354 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



trade icurrency only among the savages of New Netherlands. So 

 merchants here with whom we have consulted, fear that the natives 

 may change their minds in this respect, and state that the tribes 

 begin to incline towards another kind of bead, which they mix with 

 the wampum for the sake of ornament." This was but a prospec- 

 tive evil. As yet the Indians wanted no gold or silver, but did 

 want wampum. ''Wampum is the source and mother of the beaver 

 trade, and for goods only without wampum we can not obtain 

 beaver from the savages. If we receive no wampum from outside — 

 we have none in our country — this would certainly cause a diversion 

 of the beaver trade." In losing part of Long Island much of the 

 wampum supply was lost^ though by no means all. The colonists 

 complained in 1649 that "the English tried to exclude Dutch from 

 Indian trade, so as to have all the profits of the wampum trade." 

 The following year Van Tienhoven said that Gardiners bay was 

 "well adapted to secure the trade of the Indians in Wampum, (the 

 mine of New Netherland) since in and about the abovementioned 

 sea and the islands therein situate, lie the cockles whereof Wampum 

 is made, from which great profit could be realized." It is added 

 that "the greater part of the wampum is manufactured there by the 

 natives." The preceding year it was said that Indian "money con- 

 sists of white and black Wampum which they themselves manufac- 

 ture; their measure and value is the hand or fathom." 



Other articles fluctuated in price with wampum. In 1648 trade 

 had been injured by Indian wars. The Dutch had to "give two 

 fathom of white and one of black wampum for one beaver. . . 

 Each fathom of wampum contained three ells; some one-sixteenth 

 less. The Indians select the largest to trade." The prices estab- 

 lished in 1657 were "for a merchantable beaver two strings of wam- 

 pum; for a good bear-skin, worth a beaver, two strings of wampum 

 • . . for a deer-skin 120 wampum." In 1660 the Senecas 

 would come and trade with the Dutch if they would give 30 hand- 

 fuls of black or 60 of white wampum for a beaver. In 1655 beavers 

 were valued at nine g^jilders in repaying 1500 guilders of black and 

 white wampum. We fieed not quote its many other uses in trade, 

 except that part of titj,e payment to the Mohawks for lands west of 



