was no conscious settlement of communities by the Dutch agricultural colonists.[1]
The individualism of the Dutch was in strong contrast to the social spirit shown in the English towns. Under the new privileges of 1640 each man could take as much land as he could cultivate, and naturally the result was the separation of farms and homesteads from one another. This made the defence of the scattered plantations so difficult that action was called forth from the home authorities, who saw the advantages of the close settlement of the English towns. In the instructions of July 7, 1645, sent to the Director and Council at New Amsterdam,[2] occurs the significant clause:
"They shall endeavor as much as possible, that the colonists settle themselves with a certain number of families in some of the most suitable places, in the manner of villages, towns and hamlets, as the English are in the habit of doing, who thereby live more securely.
But the policy was a difficult one to impose upon the colonists. They had no common interest in the land, no local political powers, and although most of the settlers professed a common religious belief, they had but scant opportunity, perhaps little desire, for common religious worship.[3] Thus the early Dutch settlements lacked three controlling forces which among the English contributed to the development of the towns.
What the colonists would not voluntarily agree to, the Director and Company tried to accomplish by rules and ordinances. Orders were passed in 1656 and 1660[4] providing that the inhabitants of each locality should build forts and towns. At Cummunipaw, the settlers who had been driven out by the Indians in 1655 were required by Stuyvesant in 1658 to build their houses in one village.[5] On the Esopus, the settlers showed such reluctance to dwelling in a village, that Stuyvesant was compelled to visit Wiltwyck in person, and there superintend the building of a fort and the apportionment of town lots.[6] In the same year a patent was issued to all who should settle in a new village on Manhattan Island, granting certain lands to each settler, and a local court when the village had obtained a population of twenty or twenty-five families.[7] More than two years passed, however, before a
