46 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
and more formal “deed,” that give to the “contract” a greater 
value as an historical document, since they throw an interesting 
light on the pressure which at that time was being exercised against 
the Mohicans by the Mohawk Indians who compelled the former to 
abandon their lands along the Hudson River and made them willing 
to sell. 
An interesting feature in connection with the description of the 
land conveyed is the fact that it seems to cover large tracts south 
and north of Fort Orange and a small tract on the east side of the 
river, opposite the fort, but does not appear to include the land on 
which the fort itself stood. Kiliaen van Rensselaer afterwards 
claimed that his purchase included the site of the fort, but the Dutch 
West India Company denied this, on the ground that the fort was 
built long before the purchase for van Rensselaer was made. No 
document, however, has ever been produced to show that the com- 
pany bought the land on which the fort stood and it is possible that 
this land was held merely by sufferance, although the language of 
the “contract” seems to favor the other view. It will be noticed 
that the property is described as extending up the river a distance 
of fully 3 Dutch or about 14 statute miles, but that nothing is said 
in regard to the width of the land, it being understood that the vari- 
ous tracts that are named included all that was owned by the Mohi- 
can Indians, whose territory extended inland from the river a dis- 
tance of about 2 days’ journey. 
As to the form of the document, it is to be noted that the “ con- 
tract’ is signed, not by the Indian proprietors, but by the director 
and council, before whom the conveyance took place. This feature, 
which is in accord with the contemporary Dutch practice in the case 
of transfers of land that were made before the court, has had the 
fortunate result of preserving for us one of the very few known 
signatures of Peter Minuit, the director of New Netherlands, whose 
name is identified with the purchase of Manhattan Island from the 
Indians in 1626. The other signatures, of members of the council, 
are those of Pieter Bylveltt, the lessee of one of the company’s 
bouweries on Manhattan Island; Jan Lampo, the sheriff, and Reyner 
Harmensen and Jan Jansen Meyns, both of whom seem to have been 
master ship carpenters. 
It is finally to be pointed out that a copy of the “contract,” with- 
out the signatures, occurs on page 4 of the first book of Dutch 
Patents, from which a translation, made by Mr Berthold Fernow, 
under the title “Indian Deed to Kilian van Rensselaer for a 
