Volume 1, Part 4 The Rise and Fall of New Netherland
Chapter 38 The Formation of New Netherland
The British seizure of New Netherland, the vast if thinly settled Dutch territory in
North America, wrought a permanent change in the pattern of English colonization in
the New World. The grant of this vast area to the proprietorship of the Duke of York,
Younger Brother of Charles II and its seizure by Colonel Richard Nichols in 1664 brought
under English control a great land area that was much later to constitute the Middle Colonies.
How had New Netherland been formed? 17th century Dutch policies cannot be fully comprehended
without recognizing the fierce and continuing political divisions within the Dutch Republic
Over Constitutional and Foreign Policies.
Early in their long revolutionary struggle against Spain for religious toleration, freedom from taxation, and independence from central imperial rule,
the seven northern Dutch-speaking Calvinist provinces of the Netherlands had established a loose confederation.
Governing these United Provinces was a States General representing the completely autonomous provincial legislatures or states.
Not being burdened by the overweening state power of the other European countries, the Dutch maritime cities, especially those in the provinces of Holland and Zealand, were able to forge the greatest economic progress in Europe.
The Dutch freely engaged in trade throughout Europe, even after Spain's union with Portugal had cut off their supplies of spices, sugar and salt from the East Indies, Brazil and the West Indies.
The war against Spain, however, continued even after Spanish troops had been driven from the northern provinces,
after the ten Catholic southern provinces had gained recognition of their rights by Spain,
and after France and then England had determined to make peace with Spain.
The struggle for national liberation thus became transformed into a war of Dutch aggression against the southern provinces.
A regular standing army was developed, serving to expand the executive power in the central government, as well as central government power over the constitutionally independent provincial governments.
Thus, the central executive, not to mention the officer class of the army, had a vested interest in continuing the war.
This continuation of the war for the benefit of the executive military authorities forced the syndicates of merchants who had successfully and rapidly developed private trade to the East Indies to seek a means of mutual defense from attacks by the Spanish or Portuguese fleets.
Under the leadership of Amsterdam, these syndicates or chambers created the United East India Company in March 1602.
This company, under the control of the local chambers, organized joint voyages to the East Indies for their mutual protection during wartime.
After the war, however, the company became a monopoly for governing Dutch settlements
in the Indies.
The fundamental cleavage in the politics of the United Provinces developed when the merchants
of the cities of Holland and of other provinces, led by the foremost Dutch statesman, Johan
van Olden-Bonvelt, successfully pursued peace negotiations with Spain despite the complete
Opposition of the Dutch Military Leaders. The Dutch merchants desired peace in order
to end the threat of military dictatorship and the burden of taxes, and to gain access
to world markets through free and peaceful trade. These merchants formed the basis of
the Republican Party, standing for liberal principles of peace, free trade, liberty,
and in particular the maintenance of the original Dutch confederation of towns and provinces.
In that confederation, each level of governmental power was strictly limited by the application
of a virtual unanimity principle. The Republicans, furthermore, tended to be Armenians, following
the liberal Dutch Protestant theologian, Jacobus Arminius, who emphasized free will, natural
for Law and Religious Toleration as over against the Calvinist doctrines of predestination
and state enforcement of religious conformity.
Opposition to the peace negotiations with Spain was centered in the Orange Party, composed
largely of gentry, depending upon their lucrative and powerful military positions and whose
leader was the Prince of Orange, the military commander of the Netherlands.
The Orange Party sought greater powers for the central government, a strong standing
army, and ultimately the substitution of an orange monarchy for the Republican confederation.
Aligned with the nobility and military in the Orange Party was the great part of the
Calvinist ministers. The Orange Party, in fact, was often termed the Calvinist Party.
The Calvinist ministers found the discipline of war more suitable to Calvinist practices
than was the increased standard of living resulting from peaceful trade.
Furthermore, a strong central government resulting from war was seen as the best means of enforcing
religious conformity, especially against the Armenians who were protected by the provincial
Independence of Holland. Holland was the center of strength of the Republican Party, containing
as it did the least influence by nobles or the military and the greatest commercial and
maritime strength. The Orange Party, however, had strong support even in the cities of Holland
from Calvinist émigrés from southern Netherlands, largely French-speaking Walloons who formed
is an important and wealthy part of the population. Like most emigres throughout history, the
bulk of the southerners were not content to live in the free atmosphere of their newfound
home. Instead, unable to persuade the majority of their original countrymen of the justice
of their cause, they tried to win by dragging their new fellow citizens into war and thus
Emigres always tend to constitute a menace to those who graciously welcome their migration.
In the Dutch Republic, the Orange Party had strong support from the southern emigres,
whooping for a war of aggression against the Spanish Netherlands to liberate the reluctant
Catholics in behalf of Calvinism.
The peace negotiated by the Dutch Republicans, the Twelve Year Truce of Antwerp, April 1609,
gained the recognition by Spain of the virtual independence of the United Provinces and of
the right of the Dutch to engage in Eastern trade similar to the right won by England
in the Treaty of 1604.
Also in 1609, the Dutch East India Company hired the English explorer Henry Hudson to
to Find a Northeast Arctic Route to the Orient
Hudson was instructed not to seek a northwest passage through North America, as the Republican-run
company was anxious to avoid any danger to peace with Spain by challenging Spain's imperial
claims in the New World. Disobeying his instructions, Hudson, on failing to find a northeast route,
sailed to North America and explored, among other areas, Delaware Bay and the Hudson River,
as far north as the fur trading region near Albany. Since fur was a leading commodity
in Dutch trade from Scandinavia and Russia, the new possibility of a cheaper American
source spurred the remarkably enterprising Amsterdam merchants into action. During the
In the next four years, many Amsterdam merchants outfitted small ships and engaged in very
profitable fur trade with the Indians in exchange for beads and cloth. These individual traders
also founded a settlement on Manhattan Island, explored first by Adrian Bloch in 1613. In
1614, thirteen of the Amsterdam merchants there engaged in the American trade, banded
together and managed to secure from the states of Holland and Friesland a monopoly of all
trade in America for the space of six voyages. Soon afterward, these merchants strengthened
their hold by forming the United New Netherland Company and obtaining from the States General
a three-year monopoly of all American trade in the area between New France in the north
and the Delaware River.
One of the first acts of the New Netherland Company was to found a settlement vital to
the fur trade far up the Hudson River at Fort Nassau, later Fort Orange, now the site of
Albany, near the junction of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.
The fort was built on the site of an old ruined trading post which had been erected about
In 1618, the commandant of Fort Nassau came to a significant agreement with the chiefs
of the mighty Iroquois Indians, the Five Nations.
In this durable treaty, the Dutch and Iroquois agreed to trade peacefully in muskets and
ammunition in exchange for fur.
The New Netherland Company tried to renew its monopoly in 1618, but heated opposition
by excluded merchants, blocked an extended grant, and the American fur trade was then
thrown open again to the competition of individual merchants, albeit under license of the government.
To its pleased surprise, the New Netherland Company found that it prospered even more
were under the bracing air of competition and the company now laid plans for further expansion.
At this point, however, Dutch affairs took a fateful turn. The Orange Party, rallying
the army officers, largely gentry, dependent upon military post, used the theological disagreements
between Armenians and Calvinists to effect a coup and overthrow the Republican Constitution
In 1619, using its narrow 4-3 majority in the States General, based on control of the
rural Calvinist provinces, the Orange Party had convoked a national synod of the Dutch
Reformed Church. When the synod condemned and ordered the persecution of the Armenian
theologians, the state of Holland refused to approve, using its well-founded constitutional
A Reign of Terror was instituted by the Orange Party. The venerable Olden-Barnfeld was tried illegally with no permission from the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of the United States,
provision for defense and executed for treason in May 1619. The Armenian leaders, moreover,
were persecuted and exiled. The now-dominant Orange Party proceeded to renew its aggression
against the southern Netherlands upon expiration of the truce in 1621 and proposed to carry
The War to the American Possessions of Spain and Portugal
At this point, there came to the fore an eminent Walloon émigré, merchant, William Uselinks,
who for 30 years had propagandized for the establishment of a Dutch West India Company
to establish colonies in South America for reaping such valuable tropical products as
sugar and tobacco.
In June 1621, the States General charted the Dutch West India Company under orange control
with the aim of plundering and conquering the Spanish and Portuguese colonies and monopolizing
the slave trade.
Although modeled on the Dutch East India Company, the West India Company was a pure creation
of the State to achieve military objectives.
The state contributed half the capital and ships and forced the rest of the capital and
ships from the reluctant Dutch merchants.
In place of the independent Dutch merchants, such as the New Netherland Company, who had
gained an important smuggling trade to Brazil and the Caribbean and a free trade to the
Hudson River, a monopoly of Dutch trade with and between the Atlantic coast of Africa and
of the Americas was now granted to the new company. The company was also granted a monopoly
of all colonization in America. A government in the form of a commercial company, this
overseas instrument of orange aggression possessed governmental and feudal powers to rule its
arbitrarily granted territories, to legislate, to make treaties, to make war and peace, to
Maintain military forces and fleets of warships in order to plunder, conquer and colonize.
Only the company's appointed governor general had to be approved by the state's general.
Dominant on the board of 19 directors was the Amsterdam Chamber of the Company, which
owned over 40 percent of the capital and thus became the effective ruler of New Netherland.
Engaged in forming the huge Dutch West India Company, the States General had no interest
in granting the request made in 1620 by the English Pilgrims residing in Leiden, Holland,
for founding a colony on Manhattan Island. Their proposal rejected. The Pilgrims soon
ended their wanderings by landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The Dutch West India Company mostly concentrated on the Atlantic colonies of Portugal and Brazil
and Angola, for Brazil was the major source of European sugar and Africa supplied the
slaves who produced that sugar. The Company, in fact, temporarily captured Bahia in Brazil
in 1624. When a Company fleet captured the Spanish Silver Fleet in 1628, the money was
was used to finance the Dutch conquest of northeastern Brazil, beginning with Recife in 1630 and of the Portuguese ports of Luanda near the lower Congo and Benguela in Angola, Gore and Elmina in West Africa.
The company established colonies on the Guiana coast and in the unoccupied islands in the Caribbean, St. Eustatius and Tobago in 1632 and Curaçao in 1634.
The governor at Curaçao for the next decade was Peter Stuyvesant, who had been in the military service of the company for many years.
Thus, the Dutch West India Company had many valuable and important interests of which the colony of New Netherland was one of the least valued.