n those
already in it, in order to shut out others, organized a company, and in
1615 obtained a trading charter for three years from the States General
of Holland, and carried on their operations from Albany to the
Delaware River.

[Illustration: View of New Amsterdam in 1656]

%28. Dutch West India Company.%--On the expiration of the charter (in
1618) it was not renewed, but a new corporation, the Dutch West India
Company (1621), was created with almost absolute political and
commercial power over all the Dutch domains in North America, which were
called New Netherland. In 1623 the company began to send out settlers.
Some went to Albany, or, as they called it, Fort Orange. Others were
sent to the South or Delaware River, where a trading post, Fort Nassau,
was built on the site of Gloucester in New Jersey. A few went to the
Connecticut River; some settled on Long Island; and others on Manhattan
Island, where they founded New Amsterdam, now called New York city.

All these little settlements were merely fur-trading posts. Nobody was
engaged as yet in farming. To encourage this, the company (in 1629) took
another step, and offered a great tract of land, on any navigable river
or bay, to anybody who would establish a colony of fifty persons above
the age of fifteen. If on a river, the domain was to be sixteen miles
along one bank or eight miles along each bank, and run back into the
country as far "as the situation of the occupiers will admit." The
proprietor of the land was to be called a "patroon," [1] and was absolute
ruler of whatever colonies he might plant, for he was at once owner,
ruler, and judge. It may well be supposed that such a tempting offer did
not go a-begging, and a number of patroons were soon settled along the
Hudson and on the banks of the Delaware (1631), where they founded a
town near Lewes. The settlements on the Delaware River were short-lived.
The settlers quarreled with the Indians, who in revenge massacred them
and drove off the garrison at Fort Nassau; whereupon the patroons sold
their rights to the Dutch West India Company.[2]

[Footnote 1: The patroon bound himself to (1) transport the fifty
settlers to New Netherland at his own expense; (2) provide each of them
with a farm stocked with horses, cattle, and farming implements, and
charge a low rent; (3) employ a schoolmaster and a minister of the
Gospel. In return for this the emigrant bound himself (1) to stay and
cultivate the land of th