For tens of thousands of years the ancestors of the Delaware natives of New Jersey lived an itinerant way of life, following migratory herds of prey, fishing in fresh rivers and along the eastern coastline, and setting up bark-sided houses that could be easily dismantled and carried to the next location. Small-scale agriculture and their nomadic way of life saw the Delaware benefit from fertile soil, plentiful wildlife and abundant vegetation.
Enter the Dutch!
Henry Hudson in 1609. He sailed for the Dutch East India Company, exploring the East Coast including Delaware, Raritan, New York Bays and the Hudson River. Then came Adriaen Block who mapped out the coastline along Delaware, New Jersey, Long Island and New England. He gave this region the name New Netherlands. Block Island, Rhode Island is named after him.
Factorij or trading posts were being established at Commipaw, Hopoghan Hackingh (Hoboken) and Arresick (Paulus Hook) from 1617 onwards.
Small outposts were sprouting up in and around the Delaware River from 1624 to cater for a burgeoning fur trade. Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, after whom Cape May is named, arrived with thirty families who were to colonise the area and establish the province of New Netherland. Walloon settlers who had arrived on Nut (Governor's) Island were sent to a fort on an island previously called Murderer's island, renamed Prince's Island in honour of Prince William of Orange and now called Burlington Island. The settlement, Fort Wilhelmus, was located in the South or Delaware River. This would see the first European settlement in New Jersey.
Across the Hudson (Noorte) River from New Amsterdam and, on the banks of Upper New York Bay, the next permanent colony was a patroonship, a large parcel of land granted by the West India Company to a Dutchman called Micheal Pauw. This was in 1630 and was bought for a ridiculous sum that I outlined in my previous blog http://tinyurl.com/of5phbl
Micheal Pauw was a burgermeester from Amsterdam and a director of the West India Company. It was in his vanity that Pauw latinised his surname and called the settlement Pavonia. Translated, this means peacock - rather an apt word!! Bought from the Lenape, this was the territory of the Turtle Clan or Unami.
Pauw's holdings eventually included Staten Isand, Bergen Point (which included eight miles of shoreline on both Hudson and Hackensack Rivers), Bergen Neck and Paulus Hook (including a ferry). Quite a hand to hold if you'd been playing Monopoly! His downfall came when he established a plantation, worked by African slaves, but failed to fulfil the company's condition of having at least fifty permanent settlers. Pauw was required to resell his acquisitions back to the West India Company.
Part Two - Anglo-Dutch squabbling!
For more Dutch audacity:
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