Mar 10
Edward Howell, Daniel Howe, Job Sayer, Edward Farrington and four
other new residents of Lynn, Massachusetts, draw up The Disposall
of the Vessell, articles of agreement in which the ship they
arrived in is turned over to Howe, who agrees in exchange to make
six trips over the next two years to convey and supply the others
while they settle Paumanacke (Long Island).
May 10
A militia is formed in New Amsterdam.
City
A Dutch church is erected inside the stockade. ** Staten
Island's David Pietersz De Vries leases out the island when his
plantation there fails to attract settlers. ** A few pigs
disappear on Staten Island. Governor Willem Kieft sends 100 armed
men to the island where they kill several Raritan Indians, including
a sachem. The Raritan burn a farm and kill four Dutch workmen
- the Pig War. ** A colony of Massachusetts Quakers settles
at Gravesend, Brooklyn, under the protection of the Dutch government.
State
Connecticut English colonists attempting to set up a colony on
the North Shore
of today's Nassau County are driven off by the Dutch. They move
further east, setting up a colony at Southampton, even though
it too is part of Dutch territory. ** Albany's first church
(Reformed Protestant Dutch) is built.
Aug 29
Family heads in New Amsterdam select a representative government,
the Board of Twelve Men.
City
Scandinavian sea captain Jonas Bronck buys 500 acres north of
Manhattan to farm tobacco. ** Overseer Jacob Stoffelson
has city slaves removing dead hogs from the streets. **
In a double wedding Anthony van Angola and Catalina van Angola,
and Lucie d'Angola and Laurens vam Angola, all slaves, are married
in the Dutch Reformed Church. ** Eight slaves are accused
of murdering a ninth. One, Manuel, belonging to Gerrit de Reus,
is chosen by lot to hang. The rope breaks and spectators successfully
plead for his life. The others - Big Manuel, Little Manuel, Paulo
d'Angola, Simon Congo, and Anthony Portuguese - are pardoned.
Jan 20
New Amsterdam director Kieft convenes The Twelve Men to plan a
campaign against the Algonquin.
Feb 18
Kieft dismisses The Twelve Men when they begin considering a permanent
place in the government.
Feb 25
Kieft consents to the massacre of a band of innocent Algonquin
Indians, forced into his area by hostile tribes in the Albany
area.
March
Kieft's campaign against the Algonquin proves ineffective.
August
Father Jogues is captured by Mohawk Indians while on his way to
the Jesuit Huron mission at Niagara. He will be ransomed by the
Dutch within a year.
Dec 11
Faced with English settlers in Westchester County and on Long
Island, Kieft appoints a special English secretary.
City
The approximate date the Dutch West India Company builds two taverns;
Philip Geraerdy's at Stone and Whitehall, and City Tavern at Coentes
and Pearl. The later is converted into the Stadt Huys (State House)
by the end of the year. ** Twelve languages are spoken in
the settlement. ** The daughter of minister Everardus Bogardus
is married. Director Kieft takes advantage of the tippling guests
by successfully soliciting subscriptions for a new stone church
inside the fort. Construction begins. ** The Dutch engage
in hostilities with New Jersey's Hackensack Indians over whiskey.
** European colonists settle on Long Island along Newtown
Creek, near the Indian village of Mespaetches, the future site
of Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood.
State
The Reverend Johannes Megapolenses is made pastor of Albany's
new Reformed Protestant Dutch church. ** Dutch-born Arent
Van Curler makes his first visit to the site of Schenectady.
** Mahican warriors begin arriving at villages of the Wecquaesgeek
(Wappinger) Indians along the eastern bank of the lower Hudson
River, seeking tribute, in order to pay for Dutch weapons.
Long Island
Rhode Island Narragansett sachem Miontonimo and 100 warriors visit
Metoac villages in the summer to recruit allies for a war against
the Mohegan in Connecticut. Governor Kieft misinterprets the Indians'
intention, becoming convinced a secret uprising is being organized
against Europeans.
Feb 25
New Amsterdam's Director General Kieft makes war on Indians at
Corlaer's Hook and Pavonia, precipitating a war that lasts over
the next two years.
April
Staten Island farmer David De Vries convinces 18 Metoac sachems
to signed a treaty of truce with Kieft. Envoys are sent to the
Hackensack and Tappan urging them also to sign.
September
Indians murder Anne Hutchinson and her family in Eastchester.
Sep 13
Kieft seeks counsel from a new body, The Eight.
City
Population: 800. 18 languages are spoken. ** French Jesuit
priest Father Isaac Jogues visits the city. ** Settler Jonas
Bronck dies. ** Wecquaesgeek Indians resist demands for
tribute by the Mahicans. Several are killed and many women and
children captured. The Wecquaesgeek flee south to Manhattan, expecting
protection from the Dutch, who are supplying guns for the Mahicans.
When they cross the river to New Jersey, Kieft becomes convinced
an attack is imminent and attacks their villages, massacring 110
(the Pavonia Massacre). The Wappinger War (Governor Kieft's War)
begins, lasts until 1645. ** The Long Island community of
Middelburgh or Middleburg (later known as New Towne and finally
Elmhurst) is settled by the English. ** Fort Amsterdam is
built at the southern tip of the island. ** Martin Krigier
opens a tavern on Bowling Green.
State
John Carman and Robert Fordham arrive on Long Island from Stamford,
Connecticut, negotiate for a 10-mile-wide strip from the Sound
to the Atlantic with the Indians, and start the first English
settlement, on the island's Hempstead Plains.
Feb 25
A number of black New Amsterdam slaves, having worked for the
West India company for over 18 years, are granted conditional
emancipation.
March
English and Dutch colonists destroy Canarsee, Massapequa, and
Merrick villages on western Long Island. ** Kieft declares
a day of thanksgiving after his forces kill 500 Indians.
April
Jesuit father Joseph Bessani is captured by Mohawks while he's
en route to The Huron missions in the Niagara region. He's later
ransomed by the Dutch.
Jun 18
The Eight seeks an expanded role in the government.
October
The Eight seek relief from the Dutch government.
City
A number of black slaves, including Big Manuel, Little Manuel,
Paulo d'Angola, Simon Congo, and Anthony Portuguese, half-freedom.
They were free on a bond, payable in labor, while their children
remained slaves.
State
English-Connecticut mercenary John Underhill, along with two companies
of 120 volunteers, and Mohegan scouts, hired by Kieft for 25,000
guilders, kills over 120 Indian men, women and children at their
fort (Fort Neck) near today's Massapequa. ** Connecticut
pioneers, among them John Seren, settle north of Long Island's
Hempstead Plains.
Immigrants
Claes Martin van Roosevelt arrives in New Amsterdam.
Jul 25
Jan Evertse Bout is granted land in Brooklyn.
Aug 9
The Dutch and the Algonquin establish peace through Mohawk intermediaries.
Aug 30
The Dutch and the Indians sign the peace treaty at New Amsterdam.
Only 100 whites are left in the city.
Oct 10
New York's governor Willem Kieft issues letters of patent to English
immigrants Thomas Applegate, Lawrence Dutch, Thomas Farrington,
Robert Field, Robert Firmin, John Hicks, John Lawrence, William
Lawrence, John Marsten, Thomas Saul, Henry Sawtell, Thomas Stiles,
William Thorne, John Townsend, William Widgeon and Michael Willard,
for the Long Island settlement of Flushing.
Nov 24
The Hudson River freezes over for the season at Rensselaerwyck.
City
The Oakland Gardens area of Queens is settled, by Flushing patentee
John Hicks. ** Hoping to form a buffer between New Amsterdam
and the Long Island tribes, Dutch officials encourage a group
of New England religious dissenters led by Lady Deborah Moody
to establish a colony at Gravesend, near Coney Island, in the
future Brooklyn.
May
New Amsterdam receives its first cargo of slaves.
Jul 28
Kieft is ordered to give up his post.
Nov 26
The Dutch West India Company declares the Village of Breuckelen
a municipality, the first in present-day New York State.
December
The patroon system is judged a failure by the Dutch West India
Company.
Dec 17
Former New Amsterdam schoolmaster Adam Roelantsen, often in trouble
with the law and now reduced to taking in laundry, attacks Wyntje
Theunis, wife of Herk Syboltsen, and is sentenced to be publicly
flogged and banished. The sentence will be suspended because of
his four motherless children.
City
Lawyer Adriaen van den Donck moves 50 families to his estate in
the Bronx. The settlement will be wiped out by Indians. **
Farmer Jan Jansen Damen shoots bears in his orchard on lower
Broadway, between Pine and Cedar streets, where the Equitable
Building will one day rise.
State
A 40-foot-long whale is beached at the mouth of the Mohawk River
during Spring floods. Four others will be beached in the area
this year.
May 11
Peter Stuyvesant arrives in Nieuw Amsterdam (New York City), as
Director General, to replace Willem Kieft.
Sep 24
Stuyvesant forms a Board of Nine Men to help him govern New York.
Sep 27
Having sailed for Holland with ore samples from the colony aboard
the Princess, Governor Willem Kieft drowns when the ship
is wrecked in the Britain's Bristol Channel. Also lost are Dominie
Bogardus and other officials.
December
Stuyvesant, his colony nearly bankrupt, jails Adrian van der Donck,
leader of the Board of Nine Men, who are seeking stronger power.
City
Stuyvesant requires all Manhattan lots to be built on.
State
Father Ragueneu refers to a "waterfall of dreadful"
height in the western part of the state. ** Hudson Valley
patroon Killian Van Rensselaer dies in Amsterdam, Holland, without
ever having visited the New World. He leaves the patroonship to
his two sons.
Jul 4
Breaking the peace with the French, Iroquois tribes attack Huron
villages of Saint Joseph II and Saint-Michel in Ontario, Canada.
City
New Amsterdam's first pier is built, in the East River at Schreyer's
Hook. ** A law calling for pigs to be penned is ignored.
State
Settlers under Van der Donck prepare a Remonstrance, or protest,
against the management of the Dutch West India Company, to send
to the Staats-General in the Netherlands. A map prepared for the
report has since been lost.
Jan 30
England's Charles I is beheaded.
Mar 16
Over a thousand Senecas and Mohawks attack the Huron villages
of Saint-Ignace and Saint-Louis in Ontario.
Jul 29
The Nine Men inform the Dutch States-General they are sending
three delegates to the Netherlands bearing A Petition of the
Delegates, a Petition of the Commonality of New Netherland,
and The Remonstrance of New Netherland, with charges against
Stuyvesant's rule.
City
The city applies for designation as a municipality.
State
The Hurons, Neutrals and Eries are defeated by the Iroquois.
** The first purchase of land from Indians in the future
Westchester County town of Greenburgh is made.
© 2002 David Minor / Eagles Byte