PAET TWO 

 THE FRENCH IN NEW YORK 



CHAPTER I 

 THE FOUNDERS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 



Wi 



HILE the Dutch long had all the credit of 

 French \/\/ fouudiiig Ne\\^ Amsterdam, which afterwards 



setuefs *' ^ ▼ ▼ became New York, later historical researches 



have brought to light the fact that French Protestants 

 had an important part in the early settlement, and were 

 . among the original company that established a colony on 

 Manhattan Island. The Walloons were French who had 

 fled from the province of that name, on the northern 

 boundary of France, to escape religious persecution, and 

 had taken up their residence in Holland, where other 

 French Protestant refugees came at one time and another 

 during the century that followed the massacre of St. 

 Jesse de Forest Bartholomcw. The same Jesse de Forest that proposed 

 • to the Virginia Company to bring a French colony to 

 America, when that offer was declined so far as material 

 aid was concerned, repeated the proposition to the Dutch 

 West India Company, just then forming. It was ac- 

 cepted, and as a result the French Protestants made up a 

 large part of the expedition of thirty families which 

 sailed in March, 1623, in the ship New Netherlands to 

 found a Dutch colony at the mouth of the Hudson. 

 Under the ordering of Providence, what strange results 

 follow api)arently slight causes. Tlie English Pui'itans 

 offered to establish a colony for the Dutch on the Hud- 



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