Dutch Explorers in the Delaware Valley • 4: The Swanendael Tragedy

On March 28, 1628, the nineteen-member executive committee of the Dutch West India Company, known as the Assembly of XIX, representing the five Chambers and the States General, ruled that individual members of the Company could send out colonists. This directive was amended and modified on June 7, 1629, in a formal document known as the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions. However, there existed a sharp difference of opinion among the stockholders and directors, some of whom felt the Company should restrict its activities to trading. They were opposed to any colonization efforts by the Company. A strong element among the members even opposed individual sponsorship of colonies; they believed this would eventually infringe on the Company's fur trade and result in a loss of income.

The Charter of Freedom and Exemptions provided for grants of land estates, or patroonships, to such members who were disposed to establish colonies at their own expense. The patroon was obliged to select and register land within certain specified limits and then to extinguish the Indian title by purchase. He could then possess the land as a sort of feudal lord with authority to place settlers, appoint officers and magistrates, collect funds from the earnings of his colonists to support a minister and teacher, and do whatever else was needed, within certain limitations, to expand his colony. He was obliged to conform to the general scheme of government framed by the Assembly of XIX, and to observe prescribed rules and regulations in his commercial p84 conduct. Although a number of prominent members of the Company became patroons, the system was destined at the outset to fail, primarily because the Company did not give it wholehearted support. Furthermore, there were many problems in transporting colonists and supplies across the Atlantic; the lack of experienced leaders proved to be a handicap; once a colony was laid down, there was continuing difficulty in maintaining friendly relations with the neighboring Indians. There were also many other problems of the kind that are attendant to any system of absentee ownership.

Swanendael ("valley of swans") was one of the first settlements made in New Netherland by patroons; it was situated on land included within the town limits of present Lewes, Delaware. The exact site of the settlement is uncertain except that it was on the bank of the stream later known as Lewes Creek, now part of the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal, and a short distance above its mouth. The name "Swanendael" first appeared in a document executed June 1, 1629, which recorded the purchase of land from the Indians on which the settlement was founded. This document and others, which have been gathered from widely scattered sources, are given in Appendix A. One of these is a passage from Kort Verhael Van Nieuw-Nederlants Gelgenheit – 1662, which has previously been only incompletely translated into English; the new translation was made by Dunlap.

These documents, taken together, tell the full story from the founding of Swanendael to its tragic end. They constitute a new and convenient point of reference for use by the scholar. What now follows is the story of Swanendael, based on these documents, told in broad strokes, whereas the documents themselves reveal it in fine detail.

On January 13, 1629, three prominent merchants and directors of the West India Company, Samuel Godyn, Kiliaen p85 van Rensselaer, and Samuel Blommaert, dispatched two representatives to New Netherland with the mission of purchasing from the Indians suitable lands for colonies. The two emissaries were Gillis Hossitt, referred to as a sailor, and Jacob Jansz, a cooper. Nothing is known of these two persons nor why they were given the responsibility of such an important assignment. The possibility that one or the other, or even both, may have been members of the May or Verhulst expeditions must not be discounted; it would be logical for the merchants to employ men who had been in America and were familiar with the terrain.

The dominant figure in planning the Swanendael colony was Samuel Godyn, then the president of the Amsterdam Chamber. He was well informed about the events in New Netherland; he had read the reports and correspondence from the beginning; for he had been one of the policy makers for the Company's New Netherland colony. He had been a co‑author of the articulbrieff, adopted March 28, 1628, by the Assembly of XIX, and issued in May.⁠1 He had been one of the signers (as also had been van Rensselaer) of the second set of instructions issued to Verhulst on April 22, 1625, and also of the special instructions given to Cryn Fredericksz.⁠2 Godyn was fully aware that the Company had withdrawn its settlers from the island in the Delaware River; that it remained an area with unlimited commercial potential; that it was unoccupied and thus ideal for staking out a patroonship.

Godyn was also in possession of what at the time was very important information; it had been reported to him by Peter Minuit, and by other Company representatives in New Netherland, that many whales had been sighted in the bay of the Delaware River. He had been told that schools of whales entered the bay at certain times of the year and came so close to the p86 shore that harpooners stationed on the beach could detect them and immediately take off in small boats for the kill. Whale oil was worth sixty guilders a hogshead in Holland, and Dutch and English interests were already contesting in the whale fishing in waters surrounding Spitsbergen. The Greenland Company was making regular whaling runs to the Arctic in an effort to meet the heavy demand for whale oil in European markets. The oil rendered from whale blubber, commonly called "train oil," proved to be an excellent lubricant for machinery, as well as a fuel for lamps. Many uses were also found for the baleen, or whalebone.

Godyn must have reasoned that whale oil could be obtained in the bay of the South River at considerably less expense than in Arctic waters, if the reports that reached his desk were accurate. He didn't need a fleet of fully equipped whaling vessels, whose support was a heavy drain on one's finances, to sail out in search of whales. In New Netherland the whales came in from the seven seas (for reasons that were not given) and, having reached coastal waters, they could be pursued and caught by men living at land stations provided with small whaling boats. These fishermen could be put to useful agricultural labor on the land at times of the year when the whales were in more distant waters.

The three patroons had evidently discussed their plans thoroughly before sending their emissaries to America, and had already decided on the lands they wanted to settle. This is made clear in a phrase by van Rensselaer to the effect that the emissaries were sent "to buy and pay for the places indicated to them."⁠3

On June 1, 1629, Hossitt negotiated a purchase of land from the Indians along the west shore of Delaware Bay in the area known to the Dutch as the "South Hook." The land he bought was eight Dutch miles long and half a Dutch mile in width. He p87 gave the Indians in payment cloth, axes, adzes, beads, and other European goods, with which he was well supplied before leaving Holland.⁠4 The Indian owners, whose villages were not far distant from the site purchased by Hossitt, were the Algonkian-speaking group called by him the Ciconicins, a name given in many forms in the early records, e.g., Sickonesyns, Siconesius, Siconese, etc.⁠5 These Indians were also known to the Dutch as the Great Siconese, in contrast with the linguistically related Little Siconese living along Oldman's Creek in New Jersey.⁠6

The sachem of the Great Siconese, at the time of the purchase by Hossitt, was a boy whose mother, according to the Algonkian concept of matrilineal descent, was evidently of "royal" blood. In view of the chief's minority, the Indian council appointed two adults, Quesquakous and Eesanques, to go to Manhattan, as requested by Hossitt, so that the sale could be officially confirmed by Director-General Minuit and registered as a patroonship in the records of the West India Company.

In the meantime, back in Holland, Samuel Godyn on June 19, 1629, notified the Amsterdam Chamber of his intent to become patroon of a colony on "the bay of the South River." He then sent a message to Minuit by a departing vessel requesting that he register the colony in the Company's books at Manhattan. By the time the message reached America, Minuit had independently taken the necessary action, for on July 11, 1630, Quesquakous and Eesanques appeared before him and his council to confirm the land sale to Hossitt, acting for the absent patroons. There are two documents covering the transaction, one dated July 11 p88 and the second, with slightly different phraseology, both of which are reprinted in Appendix A.

Having completed this assignment for his employers, Hossitt sailed up the Hudson and, acting principally in van Rensselaer's behalf, on July 27 bought land which was to become part of another patroon colony called Rensselaerswyck. This colony covered as a much larger area than Swanendael, parts of it having been bought from the Indians in May by Bastiaen Jansz Krol, the commis, and Dirk Cornelisz Duyster, his assistant, in van Rensselaer' behalf. Hossitt's purchase increased the size of the territory for van Rensselaer. An interesting aside to Hossitt's purchase occurs in a contract written in the Dutch language which the historian James Grant Wilson discovered in Amsterdam. An English translation quoted in the first volume of his Memorial History of New York contains the following pertinent passage:

That Gilles Hossett, on the twenty-seventh of July, 1630 in sailing up the river, arriving at the place where Jan Jansz Meyns was encamped with his men for the cutting of round timber for the new ship . . . . .

The "new ship" was the vessel New Netherland, built and launched during Minuit's administration. (Wilson states, without giving any authority, that it occurred to two Walloon shipbuilders to utilize American timber to construct a vessel instead of exporting it; that Minuit was won over to the project, encouraged it, and pledged the Company's funds for its execution.) In Chapter 7 we will see that the Company was severely criticized for permitting this expenditure, which was deemed an extravagance.

Back in Holland another director of the Company, Albert Conraets Burgh, having been informed of Hossitt's purchase for Godyn, registered a third colony, November 1, 1629. This patroonship was to be located on the east side of the Delaware p89 Bay, in present‑day New Jersey, opposite the proposed site of Godyn's Swanendael. Although no immediate action was authorized to extinguish the Indian ownership, Burgh indicated it was his intention to send out colonists at the first opportunity. This, too, was doubtless to have whale fishing as its principal objective.

The four patroons — Godyn, Blommaert, van Rensselaer, and Burgh — entered into a joint account on February 1, 1630, for their projected colonies. We are not told the reason for this merger, but several advantages seem obvious; for example, they could have one capitalization for the whole venture, so that in the event of failure of one colony the principal patroon retained an interest in the other colonies to balance his losses; there were shipping advantages in sending vessels to distribute supplies or reinforcements to several points; one colony could assist a sister colony in time of need. Godyn and Burgh planned their colonies to be laid down on the South River, van Rensselaer upon the Hudson, and Blommaert decided to locate his on the Connecticut River. In this interlocking directorate, it was planned that the principal patroon should own a two‑fifths share of his own colony, the others each participating to the extent of one‑fifth ownership each. For example Godyn, as the managing patroon of Swanendael, owned a two‑fifths interest, whereas Blommaert, van Rensselaer, and Burgh each had one‑fifth of a share. This was later changed. (See Appendix A for further details.)

Before the first colonists were sent to the South River, Godyn made arrangements with his partners to admit a number of other men as co‑patroons in the Swanendael project. By the time the colony was laid down there was a total of ten subscribers. Prominent among them were the adventurous mariner, David Pietersen de Vries, and the geographer-historian, Johan de Laet. The others were Mathys van Ceulen, Nicholaes van Sitterich, Johan van Harinckhouck, and Heynrick Hamel. De Vries stated that he and de Laet were the first to be taken in with the original patroons p90 and then the four others named above were admitted as co‑patroons; he adds that "we made a contract with one other whereby we were all placed on the same footing."⁠7 Each of the ten co‑patroons of the Swanendael venture had served the Company, at one time or another, as a director. Appendix A includes excerpts from two letters written by van Rensselaer complaining that there were too many persons in the directorate of Swanendael, which caused confusion and quarreling.

The objectives in establishing Swanendael were unmistakably set forth by de Vries, "to carry on the whale fishery in that region, as to plant a colony for the convulsion of all sorts of grain for which the country is well adapted, and tobacco."⁠8 There can be no question that whale fishing was the first consideration; in another passage, de Vries refers to the whale oil which "they thought might realize a good profit thereon, and at the same time cultivate that fine country." Note the absence of any reference to the fur trade. This was a very touchy subject — not only were the opponents of the patroon plan suspicious that the patroons were trying to divert the fur trade to themselves, but Article XV of the Charter of Freedoms stated:

It shall also be permitted the aforesaid patroons, all along the coast of New Netherland and places circumjacent to trade their goods, products of that country, for all sorts of merchandise that may be had there except beavers, otters, minks and all sorts of peltry, which trade alone the Company reserves to itself. But permission for even this trade is granted at places where the Company has no agent, on the condition that such traders must bring all the peltry p91 to the island of Manhattan, if it is any way practicable, and there deliver them to the director, to be by him sent hither with the ships and goods, etc.

This question of the fur trade became a serious issue when Gillis Hossitt and Jacob Jansz returned from New Netherland in 1630 to make a report to their employers. They had not only purchased lands from the Indians, but in the patroons' interests had traded their excess merchandise for peltries, which some of the members felt should not have been allowed. Hossitt's return to Holland, incidentally, has been overlooked by a number of historians, who assumed he remained in America and joined the settlers when they arrived at Swanendael from Holland. His return home is described, as well as the criticism advanced by other members of the Company regarding his engaging in the fur trade, in a memorial presented by van Rensselaer to the Assembly of XIX on November 25, 1633. Therein is found the following account:

These persons on returning home reported with joy that, to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants, though in spite of the opponents, they had purchased, paid for and obtained title to the land; that, furthermore, they had exchanged the remaining merchandise for furs and sent these with bill of lading and with knowledge of the director [Peter Minuit] to their patroon [Samuel Godyn]. The returns of the sale of these furs, amounting to about f5,600 (for which member deducted the merchandise given in exchange, the interest, the insurance, the expenses, the freight, and the duty to the Company), were so magnified by the contrary-minded, who had their supporters as well among the directors as among the chief participants, that [it seemed that] two individuals with but a small quantity of merchandise had purchased a large quantity of land and had besides obtained immense returns, from which these opponents took occasion to proclaim that the patroons were not contemplating colonization at all, but only the securing to themselves of p92 the fur trade and depriving the Company of the same, which would be total ruin to the Company, etc.⁠9

Hossitt made a map of the South River when he was in America, as ordered by Godyn. (See fn. 1 of the document dated June 1, 1629, in Appendix A.) The whereabouts of the original state of this map is not known, nor is it certain that it is still in existence, but it must have influenced other seventeenth‑century Dutch cartographers.

Article III of the Charter of Freedoms obligated the patroon to send a minimum of fifty settlers to his colony, one quarter within one year and the remainder before the end of three years. Colonists were to be transported in the Company's ships, unless permission was given to the patroons to use private vessels. Since the Company's ships were often overcrowded and their departures and returns irregular, Godyn and his associates obtained special permission to outfit their own vessel, an 18‑gun ship of one‑hundred-and‑fifty lasts appropriately called the Walvis (Whale). They engaged as her master Captain Peter Heyes of Edam, a navigator who had experience sailing Dutch whaling vessels in the waters off Greenland. Gillis Hossitt, perhaps as a reward for his services to the patroons, was employed as the agent or commis in charge of the colony. The Walvis left Holland on December 12, 1630, with eighty persons aboard, and a cargo of lime, bricks, tiles, four horses, twelve cows, ammunition, provisions, merchandise, tools, and several small whaling boats. The account of her cargo and her sailing is given in the aforementioned memorial by van Rensselaer, reprinted in Appendix A.

The Walvis sailed first to the West Indies to discharge a number of her passengers for another colony in the making, and then proceeded with the others to New Netherland. Hossitt, an experienced seaman, probably guided Heyes through the shoals in Delaware Bay to the land which he had purchased the previous p93 year from the Indians; perhaps he used as reference a copy of the map he had made for Godyn. There on the stream named Blommaert's Kill (later to be known as the Hoerenkil and much later as Lewes Creek) a total of twenty-eight men were placed. There were no women or children in the colony; presumably they would be sent later at the discretion of the patroons. Godyn's name became attached to the bay and it would be so known for many years to follow in Dutch journals and maps. In his colony on the Hudson, van Rensselaer honored his associates by assigning their names to certain physical features, i.e., de Laets Kill, de Laets Island, Godyns Kill, Godyns Island, Godynsburch, Blommaerts Kill, Blommaerts Island, Blommaertsburch etc. Apparently Godyn did not return the favor; at least, no record has yet been found of local place-names preserving the names of any of the other eight co‑patroons of Swanendael.⁠10

The time of the arrival of the Walvis in Delaware Bay is usually given as the spring of 1631, and although the date is unknown, it must have been prior to May 5. On that day, Captain Heyes and Hossitt bought an additional fourteen square (Dutch) miles of land from the Indians on the east side of the bay. The purchase was confirmed June 3, 1631, at Manhattan by ten of the Indian owners in the presence of Director-General Minuit, Heyes, Hossitt, and the members of Minuit's council, some of whom were the Dutch skippers then present (see Appendix A). This purchase was intended to pave the way for seating the second South Bay colony, of which Albert Conraets Burgh was the principal patroon. Following this transaction, Hossitt returned to Swanendael to complete the house and the fortifications, clear and plow the land for cultivation, and prepare for the whaling season.

p94 When the construction at Swanendael was finished, there was a large dwelling house of yellow bricks brought from Holland; the house was surrounded with palisades. There was also a cook-house made of brick, probably outfitted with vats for boiling whale blubber. Although the place has been referred to as Fort Oplandt, this name appears to be a corruption of a descriptive phrase used by de Vries which has been mistranslated.⁠11 Evidently no individual houses were built, nor were individual plots of land laid out for the men. They occupied the main brick structure as a sort of barracks; there was a loft in it where merchandise used in the Indian trade was stored, and a pair of stairs leading to the loft. Hossitt's quarters were also in this main house. Unfortunately no record exists of the names and occupations of the original settlers. There must have been a bricklayer or carpenter among them, as well as farmers and harpooners experienced in catching whales, cutting up the blubber, and removed the valuable whalebone. All the "charts, maps and papers" concerning the colony were turned over to the West India Company by the patroons in 1635 and are among the missing records.

Leaving Hossitt after the land purchase from the Indians, Captain Heyes turned the prow of the Walvis homeward, arriving in Amsterdam in September with a complete report for the patroons. He did not bring them any whale oil from the South Bay, nor any merchandise from the West Indies, which they had hoped he would carry home to pay for the voyage. The trip had been an unprofitable one — Heyes brought back only "a sample of oil from a dead whale found on the shore."⁠12 Heyes reported that he had arrived in the South Bay too late for the whaling season, which the patroons learned was from December to March. Some of the patroons objected to investing additional money in the venture, which seemed to hold little prospects for commercial p95 success. Godyn retaliated by telling them that the Greenland Company, chartered in 1614 with a monopoly in the waters between Davis Straits and Nova Zemlya, had suffered two bad voyages before enjoying any profits.⁠13 As a result of his insistence and encouragement, the patroons agreed to equip a ship and a small yacht and sail again to Swanendael with the aim of arriving at the beginning of the whaling season. The principal aim of this voyage was "to conduct the whale fishing during the winter, as the whales come in winter and remain till March." The vessels, incidentally, would also carry supplies to Hossitt and the colonists. De Vries was named leader of this expedition, which was made ready early in 1632. Only thirty-seven years of age, he was a capable and experienced commander, having made his first voyage in 1618 to the Mediterranean, followed by other voyages to different parts of the world. He had recently returned from the East Indies, where he had gone in 1627 while in the service of France as captain of a fleet of seven vessels. De Vries said of his voyage to America that he was the first patroon actually to visit the New World, a statement which cannot be disputed. Very little information is known about his crew, but there must have been included sailors experienced in whale fishing.

The Charter of Freedoms required the patroon to replace the agent of his colony every two years, and Hendrick de Forest was selected to accompany de Vries as Hossitt's successor.⁠14 Before de Vries sailed, news reached Holland that the Swanendael colony had been destroyed by the Indians and all the men massacred!⁠15 De Vries stated later that it was proposed that Company p96 avenge this murder by making war against the Indians, the patroons reminding the directors that Article XXV of the Charter of Freedoms obligated the Company to protect the colonies laid down by the patroons. However, punitive action, which was strongly recommended by Godyn, was not taken, and de Vries wrote, "The Company would not permit it and replied we must keep at peace with the Indians."

On May 24, de Vries sailed from the Texel in the Walvis with fifty men aboard, accompanied by a yacht of ten lasts named Teencoorntgen (Little Squirrel). The account of the voyage, the story of the arrival at Swanendael, and the incidents that followed are related by de Vries in his journal, a remarkable story of personal experiences in the New Netherland.⁠16

In his journal de Vries relates that when he arrived at Swanendael he found the house destroyed and the palisades burned. Scattered over the property were the skulls and bones of thirty‑two men⁠17 and the skulls of the horses and cows they had brought from Holland and the calves that had been born since the landing. An Indian informant told de Vries what had happened, and since there were evidently no survivors, the native's version is the only account of the massacre.

It seems that Hossitt had set up a post to which was fastened a piece of metal painted with the arms of Holland. One of the Indians, intrigued with the metal, took it to make tobacco pipes p97 not realizing that the Dutch would consider it a serious affront to their government. The Dutch became incensed over the misdeed and the Indians wanted to make amends. They slew their guilty comrade and brought his head to the Dutch as a token of their remorse. Instead of showing forgiveness, this act of extreme rashness further displeased the Dutch, and Hossitt evidently reproved the Indians for committing what he considered a terrible crime. The Indians then left, angered and confused at the unreasonable attitude shown by the Dutch. The friends of the slain Indian planned vengeance against the white men. They waited until an opportune time when the Dutchmen were working in the field. Three Indians approached Hossitt, who was standing near the house, under pretense of wanting to trade beaver skins for Dutch goods. Hossitt invited them into the house and he ascended the stairs to the loft where the stores were kept. As he descended the stairs, Hossitt was attacked, one of the Indians cleft his skull with an axe, and he fell dead. The Indians then killed a sick man who lay abed in the house. Then they turned on a dog, chained to a post, and shot twenty-five arrows into his body before he died. Other Indians then joined the first three and together they went into the field where the men were working, and going among them "with pretensions of friendship struck them down."

The Swanendael massacre is often attributed to Hossitt's bad judgment, but only one side of the story has been told. The full facts leading to the bloodiest massacre that ever took place along the Delaware will never be known. In Appendix A are reprinted seventeenth‑century references to the massacre.

The directors of the Company held fast to their refusal to move against the Indians, deferring to the articulate group of stockholders who had strongly opposed the patroon movement from the beginning. The Company had been extremely uncooperative in Godyn's Swanendael venture, as de Vries wrote, p98 "constraining him to dismiss the people whom he had undertaken to convey thither and surrender them [the colony] to the Company."⁠18

Due to pressure from the anti-patroon faction, de Vries was not permitted by the Company to take more than three-hundred guilders worth of merchandise for the Indian trade "for which they obtained about two‑hundred beaver and otter skins while they would have obtained much more from nations who had never traded with the Company if they had more merchandise . . . ."⁠19 The small quantity of trade goods permitted de Vries was largely used as presents in negotiating a treaty and restoring friendly relations with the Indians at Swanendael; he gave them "duffels, bullets, hatchets and various Nuremberg trinkets. They promised to make a present to us, as they had been out a‑hunting."⁠20 Evidently some of the two‑hundred peltries de Vries carried back to Holland were obtained from these natives.

De Vries was very disappointed in the whale fishing; he saw a number of whales in Delaware Bay, and his men actually killed seven of them and set up a kettle in which to render the blubber. However, these seven whales produced only "32 cartels" of oil. En route to Holland he stopped at Manhattan, and when queried by Governor van Twiller about whale fishing in the South River, he replied,

I answered him that we had a sample; but that they were foolish who undertook the whale-fishery here at such great expense, when they could have readily ascertain with one, two or three sloops in New Netherland, whether it was good fishing or not. Godyn had been a manager of the Company as long as the Company had been p99 in existence, and also of the Greenland Company at Amsterdam and ought to have known how it at first ought to have been undertaken with little expense.⁠21

Upon his return to Amsterdam on July 24, 1633, de Vries found his merchant partners engaged in heated dispute with the anti-patroon faction in the Company, who had gotten wind of his having obtained furs from the Indians, even though the quantity involved was insignificant. The belief persisted that the patroons were trying to take the fur trade away from the Company. Impatient with this internal bickering, grieved over the failure of the Swanendael venture, de Vries withdrew from the syndicate and set out independently as a patroon in his own right. This effort also proved to be a failure.

As a result of the massacre of the colonists at Swanendael, lack of success in whale fishing, and friction within the Company, no settlers were ever placed on Burgh's land on the east side of Delaware Bay. Godyn and his associates also gave up further colonization at Swanendael. In 1635, having allowed their land rights to lapse, under the provisions of the Charter of Freedoms, the patroons transferred the two "South Bay tracts" to the Company for 16,500 guilders. They had suffered a substantial financial loss in this venture. The document effecting the transfer to the Company is included in Appendix A.

The English had also been disappointed in the quality of the whales found in American waters; in 1614 Captain John Smith arrived in New England, and he wrote, "our plot was there to take Whales and make tryalls of a Myne of Gold and Copper."⁠22 After some experience, Smith concluded the whales were "a kinde of Iubartes, and not the Whale that Yeeldes Finnes [whale bone] p100 and Oyle as we expected."⁠23 Undoubtedly porpoises, grampus, and similar fish were confused with whales, but it would be incorrect to conclude that whaling in American waters was entirely unprofitable. In 1683, William Penn wrote that two companies of whalers would soon begin their work in Delaware Bay, and two years later he said, "Mighty Whales roll upon the coast, near the Mouth of the Bay of Delaware. Eleven caught and workt into Oyl one season. We justly hope a considerable profit by a Whalery; they being so numerous and the shore so suitable."⁠24 The same type of coastal whale fishing was carried on in waters off the south of Long Island, Denton stating that "in the Winter lie store of Whales and Crampasses which the inhabitants begin with small boats to make a trade Catching to their no small benefit."⁠25

The West India Company made no attempt to reopen the whale fishery after taking over Swanendael. Evidently Dutch traders continued to visit the bay area from time to time to barter for furs with the Indians, but the Company did not re‑populate the settlement. The name Swanendael eventually fell into disuse, and the indelicate name, Hoerenkil ("Harlot's Creek"), became widely used as the area name. Under a number of variants, including the anglicized "Whore Kill," the place was so identified on maps and journals. As time went on, this place-name came to be used broadly to refer to a large district of land lying in what is now Kent and Sussex Counties, Delaware. The question p101 of the derivation of the name has provoked a friendly disagreement between two authors, each of whom has expressed his opinion relative to its origin in separately written papers.⁠26

In 1657, two boatloads of Englishmen were shipwrecked at the Hoerenkil, and the members of the party were captured by the Indians.⁠27 The Dutch later ransomed fourteen of these Englishmen, and the very fact that this rival nation was again trespassing on their territory called for action by the Dutch. The officials decided that the Hoerenkil should again be fortified to exclude the English and with the expectation that trade with the Indians could be improved and perhaps colonists could be encouraged to settle there.

There was the matter of paying the Siconese Indians to be considered; they were growing less friendly, although thirty-nine years before Hossitt had bought land on the creek from them for the Dutch. William Beekman, Alexander d'Hinoyossa, and twenty soldiers, well supplied with trade goods, went south under orders to seek the native owners. They "sent out a savage for the chiefs of that country there that they should come down to make an agreement with them." Subsequently, on June 7, 1659, an agreement and bill of sale was drawn up and signed by sixteen chiefs and great men. The Indians deeded to the Dutch a strip of land lying between Cape Henlopen and present‑day Bombay Hook on the west side of the Delaware, extending westward •about thirty miles. A contemporary English translation of the document was published by one of the present authors in 1949,⁠28 and is reprinted in Appendix A.

Following the purchase, Stuyvesant ordered the Hoerenkil p102 fortified to keep off intruders, and in 1659 a fort was built, usually referred to as "the Company's fort."⁠29 A sailboat ferry was in operation in 1660 to facilitate movement back and forth to the New Jersey shore. A "garrison" is also mentioned the same year, but its size is not given.⁠30

Because of losses and drains on its resources, the West India Company could not maintain its position on the Delaware, and in 1656 sold Fort Casimir and the lands between the Christina River and Bombay Hook to the city of Amsterdam. In 1663, the city bought the whole river (including "the company's fort" at the Hoerenkil) and the bordering lands from the Company. During the period of the city's ownership, the director was responsible to the burgomasters of the city. With the permission and encouragement of the burgomasters, another Dutch colony was started at the Hoerenkil under the leadership of one Peter Cornelis Plockhoy, a Mennonite. Plockhoy envisioned an ideal, semi-socialistic colony based on the equality of man and held together by Christian principles. Reprinted in Appendix A is his contract with the burgomasters and magistrates of Amsterdam, executed on June 9, 1662 — the final Dutch attempt to organize a colony on the Delaware.

A year after the contract was signed — July of 1663 — Plockhoy settled "41 souls with their baggage and farm-utensils at the Horekil,"⁠31 but the colony had short life. In 1664, when Sir Robert Carr seized the Delaware territory for the Duke of York, he either confiscated or destroyed the property of Plockhoy and his followers. Gerrit van Sweringen, one of the Dutch officials on the Delaware at the time of the attack, wrote:

There was likewise a boate dispatched to the Whorekill and there p103 plundered and tooke possession of all effects belonging to the Citty of Amsterdam, as alsoe what belonged to the Quaking Society of Plockhoy to a very naile, according to letter written by one of that company to the Citty of Amsterdam, in which letter complaint was made that the Indians at the Whorekill had declared they never sold the Dutch any land to inhabitt.⁠32

Plockhoy remained at the Hoerenkil for several years following the English attack, and then moved to Germantown in Philadelphia, where he died. Perhaps some of his followers continued to live at the Hoerenkil — persons with such names as Wiltbanck, Wolgast, Klasen, Kipshaven, Gronedick, and Droochstraeder (just to mention certain of the non‑English surnames in a list of 1671) lived there under the English government.⁠33 Some of the events that took place during the early days of English control have been recorded,⁠34 but one incident, which is not well known, brought disaster to both Dutch and English occupants. During the period of Dutch reoccupation — starting August 8, 1673, with the seizure of New Castle from the English and continuing until February 19, 1674 — the Hoerenkil again fell under Dutch authority. To prevent the Dutch from taking the houses there, Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore, sent forty horsemen under command of Captain Thomas Howell to sack the settlement. On the cold Christmas Eve of 1673, they burned down all of the dwellings, after taking away all the boats and weapons of the occupants. A deposition by Philemon Lloyd giving an account of this assault, which has not previously appeared in print, is included in Appendix A.⁠35

As time passed, the animosity was forgotten, and the Hoerenkil p104 was developed as a port for ships, under English control. In September, 1680, the justices of the court there asked Governor Andros "to give the whorekill some other name,"⁠36 a request that does not seem unreasonable. He evidently complied, for a reference the following June indicates the court was being held at "Deale for the Towne and County of Deale." The new name had little opportunity to become established before William Penn, in 1682, again changed the name of the county to Sussex — and on January 9, 1682, court was held at "Lewis for the County of Sussex."⁠37 Lewis became Lewes, the present name, and the indelicate "Hoerenkil," and its English equivalent, eventually fell into disuse.

The Author's Notes:

4 Not only was Hossitt well provided with sufficient merchandise to make land purchases, but he was given "further consent that he might exchange the remaining merchandise for furs" (ibid.).

6 C. A. Weslager, "Robert Evelyn's Indian Tribes and Place-Names of New Albion," Bulletin 9, Archaeological Society of New Jersey, November, 1954, p11; Dunlap & Weslager, 1958, p10.

8 Ibid., p8. It is not generally known that the patroons also registered a colony for "the Sankikans on the South River," but it was not settled, according to van Rensselaer, because of lack of co‑operation from the Company (VRB, p248). Regrettably the registration for this colony is evidently missing.

10 Conratz Bay (Sandy Hook Bay) was named for Albert Conraets Burgh (see Buchellius Chart, frontispiece, Narratives, Jameson, see also p102). Hamels-Hoofden may have been named for the patroon Heynrick Hamel (ibid., p102).

15 Minuit probably brought the news of Swanendael's destruction; he arrived at Plymouth April 3, 1632, en route to Holland "with quite a number of people, their wives and children on board." Although detained by the English, Minuit had ample opportunity to send messages to Holland (NYCD, 1:45, 46).

16 Published at Alkmaar, Holland, in 1655, it bears a lengthy title but is usually referred to as the Korte Historiael. Sections relating to New Netherland were translated by Henry C. Murphy and published in 1853 by James Lenox, and again in 1857 by the New York Historical Society in its Collections, 2nd Series, 3:1‑129. A Dutch edition was published in 1911, Korte Historiael ende Journaels Aeteyckeninge, ed. H. T. Colenbrander, 's‑Gravenhage. Excerpts from the journal were revised by van Laer and English versions published in Narratives, Myers, pp7‑29.

17 There were twenty-eight men in the original colony, but de Vries himself states that thirty‑two were killed (Colls. N. Y. Hist. Soc., 2nd Series, 1:268). This indicates that reinforcements, probably from Manhattan, joined the original group prior to the massacre.

20 Narratives, Myers, p17. It was probably the trouble-making secretary, Johan van Remund, successor to de Rasière, who complained about de Vries' trading for furs. He tried to confiscate some of the beaver skins from de Vries (ibid., p190).

24 Narratives, Myers, pp241, 229, 265. James Claypoole in 1684 wrote that several Companies were engaged in whaling one‑hundred-and‑fifty miles off the Delaware shore and a whale producing "several hundred Barrels of Yole" had been reported caught (ibid., p293, fn. 1), Gabriael Thomas wrote, "The Commodities of Capmay County [present‑day New Jersey] are oyl and Whale-Bone, of which they make prodigious nay vast quantities every year, having mightily advanced that great Fishery, taking great numbers of Whales yearly" (ibid., p352).

25 Daniel Denton, A Brief Description of New York (1670), Gowan's "Bibliotheca Americana," New York, 1845, p6.

26 The latest opinions may be found in Dunlap, 1956, p34, and C. A. Weslager, "An Early American Name Puzzle," Names, 2, No. 4 (Dec., 1954), pp255‑262.

28 C. A. Weslager, "The Indians of Lewes, Delaware, and an unpublished Indian deed dated June 7, 1659," BASD, 4, No. 5 (January, 1949), 6‑14.

31 NYCD, 12:436; see also Leland Harder, "Plockhoy and His Settlement at Zwanendael," Del. History, 3, No. 3 (March, 1949), 138‑154.

34 C. H. B. Turner, Some Records of Sussex County, Delaware, Philadelphia, 1909.

35 Leon de Valinger, Jr. published five other contemporary depositions narrating this tragic story ("The Burning of the Whorekill, 1673," Penna. Magazine, 74, No. 4 [October, 1950], 473‑487).

37 Turner, op. cit., p85. Penn personally paid a visit to the Whorekill in 1682 (Maryland Archives, 24:374).

p83 IV

The Swanendael Tragedy

The Author's Notes: