Old New York

   Friday Greetings from Joe McDonnell

   On this day in 1624, Peter Minuit bought the island of Manhattan from the Indians, supposedly for $24 in trinkets. The island was actually sold for the value of 60 guilders according to a letter written by a local merchant to the offices of the Dutch West India Company back in Amsterdam which managed the affairs in the colony of New Netherland.
   The letter  doesn't say exactly who made the deal, who exactly it was made with, or what was exchanged for what other thing. Such vagueness ushers in myth which may contain truth or at least something resembling truth. We need something solid to hang our jokes and songs on.
   Peter Minuit was director of the colony so we can say he was responsible for the deal. The 60 guilders were worth $24 back in the early 19th century when historians first did the conversion. Now they'd be worth about $1,000 or the cost of one square foot of Manhattan real estate today. A later deed says the Indians were given clothing, guns, knives and other metal items valued at sixty guilders rather than trinkets. Finally, the Indians may have understood that they were merely renting the island to the Dutch. Despite the deal, there would be a good deal of bloodshed in Manhatten in the coming years. That hasn't stopped.
   The Dutch had first settled Manhattan in 1614,  using it as a base for their fur trade. The Dutch Republic was a confederation of seven semi-independent states. The Dutch Republic practiced religious tolerance and took in a lot of intelligent refugees from its less tolerant neighbors. One such refugee was Peter Minuit, whose family had left Spanish controlled Belgium for the German city of  Wesel where he was born in 1580.
   Minuit married a wealthy woman, became a broker and diamond cutter, and eventually moved to the Dutch Republic in his forties. On May 4, 1624 he and his family arrived in Manhattan and two weeks later he made the deal for which we remember him.
   In 1631 Minuit returned to his home in Germany after being dismissed as director. A few years later the Swedish government hired him to set up their new colony in Delaware. He went down to St. Kitts Island in the Caribbean to buy tobacco which was to be resold to help finance the colony in Delaware. A hurricane hit his ship and he drowned. He grave is on St. Kitts if you ever get down there on spring break. The Dutch eventually took over the Swedish colony and the English eventually took over New Netherland. The Indians moved on as they were able.
   There's a ferry terminal on Staten Island named after Minuit. also a school in Harlem and an apartment building on Claremont Ave in Manhattan. A marker in Inwood Hill Park in the northwest corner of the island marks the supposed spot of the purchase.
   The Rogers and Hart song "Give It Back to the Indians," starts off, "Old Pete Minuit had nothing to lose when he bought the isle of Manhattan for 24 dollars and a bottle of booze, and they threw in the Bronx and Staten / Pete thought he had the best of the bargain, but the poor old red man just grinned / and grunted "ugh" (meaning "okay" in his jargon) for he knew poor Pete was skinned."
That song was written in 1939.  You'd be skinned yourself if you wrote that today.

Early commerce on Manhattan.