[1] O'Callaghan's "History of New Netherlands," 1:112-120.

[2] Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 1:89-100.

[3] O'Callaghan, 1:124. Although it was said that Kiliaen van Rensselaer visited America, it seems to be established that he never did. He governed his estate as an absentee landgrave, through agents. He was the most powerful of all of the patroons.

[4] Ibid., 125.

[5] Colonial Documents, 1:41. The primary object of this company was a monopoly of the Indian trade, not colonization. The "princely" manors were a combination fort and trading house, surrounded by moat and stockade.

[6] Colonial Documents, 1:86.

[7] "Annals of Albany," iii:287. The power of the patroons over their tenants, or serfs, was almost unlimited. No "man or woman, son or daughter, man servant or maid servant" could leave a patroon's service during the time that they had agreed to remain, except by his written consent, no matter what abuses or breaches of contract were committed by the patroon.

[8] "Burghers and Freemen of New York":29.

[9] "Land Nationalization,":122-125.

[10] Colonial Documents, vii:654-655.

[11] Colonial Documents, iv:673-674.

[12] "A Short History of the English Colonies in America":402.

[13] Yet, this fortune seeker, who had incurred the contempt of every noble English mind, is described by one of the class of power-worshipping historians as follows: "Fame and wealth, so often the idols of Superior Intellect, were the prominent objects of this aspiring man."—Williamson's "History of Maine," 1:305.

[14] The Public Domain: Its History, etc.:38.

[15] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth:66, 84, etc. Their claim to inherit proprietary rights was bought at the time of the Revolutionary War by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for £130,000 sterling or about $580,000.

[16] Colonial Documents, iv:463.

[17] Ibid.:535.

[18] Ibid.:39.

[19] Colonial Documents, iv:528. One of Bellomont's chief complaints was that the landgraves monopolized the timber supply. He recommended the passage of a law vesting in the King the right to all trees such as were fit for masts of ships or for other use in building ships of war.

[20] "Colonial New York," 1:285-286.

[21] According to Reynolds's "Albany Chronicles," Livingston was in collusion with Captain Kidd, the sea pirate. Reynolds also tells that Livingston loaned money at ten per cent.

[22] Wright's "Industrial Evolution in the United States"; see also his article "Wages" in Johnson's Encyclopædia. The New York Colonial Documents relate that in 1699 in the three provinces of Bellomont's jurisdiction, "the laboring man received three shillings a day, which was considered dear," iv:588.

[23] Colonial Documents, iv:533-554.

[24] Frederick and his son Adolphus. Frederick was the employer of the pirate, Captain Samuel Burgess of New York, who at first was sent out by Phillips to Madagascar to trade with the pirates and who then turned pirate himself. From the first voyage Phillips and Burgess cleared together £5,000, the proceeds of trade and slaves. The second voyage yielded £10,000 and three hundred slaves. Burgess married a relative of Phillips and continued piracy, but was caught and imprisoned in Newgate. Phillips spent great sums of money to save him and succeeded. Burgess resumed piracy and met death from poisoning in Africa while engaged in carrying off slaves.—"The Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates":177-183. This work was a serious study of the different sea pirates.

[25] Colonial Docs, iv:533-534. On November 27, 1700, Bellomont wrote to the Lords of the Treasury: "I can supply the King and all his dominions with naval stores (except flax and hemp) from this province and New Hampshire, but then your Lordships and the rest of the Ministers must break through Coll. Fletcher's most corrupt grants of all the lands and woods of this province which I think is the most impudent villainy I ever heard or read of any man," iv:780.

[26] This is the inventory given in "Abstracts of Wills," 1:323.

[27] "Journal and Letters," 1767-1774.

[28] Sparks' "Life of Washington," Appendix, ix:557-559.

[29] Bigelow's "Life of Franklin," iii:470.

[30] "Colonial New York," 1:232.

[31] "Lives of the Loyalists,":18.

[32] "Abstracts of Wills," ii:444-445.

[33] Ibid., 1:323-324.

[34] "Abstracts of Wills," 1:108.

[35] "An Historical Account of Massachusetts Currency." See also Colonial Documents, iii:242, and the Records of New Amsterdam. See the chapters on the Astor fortune in Part II for full details of the methods in debauching and swindling the Indians in trading operations.

[36] Thus Captain Bellamy's speech in 1717 to Captain Baer of Boston, whose sloop he had just sunk and rifled: "I am sorry that they [his crew] won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief when it is not for my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security—for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But damn ye altogether; damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and ye who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They villify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference: they rob the poor under cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under protection of our own courage. Had you better not make one of us than sneak after these villains for employment." Baer refused and was put ashore.—"The Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates":129-130.

[37] "A Commercial Sketch of Boston," Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, 1839, 1:125.

[38] Colonial Documents, iv:790.

[39] Ibid., 678.

[40] "Hunt's Merchant's Magazine," 11:516-517.

[41] Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edition of 1857:791.

[42] Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":382.

[43] Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edit. of 1857:227.

[44] Stryker's "American Register" for 1849:241.

[45] "The American Almanac" for 1850:324.

[46] "An Economic and Social History of New England," 11:825.

[47] Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":139.

[48] Life of Eli Whitney, "Our Great Benefactors":567.

[49] "The Astor Fortune," McClure's Magazine, April, 1905.

[50] Innumerable were the sermons and addresses poured forth, all to the same end. To cite one: The Rev. Daniel Sharp of the Third Baptist Meeting House, Boston, delivered a sermon in 1828 on "The Tendency of Evil Speaking Against Rulers." It was considered so powerful an argument in favor of obedience that it was printed in pamphlet form (Beals, Homer & Co., Printers), and was widely distributed to press and public.

[51] Various writers assert that twenty dollars was the average minimum. In many places, however, the great majority of debts were for less than ten dollars. Thus, for the year ending November 26, 1831, nearly one thousand citizens had been imprisoned for debt in Baltimore. Of this number more than half owed less than ten dollars, and of the whole number, only thirty-four individually had debts exceeding one hundred dollars.—Reports of Committees, First Session, Twenty-fourth Congress, Vol. II, Report No. 732:3.

[52] In his series of published articles, "The History of the Prosecution of Bankrupt Frauds," the author has brought out comprehensive facts on this point.

[53] The eminent merchants who sat on this committee had their own conclusive opinion of what produced poverty. In commenting on the growth of paupers they ascribed pauperism to seven sources. (1) Ignorance, (2) Intemperance, (3) Pawnbrokers, (4) Lotteries, (5) Charitable Institutions, (6) Houses of Ill-Fame, (7) Gambling.

No documents more wonderfully illustrate the bourgeois type of temperament and reasoning than their reports. The people of the city were ignorant because 15,000 of the 25,000 families did not attend church. Pawnbrokers were an incentive to theft, cunning and lack of honest industry, etc., etc. Thus their explanations ran. In referring to mechanics and paupers, the committee described them as "the middling and inferior classes." Is it any wonder that the working class justly views "charitable" societies, and the spirit behind them, with intense suspicion and deep execration?

[54] Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen of New York City, 1831-32, Doc. No. 45:1.

[55] House Executive Document, No. 13, Twenty-fifth Congress, Third Session; also, House Report, No. 313.

[56] Report for 1821 of the "Society for the Prevention of Pauperism."

[57] "New York Gazette and General Advertiser", Aug. 5, 1797. The rewards offered for the apprehension of fugitive apprentices varied. An advertisement in the same newspaper, issue of July 3, 1797, held out an offer of five dollars reward for an indented German boy who had "absconded." The fear was expressed that he would attempt to board some ship, and all persons were notified not to harbor or conceal him as they would be "proceeded against as the law directs". That old apprentice law has never been repealed in New York State.

[58] The Government reports bear out Barrett's statements, although in saying this it must be with qualifications. The shippers engaged in the East India and China trade were more favored, it seems, than other classes of shippers, which discrimination engendered much antagonism. "Why," wrote the Mercantile Society of New York to the House Committee on Manufactures in 1821, "should the merchant engaged in the East India trade, who is the overgrown capitalist, have the extended credit of twelve months in his duties, the amount of which on one cargo furnishes nearly a sufficient capital for completing another voyage, before his bonds are payable?" The Mercantile Society recommended that credits on duties be reduced to three and six months on merchandise imported from all quarters of the globe.—Reports of Committees, Second Session, Sixteenth Congress, 1820-21, Vol. I, Document No. 34.

[59] "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:31-33. Barrett was a great admirer of Astor. He inscribed Vol. iii, published in 1864, to Astor's memory.

[60] The movement to abolish imprisonment for debt was a protracted one lasting more than a quarter of a century, and was acrimoniously opposed by the propertied classes, as a whole. By 1836, however, many State legislatures had been induced to repeal or modify the provisions of the various debtors' imprisonment acts. In response to a recommendation by President Andrew Jackson that the practise be abolished in the District of Columbia, a House Select Committee reported on January 17, 1832, that "the system originated in cupidity. It is a confirmation of power in the few against the many; the Patrician against the Plebeian." On May 31, 1836, the House Committee for the District of Columbia, in reporting on the debtors' imprisonment acts, said: "They are disgraceful evidences of the ingenious subtlety by which they were woven into the legal system we adopted from England, and were obviously intended to increase and confirm the power of a wealthy aristocracy by rendering poverty a crime, and subjecting the liberty of the poor to the capricious will of the rich."—Reports of Committees, Second Session, Twenty-second Congress, 1832-33, Report No. 5, and Reports of Committees, First Session, Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836, Report No. 732, ii:2.

[61] "Kings of Fortune":16—The pretentious title and sub-title of this work, written thirty odd years ago by Walter R. Houghton, A.M., gives an idea of the fantastic exaltation indulged in of the careers of men of great wealth. Hearken to the full title: "Kings of Fortune—or the Triumphs and Achievements of Noble, Self-made men.—Whose brilliant careers have honored their calling, blessed humanity, and whose lives furnish instruction for the young, entertainment for the old and valuable lessons for the aspirants of fortune." Could any fulsome effusion possibly surpass this?

[62] "Mr. Girard's bank was a financial success from the beginning. A few months after it opened for business its capital was increased to one million three hundred thousand dollars. One of the incidents which helped, at the outstart, to inspire the public with confidence in the stability of the new institution was the fact that the trustees who liquidated the affairs of the old Bank of the United States opened an account in Girard's Bank, and deposited in its vaults some millions of dollars in specie belonging to the old bank."—"The History of the Girard National Bank of Philadelphia," by Josiah Granville Leach, LL.B., 1902. This eulogistic work contains only the scantiest details of Girard's career.

[63] The First Session of the Twenty-second Congress, 1831, iv, containing reports from Nos. 460 to 463.

[64] Ibid.

An investigating committee appointed by the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1840, reported that during a series of years the Bank of the United States (or United States Bank, as it was more often referred to) had corruptly expended $130,000 in Pennsylvania for a re-charter.—Pa. House Journal, 1842, Vol. II, Appendix, 172-531.

[65] In providing for the establishment of Girard College, Girard stated in his will: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatsoever in the said college; nor shall any such person be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor within the premises appropriated to the purposes of said college."—The Will of the Late Stephen Girard, Esq., 1848:22-23.

An attempt was made by his relatives in France to break his will, one of the grounds being that the provisions of his will were in conflict with the Christian religion which was a part of the common law of Pennsylvania. The attempt failed.

[66] For example, an address by Edward Everett, at the Odeon, before the Mercantile Library Association in Boston, September 13, 1838: "Few persons, I believe, enjoyed less personal popularity in the community in which he lived and to which he bequeathed his personal fortune.... A citizen and a patriot he lived in his modest dwelling and plain garb; appropriating to his last personal wants the smallest pittance from his princely income; living to the last in the dark and narrow street in which he made his fortune; and when he died bequeathed it for the education of orphan children. For the public I do not believe he could have done better," etc., etc.—Hunt's "Merchant's Magazine," 1830, 1:35.

[67] "The Public Charities of Philadelphia."

[68] In 1847 and 1849 the Anti-Renters demonstrated a voting strength in New York State of about 5,000. Livingston's title to his estate being called into question, a suit was brought. The court decision favored him. The Livingstons, it may be again remarked, were long powerful in politics, and had had their members on the bench.—"Life of Silas Wright," 179-226; "Last Leaves of American History":16-18, etc.

[69] The debates in this convention showed that the feudal conditions described in this chapter prevailed down to 1846.—New York Constitution; Debates in Convention, 1846; 1052-1056. This is an extract from the official convention report: "Mr. Jordan [a delegate] said that it was from such things that relief was asked: which although the moral sense of the community will not admit to be enforced, are still actually in existence."

[70] Of a total of $39,544,333,000, representing wealth in real estate and improvements, the census of 1890 attributed $13,905,274,364 to the North Atlantic Division and a trifle more than $15,000,000,000 to the North Central Division.

[71] The Forum (Magazine), November, 1889.

[72] Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":28.

[73] "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:287.

[74] The extent of its operations and the rapid slaughter of fur animals may be gathered by a record of one year's work. In 1793 this company enriched itself by 106,000 beaver skins, 2,100 bear skins, 1,500 fox skins, 400 kit fox, 16,000 muskrat, 32,000 martin, 1,800 mink, 6,000 lynx, 6,000 wolverine, 1,600 fisher, 100 raccoon, 1,200 dressed deer, 700 elk, 550 buffalo robes, etc.

[75] Astor was accused by a Government agent of betraying the American cause at the outbreak of this war. In addition to the American Fur Company, Astor had other fur companies, one of which was the Southwest Company. Under date of June 18, 1818, Matthew Irwin, U. S. factor or agent at Green Bay, Wis., wrote to Thomas L. McKenney, U. S. Superintendent of Indian Affairs: "It appears that the Government has been under an impression [that] the Southwest Company, of which Mr. John Jacob Astor is the head, is strictly an American company, and in consequence, some privileges in relation to trade have been granted to that company." Irwin went on to tell how Astor had obtained an order from Gallatin, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, allowing him, Astor, to land furs at Mackinac from the British post at St. Joseph's. Astor's agent in this transaction was a British subject. "On his way to St. Joseph's," Irwin continued, "he [Astor's British agent] communicated to the British at Malden that war had been or would be declared. The British made corresponding arrangements and landed on the Island of Mackinac with regulars, Canadians and Indians before the commanding officer there had notice that war would be declared. The same course was about to be pursued at Detroit, before the arrival of troops with Gen. Hull, who, having been on the march there, frustrated it." Irwin declared that Astor's purpose was to save his furs from capture by the British, and concluded: "Mr. Astor's agent brought the furs to Mackinac in company with the British troops, and the whole transaction is well known at Mackinac and Detroit."—U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:50-51.

[76] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate, First Session, 22nd Congress, ii:30.

[77] Document No. 58, U. S. Senate Docs. First Session, 19th Congress:7-8.

[78] Ibid. That the debauching of the Indians was long continuing was fully evidenced by the numerous communications sent in by Government representatives. The following is an extract from a letter written on October 6, 1821, by the U. S. Indian Agent at Green Bay to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs (or Indian Trade): "Mr. Kinzie, son to the sub Indian Agent at Chicago, and agent for the American Fur Company, has been detected in selling large quantities of whisky to the Indians at and near Milwaukee of Lake Michigan."—Senate Docs., First Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:54.

[79] Doc. No. 58:10.

[80] Of this fact there can be no doubt. Writing on February 27, 1822, to Senator Henry Johnson, chairman of the U. S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Superintendent McKenney said: ".... The Indians, it is admitted, are good judges of the articles in which they deal, and, generally when they are permitted to be sober, they can detect attempts to practise fraud upon them. The traders knowing this (however, few of the Indians are permitted to trade without a previous preparation in the way of liquor,) would not be so apt to demand exorbitant prices.... This may be illustrated by the fact, as reported to this office by Matthew Irwin, that previous to the establishment of the Green Bay factory [agency] as much as one dollar and fifty cents had been demanded by the traders of the Indians, and received, for a brass thimble, and eighteen dollars for one pound of tobacco!"—U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Document No. 60:40.

[81] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, 22nd Congress, ii:23-24.

[82] Ibid:54.

[83] For a white 3 point blanket which cost $4.00 they were charged $10; for a beaver trap costing $2.50, the charge was $8; for a rifle costing $11 they had to pay $30; a brass kettle which Astor could buy at 48 cents a pound, he charged the Indians $30 for; powder cost him 20 cents a pound; he sold it for $4 a pound; he bought tobacco for 10 cents a pound and sold it at the rate of five small twists for $6, etc., etc., etc.

[84] Document No. 90:72.

[85] Many of the tribes, the Government reports show, not only yielded up to Astor's company the whole of their furs, but were deeply in debt to the company. In 1829 the Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes owed Farnham & Davenport, agents for the American Fur Company among those tribes, $40,000; by 1831 the debts had risen to $50,000 or $60,000. The Pawnees owed fully as much, and the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Sioux and other tribes were heavily in debt.—Doc. No. 90:72.

[86] Forsyth admits that in practically all of these murders the whites were to blame.—Doc. No. 90:76.

[87] Doc. No. 90.—This is but a partial list. The full list of the murdered whites the Government was unable to get.

[88] Document No. 90:77.

[89] Some of the original ledgers of the American Fur Company were put on exhibition at Anderson's auction rooms in New York city in March, 1909. One entry showed that $35,000 had been paid to Lewis Cass for services not stated. Doubtless, Astor had the best of reasons for not explaining that payment; Cass was, or had been, the Governor of Michigan Territory, and he became the identical Secretary of War to whom so many complaints of the crimes of Astor's American Fur Company were made.

The author personally inspected these ledgers. The following are some extracts from a news account in the New York "Times," issue of March 7, 1909, of the exhibition of the ledgers:

"They cover the business of the Northern Department from 1817 to 1835, and consist of six folio volumes of about 1,000 pages each, in two stout traveling cases, fitted with compartments, lock and key. It is said that these books were missing for nearly seventy-five years, and recently escaped destruction by the merest accident.

"The first entry is April 1, 1817. There are two columns, one for British and the other for American money. An entry, May 3, 1817, shows that Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan Territory and afterward Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Gen. Zachary Taylor, the successful Whig candidate, took about $35,000 of the Astor money from Montreal to Detroit, in consideration of something which is not set down."

[90] Doc. No. 13, State Papers, Second Session, 18th Congress, Vol. ii.

[91] "Stole on a monstrous scale." The land frauds, by which many of the Southern planters obtained estates in Louisiana, Mississippi and other States were a national scandal. Benjamin F. Linton, United States Attorney for Western Louisiana, reported to President Andrew Jackson on August 27, 1835, that in seizing possession of Government land in that region "the most shameful frauds, impositions and perjuries had been committed in Louisiana." Sent to investigate, V. M. Garesche, an agent of the Government Land Office, complained that he could get no one to testify. "Is it surprising," he wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury, "when you consider that those engaged in this business belong to every class of society from the member of the Legislature (if I am informed correctly) down to the quarter quarter-section settler!" Up to that time the Government held title to immense tracts of land in the South and had thrown it open to settlers. Few of these were able to get it, however. Southern plantation men and Northern capitalists and speculators obtained possession by fraud. "A large company," Garesche reported, "was formed in New York for the purpose, and have an agent who is continually scouring the country." The final report was a whitewashing one; hence, none of the frauds was sent to jail.—Doc. No. 168, Twenty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, ii:4-25, also Doc. No. 213, Ibid.

[92] "America," admits Houghton, "never presented a more shameful spectacle than was exhibited when the courts of the cotton-growing regions united with the piratical infringers of Whitney's rights in robbing their greatest benefactor.... In spite of the far-reaching benefits of his invention, he had not realized one dollar above his expenses. He had given millions upon millions of dollars to the cotton-growing states, he had opened the way for the establishment of the vast cotton-spinning interests of his own country and Europe, and yet, after fourteen years of hard labor, he was a poor man, the victim of wealthy, powerful, and, in his case, a dishonest class."—"Kings of Fortune":337. All other of Whitney's biographers relate likewise.

[93] See Senate Documents, First Session, 24th Congress, 1835, Vol. vi, Doc. No. 425. A few extracts from the great mass of correspondence will lucidly show the nature of the fraudulent methods. Writing from Columbus, Georgia, on July 15, 1833, Col. John Milton informed the War Department ... "Many of them [the Indians] are almost starved, and suffer immensely for the things necessary to the support of life, and are sinking in moral degradation. They have been much corrupted by white men who live among them, who induce them to sell to as many different individuals as they can, and then cheat them out of the proceeds."... (p. 81.) Luther Blake wrote to the War Department from Fort Mitchell, Alabama, on September 11, 1833 ... "Many, from motives of speculation, have bought Indian reserves fraudulently in this way—take their bonds for trifles, pay them ten or twenty dollars in something they do not want, and take their receipts for five times the amount." (p. 86). On February 1, 1834, J. H. Howard, of Pole-Cat Springs, Creek Nation, sent a communication, by request, to President Jackson in which he said, ... "From my own observation, I am induced to believe that a number of reservations have been paid for at some nominal price, and the principal consideration has been whisky and homespun" ... (p. 104). Gen. J. W. A. Sandford, sent by President Jackson to the Creek country to investigate the charges of fraud, wrote, on March 1, 1834, to the War Department, ... "It is but very recently that the Indian has been invested with an individual interest in land, and the great majority of them appear neither to appreciate its possession, nor to economize the money for which it is sold; the consequence is, that the white man rarely suffers an opportunity to pass by without swindling him out of both".... (p. 110).

The records show that the principal beneficiaries of these swindles were some of the most conspicuous planters, mercantile firms and politicians in the South. Frequently, they employed dummies in their operations.