24 Early New York Paper Currency. 



eight black beads for a stiver. The repeated complaints 

 on the subject of its fluctuation seem to have been un- 

 heeded by the directors of the company, who would 

 have the colonists consider it as good as bullion, yet would 

 receive only beaver skins in payment of duties and taxes, 1 

 while supplies could be obtained only for beaver or silver. 



That there was however at an early date a supposed 

 scarcity of coin, appears from the fact that in 1642 the 

 council petitioned the company to raise the value of 

 money in order to prevent its exportation to foreign coun- 

 tries ; 2 and at a later period Governor Stuyvesant endeav- 

 ored to introduce a specie currency, and as one expedient 

 proposed in imitation of New England, to establish a mint 

 at New Amsterdam. 3 In 1673 there was little or no cer- 

 tain coin. Wampum passed for current payment, and it 

 continued to constitute the currency of the common or 

 laboring people long after the colony ceased to belong to 

 the Dutch. 4 



In most of the other provinces a barter trade was carried 

 on similar to that of New Netherland. Wampum was 

 introduced into New England by Isaac De Razier in 1627, 

 and passed at the rate of 5s. per fathom. The general 

 court ordered in 1643, "that wampumpeag should pass 

 current in the payment of debts to the amount of forty 

 shillings." Besides this, English and Dutch coin, Indian 

 corn, wheat, rye, barley, peas, live stock, beaver, bullets 

 and gunpowder, constituted its currency during the early 

 days of that colony. 5 



1 Col Docs., i, 203. 



2 0'Callaghan's New Netherland. 



3 Manuscript Records, Secretary's Office, iv, 387, 388. 



*In 1683, the schoolmaster in Flatbush was paid his salary in wheat, 

 " wampum value," and ten years later, the ferriage for each single person 

 from New York to Brooklyn was eight stivers in wampum, or a silver two 

 pence. — 0' Callaghan. 



5 In Massachusetts (1631), the following enactment was made: "It is 



