304 XV. FIRST STRUGGLE FOR THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE. CHAP. One hundred and forty dollars. The monopoly of the traffic was not strictly enforced; and a change of policy sometimes favored the export of negroes to the English colonies.1 The enfranchised negro might become a freeholder.2 With the Africans came the African institution of abject slavery; the large emigrations from Connecticut engrafted on New Netherlands the Puritan idea of popular freedom. There were so many English at Manhattan as to require an English secretary, preachers who could speak in English as well as in Dutch, and a publication of civil ordinances in English. Whole towns had been settled by New England men, who, having come to America to serve God with a pure conscience, and desiring to provide for the outward comforts and souls' welfare of their posterities, planted New England liberties in a Congregational way, with the consent, and under the jurisdiction of the Dutch.1 Their presence and their activity foretold a revolution. In the Fatherland, the power of the people was unknown; in New Netherlands, the necessities of the colony had given it a twilight existence, and delegates from the Dutch towns, at first twelve, then perhaps 1642. eight in number, had mitigated the arbitrary authority of Kieft. There was no distinct concession of legislative power to the people; but the people had, without a teacher, become convinced of the right of resistance. 1644 The brewers refused to pay an arbitrary excise: "Were Aug. 18. we to yield," said they, "we should offend the eight men, and the whole commonalty." The large propri etaries did not favor popular freedom; the commander 1644. of Renselaer Stein had even raised a battery, that "the 1 Albany Records, iv. 333, 172, 371, 456; xix. 26; xi. 35. 2 Ibid. xxii. 331. But compare ii. 242. 3 Albany Records, iv. 74. 4 Ibid. xix. 409-419. XV. canker of freemen" might not enter the manor; but CHAP. the patrons cheerfully joined the free boors in resisting arbitrary taxation. As a compromise, it was proposed 1647. that, from a double nomination by the villages, the governor should appoint tribunes, to act as magistrates in trivial cases, and as agents for the towns, to give their opinion whenever they should be consulted. Town-meetings were absolutely prohibited.1 2 to Discontents increased. Vander Donk and others were charged with leaving nothing untried to abjure what they called the galling yoke of an arbitrary gov- 1649 ernment. A commission repaired to Holland for 1652. redress; as farmers, they claimed the liberties essential 1650. to the prosperity of agriculture; as merchants, they protested against the intolerable burden of the customs; and when redress was refused, tyranny was followed by its usual consequence-clandestine associations against oppression. The excess of complaint obtained for New Amsterdam a court of justice like that of the 1652 metropolis; but the municipal liberties included no 4. political franchise; the sheriff3 was appointed by the governor; the two burgomasters and five schepens made a double nomination of their own successors, from which "the valiant director himself elected the board." The city had privileges, not the citizens. The province gained only the municipal liberties, on which rested the commercial aristocracy of Holland. Citizenship was a commercial privilege, and not a political enfranchisement.5 It was not much more than a license to trade. 1 Albany Records, iii. 187, 188; vil. 74, 82, &c. 2 Ibid. iv. 25, 29, 30, 33, 68. 142. VOL. II. 39 4 Albany Records, xix. 33, 34. 6 Ibid. xxiv. 45. Compare xx. April 306 CHAP XV. FIRST STRUGGLE FOR THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE. The system was at war with Puritan usages; the Dutch in the colony readily caught the idea of relying 1653. on themselves; and the persevering restlessness of the Nov. people led to a general assembly of two deputies from to each village in New Netherlands; an assembly which Stuyvesant was unwilling to sanction, and could not prevent. As in Massachusetts, this first convention' sprung from the will of the people; and it claimed the right of Dec. deliberating on the civil condition of the country. Dec. "The States General of the United Provinces "— such was the remonstrance and petition, drafted by George Baxter, and unanimously adopted by the convention—“ are our liege lords; we submit to the laws of the United Provinces; and our rights and privileges ought to be in harmony with those of the Fatherland, for we are a member of the state, and not a subjugated people. We, who have come together from various parts of the world, and are a blended community of various lineage; we, who have, at our own expense, exchanged our native lands for the protection of the United Provinces; we, who have transformed the wilderness into fruitful farms,—demand, that no new laws shall be enacted but with consent of the people, that none shall be appointed to office but with the approbation of the people, that obscure and obsolete laws shall never be revived."2 Stuyvesant was taken by surprise. He had never had faith in "the wavering multitude; "3 and doubts of man's capacity for self-government dictated his reply. "Will you set your names to the visionary notions 1 The original is Lantdag. Dutch Records, 2. 2 Albany Records, ix. 28-33. I have selected and compressed the prominent points. Every word will, I trust, be found to be sanctioned by the Dutch originals. Of course XV. of the New England man? Is no one of the Nether- CHAP lands' nation able to draft your petition? And your prayer is so extravagant, you might as well claim to 1653 send delegates to the assembly of their high mightinesses themselves. 1. "Laws will be made by the director and council. Evil manners produce good laws for their restraint; and therefore the laws of New Netherlands are good. 2. "Shall the people elect their own officers? If this rule become our cynosure, and the election of magistrates be left to the rabble, every man will vote for one of his own stamp. The thief will vote for a thief; the smuggler for a smuggler; and fraud and vice will become privileged. 3. "The old laws remain in force; directors will never make themselves responsible to subjects."1 13. The delegates, in their rejoinder, appealed to the Dec. inalienable rights of nature. "We do but design the general good of the country and the maintenance of freedom; nature permits all men to constitute society, and assemble for the protection of liberty and property." Stuyvesant, having exhausted his arguments, could reply only by an act of power; and dissolving the assembly, he commanded its members to separate on pain of arbitrary punishment. "We derive our author ity from God and the West India Company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant subjects:" such was his farewell message to the convention which he dispersed. The West India Company3 declared this resistance to arbitrary taxation to be "contrary to the maxims 1 Albany Records, ix. 38-46. 2 Ibid. ix. 48, 49, &c. &c. &c.; xiv. 169, 171. Compare 308 NEW NETHERLANDS AND MARYLAND. CHAP. of every enlightened government." "We XV. approve the taxes you propose; "-thus they wrote to Stuyvesant― "have no regard to the consent of the people;" "let them indulge no longer the visionary dream, that taxes can be imposed only with their consent." But the people continued to indulge the dream; taxes could 1654 not be collected; and the colonists, in their desire that 1658. popular freedom might prove more than a vision, to listened with complacency to the hope of obtaining English liberties by submitting to English jurisdiction. Cromwell had planned the conquest of New Netherlands; in the days of his son, the design was revived; and the restoration of Charles II. threatened New Netherlands with danger from the south, the north, and from England. In previous negotiations with the agent of Lord 1659. Baltimore, the envoy of New Netherlands had firmly maintained the right of the Dutch to the southern bank of the Delaware, pleading purchase and colonization before the patent to Lord Baltimore had been granted. The facts were conceded; but, in the pride of strength, it was answered, that the same plea had not availed Clayborne, and should not avail the Dutch.1 On the restoration, Lord Baltimore renewed his claims to the country from Newcastle to Cape Henlopen ; they were defended by his agents in Amsterdam and in America, and were even presented to the States General of the United Provinces. The College of XIX. of the West India Company was inflexible; 1660 conscious of its rights, it refused to surrender its posSept. 1. sessions, and resolved" to defend them even to the 1 Heerman's Journal of his embassy to Maryland, in reply to Col. N. Útie, &c., in Albany Records, xviii. 337-365. Compare also viu 185. So too Maryland Papers, in N. Y. Hist. Coll. iii. 369–386. |