Walloon-born Peter Minuit was the third Director of New Netherland from 1626 until his dismissal for reasons that remain unclear in 1632. Five years later he founded, on behalf of the Swedish government, a settlement on the lower South River (now the Delaware River) which he named New Sweden.
This rivalry between the Dutch and the Swedish for control of the local fur trade came to a climax when Peter Stuyvesant became Director-General of New Netherland in 1647.
Fearing English expansion towards the colony, the latter decided to attack the Swedish base at Fort Christina. Built in 1638 and named after Christina, Queen of Sweden, this base offered its settlers a better strategic presence on the river than the Dutch enjoyed at nearby Fort Nassau.
In 1651, Stuyvesant built a stronghold on a sandy hook with a commanding view up and down the area and called it Fort Casimir. It was to be short-lived under that name, for the Swedes and Finns soon captured the structure and renamed it Fort Trinity (following its seizure on Trinity Sunday in 1654).
In September 1655, Stuyvesant returned and conquered the entire colony of New Sweden. Under the terms of surrender the settlements were incorporated into New Netherland.
To assert his authority in the area, Stuyvesant decided that the foundation of a permanent base was essential. Having reached agreement with local inhabitants, he laid out a settlement on the site of a village named Tomakonck (Place of the Beaver) which he called Nieuwer Amstel (New Amstel).
Population Issues
From the outset, Amsterdam merchants had dominated the commercial links with New Netherland. Stuyvesant needed new settlers, but after attempts by the West India Company (WIC) to populate the colony had failed, formal arrangements were made with Amsterdam’s Council to work together in developing New Amstel.
Negotiations were set in motion and by June 1656, the Governor was informed of the future involvement of Amsterdam’s burgomasters in the running of the South River settlement. The Dutch Republic’s States General ratified the contract for a “City Colony” on August 16, 1656. It is the only instance of a European city having its own colony in the New World.
Jacob Alrichs was appointed as the first Director of New Amstel (but under the general supervision of Stuyvesant). Arriving in 1657 with about 200 colonists, he built a town hall; a wharf and store house; a bake and guardhouse; a forge and brick kilns. By the end of the year New Amstel was a town of hundred buildings.
During the eight years that the South River colony was under Amsterdam rule, the authorities spent considerable effort to expand its population by launching a public emigration campaign.
A pamphlet containing the Conditien (Conditions) of migration was published by Jan Banning, the city’s authorized printer, as a public display of Amsterdam’s participation in the project. It is one of the more remarkable documents within the early history of migration.
The pamphlet listed thirty-five articles of support to potential settlers. They were promised that their families and property would be transported safely; they were guaranteed plots of fertile unclaimed land close to the South River (recommended for its healthy climate); the city authorities would provide them with a year’s worth of clothing and plant seed; they also made sure that a schoolmaster was appointed to look after the educational needs of the young.
The authorities were particularly keen for family units to move. Managing a large number of unattached young men would be a recipe for future trouble and commotion amongst the colonists. The project was designed to save the colony from collapse in the face of internal weakness and English hostility.
Amsterdam’s authorities were hoping that the colonization scheme would bring economic benefit to the city itself. At a time that the supply of timber and grain from the Baltic was hampered by the First Northern War ( 1655–1660) between Sweden and Denmark, the American colony might become an additional source of supplies. There may have been hidden considerations as well, for a city struggling to cope with problems caused by mass immigration.
Social Problems
By the late sixteenth century, Amsterdam had developed into a hub of religious refugees and economic migrants. In a mix of Flemish Protestants, French Huguenots, German Lutherans and Iberian Jews, immigrants formed a majority of its population. Managing large numbers of displaced persons, orphans and abandoned children was a continuous burden to the authorities.
Most cities suffered high mortality rates on account of recurrent epidemics. Orphan chambers (weeskamers) were charged with managing the inheritances of the minor heirs of deceased citizens. As early as the thirteenth century, magistrates had been handed custody over under-age orphans. City officials guarded their valuables for safekeeping. Orphan chambers were later established to handle this work on their behalf.
The WIC had serious labor shortages in the colonies. As orphanages needed substantial funds to take care of children, sending orphans to New Netherland was one way of solving the issue. The “orphan trade” relieved Amsterdam from its responsibility of care and supplied New Amstel with workers.
In 1658 Jacob Alrichs reported to the commissioners of the City Colony that a group of orphans had arrived safely from Amsterdam and that all of them had been placed as apprentices with “good masters.”
The Orphan Chamber of New Amsterdam was founded in 1656 and based on the Dutch model. It appraised estates, sold assets and kept valuables for safekeeping. Public auctions took place on the stoop before the City Hall and the proceeds received by the Chamber were put to use in the city’s economic affairs.
As the colony had no banks, the institution was an important source of capital for funding local business and administrative undertakings.
Pull or Push?
Throughout its early existence, New Netherland was conceived of in paradoxical terms: at once a land of possibilities for investment and an unpleasant swamp of backwaters where few residents of the affluent Republic would be tempted to live. As a consequence, many settlers in New Netherland were originally immigrants to Holland who decided (or were encouraged) to cross the Atlantic in search of opportunities.
The year 1656 was a busy one. In June that year three ships from the Baltic port of Klaipėda, Lithuania, anchored in Amsterdam harbor. They carried three hundred Ashkenazi Jews fleeing persecution in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (they had most likely paid a considerable amount for their passage).
They disembarked in a miserable state and were dependent of support of the Amsterdam authorities and the city’s predominantly Sephardic Jewish community.
In the spring of 1655 Protestant Europe was shocked by the news of a massacre that had occurred amongst the Reformed Waldensians in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont.
The Duke of Savoy’s forces had entered the Pellice Valley (south-west of Turin) wreaking carnage among the local population. Some two thousand people were killed during what came to be known as the “Piedmontese Easter.”
Many survivors of the massacre fled to the Republic. In 1656, three hundred Waldensians made their way to New Amstel at the expense of the city of Amsterdam.
The Hollantse Mercurius, a monthly periodical dealing with world news, reported the fact that these refugees had agreed to move on to the City Colony on the South River. Were they persuaded or pushed by the authorities?
The Year 1655
When the exploration of New Netherland stagnated because of a sufficient workforce and the refusal of Native Americans to become involved, it felt “natural” to look elsewhere for workers. At home there had always been a pool of migrant labor to draw on in case of shortages, but the situation in the colony was different. Slavery offered a solution to the lack of manpower.
Slaves (mostly from the Caribbean) helped to build Fort Amsterdam, develop the colony’s infrastructure and protect the settlement from hostile attacks. Without their involvement, New Netherland might not have survived.
Slaves were also involved in the building of New Amstel, but the socio-economic landscape had changed by then. In the early summer of 1655 a vessel named Witte Paert (White Horse) reached New Amsterdam from West Central Africa.
Funded by private investors, this was the first direct shipment of enslaved Africans to arrive there. In the past, small numbers of captives had been transported at irregular intervals aboard privateers and were sold as “prizes” in Manhattan. When Jacob Alrichs died in New Amstel in 1659 he left eighteen slaves amongst his “possessions.”
Lawyer and landowner Adriaen van der Donck had resided for a decade in present-day Albany before conflicts with Governor Peter Stuyvesant prompted his return to Amsterdam.
In 1655, he published the best contemporary account of the colony entitled Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant. The book was published in Amsterdam by Evert Nieuwenhof and created considerable curiosity.
The latter quickly issued a corrected reprint (1656) to which he added an engraved map and view of New Amsterdam. With permission from the authorities, the publisher-bookseller added the text of the Conditien of migration. Both map and text were also sold separately.
For the first time, New Netherland was made visible to a wide Dutch audience. Detailed descriptions of the Hudson River Valley and its inhabitants did attract new settlers, but in spite of the hype the future of the colony looked increasingly bleak.
Decline
The City Colony did not prosper. The threat of English encroachment in addition to financial troubles and failed harvests, put the whole undertaking at risk. Jacob Alrichs complained about the poor quality of new settlers as few of them were competent artisans or capable farmers.
The Director described many of the arrivals as “poor as worms and lazy to boot.” The outpost was not self-supporting. Hunger was widespread and supplies had to be brought in from New Amsterdam.
By 1658 an epidemic of fever created havoc amongst New Amstel’s population. Some hundred settlers died, leaving many families unsupported. Others left the colony altogether and moved to Maryland.
There would have been alcohol-related problems as well. During its Dutch reign, there were as many as three breweries operating in the settlement. In 1657, New Amstel tavern owner Harman Jansen was called before local authorities for tapping beer that he brewed without paying an excise. Jansen is the first brewer identified by name in Delaware’s history.
Upon his death, Jacob Alrichs was succeeded by the colorful figure of Lieutenant Alexander d’Hinoyossa. Born in 1629 in Zaltbommel, Gelderland, to a family of Spanish origin residing in the Netherlands since the early sixteenth century, Alexander was an officer in Brazil at the time that the Dutch surrendered the colony to Portugal in 1654. By 1657, he was in New Amstel and joined Alrichs (who had also served in Brazil).
Locals dubbed him “Little Prince” for his selfish arrogance and accused him of profiteering. In December 1663, he had a brewery constructed inside Fort Casimir which utilized an enormous copper kettle confiscated from the Swedes. Beer became the most important export under his rule which he traded with English merchants in Maryland in exchange for tobacco and enslaved Africans.
According to one account, he tore out palisades from Fort Casimir in order to fire up his brewing kettle. He was more concerned with personal gain than the protection of New Amstel. When New Netherland was in danger of being overrun by English troops, he began selling everything he could lay his hands on to Maryland dealers (including the kettle).
In 1664, Alexander surrendered New Amstel to the British Crown. It was renamed New Castle and made the capital of the Delaware colony. The Dutch briefly regained the town in 1673 during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, but it was returned to Britain the next year under the Treaty of Westminster.
What happened in the end to Lieutenant Alexander d’Hinoyossa? He returned to the Netherlands in 1669 and served in the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678) between the Republic and Louis XIV.
Charged with the defense of the city of Wesel in 1672, he offered no resistance to the troops of Louis II de Bourbon and was subsequently tried for treason and executed.
Illustrations, from above: Model of Fort Christina at the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia; Map of New Sweden sourced from a sketch by Amandes Johnson; photo of a Swedish cabin in Pennsylvania taken in 1937; Map in the second edition of Adriaen van der Donck’s Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant (Amsterdam, Evert Nieuwenhof, 1656); First edition of van der Donck’s Description of New Netherland; and Modern map of New Netherland, showing the location of Fort Nassau and Fort Casimir on the South River (now the Delaware River).
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