PAPERS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE. VI. MINUTES -OF THE COUNCIL OF THE DELAWARE STATE, FROM 1776 TO 1792. THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE, WILMINGTON. 1887. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Although the Swedes were not the original discoverers of the Delaware Bay and River, they were the first colonists who made a permanent settlement on its western shore. Henry Hudson, under a commission from the Dutch East India Company, having failed to find a nearer route to China by the Northern Seas, turned his course southward to explore the coast of North America. In the prosecution of this object, he sailed into the Delaware Bay, above Cape Henlopen, on the 28th of August, 1609, but, believing the navigation to be dangerous on account of sand-bars, did not go up the river. In the following month he anchored off Manhattan Island, and subsequently ascended the river which still bears his name. In October, of the same year, he returned to Holland with a report and chart of his discoveries. In the next year, 1610, some merchants of Amsterdam, acting as partners, freighted a ship and sent her to Manhattan to trade with the natives. This adventure proving profitable, they obtained from the States-General exclusive authority for four years to trade on the North River and its vicinity. In 1614, the Dutch built Fort Amsterdam on the southern point of Manhattan, and, at a later period, Fort Orange on an island near Albany. At these places they enjoyed a monopoly of trade with the Indians for several years. In 1621, the States of Holland granted a charter for twenty-four years to the West India Company, with exclusive powers and privileges. The business of the company was commercial. To successfully prosecute it, colonization was necessary. Hitherto the Dutch had only established trading-posts in America; but from this time efforts were made to settle the country, both on the Hudson and the Delaware, or South River, as it was then called. It was under the auspices of this Company that the first Dutch colonists landed on the shores of the Delaware, in 1623. They came from Holland under the leadership of Cornelius May. They brought with them merchandise and the means of defense, and sailed up the river as far as Gloucester Point, New Jersey, about four miles So called in honor of the English peer of that name who entered the bay one year after its discovery by Hudson. |