Leon Heck

“ Regardless of whether Herrman fought in the Old World quarrels, by temperament he was not likely to have become a successful soldier. As he grew older America took shape in his mind as the most desirable place to live; adventure and travel beyond the seas were more enticing to his active and vigorous mind than a military life on the continent of Europe with its ceaseless round of political and religious controversies. He lived in an admirable city to prepare his mind for the attainment of his desire to travel. ”

“ Before the publication of the early colonial records of the American Atlantic states, the seventeenth century was the dark age of American history. It was an age of half-legendary heroes about whom tradition and family hearsay wove many a fanciful and highly colored tale. And there were few men living in those times about whom legend has woven more fancy than Augustine Herrman ”

“ Stuyvesant was not wholly to blame for this narrow view of colonial expansion; for, as we have pointed out, the directors of the Dutch West India Company subjected him to severe reprimand because he allowed a few new settlements to be made in New Sweden. Yet had he been a man of real ability and vision he would have found a way to have carried out his views. After an interval of three hundred years it is interesting to reflect upon the fate of the Dutch in North America if they would have had such governors as Augustine Herrman, Adriaen Van der Donck or Govert Loockermans. ”

“ We can assume, too, without danger of indulging in an extreme flight of fancy [6] that young Augustine began life in Prague under favorable circumstances. From an early age he no doubt took a decided interest in his lessons and in outdoor life; and the instruction that he obtained from Nature, especially the study of geology, greatly influenced his later life. Prague at that time was an influential and beautiful city where young Herrman grew up among refined surroundings and among men and women of the world. ”

“ The Remonstrance is a masterful piece of prose and deserved to take an important place among those major documents of the world that have secured the liberties of the human race. It begins by outlining the history of New Netherland, a task peculiarly fitted for Van der Donck, as he was later the author of the first history of the colony. [16] It asks that a new and better kind of administration be set up by the States-General in the province in lieu of the one that in so many instances had nearly proved fatal for the colony. ”

“ To Herrman, life was one long series of adventures, noble and honorable. By birth and education Herrman was an aristocrat in the best meaning of the word and ever remained one both as a merchant and trader of New Amsterdam and later as lord of Bohemia Manor. ”

“ We are not only threatened and affronted, but shall also be totally ruined. Govert Loockermans is totally ruined, because he will not sign that he knows and can say nothing of Director Stuyvesant, but what is honest and honorable. I fear we, too, shall experience a like fate; whether we have safeguards from their High Mightinesses or not, ’tis all alike; the Directors have written not to pay any attention to their High Mightinesses’ safeguards or letters, but to theirs; and everyone can see how prejudicial that is to us. We are turned out and dare not scarcely speak a word, etc. ”

“ In Amsterdam, no doubt, Herrman continued his education so rudely interrupted in Prague. In the Dutch commercial town he likely studied surveying and other practical subjects in order to earn a living in a world that already was becoming hostile. ”

“ Although the most amicable relations existed between the southern planters and the Dutch traders and merchants, the feeling between the English skippers and the Dutch were by no means so friendly. Perhaps it was quite natural that they should not be, particularly when we recall that the English traders could not offer as cheap rates for carriage as the Dutch; seeing, too, that their kinsmen, the southern tobacco planters, themselves were trying all kinds of methods—lawful or illegal—to get their produce shipped abroad in Dutch bottoms. ”

“ As a Dutch diplomat he was successful in his mission; yet his attachment to New Amsterdam was diminishing and his interest in things Dutch, with the incessant arguments and bickerings, were becoming wearisome. ”

“ A life of Augustine Herrman, no matter how brief, would be incomplete without an account of the extraordinary religious sect called the Labadists and the sequence of events that caused them to settle at Bohemia Manor. ”

“ Probably there is no other instance in England’s history, perhaps not in the annals of any nation, where such a large and fertile territory was conquered by so peaceful a method. And what is better: there is hardly a parallel in history where the occupation by the conqueror was made in so peaceful and orderly a manner. No change whatever was made in Dutch life and customs ”

“ During the first part of the century he was essentially a merchant and a trader and probably not over-scrupulous in the way he made his money. During the second half of his life we find him devoting his energies in the preparation of the drawing of a beautiful and useful map and the founding of a great estate. Living until 1686, Herrman’s life was roughly concomitant with the seventeenth century. He grew up with that century and he changed as the spirit of the times changed.
Seventeenth century America, nonetheless, produced few great figures whom we can regard as strictly Americans. ”

“ In order to understand that he needed to know only the history of that province and compare it with the history of the English colonies. New Netherland had been established mainly for trading purposes; and as the colony grew this objective had never been lost sight of in place of a purpose more vital to the life of an empire. With only a few exceptions the people remained clustered around New Amsterdam and Manhattan Island, quite content to cultivate their tiny fields of vegetables when but for the asking they might have had large plantations to develop. ”

“ It is to be regretted that the contemporary data regarding the social life of Bohemia Manor during the seventeenth century is so scant; but we can assume with greater or less degree of certainty that the old manor house during its most brilliant career was among the most notable country places in the English colonies. It most certainly was the center of the social life of Cecil County and on many occasions did the presence of the lords of Baltimore grace its assemblies. ”

“ Trouble arose with the New England colonies and Dutch trade at New Amsterdam was crippled. Herrman and Loockermans, the two most prominent merchants and influential men of the town, suffered most. They appealed to Stuyvesant to ask aid of the home government against New England’s gradual encroachment upon their maritime rights that up to the time were undisputed. For various reasons, partly because of his naturally arbitrary temperament and partly because he entertained a jealousy of the power and wealth already controlled by these men, the governor would not yield to their pleas. ”

“ It pointed out that the province was large and fertile, capable of supporting a large body of emigrants from the home land; that if the home government were but to spend a little more time, money and labor in support of the colony it would not be many years until it would be opulent and highly productive; and that it would prove a source of unfailing income for the Fatherland, and help Holland to take a paramount place among the maritime nations of the world. The tone of the Remonstrance was scholarly and respectful; it contained neither word nor hint of threat of revolt or self-government. ”

“ The trading companies made the still greater mistake in their persistence that the essential qualities of a Dutch governor consisted of a disposition toward arbitrary rule, obstinacy and lack of ability to compromise; whereas what was actually needed was a man of the opposite type. In every instance the four Dutch governors of New Netherland were men of this kind—arbitrary, untactful and unresourceful in emergencies. ”

“ Added to these misfortunes, Herrman lost heavily in tobacco in 1652, compelled to sell below cost price. Herrman turned to Stuyvesant for aid but the vindictive old Dutchman not only refused to aid him but determined to make his plight all the more desperate. Herrman bore his misfortunes with coolness and manly fortitude. “In fine matters are so situated, that God’s help will only avail, there is no trust to be placed in man.” So he wrote to Anna Hack in Virginia. Mrs. Hack, upon hearing of the misfortunes of her brother-in-law, made preparations to go to New Amsterdam at once. ”

“ In fact, there are few of the original colonial records that do not have something to say about Herrman’s extraordinary career. He appears to have traveled widely and was likely known all the way from Boston to Charleston, at least by name and reputation. It may not be an exaggeration to call Herrman “the first great American”. He was a fitting antagonist to Peter Stuyvesant, “Our great Moscovy duke (who) keeps on as of old-something like a wolf, the longer he lives, the worse he bites.” ”

“ Augustine Herrman’s first mission of diplomacy can hardly be said to have resulted in much credit to himself or in much honor to his chief. This was not because of any shortcoming in the ability and capacity of the ambassador, but more because of the fickleness of the Dutch governor. Herrman for once was caught off his guard; and the episode proved to be an ingenious way whereby Peter Stuyvesant and his creature, Van Tienhoven, again placed him in an embarrassing situation. In April 1652 Adriaen Keyser and Herrman proceeded to Rhode Island as special envoys from New Amsterdam. ”

“ Although a capable man and certainly more steady than his elder brother Ephraim, Casperus had by no means the energy, ability and personality of his father. He died in 1706, leaving his vast estate to his only son, Colonel Ephraim Augustine Herrman, who represented Cecil County for many years in the General Assembly. He took an active part in the social life of the county and probably raised the prestige of the Manor to a point higher than did his grandfather himself. He is said to have been a man of good breeding and wide culture and encouraged the arts, sciences and literature. ”

“ These cultural longings certainly Herrman could have but partially satisfied in those early days of New York’s development and which alone could be had only in the southern colonies. On the whole, as we look more deeply into his character and personality, Herrman had more in common with the Virginia planter than with the Dutch merchant. There were other reasons why New Amsterdam life became distasteful. The most cultured man in the Dutch province and one of Herrman’s most intimate friends, Adriaen Van der Donck had died in 1655. ”

“ In the northeast section of the map is an admirable engraving of Herrman, doubtless drawn by himself. He is represented as having a large, well-formed head, inclined to the oval, handsome and regular features, with sharp though sympathetic eyes. ”

“ Although there were in actual existence a number of such court barons in Maryland created by Baltimore, few if any ever quite attained the prestige and distinction held by Herrman. Baltimore, apparently desirous of placing Herrman in a class worthy of his ambition, conferred on him the special title “lord”, and so far as known is the only instance where a special title of nobility was conferred upon an American citizen, though of course then a British subject. ”

“ Joost Van Beeck was an agent in New Amsterdam for Herrman and engaged in the marketing of tobacco in his own name. On one occasion Herrman delivered four hogsheads of tobacco that had been inspected and passed. Later Van Beeck inspected the tobacco and found that the greater part of it was spoiled and not marketable, and proceeded to bring suit against Herrman. As we study the early history of the Dutch in New Amsterdam we find them to have been a rather quarrelsome folk and their daily transactions seem to have been filled with a continuous round of law suits. ”

“ The duties and powers of the Nine Men were proclaimed by the Council, much against Stuyvesant’s wishes. “Nothing is more desirable than that New Netherland and principally New Amsterdam our capital and residence might continue and increase in good order, justice, police, population, prosperity and mutual harmony, and be provided with strong fortifications, a church, a school, trading place, harbor and similar necessary public edifices and improvements.” ”

“ Men of education were wont to turn away from all religious discussion and build up their own theology upon that type of philosophy that appealed to them most. His liberal tendencies in religious matters Herrman no doubt received from his parents, whom we suppose to have been among the leading Protestants of Prague. While in New Amsterdam he and his family were members of the Dutch Reformed Church and here his children were christened. On his manor Herrman erected a small chapel where he and his family and servants worshipped and assembled for prayers. ”

“ Altogether Herrman in the height of his prosperity must have been in possession of between twenty and twenty-five thousand acres of the most fertile land on the Atlantic coast, and was undoubtedly among the largest private landowners of America of the seventeenth century. As early as 1661 it was his intention to establish a system of land tenure whereby each tenant farmer should cultivate a small piece of land, each employing a few negroes. ”