A navigable
waterway, peaceable natives and lots of fur-bearing animals. To
a Dutch explorer on the North
American coast in the early seventeenth century, that combination
spelled money. Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage, in which he outlined
the American territory that the Dutch would claim, was only a first
step. Over the next five years, several smallscale explorations
took place-to discover whether there was money to be made in the
territory, and where. The most determined of these explorers was
Adriaen Block, who made four voyages on behalf of a group of Amsterdam
merchants, and who also made a remarkably accurate map of the whole
area (right).
In 1614, Block became the first European to explore the Connecticut
River, which he named the Versche, or Fresh, River. In addition
to studying the land and water (he found the river dangerously shallow
in places), Block initiated contact with the Indians of the region.
He discovered, perhaps by accident, that the polished shell pieces
the Pequots made from local shells-called sewan or wampum-were highly
prized by the Mohawks far to the north and west. The Mohawks, in
turn, had plentiful beavers to trade. Thus, far before the English
had even heard of wampum, the Dutch set themselves up as middle
men in a three-way trade. The Pequots got European manufactured
goods such as cloth and cookware; the Mohawks got the wampum they
valued; and the Dutch got the furs that Europeans clamoured for.
The lively, unimpeded trade didn't last long, however. English
settlers from New England who were unhappy with the Puritan administrations
of the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies began filtering into
the territory in about 1630. In 1633, Massachusetts governor John
Winthrop wrote a terse letter to Wouter Van Twiller, director-general
of New Netherland, informing him that King Charles claimed the river
for England, based on the 1497 voyage of John Cabot to the New World.
Van Twiller replied hopefully that "as good neighbors wee might
live in these heathenishe countryes . I should bee very sorrye
that wee should bee occation that the Kinges Majestie of England
and the Lords the States Generall should fall into anye contention."
But contention was already upon them. The Dutch had far fewer people
in their colony, and it was all they could manage to keep their
major settlements on the North River (the future New York City,
Kingston, and Albany) manned. They watched helplessly as the Fresh
River became the Connecticut River, and would-be Dutch settlements
became English cities.
That said, recent archaeological and archival work suggests that
the extent of Dutch presence in the Connecticut area was much greater
than has previously been known-which may help to explain why a Dutch
legacy remains in Connecticut: in place names, in locations scouted
by the Dutch as suitable for settlement, and in the complicated
tangle of cultures that defined the region's beginnings, as Dutch,
English and Indian groups vied with one another.