o. Above all, the New Englanders
were very zealous in the matter of education. Harvard College was
founded in 1636. A few years later a law was passed compelling every
town to provide schools for all the children in the town.

CHAPTER 7

NEW NETHERLAND AND NEW SWEDEN

[Sidenote: The Dutch East India Company.]

57. The Dutch.--At this time the Dutch were the greatest traders
and shipowners in the world. They were especially interested in the
commerce of the East Indies. Indeed, the Dutch India Company was the
most successful trading company in existence. The way to the East
Indies lay through seas carefully guarded by the Portuguese, so the
Dutch India Company hired Henry Hudson, an English sailor, to search for
a new route to India.

[Sidenote: Henry Hudson.]

[Sidenote: He discovers Hudson's River, 1609. _Higginson_, 88-90;
_Explorers_, 281-296.]

[Sidenote: His death. _Explorers_ 296-302.]

58. Hudson's Voyage, 1609.--He set forth in 1609 in the
_Half-Moon_, a stanch little ship. At first he sailed northward, but ice
soon blocked his way. He then sailed southwestward to find a strait,
which was said to lead through America, north of Chesapeake Bay. On
August 3, 1609, he reached the entrance of what is now New York harbor.
Soon the _Half-Moon_ entered the mouth of the river that still bears her
captain's name. Up, up the river she sailed, until finally she came to
anchor near the present site of Albany. The ship's boats sailed even
farther north. Everywhere the country was delightful. The Iroquois came
off to the ship in their canoes. Hudson received them most kindly--quite
unlike the way Champlain treated other Iroquois Indians at about the
same time, on the shore of Lake Champlain (p. 20). Then Hudson sailed
down the river again and back to Europe. He made one later voyage to
America, this time under the English flag. He was turned adrift by his
men in Hudson's Bay, and perished in the cold and ice.

[Sidenote: The Dutch fur-traders.]

[Sidenote: Settle on Manhattan Island.]

[Sidenote: New Netherland.]

59. The Dutch Fur-Traders.--Hudson's failure to find a new way to
India made the Dutch India Company lose interest in American
exploration. But many Dutch merchants were greatly interested in
Hudson's account of the "Great River of the Mountain." They thought
that they could make money from trading for furs with the Indians. They
sent many expeditions to Hudson's River, and made a great deal o