The following information is not an exhaustive work with regards to background information on the early Dutch settlement of the New World. Only enough information is presented here to provided the reader with a reasonable understanding of how the Van Woert and Rutger families fit into the colonization of America.
The following is a brief synopsis of the early settlement of America by the Dutch. It was during this early period that our ancestors, Rutger Jacobsen, and his brother Teunis Jacobsen, left their home at Schoenderwoerdt near Leerdam in South Holland, to arrive at New Amsterdam and subsequently became among the early settlers of Beverwyck (later Albany).
There are primarily two periods of Dutch immigration to America. The first period, from the early to mid 1600's, was comprised of mainly an adventurous bunch - those who wanted to make a new start and be part of what they hope would be a successful venture. Unlike the English who came to America to escape religious persecution, the Dutch of the seventeenth century had no particular reason for leaving home. The Netherlands was prosperous. It boasted of four universities, had plenty of farmland, and the country was known far and wide for its tolerance and freedom. The Dutch were content at home and not eager to cross the sea to find waiting for them hardships and in many cases peril.
The association between the Netherlands and the United States dates back to the voyage of Henry Hudson, the Englishman, who in seeking a route to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company, explored the river in New York State which today bears his name. In fact the Dutch flag, signifying Dutch dominion, was found up and down the Hudson River even before the first Pilgrims arrived and set up the first real settlement at Jamestown.
Captain Adriaen Block in the trader Tyger (tiger) sailed up the Hudson River in 1613, looking for furs. His ship caught fire and had to be beached, so Block and his crew spent the winter there. When spring came they built a sloop called the Onrust (Unrest). They explored Long Island Sound in the sloop until they were picked up by a Dutch ship and taken home. Block Island, northeast of Long Island, still bears the Captain's name.
Block made many maps confirming the findings of Henry Hudson. On the basis of those maps, thirteen Dutch businessmen applied to the States-General (Parliament) for a charter giving them exclusive trading privileges with "New Netherland," the area explored by the Dutch in the New World. In 1614 the merchants established Fort Nassau, on an island in the Hudson River just below what is now Albany. Believed to be the second European settlement in America (Jamestown was the first), Fort Nassau was intended only as a trading center, not as a permanent colony.
So successful was the Fort Nassau venture that in 1621 a new and wealthier company, the West India Company, was formed with a charter giving it monopoly on Dutch trading with the whole American continent.
On March 31, 1624, the ship Nieuwe Nederland (New Netherland) set out for the New World carrying the first real Dutch settlers - thirty families who planned to become farmers in the wilderness. Under the leadership of Willem Verhulst, they anchored near Fort Nassau and founded Fort Orange (now Albany) on the shore of the Hudson River.
The following year a fort was built on Manhattan Island. The West India Company brought farmers from the Netherlands, and five farms (bouwerijen) were established on the island to supply the soldiers and traders of the fort. The settlement was named New Amsterdam. Businessmen that they were, the Dutch wanted proof of ownership of the island that was to be the center of the Netherland colony. So, in 1626 Governor Pieter Minuit officially bought the entire island of Manhattan from the Indians at the rate of 1,OOO acres for a dollar.
New Amsterdam was the heart of the New Netherlands and out of all the other little villages and forts established in the area, New Amsterdam was the most substantial and dependable.
Just as New Netherland was not like anything the English possessed as a colony, so New Amsterdam bore no likeness to a New England town. Instead of homesteads clustering about a church and a village green, the Dutch houses adjoined a fort, within which were the governor's house, the church, barracks, a prison, the whipping post and gallows, while nearby were the two windmills. The houses extended northward toward the wall or palisade, built in 1653, with its five or six bastions (Wall Street), beyond which was the "gut," dry at low water, but navigable for small boats at high tide, and crossed by two large bridges and three small ones (Broad Street). Beyond the palisade and the canal were bouweries (farms) and plantations. Totaling around fifty in number, these farms were widely scattered along the eastern and western sides of the island while the cattle roamed at large in the woods covering the island.
The chief employment within the settlement itself was trading, for those that lived there farmed very little. The inhabitants numbered about three hundred in 163O, four hundred and fifty in 1646, fifteen hundred for New Amsterdam alone in 1664, and for the entire province less than seven thousand in the same year. This slow increase in population contrasts strikingly with the rapid settlement of New England. (Because the English greatky outnumbered the Dutch, the Dutch quickly surrendered in 1664, when confronted by English warships.)
To encourage colonization, the West India Company conceived a new idea. Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a wealthy jewel merchant, and one of the twenty Amsterdam directors of the West India Company, was convinced that hunting and trading alone, as the sole source of wealth, would only result in loss and damage. Therefore, he advocated restricting the fur trade while at the same time setting up private agricultural communities. The anticipated benefit was two-fold. First, it would aid in colonizing the province, and secondly, it would make New Amsterdam a supply station of grain, cattle, and provisions for ships going to the West Indies. Kiliaen argued that ships could thus refit without returning to the Netherlands and in so doing save the cost and avoid the danger of two long ocean voyages. He was opposed, and continued to be opposed, by those among the directors who were profiting by contracts for supplies and equipment at home. He found support, however, among others who saw in the plan a means whereby the region might be settled at the least expense to the company. Their belief was that by granting these privileges, it would attract men from the private sector so that in the end the costs would be borne by private individuals.
These supporters drew up documents defining the kind of agricultural colonies they wished to establish and outlined in great detail the conditions under which they should be managed. These documents, the contents of which, after long negotiation, were approved by the Board of the Nineteen and confirmed by the States-General on June 7, 1629, is known as the charter of Freedoms and Exemptions.
So in 1629 the Dutch West India Company offered special "liberties and exemptions" to anyone who would ship fifty colonists to America at his own expense. Such a man would become a "patroon" and could buy from the company a parcel of land extending twelve miles along the Hudson River on one side, or six miles along each side, and reaching as far inland as he wished. The patroon would have important trading privileges and complete jurisdiction over his land. Even this lure did not work too well, and only one patroonship survived for very long. This one was established by Kiliaen Van Rensselaer.
Through agents in 163O and 1631, Van Rensselaer bought lands on the west side of the upper Hudson and gradually enlarged the area until he and his partners possessed a territory running up and down on both sides of the river, including Castle Island, and extending north on the west side until it was the hamlet of Beverwyck which was already beginning to take shape and was destined to become in time the independent incorporated city of Albany. Kiliaen himself never visited New Netherland, but continued to reside in Amsterdam, ruling his colony from afar as an absentee patroon, by means of a commis or agent in charge, with an under-commis, a schout, the head officer who also administered justice, and five schepens or councilors, the last two of whom (schout and schepens) were authorized to wear insignia of their office. To all these, each of whom took an oath of loyalty, the patroon gave frequent instructions regarding the conduct of his business. He sent over, sometimes in the ships of the company and sometimes in other vessels, a great variety of goods: horses, mares, cattle, cows, implements of all kinds for farming purposes, millstones for a grist mill, materials for a saw mill, vats for brewing, iron and coal for the smithies, brick and tiles for building (though early on he hoped to make brick in the colony), and he dispatched at his own expense farmers, servants, and laborers. It was on one of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer�s ships (the Rensselaerwyck) and in his employ that Rutger Jacobsen Van Schoenderwoerdt came to America in 1636. He was followed four years later by his brother, Teunis Jacobsen Van Schoenderwoerdt.
Van Rensselaer wrote letters constantly. They were long and badly composed, causing the recipients dismay at times wondering what Killian was actually trying to communicate. He conducted his holdings as a farming colony, cultivating a part himself with the use of laborers, and leasing other parts to farmers. Because of his attempts to run the colony from overseas he became involved in constant quarrels. Disputes were common with his farmers about leases, profits (of which he claimed half) and the payment of tithes; with his officials, whom he accused of being extravagant and neglecting his orders, while promoting their own benefit and advancement; with Governor Kieft at New Amsterdam about sending goods up the river; with successive commisen at Fort Orange over the fur supply; and with the two latter regarding payment for delivery of grain. He had trouble with the West India Company regarding the use of its ships also. In general he complained about his own people because they would hunt and trap, contrary to his express commands, for he wanted them to obtain furs only by barter. He denounced intruders, because in their search for furs they trespassed on his property. It is hard to believe that he reaped anything but trouble as the reward for all his labors.
In the meantime, the province itself did progress slowly. Occupying the territory were the functionaries, farmers, and laborers of the patroon at Rensselaerwyck (the name given to the patroonship by Killian Van Rensselaer), numbering about one hundred in 1646; the officials and their subordinates at such forts, towns, and settled districts that were in the immediate hands of the Dutch West India Company; a considerable body of free residents-"free men" or "free merchants"- who had come over on their own account and at their own expense and had been allotted land in full ownership by the company; many mechanics and retailers in New Amsterdam; and a large number of individuals in service under masters.
Not only was the patroon quarreling with his colonist over many issues, but there also erupted a dispute between the Dutch and the English over boundaries. This led, in 1664, to the English conquest of the New Netherland. When the land fell into English hands, names of geographical locations changed. New Netherland became New York, and New Amsterdam, New York City.
After the surrender of New Amsterdam in 1664, emigration to America from the Netherlands virtually ceased. Reinforced only by occasional small groups of settlers, such as those who settled in Pennsylvania with the English Quakers, the Dutch were soon outnumbered by their neighbors of other nationalities.
It was not until the middle of the 1800's, when due to low wages, high taxes, and religious dissatisfaction, that large groups from the Netherlands arrived in America. The first to come were a group of Dutch separatists who settled on Lake Michigan's eastern shore in 1846. Because of differences in languages, customs, and religion, the Dutch immigrants of this time tended to migrate on groups and found their own communities. In 1847 a group arrived in Iowa where they laid out the town of Pella and later the town of Orange City. Other small groups settled in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Wisconsin and Nebraska.