The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

In the mean time a more extensive association had been formed among the merchants and capitalists in Holland, which in the year 1621, having matured its plans and projects, received a charter under the title of the West India Company. Their charter gave them the exclusive privilege of trade on the whole American coast, both of the northern and southern continents, so far as the jurisdiction of Holland extended.

This great company was invested with most of the functions of a distinct and separate government. It was allowed to appoint governors and other officers; to settle the forms of administering justice; to make Indian treaties and to enact laws.

Having completed arrangements for the organization of its government in New Netherlands, the West India Company despatched its pioneer vessel hither in the year 1623. This was the ship New Netherlands, a stanch vessel, which continued her voyages to this port as a regular packet for more than thirty years subsequently. On board the New Netherlands were thirty families to begin the colony. This colony being designed for a settlement at the head of the river, the vessel landed her passengers and freight near the present site of Albany, where a settlement was established. The return cargo of the New Netherlands was five hundred otter-skins, one thousand five hundred beavers, and other freight valued at about twelve thousand dollars.

It having been determined that the head-quarters of the company's establishment in New Netherlands should be fixed on Manhattan Island, preparations for a more extensive colony to be planted here were made, and in 1625 two ships cleared from Holland for this place. On board of these vessels were shipped one hundred three head of cattle, together with stallions, mares, hogs, and sheep in a proportionate number. Accompanying these were a considerable number of settlers, with their families, supplied with agricultural implements and seed for planting, household furniture, and the other necessaries for establishing the colony. Other ships followed with similar freight, and the number of emigrants amounted to about two hundred souls.

On the arrival of the ships in the harbor the cattle were landed in the first instance on the island now called Governor's Island, where they were left on pasturage until convenient arrangements could be made on the mainland to prevent their straying in the woods. The want of water, however, compelled their speedy transfer to Manhattan Island, where, being put on the fresh grass, they generally throve well, although about twenty died, in the course of the season, from eating some poisonous vegetable.

The settlers commenced their town by staking out a fort on the south point of the island, under the direction of one Kryn Frederick, an engineer sent along with them for that purpose; and a horse-mill having been erected, the second story of that building was so constructed as to afford accommodations for the congregation for religious purposes. The habitations of the settlers were of the simplest construction, little better, indeed, than those of their predecessors. A director-general had been sent to superintend the interests of the company in this country, in the person of Peter Minuit, who, in the year 1626, purchased Manhattan Island from the Indian proprietors for the sum of sixty guilders, or twenty-four dollars, by which the title to the whole island, containing about twenty-two thousand acres, became vested in the West India Company.