Haynes was born in the immediate vicinity of the English Hertford, he
probably had much influence in naming the new plantation. On the 11th of
April, 1639, the first general meeting of the freemen under the
constitution was held, and John Haynes was elected the first Governor of
Connecticut. This selection shows his active sympathy and co-operation
with Hooker, and we can entirely agree with Bancroft, when he says:
“They who judge of men by their services to the human race will never
cease to honor the memory of Hooker, and of Haynes.”
But the soil of Hartford has had other occupants; not only the
aboriginal owners of the soil, for when the English came they found a
Dutch trading-post established on what is yet known as Dutch Point. The
English claimed the territory now comprehended in the State of
Connecticut by virtue of the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot in
1497, and more especially in 1498. This territory was included in the
grant to the Plymouth Company in 1606, but that organization undertook
no work of colonization. When the settlers of 1635 came they took
possession of this portion of the valley of the Connecticut under the
English flag, and claimed the territory by virtue of patents from the
English crown. They paid Sequassen, the Indian chief, who ruled the
river Indians, for his lands, and when the Pequots, his over-lords,
disputed Sequassen’s right to sell, the colonists attacked them, and
practically exterminated the tribe. The Dutch settlement originated from
discoveries by Adrian Block, who sailed through the Sound in 1614, and
up the Connecticut, or Fresh River, as he called it, in his sloop, _The
Unrest_, as far as the falls, and upon his report to the States-general,
a company was formed for trading in the New Netherlands. Only limited
privileges were granted to this company, and it was afterwards
superseded by the Dutch West India Company, to whom the exclusive
governmental and commercial rights for the territory were granted. The
Dutch were influenced much more by the desire for a lucrative trade with
the natives than by any wish to found a colony, and in 1633 they built a
fort on the spot still called Dutch Point, in Hartford, for the purpose
of protecting their traffic with the Indians, which they had been
carrying on for some ten years. This fort was known as the House of
Hope, and when the English came they settled all about it, but did not
interfere with the Dutch occupation. Naturally, there was friction
between the two nationalities, and petty trespasses of various kinds
were charged by both parties. Finally, after repeated complaints, the
Commissioners of the United Colonies, Massachusetts, Plymouth,
Connecticut, and New Haven, met at Hartford, September 11, 1650, with
Peter Stuyvesant, Director of the New Netherlands, to consult upon the
proper boundaries of the Dutch jurisdiction. The matter was referred to
arbitrators, and resulted in a transfer to the English of all the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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