The Story of Manhattan | Page 3

up in despair, and
said that, after all, he had not found the eagerly sought-for passage to
India, but only a river!
Then he turned the ship, sailed back past the island, and returned to
Holland to tell of his discovery. He told of the fur-bearing animals, and
of what a vast fortune could be made if their skins could only be got to
Holland, where furs were needed. He told of the Indians; and the river
which flowed past the island he spoke of as "The River of the
Mountains."
[Illustration: The Half Moon in the Highlands of the Hudson.]
The directors of the Dutch East India Company were not particularly
pleased with Hudson's report. They were angry because the short cut to

India had not been found, and they thought very little of the vast
storehouse of furs which he had discovered. Neither did the Company
care a great deal about Hudson, for they soon fell out with him, and he
went back to the English company and made another voyage for them,
still in search of the short passage to India. But in this last voyage, he
only succeeded in finding a great stretch of water far to the north, that
can be seen on any map as Hudson's Bay. His crew after a time grew
angry when he wanted to continue his search. There was a mutiny on
the ship, and Hudson and his son and seven of the sailors who were his
friends were put into a small boat, set adrift in the bay to which he had
given his name, and no trace of them was ever seen again. Long, long
years after that time, another explorer found the passage that Hudson
had lost his life searching for. It is The Northwest Passage, far up
toward the North Pole, in the region of perpetual cold and night. So
Hudson never knew that the passage he had looked for was of no value,
and we may be sure he had never imagined that there would ever be a
great city on the island he had discovered.
The Dutch came to think a great deal of Hudson after he was dead. The
stream which he had called "The River of the Mountains" they named
Hudson's River. They even made believe that Hudson was a
Dutchman--although you will remember he was an Englishman--and
were in the habit of speaking of him as "Hendrick" Hudson.
The Indians were scattered over America in great numbers. The tribe
on the island were called Manhattans, and from that tribe came the
name of the Island of Manhattan. All the Indians, no matter which tribe
they belonged to, looked very much alike and acted very much the
same. Their eyes were dark, and their hair long, straight, and black.
When they were fighting, they daubed their skins with colored
muds--war paint the white men called it--and started out on the
"war-path". They loved to hunt and fish, as well as to fight, and they
fought and murdered as cruelly and with as little thought as they hunted
the wild animals or hooked the fish. They held talks which were called
"councils," and one Indian would speak for hours, while the others
listened in silence. And when they determined upon any action, they
carried it out, without a thought of how many people were to be killed,

or whether they were to be killed themselves.
[Illustration: Earliest Picture of Manhattan.]
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST TRADERS on the ISLAND
For several years after the return of Hudson, Dutch merchants sent their
ships to the Island of Manhattan, and each ship returned to Holland
laden with costly furs which the Indians had traded for glass beads and
strips of gay cloth. The Indians cared a great deal more for glittering
glass and highly colored rags than they did for furs.
One trader above all others whose name should be remembered, was
Adrian Block. He came in a ship called the Tiger. This ship was
anchored in the bay close by what is now called the Battery, and
directly in the course that the ferry-boats take when they go to Staten
Island.
[Illustration: Indians Trading for Furs.]
On a cold night in November it took fire and was burned to the water's
edge. Block and those who were with him would all have been burned
to death had they not been strong and hardy men who were able to
swim ashore in the ice-cold water. Even when they reached the shore
they were not safe, for there were no houses or places of shelter; the
winter was coming on, and the woods were filled with wild beasts. But
Block and his men very soon built houses for themselves; rude and
clumsy buildings to look at, but warm and