History of New York

1645- 1657

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Indian Wars documentation vanishes when General Governor's papers lost in a shipwreck.

1645

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October 10
Flushing receives charter from Governor Kieft. December 19 - As a reward for resisting Indian attacks, Gravesend receives patent, 16-acre square faces common (still part of Brooklyn's street plan, at MacDonald Avenue and Gravesend Neck Road). Charters grant, "... free liberty of conscience according to the custom and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any magistrate .. or ecclesiastical minister that may pretend jurisdiction over them. "

Maspeth reestablished, renamed Middleburgh.

1644

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February 25
1st Free black community begins with 11 black slaves freed and given plots of land to farm (children still enslaved). Freed slaves include Manuel Gerrit (see 1641 Hanging spectacle).

On official listings, city has: 1 baker, 1 blacksmith, 1 brewer, 1 clerk, 1 cooper, 1 hog dealer, 1 magistrate, 1 minister, 1 skipper, 1 surgeon, 1 weaver, 2 millers, 2 wheelwrights, 4 shoemakers, 4 tailors, 10 carpenters, 19 servants, 38 farmers. The minister earns the most at 1.000 florins; a shoemaker earns 65 florins, a carpenter's boy only 25 florins. English settlement of Hempstead. 1 sheriff in New Amsterdam.

China - End of Ming dinasty (began 1368).

1643 - 1715

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France - Louis XIV's reign.

1643

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Population of colony (Manhattan and surrounding farms) 400-500. February - Near Fort Worth is a lethal attack by Mowhawk warriors means 100s of Algonquins flee to New Amsterdam area and congregate at Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook. February 25/26 - Dutch soldiers make cowardly night attack, butchering 80 Algonquin men, women and children in their sleep in Pavonia, plus 40 in Manhattan. They march to Fort Amsterdam with the several heads. 100s of Native Americans and many settlers will die in the Year of our Blood. Maspeth settlers kill 3 Marechkawiecks and steal 2 wagons of corn. When Kieft offers a truce, they reply, "Are ye our friends? Ye are merely corn thieves." 11 tribes from Long Island and Hudson valley unite against Dutch. French Jesuit, Father Isaac Jogues, arrives as town's 1st Roman Catholic priest - after rescue from burning at the stake of Mahawk Iroquois Indians.

Town established. Services are held in St. Nicholas Church, a brewery and boatbuilding shed are erected, and a gabled inn serves visitors. October - Native Americans attack Anne Hutchinson's home near Pelham Bay (killing all except her daughter who is carried off) and then destroy Throgmorton's settlement. Moody's settlement stoutly resists another attack. Kiefts War will last almost 2 years and destroy many villages and farms.

1642 - 1646

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English Civil War.

1642 - 1644

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Under threat of Native American attacks many settlers return to Holland. Manhattan's population drops from 300 to 100.

1642

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Religious dissenters from Massachusetts settle Gravenzande (Gravesend).

October Englishman John Throgmorton settles 35 households at Throg's Neck, where East River meets Long Island South. Dutch and Native Americans sign treaty, in Jonas Bronck's home, to end war. Sadly, fighting still continues for 2 years.

English settlement of Newtown: Revd. Doughty has charter to settle head of Newtown Creek and calls settlement Maspeth. 3 Long Island villages join to form Breukelen. Town's 1st inn, The Stadt Herberg (City Tavern) is built at 71-73 Pearl Street, overlooking the Great Dock and East River. Government officials conduct business on the upper floors, within easy reach of bar. Director General Kieft and Dutch Reformed congregation build a grand stone and timbered church in fort. Sly Kieft asks for contributions to the building fund after the 5th round of drinks at a wedding reception! St. Nicholas Church serves as a refuge during Indian raids and survives for 99 years but blocks the wind from nearby windmills creating flour shortages. Earliest ferry between Manhattan and Long Island (Fulton Street to Peck Slip).

Dutch discover New Zealand.

1641

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1 in 4 business premises sell liquor and beer. At corner of Whitehall and Stone Street, 1st official tavern is At the sign of the Wooden Horse. When serving in the militia, its owner had been sentenced to carry a pitcher of beer and a sword while riding a sharp-spined wooden horse on parade. James Bronck, a Dane who had arrived in July 1939, purchases 500 acres between the Harlem River and the Aquahung River, soon known as Bronck's River; hence borough's name.

April 11
Drinking on Sunday during church hours is outlawed. Residents ignore this (a stronger law is passed 15 years later). Army detachment investigates theft of a pig, stolen by Dutch criminals en route to Delaware. Kieft's troops think Raitan Indians guilty and attack them, launching Governor Kieft's War, a struggle between Europeans in the northeast and various local tribes - tribes that are often at war with one another. 11 tribes attack the small settlement in Manhattan. Native Americans of Long Island, Hackensack and Westchester, once friendly, kill isolated farmers and take wives and children as captives. In September, when Raritan Indians attack Dutch settlements along Hackensack River and on Staten Island, the Dutch abandon these. Semptember - Annual livestock fairs to begin in Manhattan.

Hanging Spectacle
City's 1st public hanging in Hanover Square: Dutch West India Company slaves who had killed a slave are threatened with torture if they do not name killer. All confess, assuming company will not want to lose 9 slaves. Governor Kieft orders them to draw straws. Gerrit loses. Many come to see this huge man hang but when the ladder is pulled away, both ropes break and he falls to the ground in agony. Gerrit is released. 3 years later he is emancipated and becomes one of the earliest landowners in Greenwich Village.

Kieft states: "A great deal of bad seawant (wampun) .. imported from other places - is in circulation, while the good, splendid seawant is out of sight or exported., which must cause the ruin of the country".

New Council of Twelve is chosen by male heads of households to advise Director General.

1640

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Cornelius Melyn arrives on Staten Island with 41 settlers. Dutch West India Company promises to send, "as many blacks as possible" to colony.

Native American uprising. Governor Kieft tries to end rife smuggling. He orders sailors to stay on ship at night (but they still drink in saloons), prohibits "fighting, lewdness, rebellion, theft, perjury, calumny", and issues passports to restrict foreigners - but fails in all this. Wealthy Frenchman, Picquet, denounces Kieft as, "a betrayer of his country, a villain and a traitor", and offers to shoot the Director General if no one else will !

May 10
Canarsee chief Penhawitz sells land around Jamaica Bay to Dutch West India Company.

1640s

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Dutch traders sell muskets and powder to the Iroquois which are used against Algonquins, Hurons and French.

1639

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Dutch plantations now thinly line East River.

Jonas Bronck is 1st settler in the Bronx, which is named after him. He leases land from Dutch West India Company on the neck of the mainland just north of Dutch settlement at Harlem, and buys more land from local tribes.

Director General Kieft attempts to tax Native Americans but meets violent resistance.

January 5th
Captain de vries establishes a plantation on Staten Island but abandons it a year later, leasing rights to Thomas Smythe. To encourage settlers, West India Company ends fur trade restrictions. Also, 200 acres are offered to each new head of household. Native Americans, Ranaque and Tackamuck, want 2 guns, 2 kettles, 2 coats, 2 adzes, 2 shirts, 1 barrel of cider and 6 bits of money for the 500 acres between the Harlem and Bronx Rivers north of Port Morris. Governor Kieft buys land from the Rockaways east to Fire Island and north to Cow Bay (Huntingdon) - which will become Queens County. In August, West India Company purchases Keskweskeck tract north of Manhattan between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers from Tequeemet, Rechgawac and Pachimiens.

1638

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Arrivals from New England seek religious and political freedom. Former Governor Minuit dies on a ship at se during a storm.

Adam Roelantsen founds 1st school. Collegiate School can trace its origin to him.

March 28
Willem Kieft now Director General. Soon he imposes severe penalties for, "adulterous intercourse with heathens, blacks or other persons .. mutiny, theft, false testimony, slanderous language". He also emphasizes ban on sexual relations between Dutch and Native Americans.

May
Soldier, Gerrit Jansen, stabbed in a brawl outside fort - the colony's 1st murder.

August 1st
With wampum, cloth, axes, iron, kettles and knives, Kieft purchases what will be the town of Bushwick from Keskaechquerem chiefs.

Shimabara uprising in Japan.

Turks conquer Baghdad.

Galileo's Principles of Falling Bodies.

1637

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1st physicianm Dr Jean Mousnier de la Montagne, arrives. He will be a founder of Harlem. One of his daughters marries Jacob Kip.

June 17
De Rapalje, an original Walloon, purchases land at Wallabout Bay (Bay of Foreigners).

Van Twiller buys Nooten (Nutten Island) known since as Governors Island. He also acquires Hog Island (now Roosevelt Island) in East River where the Dutch herd pigs.

When public prosecutor, Van Dincklangen, objects to Director General's corrupt ways, he is despatched to Holland as a prisoner - without the 3 years' pay due to him. When Van Dincklangen informs Dutch West India Company of Van Twiller's corruption, Van Twiller is dismissed. Van Dincklangen becomes Manhattan's assistant Director General and Dutch West India Company reclaims many acres Van Twiller had taken (but he still remains incredibly rich).

USA - Pequot War ends.

1636

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Officials under Van Twiller buy land from Native Americans and receive grants to settle western Long Island.

1635

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Dutch settlers buy land in Queens.

Some settle in Breuckelen (Brooklyn) named after a Dutch village. Others live in Midwout, now Flatbush. Flushing area of Queens in named after Vlissingen in Netherlands.

Van Twiller marries the niece of an Amsterdam citizen with property up the Hudson River. He arrives in Manhattan, orders a fort to be built, deeds himself good tobacco land in Greenwich Village, buys 3 islands, and approximates a share in 15.000 acres in Brooklyn and Long Island. He invites his staff to a drinking contest: after a keg of brandy has been drunk, a fight erupts, and Van Twiller fires a cannon. A spark sets light to the compound roof and the structure burns down. Even after his corruption is discovered and he is dismissed, he remains the island's wealthiest citizen.

Palisade erected across neck of Manhattan, along line of Wall Street. Fort Amsterdam complete.

1634

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Roeloff and Jans begin building a farmhouse. Hey accumulate land to form the beginning of Trinity Church holdings.

Catholic settlers found Maryland.

1633 - 1637

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Wouter Van Twiller, Director General - Dutch West India Company.

1633

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Revd. Everardus Bogardus becomes pastor of the Reformed Church. Congregation erects 1st house of worship, as well as a home and barn for the minister.

1632 - 1649

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India - Taj Mahal built.

1632

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Late winter Bastiaen Janz Krol appointed Director General.

1631

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Dutch West India Company fire Governor Minuit, mainly because of his extravagant building of New Netherland. He finds work in Swedish West India Company, buys land for them in Delaware for a copper pot, and establishes a colony of Swedes and Finns.

1630

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Johannes de Laet publishes 1st map showing Manhattan (Manhattes), New Amsterdam and North (Noordt) River.

August 10
Staten Island (1st time called this) granted to Michael Pauw by Dutch West India Company, with Pavonia (New Jersey's Hudson shore).

Imports are worth 113,000 guilders and exports 130,000 guilders. Native Americans sell Staten Island to Dutch and exchange pelts, wampum and food for European textiles and glass beads plus brass, copper and iron tools. Illegaly, many colonists sell guns, ammunition and alcohol to them.

Town Centre of New Amsterdam has church, market place, brewery and mill. Broadway (Heerewegh) leads diagonally from it.

New colony in Salem, Massachusetts.

1629

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Estates called patroonships are offered to expand Dutch settlements on Hudson Valley.

April 1628

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Colony's 1st pastor, Dutch Reformed Johannes Michaelius, takes his 1st service, attended by a Walloon couple and 50 guests in South William Street mill loft.