But
the company wanted settlers. They therefore offered to give an
estate with eighteen miles' bay or river frontage to every man who
would bring, or send, fifty colonists. Many people at once became
eager to win such a prize, and very soon there were little settlements
all along the shores of the Hudson.
The men who received these huge estates were called patroons,
which is the same word as our English patron, and they had power
not unlike the feudal lords of old time. They were bound to supply
each of their settlers with a farm, and also to provide a minister
and a schoolmaster for every settlement. But on the other hand they
had full power over the settlers. They were the rulers and judges,
while the settlers were almost serfs, and were bound to stay for
ten years with their patroon, to grind their corn at his mills,
and pay him tribute.
Over the whole colony there was a Governor who was as a rule
autocratic and sometimes dishonest, and there was a good deal of
unrest in the colony. The patroons were soon at loggerheads with
each other and with the Governor. There were quarrels with the
Swedes, who had settled on the Delaware, and there was terrible
fighting with the Indians.
At length the state of the colony became so bad that the settlers
wrote home to Holland complaining of their Governor and blaming
him for all their troubles.
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