Burke, New Netherland Fur Trade, 1657-1661
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The New Me Russell Sage College 1n June of 1@3, Arent van Curler wrote to the patroon, bank of the river to the north of the now derelict Fort Kiliaen van Rensselaer,describing a visit he recently had Nassau? madeto the villages of the Mohawk. In the courseof that journey he had examined the rich alluvial lands that lay By accident, the Dutch had located their trading opera- along the Mohawk River sixteen miles north and west of tions on the Hudson River at the juncture of two similar, Beverwijck and Rensselaerswijck. Van Curler if conflicting, native cultures. At least three Mahican recognized the site’s potential for the establishmentof a villages were to be found north and south of Fort Orange community, and wrote enthusiastically that he had seen between Catskill and Cohoes. During his brief stay “the most beautiful land that eye may wish to see.” In upriver in 1609, Henry Hudson had traded with these spite of this glowing report, no community was estab- Algonquian-speaking people. The nearest Iroquoian- lished at the time. The creation of a village on the speaking group, the Mohawk, had their villages located Mohawk River was to be delayed for almost two decades some thirty or more miles to the west, near modem until the late 1650s and early 1660s when a complex Canajoharie.The stateof conflict which existed between convergenceof events would make such a settlementan the two native groups was early recognized by the Dutch. economic and diplomatic necessity for both the Dutch In 1625, Johannes de Laet recorded in his Nieuwe and Mohawk.’ Wereldt ofte beschrijvinghe van West-Indien (New World or Descriptions of the West Indies) that the The founding of the village of Schenectadyduring the Mohawk lived west of the Hudson River and their last years of Dutch rule in New Netherland was to be enemies,the Mahican, lived to the east. In fact, not until intimately tied to the depressedstate of the province’s 1628 or 1629 were the Mohawk able to force the fur trade and to the threat posed to that trade by English Mahican to vacate fully land to the west of the river. commercial interests from Massachusetts.The begin- Perhaps the clearest indication of the latter tribe’s nings of the fur trade in the Dutch colony extendedback diminished power was the August 13,1630, agreement at leastas far as 1609.In Septemberof that year, asHenry concluded between the Mahican and the director and Hudson’s Halve Maen entered New York Bay, local council of New Netherland by which a substantial body Indians boarded the ship offering skins for trade. As the of land to the west of the Hudson River was purchased Halve Maen sailed upriver, Hudson himself traded for for the benefit of the patroon, Kiliaen van Rensselaer.4 &aver and otter pelts with Mahican Indians in the vicinity of today’s Albany.2 During the 1620s and 163Os,the Dutch West India Company sought to control the New Netherland fur trade Hudson’s voyage demonstrated the existence of a and to prohibit private traders at Fort Orange and readily available sourceof fine quality furs and of native through-out the colony. Kiliaen van Rensselaer also peopleseager to exchangethis peltry forEuropean-made instructed his settlers that no one employed by him or goods.Each yearafter 1609,Dutch ships commandedby living in his colony “shall presumeto barter any peltries Hendrick Christiaensen, Adriaen Block, and others with the savagesor seek to obtain them as a present.” could be found trading on the river. In 1614,Fort Nassau, Official prohibitions, however, whether by the Company a fortified trading post, was constructed on an island in or the patroon, proved fruitless. Emigrants to New the river with Hendrick Christiaensenin command.This Netherland quickly became competitors for furs and structure, near present-dayAlbany, was subject to yearly wampum even though such trade was forbidden to flooding, however, and was soon abandoned. In 1624, them.5 Until 1639 Fort Orange, officially, was the ex- the newly-established Dutch West India Company clusive trading post of the Dutch West India Company. erecteda more permanentpost, Fort Orange,on the west Yet, the Company was forced to contend with smuggling 283 284 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS Fig. 49. The Dutch and Indians trading Furs, drawing by Leonard F. Tantillo, 1985. Courtesy of the Colonial Albany Social History Project. by its own servants, the increasing sophistication of trade in furs was in decline. The high point of the trade native traders, and the efforts of patroons like Van at Beverwijck came in 1656 and 1657 when as many as Rensselaerwho sought to exploit the fur trade for their 40,000 beaver and otter skins were slhipped to New own profit. In 1639, the Company opened the trade to Amsterdam each year. Within two years, however, the private individuals provided that they pay a duty on all situation had altered dramatically. In 11659,Governor goods taken into or out of the province. Fort Orange was Petrus Stuyvesant reported to the directors of the Dutch maintained as a Company outpost, but it increasingly West India Company that at Beverwijck: neighbor com- becamea place of rendezvous and settlement for private plained against neighbor “because of the decline of the traders who congregated in the village of Beverwijck trade, which grows worse from year to year.” Stuyvesant which grew up to the north of the forL6 noted the high prices which now had to be paid for skins as well as the extravagant quantity of presentsdemanded Contemporary records suggest a steady increase in by the Indians.* volume in the colony’s fur trade during the three decades after 1624. Between 1625 and 1640, Fort Orange Obvious explanations for the decline of the fur trade returned as many as 5,000 skins each year. Additionally, after 1657include exhaustion of the natural supply of fur Adriaen van der Donck estimatedthat between 1644 and bearing animals within the hunting territories of the 1653 80,000 beavers were killed annually in the whole Mohawk and other Indians with whom the Dutch traded of New Netherland. During these sameyears, Arent van as well as intertribal warfare which disrupted the trade in Curler reported on the success of the fur trade at furs from regions not yet depleted to {the west. Over- Rensselaerswijck.In 1643, three to four thousand skins hunting and trapping may have contribulted to the record were shipped from the patroonship and accordin? to Van volume of furs traded at Beverwijck in the late 1650s.If Curler there had never been such a big trade? so, a decline in the population of beaver, otter and other pelt-producing species may have followed. As for the If the first years of private trading brought prosperity, element of conflict, in July 1660 the Senecaadmitted to all evidence indicates that by the end of the 1650s the Governor Stuyvesant that warfare had interrupted their NEW NETHERLAND FUR TRADE 285 trade for furs with other more westerly tribes. This it is the complaints of the Mohawk that provide someof meeting, the first appearanceof the Seneca at Bever- the most striking testimony to the fierce competition for wijck, was itself a signal that of necessitythe trade in furs furs at Beverwijck and to the abuses that could result. was exploiting ever more westerly sourcesof SupplyP Between September and October of 1659, a series of meetings was held at Beverwijck and the first IvIohawk In 1657, 37,OtXl beaver skins were shipped from village, Caughnawaga.The Mohawk requested that no Reverwijck to New Amsterdam between June 20 and Dutchmen on horseback or on foot be allowed to roam September 27. For the community’s Dutch traders, a in the woods and complained that the Dutch would year’s profits had to be made within the three or four surround an Indian and drag him along to one trader month period between June and September by the while claiming that the others had no goods to trade.The exchange of skins for merchandise,clothing, food, and Mohawk also complained of beatings received at the liquor. The reduction in the number of available furs after hands of the traders and the court, in turn, forbade “all 1657 increased the pressuresof competition among the residents of this jurisdiction to molest any savage. on traders and led to a greater dependenceon Indian and pain of arbitrary correction.“” white “brokers.” Brokers were Dutchmen or Indians hired for a fee by the local traders. Their job was to The passagefrom one trading seasonto the next failed intercept Indians bringing furs overland from the to abate either dissension within the community of Mohawk River to Beverwijck, and to offer presents traders or disputes between the Dutch and IvIohawk. (often shirts or coats) in the nameof the tradersfor whom Among the Dutch, the use of brokers remained the point they worked. If the presents were accepted,then it was of division. In May 1660, twenty-five personspetitioned expected‘that the Indians would stop at that person’s the court, announcing that they awaited the start of house on reaching Beverwijck.” another trading season,and warning “that the Christians are again about to run into the woods as brokers in order It was a system open to abuseand difficult to control. by. some improper ways to get the trade entirely into In 1655, when the Beverwijck court issued an ordinance their hands.” The petitioners claimed that this would “against going into the woods to trade,” the magistrates result in the “decline and utter ruination of Fort Orange were accused“in villainous and contemptuousterms.