was made to encourage an exchange of colonial products with Brazil for slaves, apparently with small result. In 1652, permission was granted for direct importation from the African coast; but two ships only seem to have availed themselves of this privilege. It was not, indeed, till two years later that the trade became established, and the slaves after that date were brought chiefly, if not entirely, from Curaçoa,— the principal Dutch depot for this traffic in the West Indies. The importations to New Netherland were chiefly in the interest of the Company, though some share in them was granted to the municipality of New Amsterdam. Those brought on account of the Company were sold on arrival at public auction for beaver-currency, or its equivalent in provisions, with the proviso that they should not be exported from the colony. Stuyvesant was among the few who had the privilege — limited, perhaps, to official persons of importing slaves for his own Director Beck of Curaçoa, writes him in August, 1659, that he had purchased for him two boys and a girl, who, according to the bill of lading, were shipped on the Spera Mundi, "all dry and well conditioned, and marked with the annexed mark." In February of the next year Beck writes again that he hopes soon to send him some "lusty fellows." Four or five years later, ships counted their living freight by hundreds. Though the Dutch were the first to bring the African slave to this continent, and the trade was thus successfully established in their colony,2 slavery was earlier made an important element of their social system by the English in Virginia. use. 1 See vol. i., p. 302. 2 Voyages of the Slavers St. John and Arms of Amsterdam, 1659, 1663; together with additional Papers illustrative of the Slave Trade under the Dutch. Translated from the Original Manuscripts. By E. B. O'Callaghan. CHAPTER XI. THE SURRENDER OF NEW NETHERLAND. ENCROACHMENTS OF THE ENGLISH. THE SOUTH RIVER COLONY. LORD BALTIMORE'S CLAIM, AND CONTROVERSY WITH MARYLAND. — A NEW PATENT GRANTED TO CONNECTICUT. — - DISSATISFACTION OF NEW HAVEN. - OTHER ENGLISH TOWNS ACCEPT THE PROTECTION OF CONNECTICUT. CONFEDERACY OF LONG ISLAND TOWNS UNDER JOHN SCOTT. HIS ATTEMPTS TO COERCE THE DUTCH. NEW NETHERLAND AND PART OF NEW ENGLAND GRANTED TO THE DUKE OF YORK. THE NICOLLS COMMISSION. NEW NETHERLAND INVADED. ITS SURRENDER. - NICOLLS PROCLAIMED GOVERNOR. CHANGE OF NAMES. - NEW AMSTEL TAKEN BY THE ENG LISH. Encroach English. THESE later years of Dutch rule in America were anxious years to Stuyvesant. Notwithstanding the growing prosperity of his own province he watched with jealous eyes the encroachments of the ments and increasing influence and power of the English, even if he had not actual prevision of their ultimate supremacy over all New Netherland. Massachusetts, who claimed that her patent extended indefinitely westward, proposed to settle a colony on the upper waters of the Hudson, and claimed the right of navigation upon that river to reach her alleged possessions. The right was denied on the ground of priority of discovery, but the claim was none the less a source of anxiety to the Director. By the treaty of Hartford a large proportion of Long Island was ceded to the English, and both there and in Westchester they were pressing hard upon the Dutch, with no very strict observance of boundary lines. "Place no confidence," wrote the Director to the Amsterdam Chamber in 1660, "in the weakness of the English government and its indisposition to interfere in affairs here. New England does not care much about its troubles, and does not want its aid. Her people are fully convinced that their power overbalances ours tenfold; and it is to be apprehended that they may make further attempts, at this opportunity, without fearing or caring for home interference." Nor was there much in the relations of the mother countries to lead him to hope that in colonial affairs the interests of his colony would be protected. Holland was not left long in doubt as to how much reliance there might be upon the acts of the restored king, Charles II., for the fulfilment of the promises of an exiled prince. Affairs on the South On the South River the Director was beset by never-ceasing perplexity and anxiety, relieved by no perspective of general prosperity. No increase of population, no extension of agRiver. riculture, no growth of manufacturing industry cheered the company and encouraged to fresh exertions on behalf of that colony. The absence of all healthful energy and enterprise in that portion of New Netherland was due to conditions under which all such energy and enterprise were well-nigh impossible. A wilderness lay between it and the capital of the colony, and none of the advantages which might come from nearness to the seat of power could influence its affairs. It was only the province of a province, governed or misgoverned by the deputy of a deputy, claimed now by one nation, now by another, a bone of contention gnawed by each in turn. Half of the community had almost always been in the wretched position of a subjugated people. The strength and vitality without which the work of the pioneer must be an irremediable failure were paralyzed by contention, dependence, and uncertainty. Not the least of the difficulties which Stuyvesant had to meet in the management of the affairs of this portion of his government was that which confronted him everywhere in fending off the English. The enterprising New Englanders pitied, no doubt, the distresses and hardships which beset the people on the South River, so far as they came from natural causes. But they were not unmindful, nevertheless, of the good chances for trade which those distresses opened to them. Beeckman, whom the Director-general had appointed as governor of the company's colony, purchased of the Indians the territory south of the Boomtjes (Bombay) Hook to Cape Henlopen, and established at Horekill a trading-post, putting in it a small garrison, near the spot where De Vries and Godyn had planted their colony of Swaanendael a quarter of a century before. This gave to the Dutch a valid claim to the whole river from the capes to the Schuylkill; but the New Englanders gave no heed to the few Dutch soldiers who guarded, or attempted to guard, the passage of the Delaware, and defied the laws which prohibited their trading along its banks. Where ships of all nations now ride safely at anchor off the quaint little village of Lewes, under the lee of the Delaware breakwater, awaiting orders for the great staples of American commerce, or seeking a refuge from the storms outside the capes of Henlopen and May, more than two centuries ago the little vessels of New England lingered for wind and tide with their cargoes of peltries gathered along the shores of the Delaware, and laughed at the handful of Dutch soldiers |