ighteenth century.
The results, in fact, are traceable to this very day, even though laws
and institutions are so greatly changed. Other colonies reflected the
constant changes of government, ruling party or policy of England, and
colonial companies chartered by England frequently forfeited their
charters. But conditions in New Netherlands remained stable under Dutch
rule, and the accumulation of great estates was intensified under
English rule. It was in New York that, at that period, the foremost
colonial estates and the predominant private fortunes were mostly held.

The extent of some of those early estates was amazingly large. But they
were far from being acquired wholly by colonization methods.

Many of the officers and directors of the Dutch West India Company were
Amsterdam merchants. Active, scheming, self-important men, they were
mighty in the money marts but were made use of, and looked down upon, by
the old Dutch aristocracy. Having amassed fortunes, these merchants
yearned to be the founders of great estates; to live as virtual princes
in the midst of wide possessions, even if these were still comparative
solitudes. This aspiration was mixed with the mercenary motive of
themselves owning the land from whence came the furs, pelts, timber and
the waters yielding the fishes.

One of these directors was Kiliaen van Rensselaer, an Amsterdam pearl
merchant. In 1630 his agents bought for him from the Indians a tract of
land twenty-four miles long and forty-eight broad on the west bank of
the Hudson. It comprised, it was estimated, seven hundred thousand acres
and included what are now the counties of Albany, Rensselaer, a part of
Columbia County and a strip of what is at present Massachusetts. And
what was the price paid for this vast estate? As the deeds showed, the
munificent consideration of "certain quantities of duffels, axes, knives
and wampum,"[3] which is equal to saying that the pearl merchant got it
for almost nothing. Two other directors--Godyn and Bloemart--became
owners of great feudal estates. One of these tracts, in what is now New
Jersey, extended sixteen miles both in length and breadth, forming a
square of sixty-four miles.[4]

So it was that these shrewd directors now combined a double advantage.
Their pride was satisfied with the absolute lordship of immense areas,
while the ownership of land gave them the manifold benefits and greater
profits of trading with the Indians at first hand. From