Augustine Herrman, Beginner of the Virginia Tobacco Trade, Merchant of New Amsterdam and First Lord of Bohemia Manor in Maryland/Chapter 4

by Leon Heck

Chapter IV

AUGUSTINE HERRMAN: THE DIPLOMAT

Augustine Herrman’s first mission of diplomacy can hardly be said to have resulted in much credit to himself or in much honor to his chief. This was not because of any shortcoming in the ability and capacity of the ambassador, but more because of the fickleness of the Dutch governor. Herrman for once was caught off his guard; and the episode proved to be an ingenious way whereby Peter Stuyvesant and his creature, Van Tienhoven, again placed him in an embarrassing situation. In April 1652 Adriaen Keyser and Herrman proceeded to Rhode Island as special envoys from New Amsterdam. George Baxter, one of the magistrates of the English colony, Gravesend, and a personal friend of Van Tienhoven, gave the Dutch ambassadors a letter to be delivered to William Coddington, governor of Rhode Island.

Herrman and his companion were received in Newport with all marks of respect becoming their high office, and everything was proceeding so satisfactorily that it seemed certain that the representatives of both colonies could go ahead in a friendly manner with what business was to be transacted. All went on perfectly until the letter was opened. When read before the General Assembly of the English colony, a cold silence reigned over the hall; and when the Rhode Islanders had recovered from their surprise, and their anger and indigtion were aroused, they ordered the two astonished ambassadors to be seized. To their utter consternation Herrman and Keyser were accused of conspiring with Stuyvesant and Baxter to subvert the government of Rhode Island.

No less surprised was Herrman when the letter was read, for among other things which Stuyvesant had written was a proposition made to Governor Coddington to send an army from New Amsterdam to aid the English governor in subduing his own colony.^[1]

The indignation ran so high in the Rhode Island General Assembly that the two representatives of Stuyvesant were arrested and obliged to give bail to the amount of one hundred pounds,^[2] each until they could prove that they were innocent of the crime connoted by the contents of the letter. This put Herrman in a very awkward position, for at the time he was just beginning to recover from his financial depression, and with all his close friends hard pressed for funds. They were finally released from confinement at Newport. Upon returning to New Amsterdam, Stuyvesant refused to see either Herrman or Keyser; but after much trouble they were able to procure letters proving them innocent of intention to start an insurrection in Rhode Island and ignorant of the contents of the ridiculous letter.

 

“The Director, Van Tienhoven and Baxter”, wrote Herrman, “still remain great amigos and companions daily resorting each others company to the great suspicion and probability of what is above related.”^[3]

 

It scarcely seems creditable that Herrman would again trust Peter Stuyvesant or serve him again in a diplomatic mission; yet he must have been a man who could easily forget past injuries. However, there is no record that Stuyvesant ever tried to play the same trick upon Herrman, and whether the Newport incident was merely a graciousless prank we have no means of knowing. At least it apparently cleared the atmosphere in their relations, for in the forthcoming years it was not repeated.

In 1651 Herrman had married Janetje Verlett, daughter of Casper and Judith Verlett and sister of Anna Hack. In 1656 their brother, Nicholas the attorney, married Anna, widow of Samuel Bayard and sister of Peter Stuyvesant.^[4] These marriages no doubt helped to clear the troubled conditions and to form alliances between the Herrmans, Hacks and Stuyvesants.

By 1653 trouble between New England and New Netherland was becoming acute, mainly because of the First Navigation Act (1651), an act which was heartily welcomed in New England both because it tended to promote their trade and because it had been passed by their Puritan brethren in England. On May 26, 1653 Herrman was sent to Boston with a reply to the letter of the commission and an abstract of “Passages” between New England and New Amsterdam.^[5] Nothing is known of these transactions other than the fact that Herrman was able to appease the New Englanders and no doubt but what he acquitted himself with much credit.

On May 30, 1653 Stuyvesant wrote to Richard Bennet, governor of Virginia, recommending “Augustyn Heermans to his courtesy”.^[6] This may have had reference not merely for ambassadorial duties but for private trade adjustments, because the following year Stuyvesant wrote a similar request to Bennet asking that some reparation be made to Herrman by Edward Scarburgh, who owed him for some tobacco.^[7] In 1658 Herrman was a member of a group of four who were sent to treat with the Esopus Indians.^[8]

For a number of years the Dutch province had been constantly menaced by a new enemy toward the south. Since 1634 New Sweden on the east coast of Delaware and New Netherland had been engaged a few small and indecisive skirmishes; but it was not until the year 1655 that the Dutch finally prevailed over the Swedes and their power was shattered. This new territory was divided into Altoona and New Amstel, the older Swedish inhabitants being gradually absorbed by the Dutch or moved away to the English settlements. The dissolution of New Sweden, however, was a tactless adventure of the Dutch, for now they were placed in proximity to the English, with all the accompanying border disputes. Had the colonial Dutchmen been a little more experienced in the technicalities of diplomacy, they would have been glad to have had New Sweden remain as a kind of border state between New Netherland and Maryland. To offset the danger, on the other hand, New Amsterdam and the southern English colonies—though they, for the most part, remained loyal to the Stuart cause were drawn closely together for economic reasons brought about by the Navigation Act of 1651. Regardless of this friendly feeling, however, trouble did break out between the two provinces, Maryland and New Netherland; and it was in the adjustment of this trouble where Herrman found a golden opportunity to display his rare powers in the art of diplomacy.

In 1656 Stuyvesant, the board of burgomasters and schepens of New Amsterdam determined to colonize more completely the west bank of the Delaware River. Permanent settlements were ere long established at Horekill (Lewes), New Amstel (Newcastle) and on the west side of the river at Passaying (Philadelphia).^[9] In 1659 Governor Fendall of Maryland began to look upon all these new Dutch settlements so near his borders with anything but a kindly eye. Believing that the time was ripe to prevent further colonization on the part of the Dutch, Governor Fendall sent Colonel Nathaniel Utie to inform the Dutch that they were trespassing upon English territory.^[10] When the Director General heard of this, he raged and fumed in his usual manner and with his customary impetuosity asked the Dutch deputies at New Amstel why they had not treated Utie as a spy instead of bargaining with him.^[11] Herrman, once again in high favor with Stuyvesant, seeing the seriousness of the situation, proposed a conference between representatives of the two provinces; whereupon he and Resolved Waldron were appointed special ambassadors to Maryland.

“Peter Stuyvesant”, began the Dutch governor in a letter to Governor Fendall, “in behalf of the high and mighty lords States-General of the United Provinces, the noble lords overseers of the authorized West India Company, as the Director General of New Netherland, Curaçao, Bonaire and Araba, and the apurtenants of them, with the advice of the lords in council, to all men that these shall come to see and hear, salut. . . .”^[12] In this letter to Fendall, Stuyvesant refers to Herrman and Waldron as “our trusty agents”, and in another letter he calls them “our well beloved and trusty Augustine Heermans and Resolved Waldron.”^[13] When the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam heard of these new settlements, and being unfamiliar with the geography of the English colonies, gave vent to their indignation in a fiery letter addressed to Stuyvesant, blaming him for his lack of tact and for the departure of so many Dutchmen to Virginia.^[14] In all justice to Peter Stuyvesant it ought to be stated that if his administration was no more successful than it was, it may have been because it seemed his misfortune to be continually caught between two fires—the rebellious nature of his freedom-loving subjects and the unreasonable attitude and haughtiness of the authorities in Holland.

During his trip to Maryland Herrman kept a journal of his travels from New Amstel to Patexent in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. He quaintly and charmingly describes the country and the people, narrating the following anecdote:

 

“A certain savage met a Dutchman at Whorekill and told him that he would kill a Dutchman because his father had been killed by a Dutchman before, to which the Dutchman replied that his father had been killed by an Englishman and therefore ought to take revenge on them, on which the savage went off and killed an Englishman.”^[15]

 

In the preamble of the colonial charter of Maryland occurs this phrase, “in a country, Hactenus unculta (generally translated “hitherto uncultivated”, but more properly, “hitherto unsettled”) by Europeans” in reference to the boundaries of the province indicative of how far the colonists might go in relation to other settlements. In other words the Marylanders were authorized to settle anywhere which was not already occupied by the European stock or territory not claimed on rights of previous discovery. No one in Maryland paid much attention to the phrase, holding it to be merely descriptive. It was, however, this very phrase which the judicious Herrman seized upon at the conference with Governor Fendall. With “exemplary gravity” the Dutch envoys proceeded to show how the Dutch as the rightful heirs of Spain were only claiming that which had been discovered by Columbus and claimed for Ferdinand and Isabella.^[16] Upon this unlooked for piece of deduction and erudition Colonel Utie lost his temper at being so completely routed by Herrman and Waldron, that Governor Fendall had to call him to order, and apologized to the Dutchmen for this discourteous breech of diplomatic etiquette.^[17] That evening, however, complete harmony was restored at a dinner given in honor of the two distinguished and learned Dutch ambassadors, at which Philip Calvert was present. On the 20th of October, 1659 Waldron started on his return trip to New Amsterdam while Herrman proceeded to Virginia to “inquire of governor (Bennet) what is his opinion on the subject to create a division between them both, and purge ourselves of the slander of stirring up the Indians to murder the English at Accomac.”^[18] In Virginia Herrman met his brother-in-law, Nicholas Verlett and Captain Bryan Newton and with Governor Bennet they established a “free trade and commerce” treaty between Virginia and New Netherland.^[19]

Herrman spent the winter of 1659–60 in the southern colonies and it appears, too, that he made a trip to the West Indies, as we find him asking permission to make a voyage to the Dutch and French Islands and for letters of recommendation to the governors.^[20] The report of the Maryland mission is dated at St. Mary’s, 21 October, 1659, so we can judge that after that date his time was free.^[21] It was most likely during this time that he turned over in his mind the thought to leave New Amsterdam and to settle permanently in either Maryland or Virginia. In the late autumn of 1659 he met his wife, who came down from New Amsterdam on a ship to Jamestown, and both passed the winter with their sister Anna Hack, who was still living in Northampton County, Va. That winter may have been particularly gay for the Herrmans, used to for so many years the rigorous winters and the more or less drab social life of the Dutch in New Amsterdam. No doubt they enjoyed the mild climate of the Eastern Shore and the life of ease and gaiety that just about this time was beginning to be popular with the southern planters, especially after the influx of the scions of the nobility and gentry of England who had fled the homeland after the advent of Oliver Cromwell. The social life that Herrman lived in Virginia during this winter probably reminded him of his youthful years at Prague, then at the height of her brilliant career, just before the era of religious persecution. Always a man who liked people, Herrman likely met the Custises and the Scarburghs, the Lees, the Carters and the Randolphs and other great landowners of the Eastern Shore and the mainland.^[22]

At any rate it appears reasonably certain that when the winter of 1660 had hardly begun he resolved never again to make New Amsterdam his permanent home. He had during the past few years become reasonably well-to-do again and he turned his attention toward buying an estate in either Maryland or Virginia. That he made up his mind to settle among the English colonists early in 1660 is shown by the fact that on January 14 of that year he received his letters of denization from Maryland that permitted him to own property though he did not become a naturalized citizen until 1669. We know that he did not entirely alienate himself from New York as he served on a jury there in 1666.^[23] It is quite probable, too, that during his early years as a resident of Maryland he made frequent trips back to the Dutch province. It would seem that when Herrman left New Amsterdam in 1659 on his diplomatic mission with Governor Fendall that he then had no serious intention not to return when his work was finished. He had, apparently, become entirely reconciled with Peter Stuyvesant who, at least, was paying him obvious marks of respect by appointing him to dignified and responsible posts. He certainly left considerable property in the Dutch town and his various business connections would have demanded his presence part of the time there after 1660.

Yet, on the other hand, when we examine more minutely Herrman’s character, his breadth of mind and vision; when we recall how shamefully he had been treated by the capricious Stuyvesant, we must wonder whether Herrman did not have secret plans when he left New Amsterdam in the late summer of 1659 never to return as a permanent resident.^[24] Herrman was not a Dutchman nor did he have the slow moving methodical mind of the colonial Dutchman of New Amsterdam. His later life shows that he was fond of a good deal of pomp and show as well as refinement and elegance; he had a pronounced taste for scholarship and learning and took a keen delight in things artistic. These cultural longings certainly Herrman could have but partially satisfied in those early days of New York’s development and which alone could be had only in the southern colonies. On the whole, as we look more deeply into his character and personality, Herrman had more in common with the Virginia planter than with the Dutch merchant. There were other reasons why New Amsterdam life became distasteful. The most cultured man in the Dutch province and one of Herrman’s most intimate friends, Adriaen Van der Donck had died in 1655.^[25] Govert Loockermans seems to have disappeared from the annals of New Amsterdam after 1652 and it is not known what became of him. Since Herrman makes no further mention of him it is not improbable that he died or moved away.^[26]

With his wife’s people, the Verletts, he seems to have got along well enough though there seems to have been no unusual intimacy between him and Nicholas. Yet the one person other than his wife who seems to have exerted more influence on his life was Anna Hack. Regardless of the fact whether she was his own sister or only the sister of his wife, she was always ready and willing to aid him and to offer advice and suggestions; and if necessary to come to blows with Peter Stuyvesant himself in Herrman’s behalf. If she were indeed his real sister she would have been his only relation in America and it was quite natural that he would have turned to her.

Yet probably there was still another reason, more effective than the foregoing, why Herrman decided to cast his future fortunes with the English rather than with the Dutch. His remarkable intellect and his logical mind could hardly have failed to tell him that the Dutch empire in America was doomed. In order to understand that he needed to know only the history of that province and compare it with the history of the English colonies. New Netherland had been established mainly for trading purposes; and as the colony grew this objective had never been lost sight of in place of a purpose more vital to the life of an empire. With only a few exceptions the people remained clustered around New Amsterdam and Manhattan Island, quite content to cultivate their tiny fields of vegetables when but for the asking they might have had large plantations to develop. The great patroons along the Hudson were independent in many respects from the regulations of the Director Generals, and it probably mattered little to them whether the Dutch or the English ruled in New Amsterdam. On the other hand, though the English colonies had been founded as trading companies, the settlers and the local authorities had soon lost sight of that objective as the raison d’être of colonial expansion. Soon they had begun to scatter, to hew new fields out of the virgin wilderness. Little by little these English settlers had encroached upon Dutch territory and, due to a number of ruinous treaties made by the Dutch governors, the English finally found themselves in possession of land that legally was not theirs.

The English kept up a direct communication with the homeland and a change of administration in England quickly made its influence felt here. The Stuarts had been, for the most part, wise monarchs in the handling of colonial affairs; and the governors whom they sent to America were, with some notable exceptions, liberal minded men who were not disposed to rule in an arbitrary fashion, nor were they ordered to do so by the Stuart kings. The real ruling bodies in the English colonies were the general assemblies; and though this seemed at times to operate more in theory than in fact, a way was generally found for a colony to get rid of an over-bearing governor. For this reason a feeling of freedom and self exertion grew up in the English colonies, encouraging the settlers there to push back the frontier toward the fertile lands of the west.

On the other hand the government of Holland had but a loose connection with New Netherland, persisting in the belief that the colony existed merely for trading purposes; it left the appointment of the governors mainly in the hands of the great trading companies, particularly of the Dutch West India Company, which, as we have pointed out in the case of when the Remonstrance was presented in Holland, guarded their prerogative with an almost absurd formality. The trading companies made the still greater mistake in their persistence that the essential qualities of a Dutch governor consisted of a disposition toward arbitrary rule, obstinacy and lack of ability to compromise; whereas what was actually needed was a man of the opposite type. In every instance the four Dutch governors of New Netherland were men of this kind—arbitrary, untactful and unresourceful in emergencies. Furthermore, neither the home nor the local authorities encouraged the Dutch settlers to scatter and to form new settlements in that vast territory that beyond a doubt legally belonged to them by right of discovery and former occupancy. Not only were the Dutch colonists not encouraged to make new settlements, but in instances virtually forbidden to do so, as in the case of Van der Donck when he wished to form a new settlement near Fort Orange, such numerous obstacles were placed in his way that he gave up the attempt in despair. Stuyvesant was not wholly to blame for this narrow view of colonial expansion; for, as we have pointed out, the directors of the Dutch West India Company subjected him to severe reprimand because he allowed a few new settlements to be made in New Sweden. Yet had he been a man of real ability and vision he would have found a way to have carried out his views. After an interval of three hundred years it is interesting to reflect upon the fate of the Dutch in North America if they would have had such governors as Augustine Herrman, Adriaen Van der Donck or Govert Loockermans.

Such then were the conditions in New Netherland about the year 1660. We can certainly suppose that Herrman was fully cognizant of all the shortcomings that attended Dutch rule there. The three greatest men that New Amsterdam had produced were lost to her, and Stuyvesant had to handle the reins of government of the colony the best way he could.

Thus things dragged on for another four years. Then came the fatal day. Colonel Nichols appeared in the harbor before Fort Amsterdam and demanded an unconditional surrender. The Dutch burgers actually rejoiced when the ultimatum of the Englishman was read to them. The doughty old governor alone wanted to fight; but his subjects prevented even a semblance of resistance. Without the firing of one fatal shot a piece of fertile territory reaching from the Connecticut River to Delaware passed overnight from one nation to another, a land watered by one of the most majestic of American rivers, bearing the name of a great Dutchman. Furthermore, this amazing transfer was made amidst the rejoicing of the vanquished. It all seems a little absurd. Probably there is no other instance in England’s history, perhaps not in the annals of any nation, where such a large and fertile territory was conquered by so peaceful a method. And what is better: there is hardly a parallel in history where the occupation by the conqueror was made in so peaceful and orderly a manner. No change whatever was made in Dutch life and customs; everything continued in the usual quiet and easy-going style. There may have been the usual grumbling and quarreling, of course; but that was of a personal rather than a political nature. The Dutch of New Amsterdam simply got up under one administration and went to bed under another; there was very little else to the episode.

In the rest of the life of Herrman we shall not have occasion to refer much to New Amsterdam, or New York, as it was now to be called henceforth with the exception of a brief period of time when it was again under Dutch rule (1673–1674). But there are one or two episodes in Herrman’s life which will be related in due course; and then we shall have occasion to show his connection with the growing Dutch town.

 

1. One can well doubt the authenticity that Stuyvesant wrote the letter. The whole thing does not make sense. It might be regarded as a practical joke on the part of either Baxter or Van Tienhoven. Or was Stuyvesant himself above such a prank?
2. This sum would represent about twenty-five hundred dollars of present day money. See Bruce, P. A. Econ. Hist. of Virginia in 17th century.
3. Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., Vol. I. pp. 497–98.
4. See Verlett genealogy, footnote 1. ge 11 of text.
5. Brodhead, Vol. I. p. 554.
6. Dutch Mss. p. 278.
7. Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., Vol. XIV. p. 205. This may have been the celebrated Colonel Edmund Scarburgh, one of the most influential citizens of the Eastern Shore of Virginia during the middle of the 17th century.
8. O’Callighan, Register of New Netherland, p. 156.
9. Neill, E. S. Terra Mariae, 1867, p. 159.
10. Hazard, Samuel, Annals of Pennsylvania, p. 266.
11. Ibid. Also Maryland Archives, Vol. III (Proc. of Council), pp. 366–369; 375–378.
12. Hazard, Annals of Pa. p. 269.
13. Ibid. p. 271.
14. Ibid. p. 277 and Albany Records, Vol. IV (Mss.), pp. 310–312.
15. Herrman’s Journal is published in full in O’Callighan’s Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., Vol. II. p. 88; also in Hazard, Annals of Pa., p. 288.
16. Tansill, Chas. C. Pennsylvania and Maryland Boundary controversy, Washington, 1915, p. 19; Macdonald’s Select Charters, p. 12.
17. Tansill, p. 21.
18. Terra Mariae, p. 160.
19. Brodhead, Hist. N. Y., Vol. I, p. 683 and Doc. rel. Col. Hist. of N. Y., Vol. II. pp. 98–100.
20. Dutch Mss. p. 204.
21. Doc. rel. to Col. Hist. of N. Y., Vol. II. pp. 99–100.
22. Wilson, J. S. A Maryland Manor, Pub. by Md. Hist. Soc. ii. p. 9.
23. Rec. of New Amsterdam, Vol. VI. p. 33.
24. Since Herrman was made a denizen of Maryland, Jan. 14, 1660, it would seem that he had in mind such intention sometime before that. Applications for such privileges were no doubt slow moving in those days.
25. Van der Donck finished his legal course at Leyden University, receiving his degree, Supremus in jure, April 10, 1653. Late that year he returned to America. In 1645 he had married Mary Doughty, daughter of Francis Doughty, an English minister of New Amsterdam. He was probably buried in the old Dutch cemetery on the west side of lower Broadway. See Valentine’s Manual, 1856, p. 444.
26. The main street of Dover, Del. is named Lockerman. It is possible that Loockermans went to that vicinity after 1652.