Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| unjustly discriminated against, and chafed under the petty tyranny to which they were exposed. |
| However, under Kieft the appearance of the town was much improved. Streets began to be laid out, and a better class of private houses sprang up, while a new church and the first tavern—a great clumsy inn, the property of the company—were built, and the farms made good progress, fruit-trees being planted and fine cattle imported. New settlements were made on the banks of the Hudson and the Sound, on Staten Island, and on what is now the Jersey shore. The company made great efforts further to encourage immigration, allowing many privileges to the poorer class of immigrants, and continuing, in diminishing form, some of the exceptional advantages granted to the rich men who should form small colonies. The colonists received the right to manufacture, hitherto denied them; but, unfortunately, the hereditary privileges of the patroons were continued, including their right of feudal jurisdiction, and the exclusive right to hunt, fish, fowl, and grind corn on their vast estates. The leader in pushing these new settlements, and one of the most attractive figures in our early colonial history, was the Patroon de Vries, a handsome, gallant, adventurous man, of brave and generous nature. He was greatly beloved by the Indians, to whom he was always both firm and kind; and |