoms.“36 Several prominent Rhode Island Unquestionably, the three Anglo-Dutch wars in the merchants and Dutch skippers are named by Briden- secondhalf of the seventeenthcentury made it difficult baugh as being engaged in mutual trading, while there for the Dutch to continue trade with the English colonies, were two others,Jeremy Clarke and Richard Smith, who yet it is probable that the trade with Rhode Island was the maintained houses at Manhattan, and are mentioned least affected, since relationships between the two had repeatedly in the Dutch court and notarial records there, always been especially cordial. When in 1653 the Rhode 240 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

Island assembly prohibited trade with the Dutch with a volume hitherto grossly underestimated. One of the whom England was then at war, the citizens of reasonsfor this undoubtedly is that it was not publicized Providence objected declaring that they “knew not for at the time becausemuch of it was contralbandin nature, what reasons” the trade was stopped.38 and, even when legal, the trade was never popular in English governmental quarters. Again, many legitimate Smuggling was usual among the Dutch trading frater- trading activities had no need to be enterfedin the public nity, and a typical caseof this kind is documentedin the records, and, in any event, only a small percentage of Council Minutes of New Netherland for 2 May 1648, in seventeenthcentury American records h,avesurvived. which Govert Loockermans, a prominent trader, is accused of selling contraband powder and lead to the The Dutch were not merely clever traders, good at Rhode Island Indians?9 making a fast guilder, but had behind them centuries of trading to survive in adifficult environment. Long before Existing seventeenth century documents convey an the end of the sixteenth century they had been trading impression that Dutch trade relationships with Rhode with all kinds of people throughout the world, and had Island were closer and more genuinely friendly than with perfected techniques of supply to meet any demand. any other of the New England communities. England, on the other hand, even as late as the seven- teenth century was just emerging from the status of an Conclusion agricultural society into an industrial economy, and was still inexperienced at coordinating the production and In the course of more than a year spent in researching distribution of goods. Her American colonies, victims of Dutch trade with the English settlements in North this ineptitude, were forced to look ta the Dutch for America that coexisted with New Netherland, I found an supplies. unsuspectedwealth of documentary evidence, as well as abundantarchaeological testimony, that this trade wasof DUTCH TFMDE WITH NEW ENGL/JND 241

‘Edmund B. O’Callaghan, Documents Relative to the lgBruce 6. Trigger, vol. ed., Handbook of North Colonful History of the State of New York, 14 ~01s. American Indians, (Washington: Smithsonian Institu- (Albany: Weed, Parsons&Co., 1853-58), III: 2,%6,23. tion, 1978), XV: 89. ‘Ibid., III: 44. 2%ernard Bai 1y n, The New England Merchants, 35. 31bid.,III: 45. “‘James Kendall Hosmer, ed., John Winthrop Journal 4Jnstin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of 1630-1M9, 2 ~01s. (New York: Charles Scribner’s America, 8 vols., @Jew York: AMS Press,1967),m: 193. §ons, 1908), I: 102. ‘William Bradford, History of Plymoudh Plantation 221bid.,I: 109. 1606- 1646. William T. Davis, ed. (New York: Charles 231bid.,I: 130. Scribner’s Sons, 19Og),224-25. 2%dmundB. 0’ Cal lag han, Documems Relative, I: 442. 6JamesW. Bradley, “Blue Crystals and Other Trinkets: 25William Weeden,Economic and Social History, I: 143; Glass Beads from 16th and Early 17th Century New see also, Justin Winsor, Memorial History of Boston, 4 England,” Proceedings of the 1982 Glass Bead Con- ~01s.(Boston: JamesOsgood B Co., lggO), I: 279-80, ference, Records No. 16, (Rochester, MY.: Rochester which gives this date as 1642. Museum and ScienceCenter, 1983), 35. %epslard Bailyn, The New England Merchants, 157. 7Symposium on Acadian Settlements in the 17th Cen- 27Arnold 9.F. van Laer, et al., New York Historical tury, Annual meeting of the Society for Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, IV: 140. Archaeology, Boston, January 9--13,1985; also, conver- saions with Paul R. Huey, who directed excavation of ““Ibid., II: 489. Ft. Orange (Albany,N.Y.) in 1970-71. 2gIbid., Iv: 435,453. “Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in 6he 3eIbid., IV: 45340. Seventeens/z Century (New York: Harper and Row, 3’Edmund B. Q’CdlagghaqDocumentsRelative, I: 285. 1964), 48. 3%illiam B. Goodwin, “Notes Regarding the Origin of ‘A Volume Relating lo the Early History of Boston, Fort Ninigret in the Narragansett Country at Charles- Containing the Aspinwall Notarial Recordsfrom 1644- town,” RhodeIslandHistorical Society Collections, Vol. 1651, volume 32 of RecordsRelating to the Early History 25, No. 1 (January 1932), l-2; Robert Grieve, “The Sea of Boston, 1877-1909, (Boston: Municipal Printing Trade and Its Development in Rhode Island and Office, 1903). Frovidence Plantations,” published in Edward Field’s “Arnold JP. van Laer, et al., New York Hs’storical State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations al the Manuscripts: Butch 4 ~01s. (Baltimore: Genealogical End of the Century: A History, 2 ~01s.(Boston: The Publishing Co., Inc., 1974), XI:289. Mason Publishing Co., 1902). II: 390. 1‘Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchan& 45. 33Myra Stanbury, camp., Batavia Catalog, (Perth: 12EdmundB. O’Callaghan, History ofNew Netherland, Departmentof Marine Archaeology, WesternAustralian 2 ~01s.(New York: Appleton-Century, 1848),I: 105. Museum, [19741BAT 3132. 13William T. Davis, ed., Bradford’s History ofPlymouth 3%illiam B. Goodwin, “Notes Regarding the Origin of Plantation 1606-1646 mew York: Charles Scribner’s Fort Ninigrec” \I: 11. Sons, 1908), 224-25. 35Records of the Colony ofRhode Island ati Providence ‘$bid. Plantation in New England 1636-1663 (Providence: A. ?bid., 226-27. Crawford Greeneand Brother, 1856), I: 126. 36Carl Bridenbaugh, Fat Mutton and Liberty of Con- ‘%?illiam Weeden,Economic and Social History ofNew science (Providence: Brown University Press,1974), 23. England 1620-1789 2 ~01s.(New York: Hilary House Publishers, Ltd., 1963) I: 124. 371bid.,BP. 17Williarn T. Davis, ec%.Bradford’s History, 3 10-l 1. 3gRecords of the Colony of Rhode Island, I: 261. ‘“Ibid. 3gArnold J.F. van Laer, et al., New York Historical Manuscrips: Dtdsch, IV: 519. Fig. 44. Cartouche from pieter Goos, L’Atlas de la Mer Courtesy of Manuscripts & Special Collections, New York StateLibrary, Albany. This 1667 map shows furs prized in the Indian trade.