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TO MY FRIEND JOSEPH HORNOR COATES, Esq. OF PHILADELPHIA
Chapter I. THE OLD COLONIE Chapter II. FRIEND GREELEY Chapter III. A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND Chapter IV. A BAD BEGINNING Chapter V. A GOOD ENDING Chapter VI. ENTERTAINMENTS Chapter VII. THE SCHOOL Chapter VIII. ODDMENTS Chapter IX. FOURIER AND THE FARMERS Chapter X. UNTO THIS LAST
JOHN VAN DER ZEE SEARS HORACE GREELEY RALPH WALDO EMERSON “THE HIVE” CHARLES A. DANA THE PAGEANT A PIONEER KINDERGARTEN NATANIEL HAWTHORNE
[Illustration: Portrait of the Author: John Van Der Zee Sears]
In May, 1624, the Dutch packet New Netherlands sailed up the Hudson River to the head of navigation, bringing a company of eighteen families under the leadership of Adrian Joris. The immigrants landed at a little trading post called Beaverwick kept by one Tice Oesterhout, a pioneer hunter, married to a Mohawk Squaw. In a few days a party of Indians, probably Mohawks, waited on the newcomers and politely made inquiry as to their object in entering upon Indian lands without notice or permission; Tice Oesterhout and his wife acting as interpreters. Joris replied that they came in peace and hoped to abide in peace on friendly terms with the Indians. He was told that he and his people would be welcome if they joined the universal peace union of the Iroquois, and not otherwise. This proposition the settlers agreed to by acclamation. In due course the General Council of the Five Nations accepted the Colony as a member of the Iroquois Federation. Joris was recognized as the Civil Chief of the little community, and, as he was a Walloon, his people became the Walloon Nation of the Great Peace Alliance. The Great Peace was the treaty forming the basis of the Iroquois Federation. The Colonists, instead of making a treaty with the Indians, gave their adhesion to one already made, thereby securing safety and a practical monopoly of the fur trade on the upper Hudson. They sent annual presents to the Iroquois General Council, which were doubtless received as tribute in recognition of sovereignty, but the Walloon Nation did not seem to care very much about the sovereignty business so long as the fur business continued to prosper, as it did for the next half century.