Indians. To his immense satisfaction these men confirmed everything that Dermer had earlier argued.'In this place,' he wrote excitedly, 'I talked with many savages who told me of two sundry passages to the great sea on the west [coast of America], offered me pilots, and one of them drew me a plot with chalke upon a chest.' The good news was tempered by bad: 'they report one [passage] scarce passable for shoalds, perillous currents; the other no question to be made of.'
Dermer was not prepared to allow their warning to dampen his enthusiasm and, excited about the imminent fulfilment of his life's dream, 'hastened to the place of greatest hope, where I purposed to make triall of God's goodnesse towards us, and use my best endeavour to bring the truth to light'. But no sooner had he reached the 'passage' than the wind whipped up a storm and forced him to turn and flee,'hardly escaping with our lives'.
Despite this temporary setback, Dermer was thrilled with his discovery and dashed off a letter to Samuel Purchas informing him of the historic news. He even drew a map of the passage, 'yet dare not part with it for feare of danger. Let this [letter] therefore serve for confirmation of your hopes.' Purchas was sufficiently impressed to include the letter in his anthology of exploration, but Dermer's financiers in England were decidedly sceptical about the 'discoveries' of their quixotic adventurer and promptly recalled him to England. Dermer refused, 'resolutely resolving to pursue the ends he aymed at'.
As he sailed towards the mouth of the Hudson on his second attempt, Dermer was surprised to see 'divers ships of Amsterdam and Horna who yearly had there a great and rich trade'. He was even more perturbed to find 'some Hollanders that were settled in a place we call Hudson's River, in trade with the natives'. Curtly informing them that the land belonged to England, Dermer 'forbad them the place, as being by his Majestie appointed to us'. The Dutchmen apologised for their mistake and told him they sincerely hoped 'they had not offended'. Nevertheless, they made no effort to move themselves elsewhere, for the trade in beaver pelts was more profitable here than anywhere else on the coastline.
The news that the Dutch were settling the land around Manhattan aroused considerably more interest in England than had Dermer s supposed discovery of the North-West Passage. King James was already fuming at the belligerence of the Dutch in the 'spiceries' and was determined to prevent them from repeating their successes in America. As far as he was concerned, the American coastline belonged to him by virtue of the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot who had sailed in the service of King Henry VII more than a century previously. Although neither one of this intrepid duo had staked England's claim to the land, Queen Elizabeth I had later argued that merely setting foot in America implied sovereignty, a view championed by Richard Hakluyt, author of The Principall Navigations.
Despite this, England's merchants had been far too preoccupied with the spice race to show much interest in settling the American seaboard and it was not until 1606 that an ambitious merchant called Sir Ferdinando Gordes petitioned King James for a charter for two new companies, one based in London and one in Plymouth. These were given the right to plant colonies 'in that part of America commonly called Virginia', but were ordered to remain one hundred miles apart, a fatal decision, for it was into this gap — in the Hudson River region — that the Dutch had neatly staked their claim.
When the King learned of the Dutch settlements he granted Sir Ferdinando a much larger swathe of land which made him the proprietor of a huge region that stretched from the Hudson to the St Lawrence. Although forbidden from seizing any land already belonging to any Christian prince, the charter noted that King James was of the opinion that no prince was in possession of this stretch of land 'by any authority from their sovereigns, lords, or princes'.
With Manhattan and the Hudson River now safely placed under English jurisdiction — on paper at least - King James wrote to his ambassador in Holland, Sir Dudley Carleton, asking him to investigate whether or not the Hollanders had indeed planted colonies and were in the process of sending vessels to supply them. Sir Dudley, who had spent years arguing with the Dutch over their claims to the Spice Islands, wrote back with the alarming news that the Amsterdam merchants did indeed have a regular trade with the land around Manhattan and 'kept factors there continually resident'. But he added that stories of a Dutch colony had been somewhat overblown and rejected claims that one had been 'either already planted or so much as intended'. The King nevertheless insisted that Sir Dudley register a formal complaint to the effect that, 'the King's government has lately been informed that the Hollanders have planted a colony in these regions, and renamed the ports and harbours, as is their fashion'.
The King was, in fact, wrong to draw a parallel between the traders in Manhattan and those in the 'spiceries', an ironic mistake given the future destiny of these islands. Although a handful of Dutchmen were indeed living in wooden shacks in the Hudson River area - they had arrived in 1611, soon after Hudson's report of a rich and fertile land reached their ears — they would hardly have labelled themselves colonists for they only remained on land for as long as it took to barter their trinkets for the beaver pelts that were in such plentiful supply. Like nutmeg and mace, these pelts fetched astronomical prices on the open market and had been eagerly sought after in northern Europe for centuries, particularly in Germany and Russia where 'they are used for mantle linings; [and] whoever has the costliest fur trimmings is esteemed the greatest.' They retained their value even when they had been worn for years by the Indians and were 'foul with sweat and grease'; indeed, worn skins were often the most highly prized of all for 'unless the beaver ... is greasy and dirty it will not felt properly.'
The spectacular success of the Dutch in the East Indies drove King James to be ever more vociferous in his claims to the land around Manhattan. But the hard work of his ambassador, Sir Dudley, proved to be of no avail for in June 1621, less than three years after Dermer had encountered Dutch vessels in the Hudson, the States General bestowed their charter upon the Dutch West India Company, an organisation modelled on its eastern counterpart. The Company was granted exclusive rights to trade with both the east and west coasts of America and was permitted to conclude treaties with native princes, build castles and settle provinces.
It was not long before the first settlers began to arrive in what was now known as New Netherland. In the spring of 1623, the appropriately named New Netherland slipped out of the Texel carrying a handful of families, 'all of the Reformed religion,' on the long journey across the Atlantic. Their departure did not go unnoticed by the crew of the Bonnie Bess, an English vessel which had only recently been commissioned by 'high authorities' to sail to Manhattan, conduct a search of the area and, 'if we there find any strangers, as Hollanders or others, we are to give them fight and spoil or sink them down into the sea.'
In the event the Bonnie Bess never got to execute these orders and the colonists on board the New Netherland arrived safely at their destination after a trouble-free voyage. Only one of the settlers' names is known, Caterina Trico, who wrote her memoirs some six decades after arriving in America. Although she muddles dates and names, she remembers 'that four women came along with her in the same ship ... which four women were married at sea'. She is equally forgetful about the voyage itself and it is only from maritime records that we learn the New Netherland sailed first to the Canary Islands and the 'Wild Coast' (Guiana) before heading towards the mouth of the Hudson. Later settlers would not forget the trials of the long sea voyage quite so easily as Madame Trico. As with the ships that sailed to the East Indies, there were only a handful of cabins reserved for those who could afford the substantial fare of one guilder a day and everyone else was crammed into the stinking and claustrophobic confines between decks. For two months in summer, and many more in winter, scores of passengers lived, unwashed, in total squalor, sharing their floor space with the filth of pigs, sheep and chickens. Dysentery and fevers were rife and although most settlers carried their own medicine chests, the homespun pills and un
guents they contained were useless against life-threatening disease. It is hardly surprising that many went into raptures when they at last spied the eastern coastline of America. 'There came the smell of the shore,' wrote one early traveller, 'like the smell of a garden.' It was as if they had arrived at the Spice Islands.
The natural beauty of Manhattan also made a deep impression after the long sea voyage. 'We were much gratified on arriving in this country,' reads one account.
'Here we found beautiful rivers, bubbling fountains flowing into the valleys, basins of running waters in the flatlands, agreeable fruits in the woods. There is considerable fish in the rivers, good tillage land; here is, especially, free coming and going, without fear of the naked natives of the country.'
The settlers spread themselves over a wide area of land. According to Caterina Trico, two families and eight men went to Delaware, six to the mouth of the Connecticut River and the rest — totalling eighteen — sailed up the Hudson to Fort Orange, close to the site of present-day Albany. Only eight, all men, were left behind on Manhattan 'to take possession' of their new home. Unlike their fellow colonists in Bantam and Banda who were generally drunkards and 'wholly unsuitable for the plantation of colonies', the settlers despatched to the Hudson were honest and hard-working. They were reliant upon their own labour for food and shelter, but their work paid handsome dividends and it was not long before they were 'bravely advanced' and the grain they had planted was 'nearly as high as a man'. They did have one complaint: 'Had we cows, hogs, and other cattle for food (which we daily expect by the first ships) we would not wish to return to Holland, for whatever we desire in the paradise of Holland is here to be found.' In fact, the cows, hogs and other cattle were on their way. In a meticulously planned operation, a relief expedition set sail carrying more than one hundred horses, cows and sheep on three vessels imaginatively named the Horse, the Cow and the Sheep.
It is not easy to picture the Manhattan of those first settlers. The terrain of the island in those days was hilly and rugged and at its southern end, close to the present-day site of the World Trade Center, were a series of low wooded hills dotted with freshwater ponds. It was here that work started on the much-needed Fort New Amsterdam. Engineer Cryn Fredericks and a number of builders had been sent out with 'special instructions' outlining the precise dimensions of the fort. A carbon copy of the impregnable Fort Belgica on Neira Island in the Bandas, it was shaped like a pentangle and stretched more than a thousand feet in circumference. For additional security, the entire structure was surrounded by a wide moat. The outlines of the fort can still be traced today. Beaver Street, Broad Street, Pearl Street and Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan all follow engineer Fredericks s original ground plan, as do Broadway, Park Row and Fourth Avenue.
It was while work on the fort was in progress that Peter Minuit, the first governor-general of New Netherland, arrived on the island. One of his first acts was to purchase Manhattan from the native Indians, a transaction that the merchants in Amsterdam had been urging for some time. 'In case there should be any Indians living on the aforesaid island or claiming any title to it,' they wrote,'... they must not be expelled with violence or threats, but be persuaded with kind words (to let us settle there), or otherwise should be given something for it to placate them or be allowed to live amongst us, and a contract should be made of such an agreement to be signed by them in their manner'.
Minuit obliged by purchasing the island from the native Indians, paying them to the value of sixty guilders in trinkets. A copy of this transaction, was sent to The Hague and records that 'here arrived yesterday, the ship Arms of Amsterdam ... they report that our people [on Manhattan] are of good cheer and live peaceably. Their wives have also borne children there. They have bought the island Manhattes from the savages for the value of sixty guilders. It is 11,000 morgens in extent. They had all their grain sown by the middle of May and harvested by the middle of August. They send small samples of summer grain, such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, beans and flax'.
By the time this letter arrived in Holland, the fledgling settlement in Manhattan had survived its first difficult years. But although the population soon began to grow, New Amsterdam was never really considered to be a colony by the directors. As with the settlements in the Banda Islands, in Bantam and elsewhere in the East Indies, it was nurtured not for its own sake but for the sake of a profitable trading company. What Amsterdam's merchants could never have imagined is that in seizing Manhattan from the English they had gained themselves a bargaining chip of immense value.
Nathaniel Courthope was one of the sickly few who survived Sir Henry Middleton's disastrous 1610 expedition to the East Indies. His contract still had five years to run when the Trades Increase ran aground in Bantam harbour and he would soon find himself despatched in the near- rotten Darling to search for potential trading partners in the lesser-known Spice Islands. In the meantime he and his fellow survivors recuperated from their trials in the Javanese port of Bantam.
Bantam was the hub of English activity in the East Indies and the first port of call for most of the Company's vessels. Although the city was almost a thousand miles from the 'spiceries,' it was nevertheless from Bantam that ships sailed, factors were despatched and trade organised; and it would eventually be the men living in the port upon whom Courthope's fate was to rest. It had gained the unenviable reputation of being the least hygienic place in the East Indies - 'that stinking stew,' wrote Nicholas Downton, after watching most of his men die in the town. Few disagreed with such a conclusion: 'Bantam is not a place to recover men that are sick,' wrote one, 'but rather to kill men that come thither in health.'
The annals of the East India Company are filled with notices of plagues, sicknesses and deaths that occurred in Bantam but only one journal, written by Edmund Scott, charts the full horror of life in this rotting, disease-ridden port. For more than two years Scott held the post of chief factor to the dozen-strong English community: a period of unremitting hardship in which he witnessed his two superiors die in rapid succession and his men succumb to typhoid and cholera. Malaria, too, was rife, for the oozing mud flats and tidal swamplands that surrounded Bantam provided a fertile breeding ground for swarms of mosquitoes.
Scott's men lived in constant fear of attack and scarcely a day passed without one of their number being assaulted by thieves or bandits. For almost two years their flimsy wooden warehouse, surrounded by a palisade of sharpened stakes, was under a state of siege and 'these continuall alarames and greevous outcryes of men, women, and children grew so rife in oure eares,' wrote Scott, 'that our men in their sleepe would dreame that they were pursuing the Javans and suddainely would leape out of their beddes and ketch their weapons.'
The English looked in vain for any support from the native government for the King was but a child and real power lay in the hands of an unscrupulous Protector who was forever haranguing the foreign traders in the town. Business could only be transacted after proffering large bribes to native officials, yet the bustling commercial life of Bantam continued to attract rival traders from all over the region and within its fly-blown alleys lived a melee of residents whose mutual animosities created endless troubles. Chinese, Indians, Christians and Muslims all lived within a stone's throw of each other and were equally loathed by the quarrelsome Javanese who only tolerated these foreigners because they depended upon their trade. A more worrying threat to the English was the town's unscrupulous head- hunters who faced a constant shortage of heads. 'There were some Javan women that would cut off their husbands' heads in the night and sell them to these people,' records Scott. 'They did linger much about our house; and surely, if we had not kept good watch, they would have attempted the cutting of our throates, if not our heades.' Such was the shortage of heads in the town that 'many times they would digge up such as were new buried at Bantam and cut off their heads.'
There was an unrelenting rivalry between the English and Dutch in all matters pertaining to b
usiness. Fuelled by the heat and insufferable humidity, disagreements frequently boiled over into violence and it was only when faced with serious trouble from the natives that the two nations presented a united front. Indeed, it was Dutch support in times of strife that saved the small English factory from extinction. 'Though we were mortall enemies in oure trade,' penned Scott in one of his more conciliatory moments, 'yet in other matters we were friendes and would have lived and died for one another.' Even this occasional amicability vanished in later years. 'The Flemings thunder it most terribly in these parts,' wrote an English factor a decade later. 'Their untruths are daily more discovered, and they are rather feared than respected by their brutal carriage.'
An additional problem that faced the English in Bantam was the frequent fires that threatened to ravage their warehouse. It was a favourite ploy of would-be thieves to light a fire to the windward of the English warehouse and, in the ensuing confusion, raid the premises and carry off the spices. 'Oh this worde fire!' writes Scott. 'Had it been spoken neere mee, either in English, Mallayes, Javanese or Chynese, although I had been sound asleepe, yet I should have leaped out of my bedde; the which I have done sometimes when our men in their watch have but whispered one to another of fire; insomuch that I was forced to warne them not to talk of fire at night.'
One night, the threat of fire became all too real. At around ten o'clock, as the second watch took over from the first, the men noticed the acrid smell of smoke filtering out from the warehouse. Summoning Scott, they made a thorough search of the premises yet were unable to locate its source. 'Then one of them remembered a hole which a rat had made behind a trunk, that went through the ceiling down into the cloth warehouse.' Heaving the trunk away from the wall, they saw that the smoke was indeed coming from this hole and that the little-used lower warehouse was on fire. There was no time to lose, for two huge jars of gunpowder were stored in the same room 'which caused us greatly to fear blowing up'.