The Island at the Center of the World (42 page)

NOTES

For further details about the sources listed in these notes, please refer to the bibliography, which begins on page 352.

PROLOGUE

“Original sources of information”: Bayard Tuckerman,
Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General for the West India Company in New Netherland,
preface.

“measures ought to be taken”: A. J. F. van Laer, “The Translation and Publication of the Manuscript Dutch Records of New Netherland, with an Account of Previous Attempts at Translation,” 9.

destroyed the state library: See Epilogue notes for sources on previous translation attempts.

“It is impossible”: Bertrand Russell,
A History of Western Philosophy,
581.

“like a great natural pier”: Mariana G. van Rensselaer,
History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century,
1:49.

“best of all His Majties”: E. B. O'Callaghan and Berthold Fernow, trans.
Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York,
3:106. Hereafter cited as Docs. Rel.

CHAPTER
1

His complicated personality: I have used all of the standard sources in constructing my portrait of Hudson: Richard Hakluyt,
The Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation,
vol. 3; Samuel Purchas,
Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes,
vol. 13; G. M. Asher, ed.,
Henry Hudson the Navigator: The Original Documents in Which His Career Is Recorded;
Henry Cruse Murphy,
Henry Hudson in Holland;
John Meredith Read, Jr.,
A Historical Inquiry Concerning Henry Hudson, His Friends, Relatives, and Early Life, His Connection with the Muscovy Company, and Discovery of Delaware Bay;
Llewelyn Powys,
Henry Hudson;
and Edgar Mayhew Bacon,
Henry Hudson: His Times and His Voyages.
I've also consulted Philip Edwards, ed.,
Last Voyages: Cavendish, Hudson, Ralegh, The Original Narratives;
Donald S. Johnson,
Charting the Sea of Darkness: The Four Voyages of Henry Hudson;
and Douglas McNaughton, “The Ghost of Henry Hudson.”

Since we know his destination: The journal of Abacuk Pricket, printed in Purchas,
Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes,
vol. 13, confirms that Hudson had a house in London; Powys,
Henry Hudson,
1, says that it was “somewhere near the Tower of London.” Muscovy House was originally located in Seething Lane, but, according to Armand J. Gerson et al.,
Studies in History of English Commerce During the Tudor Period,
33 (quoting Husting Roll 341, 29), the company moved prior to 1570 to a location “in the parish of St. Antholin London in or neare a certayne streete since the . . . late dreadfull fire in London called and knowne by the name of Dukes Street.” St. Antholin's was on Budge Row, in Cordwainer Street Ward. In reconstructing Hudson's walk, I have used the “Agas map,” reprinted in Adrian Prockter and Robert Taylor,
The A to Z of Elizabethan London;
Claes Jansz Visscher's view of London circa 1616, reprinted in John Wellsman, ed.,
London Before the Fire;
and John Stow's
A Survey of London Written in the Year 1598.

Among its charter members: The main argument for a line of interrelated Hudsons in the Muscovy Company is made by Read,
A Historical Inquiry Concerning Henry Hudson.

“Here lyeth”: Ibid., 41.

“sturdye Beggers”: Jessica A. Browner, “Wrong Side of the River: London's disreputable South Bank in the sixteenth and seventeenth century”; and A. L. Beier, “Vagrants and the Social Order in Elizabethan England,” 10–11.

From the bravado of its formal name: My sources on the Muscovy Company and the mid-Tudor period are David Loades,
The Mid-Tudor Crisis, 1545–1565;
Richard Hakluyt,
The Discovery of Muscovy;
Purchas,
Hakluytus Posthumus;
Charlotte Fell-Smith,
John Dee;
Raymond H. Fisher,
The Russian Fur Trade, 1550–1700;
Peter J. French,
John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus;
Armand Gerson, Earnest Vaughn, and Neva Ruth Deardorff,
Studies in the History of English Commerce During the Tudor Period;
Henry Harrisse,
John Cabot, the Discoverer of North-America, and Sebastian His Son;
Garrett Mattingly,
The Armada;
Samuel Eliot Morison,
The European Discovery of America,
vol. 1,
The Northern Voyages;
Geraldine M. Phipps,
Sir John Merrick: English Merchant-Diplomat in Seventeenth Century Russia;
David B. Quinn and A. N. Ryan,
England's Sea Empire, 1550–1642;
E. G. R. Taylor,
Tudor Geography;
T. S. Willan,
The Muscovy Merchants of 1555;
and James A. Williamson,
The Age of Drake.

English traders had been blocked: Loades,
The Mid-Tudor Crisis, 1545–1565,
73.

Giovanni Cabotto: Samuel Eliot Morison
(The Great Explorers,
40–41) says it was probably either Cabotto or Gabote.

some mariners were confused: E. G. R. Taylor,
Tudor Geography,
86.

the Englishmen's Strait: Ibid., 34.

fretum arcticum . . .
As with most people: Ibid., 81–85.

twenty-five pounds . . . six thousand pounds: Conyers Read,
Mr. Secretary Walsingham,
3:371.

“near the pole the sun shines”: Powys,
Henry Hudson,
26.

“an age wherein”: Albert Gray, “An Address on the Occasion of the Tercentenary of the Death of Richard Hakluyt.”

the “perpetual clearness”: Donald Johnson,
Charting the Sea of Darkness,
20.

six-million-square-mile Arctic ice shelf: “In the arctic late winter, sea ice covers about 10 million square miles on top of the globe, while in summer the ice pack shrinks to about 6 million square miles, according to Martin Jeffries, an associate research professor of geophysics at the Geophysical Institute.” Ned Rozell, “Sea Ice Reduction May Be Another Climate Change Clue.”
Alaska Science Forum
Article 1255 (October 5, 1995).

Church of St. Ethelburga: Hakluyt,
Principal Navigations Voyages,
3:567.

“This morning we saw”: Purchas,
Hakluytus Posthumus,
13:306–07.

“We set sayle”: Ibid., 313.

“it is so full of ice”: Ibid., 329.

“out of hope”: Ibid., 328.

“sunk into the lowest depths”: Ibid., 300.

CHAPTER
2

“magnificent fountain”: Harry Sieber, “The Magnificent Fountain: Literary Patronage in the Court of Philip III.”

“strenuous spirit”: Simon Schama,
The Embarrassment of Riches,
53.

sometimes even buying: H. F. K. van Nierop,
The Nobility of Holland,
212.

“The Originals of the two”: John Adams,
A collection of state papers . . . ,
399.

he may even have spent: Adriaen van der Donck, in his telling of Hudson's story, says that Hudson had lived in Holland. Although historians have dismissed this account as self-serving to the Dutch claim to New Netherland, a familiarity with the country would help to explain Hudson's quick decision to sail for the Dutch, as well as his friendships with Plancius and De Hondt.

“present negotiations”: G. M. Asher, ed.,
Henry Hudson the Navigator: The Original Documents in Which His Career Is Recorded,
245.

“has found that the more northwards”: Ibid., 246.

“there are also many rich”: Ibid., 253.

“to think of discovering”: Llewelyn Powys,
Henry Hudson,
81.

“This is the entrance”: Purchas,
Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes,
13:356.

“an abundance of blue plums”: J. F. Jameson,
Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664,
37.

the Moravian missionary: John Heckewelder,
History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations,
71–75

“a very good harbor”: Quotes in this and the following paragraph are from Juet's journal as reprinted in Purchas,
Hakluytus Posthumus,
vol. 13.

“Juan Hudson”: I. N. P. Stokes, ed.,
Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909,
2:44.

“as fine a river”: Van Meteren, in Asher,
Henry Hudson,
150.

“Vellen . . . Pelterijen . . .”:
The English and Dutch versions are in ibid.

Even as he was being lowered: All details in this scene come from Abacuk Prickett's account of the mutiny, as printed in vol. 13 of Purchas,
Hakluytus Posthumus.
Prickett's account is skewed and untrustworthy—he makes himself and his fellow survivors blameless bystanders in the mutiny, conveniently fingering those who had died on the return voyage as the ringleaders—but there is no reason to mistrust the details regarding weather, dress, and so on.

“to the great kingdoms”: Asher,
Henry Hudson,
255. The charter of the new company was made in 1612. The actual trial didn't take place until 1618, after several unsuccessful attempts to navigate the passage the mutineers claimed to have discovered.

Arnout Vogels: Information about Vogels comes from Van Cleaf Bachman,
Peltries or Plantations: The Economic Policies of the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland, 1623–1639,
3–6.

CHAPTER
3

From Amsterdam the ships made their way: Van Cleaf Bachman,
Peltries or Plantations: The Economic Policies of the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland, 1623–1639,
16.

“de rivière Hudson”: I. N. P. Stokes, ed.,
Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909,
4:41.

“It is obvious”: Bachman,
Peltries or Plantations,
31.

“sinews of war”: E. B. O'Callaghan,
The History of New Netherland,
1:31.

“12 ships and yachts”: Docs. Rel., 1:35–36.

“more like princes' palaces”: K. H. D. Haley,
The Dutch in the Seventeenth Century,
158.

The councillor who administered: A. J. F. van Laer, trans.,
Documents Relating to New Netherland, 1624–1626, in the Henry E. Huntington Library,
“Provisional Regulations for the Colonists,” and also Van Laer's note, p. 256: “Dr. Claes Petersz was the well-known physician Dr. Nicolaes Pietersen Tulp, the central figure in Rembrandt's famous painting called
The Lesson in Anatomy,
which hangs in the Mauritshuis at the Hague. Dr. Tulp was from 1622 to his death, in 1674, a member of the council and at different times schepen and burgomaster of the city of Amsterdam. Hans Bontemantel says that he never called himself otherwise than ‘Claes Pieterss,' and that ‘Tulp' was a nickname, derived from
tulp,
or tulip, which was placed over his front door.”

Catalina Trico and Joris Rapalje: George Olin Zabriskie and Alice P. Kennedy, “The Founding Families of New Netherland, No. 4—The Rapalje-Rapelje Family.”

Catalina Trico, now in her eighties: Joel Munsell,
A Documentary History of the State of New York,
3:32.

The records of New Netherland show: References to Rapalje and Trico are scattered throughout the colonial records; the passage of their lives can be traced through the index to E. B. O'Callaghan,
Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State.

In the 1770s: Patricia Bonomi,
A Factious People,
277.

Their descendants: Interview with Harry Macy, editor of
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record
and a Rapalje descendant, April 2, 2003.

In contemporary scientific terms: United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Southern New England–New York Bight Coastal Ecosystems Program. “Significant Habitats and Habitat Complexes of the New York Bight Watershed.”

“reeds”: Robert Grumet,
Native American Place Names in New York City,
24.

oysters: Adriaen van der Donck,
A Description of New Netherland,
trans. Diederik Goedhuys, 74.

“hilly island”: Grumet,
Native American Place Names,
23–24.

“Here we found beautiful rivers”: Stokes
Iconography,
4:60.

“It is very pleasant”: J. F. Jameson,
Narratives of New Netherland,
1609–1664,
77.

“hovels and holes”: Van Laer, “Annals of New Netherland: The Essays of A. J. F. van Laer,” ed. and annot. Charles Gehring, 12.

“as high as a man”: Jameson,
Narratives,
76.

after more than a decade: Shirley Dunn,
The Mohicans and Their Land 1609–1730,
76.

“in figure, build . . . jet-black, quite sleek”: Van der Donck,
Description,
90–91.

“he shall be very careful”: Van Laer,
Documents Relating,
55.

“He shall also see”: Ibid., 39.

He had grown up speaking: Information about Minuit's family and early life comes from C. A. Weslager,
A Man and His Ship: Peter Minuit and the Kalmar Nyckel,
14–20.

“He shall have”: Van Laer,
Documents Relating,
44.

So he bought it: The order of events is far from clear, and historians debate whether Verhulst or Minuit was the one who purchased Manhattan Island. My account is based on my own reading of all relevant primary source material, as well as the arguments made by various historians. I side against those who in recent decades removed Minuit from his legendary position as purchaser of the island, and with those who reassign him to that position. Reasons: the substance of the “further instructions” to Verhulst and the dates of Minuit's trip to the Netherlands and of his return suggest the directors were fed up with Verhulst and also realized, perhaps thanks to Minuit's information, that a new central base for the province was needed. Some historians have noted evidence of settlers on Manhattan prior to May 1626, but that doesn't mean the company had already bought the island. More to the point, the whole weight of the events gives a picture of Minuit taking charge and reorganizing the province, something Verhulst, given his weak leadership and position, couldn't have done.