and nameless outrages upon the natives, were rigorously excluded from these regions. Thus the relations existing between the Indians and their European visitors were friendly in the highest degree. Both parties were alike benefited by this traffic; the Indian certainly not less than the European, for he was receiving into his lowly wigwam the products of the highest civilization.
Indian tribes scattered far and wide through the primitive and illimitable forest, plied all their energies with new diligence, in taking game. They climbed the loftiest mountains and penetrated the most distant streams with their snares. Some came trudging to the forts on foot, with large packs of peltries upon their backs. Others came in their birch canoes, loaded to the gunwales, having set their traps along leagues of the river's coast and of distant streams.
Once a year the ships of the company came laden with the most useful articles for traffic with the Indians, and, in return, transported back to Europe the furs which had been collected. Such were the blessings which peace and friendship conferred upon all. There seemed to be no temptation to outrage. The intelligent Hollanders were well aware that it was for their interest to secure the confidence of the Indian by treating him justly. And the Indian was not at all disposed to incur the resentment of strangers from whom he was receiving such great benefits.
The little yacht "Restless," of which we have spoken, on one of her exploring tours, visited Delaware Bay, and ascended that beautiful sheet of water as far as the Schuylkill River. Runners were also sent back from the forts, to follow the narrow trails far into the woods, to open communication with new tribes, to examine the country, and to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Indians.
In the spring of 1617 a very high freshet, accompanied by the breaking up of the ice, so injured Fort Nassau that the traders were compelled to abandon it. A new and very advantageous situation was selected, at the mouth of the Tawasentha Creek, subsequently called Norman's Kill. This name is said to have been derived from a native of Denmark, called the Norman, who settled there in 1630.
In this vicinity there was a very celebrated confederation of Indian tribes called the Five Nations. These tribes were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. They were frequently known by the generic name of the Iroquois. When the Dutch arrived, the Iroquois were at war with the Canadian Indians, who, though composed of different tribes, were known by the general name of the Algonquins. The Iroquois had been worsted in several conflicts. This led them eagerly to seek alliance with the white men, who, with their wonderful instruments of war, seemed to wield the energies of thunder and lightning.
The Algonquins had, some years before, formed an alliance with the French in Canada. The Iroquois now entered into an alliance with the Dutch. It was a very important movement, and the treaty look place, with many surroundings of barbaric pomp, on the banks of the Norman's Kill.
Ambassadors from each of the five tribes graced the occasion. Leading chiefs of several other tribes were also invited to be present, to witness the imposing ceremony. The garrison furnished for the pageant the waving of silken banners and the exhilarating music of its band. The Indian chiefs attended with their decorated weapons, and they were arrayed in the richest costume of war paint, fringed garments, and nodding plumes.
The assembly was large. The belt of peace, gorgeously embroidered with many-colored beads, on softly-tanned deer skin, was held at one end by the Iroquois chieftains, and at the other by the prominent men of the Dutch Company, in their most showy attire. The pipe of peace was smoked with solemn gravity. The tomahawk was buried, and each party pledged itself to eternal friendship.
The united nation of the Iroquois, in numbers and valor, had become quite supreme throughout all this region. All the adjacent tribes bowed before their supremacy. In Mr. Street's metrical romance, entitled "Frontenac" he speaks, in pleasing verse, of the prowess and achievements of these formidable warriors.
"The fierce Adirondacs had fled from their wrath,
The Hurons been swept from their merciless path,
Around, the Ottawas, like leaves, had been strown,
And the lake of the Eries struck silent and lone.
The Lenape, lords once of valley and hill,
Made women, bent low at their conquerors' will.
By the far Mississippi the Illini shrank
When the trail of the Tortoise was seen on the bank.
On the hills of New England the Pequod turned pale
When the howl of the Wolf swelled at night on the gale,
And the Cherokee shook, in his green smiling bowers,
When the foot of the Bear stamped his carpet of flowers."
Thus far the Iroquois possessed only bows and arrows. They were faithful to their promises, and implicit confidence could be reposed in their pledge. The Dutch traders, without any fear, penetrated the wilderness in all directions, and were invariably hospitably received in the wigwams of the Indians.
In their traffic the Dutch at first exchanged for furs only articles of ornament or of domestic value. But the bullet was a far more potent weapon in the chase and in the hunting-field than the arrow. The Indians very soon perceived the vast advantage they would derive in their pursuit of game, from the musket, as well as the superiority it would give them over all their foes. They consequently became very eager to obtain muskets, powder and ball. They were warm friends of the Europeans. There seemed to be no probability of their becoming enemies. Muskets and steel traps enabled them to obtain many more furs. Thus the Indians were soon furnished with an abundant supply of fire-arms, and became unerring marksmen.
Year after year the returns from the trading-posts became more valuable; and the explorations were pushed farther and farther into the interior. The canoes of the traders penetrated the wide realms watered by the upper channels of the Delaware. A trading-house was also erected in the vast forest, upon the Jersey shore of the Hudson River, where the thronged streets of Jersey City at the present hour cover the soil.
We have now reached the year 1618, two years before the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Though the energetic Dutch merchants were thus perseveringly and humanely pushing their commerce, and extending their trading posts, no attempt had yet been made for any systematic agricultural colonization.
The Dutch alone had then any accurate knowledge of the Hudson River, or of the coasts of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Long Island. In 1618 the special charter of the Company, conferring upon them the monopoly of exclusive trade with the Indians, expired. Though the trade was thus thrown open to any adventurous Dutch merchant, still the members of the Company enjoyed an immense advantage in having all the channels perfectly understood by them, and in being in possession of such important posts.
English fishing vessels visited the coast of Maine, and an unsuccessful attempt had been made to establish a colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Sir Walter Raleigh had also made a very vigorous but unavailing effort to establish a colony in Virginia. Before the year 1600, every vestige of his attempt had disappeared. Mr. John Romeyn Brodhead, in his valuable history of the State of New York, speaking of this illustrious man, says:
"The colonists, whom Raleigh sent to the island of Roanoke
in 1585, under Grenville and Lane, returned the next year
dispirited to England. A second expedition, dispatched in
1587, under John White, to found the borough of Raleigh, in
Virginia, stopped short of the unexplored Chesapeake,
whither it was bound, and once more occupied Roanoke. In
1590 the unfortunate emigrants had wholly disappeared; and
with their extinction all immediate attempts to establish an
English colony in Virginia were abandoned. Its name alone
survived.
"After impoverishing himself in unsuccessful efforts to add
an effective American plantation to his native kingdom,