Nathaniel's nutmeg

by Giles Milton

  Troubled by tempestuous winds and snow showers, as well as a rebellious crew, Hudson now decided to abandon his search for the North-East Passage and instead head westwards across the Atlantic. According to van Meteren, 'Master Hudson gave [the crew] their choice between two things': to head to the Spice Islands by way of the Davis Straits far to the north of Baffin Island, or to sail down the eastern seaboard of America until they reached the 40 degrees latitude at which point he hoped to force his passage through to the Pacific. This latter route, Hudson's preferred option, had been drawn to his attention by the English navigator George Weymouth who had explored America's eastern coastline in 1602 and 1605 and had, on at least one of these expeditions, reached the entrance to the Hudson River. Weymouth himself would have proceeded upstream had it not been for 'the imbecility of his crew' who forced him to return home.

  How Weymouth's charts and maps came into Hudson's possession remains unclear. According to a Dutch account, 'the journals of George Weymouth, which fell into the hands of Domine P Plancius ... were of the greatest service to Hudson in his exploration of this famous strait, for in theyear 1609, when he was negotiating with the Directors of the [Dutch East] India Company ... he begged these journals from D P Plancius.' This suggests that even as Hudson was signing up for an expedition to discover the North-East Passage, his real interest was in sailing westwards across the Atlantic.

  A week after Hudson's crew had chosen the second option - an attempt on the supposed southerly passage - the Half Moon came in sight of the jagged silhouette of the Faroe Islands. Hudson had visited these islands before and knew they were a good place to revictual. Anchoring far from the shore for fear of the treacherous rocks and dangerous whirlpools, he sent a small party ashore to fill the ship's casks with fresh water. On 30 May 1609, the weather brightened and the crew caught a glimpse of the sun, prompting Hudson to lead all the men ashore for some exercise. Unfortunately Juet, keeper of the journal, stayed aboard so there is no record of what the sailors made of these primitive, cormorant-eating islanders who traded seal skins and still spoke a peculiar dialect of ancient Norse.

  Setting sail once again they kept a sharp look-out for Busse Island, discovered thirty years previously by Martin Frobisher, but the rolling sea mists had grown too thick. Storms and gale-force winds plagued them for days on end and at one point grew so ferocious that the foremast cracked, splintered and was hurled into the sea. It was with consider­able relief that the crew sighted through the mist the coast of Newfoundland - a vague geographical term in Hudson's day — at the beginning of July.They dropped anchor in Penobscot Bay, some one hundred miles west of Nova Scotia.

  It was not long before the Indians on shore caught a glimpse of the vessel and, 'at ten of the clock, two boats came off to us, with six of the savages of the country, seeming glad of our coming. We gave them trifles, and they ate and drank with us; and told us that there were gold, silver and copper mines hard by us; and that the Frenchmen do trade with them; which is very likely, for one of them spoke some words of French.' The French, in fact, had been fishing these rich waters since the days of the Cabots and often ventured ashore to barter knives, hatchets and kettles for beaver skins and other furs. They must have treated the natives well for the Half Moon was given a warm welcome, a reception not reciprocated by Hudson's crew who headed ashore armed with muskets and stole one of the Indians' small boats. Realising that the Indians were powerless to defend themselves, they rowed ashore for a second time armed with 'two stone pieces or murderers', drove the 'savages' from their houses and 'took the spoil of them'.

  Such barbarous and confrontational acts repeatedly stain the pages of Juet's journal. Throughout his account he views the native Indians — always described as 'savages' and usually treacherous ones at that — with a distrust approaching hatred and sees nothing untoward in firing at approaching canoes. What Hudson made of such behaviour can only be guessed at. His personality is shadowy in the extreme and much that is known of him is derived from the writings of others who usually bore a grudge against their captain. He was, perhaps, morose and suspicious, and quite possibly indulged his favourites at the expense of others, yet in the few surviving fragments of his own writings he always speaks kindly of the native Indians and appears to have held them in the highest respect. He and his crew seem to have disagreed entirely on how the Indians should be treated and while his personal acts of kindness to the natives were reciprocated with friendship, his crew's hostility was met with mistrust. Hudson's weakness was that he was unable to keep his subordinates under control, and it comes as no surprise that his eventual end, on his next voyage west, should be not at the hands of an irate Indian but of his own mutinous crew.

  The Half Moon now headed south towards Cape Cod pausing briefly to allow a particularly jolly Indian to come on board, plying him with so much liquor that he 'leaped and danced and held up his hands'. As the ship passed the English colony of Virginia, the captain's cat mysteriously ran from one side of the ship to the other, wailing and mewling all night and causing considerable anxiety aboard.

  Towards the end of August 1609, the Half Moon reached Cape Charles, the southernmost point of its voyage, and the men caught their first glimpse of Chesapeake Bay, 'a white sandy shore [which] sheweth full of bays and points'. From here they headed north once more and, two days later, reached Delaware Bay. They had now entered the region in which Hudson thought he might find the channel that would lead their ship to the Spice Islands and all the men were told to keep a watch for any inlet or estuary that looked promising. Juet climbed the mast several times to look for the elusive channel but each time he was disappointed. A forest fire broke the darkness on 2 September but the shoreline remained indistinct and even when the first rays of the sun rose above the horizon it was hard to chart the coastline for it was 'all like broken islands'. At last the light strengthened and Harbour Hill on Long Island hove into view followed, a few hours later, by the gleaming flats of Sandy Hook. When the Half Moon finally dropped anchor, Hudson found himself in 'a very good harbour, and four or five fathoms, two cables length from the shore'. According to American tradition, he had arrived at Coney Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.

  ***

  Hudson was not the first explorer to discover the Hudson: that honour goes to Giovanni da Verrazano, a navigator in the service of the French King Francois I who had sailed into the natural harbour some eighty-five years earlier. Like Hudson, he was searching for a passage through to the Pacific and had also been struck by the natural beauty of the landscape. In a letter to the King he wrote that 'we found a very pleasant situation among some steep hills, through which a very large river, deep at its mouth, forced its way to the sea; from the sea to the estuary of the river, any ship heavily laden might pass, with the help of the tide, which rises eight feet.' Verrazano would have continued upstream had it not been for a 'violent contrary wind' which suddenly blew in from the sea and forced him to depart. 'I did not doubt that I should penetrate by some passage to the eastern ocean,' he recorded in his journal. It was this passage that Hudson now hoped to discover, a passage that would slash thousands of miles off the journey to the 'spiceries'.

  After dropping anchor off Coney Island, Hudson sent a small party ashore on a reconnaissance mission. They returned with a band of curious natives who had watched with wide-eyed astonishment as the Half Moon had approached their island. Dressed in deer skins and proffering green tobacco, they expressed an interest in acquiring knives and glass beads. The following day the crew rowed ashore again though this time they headed towards either New Jersey or Staten Island. Here they were amazed by the 'very goodly oaks' that were 'of a height and thickness that one seldom beholds'. Indeed everywhere they landed they were astonished by the abundance of fruit that grew without cultivation: the blue plums, red and white vines, and whortleberries, not to mention the poplars, linden trees, 'and various other kinds of wood useful in ship building'.

  So far the trigger-happy crew had
been well received by the native Indians but they were soon to discover that their arrival was not everywhere greeted with the same enthusiasm. Hudson had sent Englishman John Coleman with a party of four others through the Narrows, and as the men chatted about the beauty of the landscape and savoured the 'very sweet smells' that came from the flowers on the foreshore, a hail of arrows descended without warning upon their boat, piercing Coleman's throat and killing him instantly. The others rowed desperately away from the shore but dusk descended before they could regain the Half Moon and they spent the rest of the night fighting the current with their grapnel and trying to stop their boat being dragged out to sea. It was not until ten o'clock in the morning when they finally rejoined the ship, and almost noon by the time they buried their colleague at Coleman's Point, close to Sandy Hook.

  Incensed by the attack, and now fearful of stepping ashore, the crew weighed anchor and set sail up the Hudson River. On the way they bartered with the natives for provisions and even brought a small party of 'savages' aboard the Half Moon. This was not done in a spirit of friendliness: mindful of Sebastian Cabot's famous advice that 'if [a native] may be made drunk with your beer or wine you shall know the secrets of his heart', Hudson now plied his Indian guests with 'so much wine and aqua vitae that they were all merrie'. Unfortunately, they soon became so 'merrie' that they were unable to tell him anything about the supposed passage that led to the Indies and it was only with considerable difficulty that they managed to row back to the shore. But although Hudson learned nothing about the geography of the region from his impromptu drinks party, the gathering did help to restore relations between the crew and the natives and the next day saw the two groups once again bartering their goods. Continuing upstream the Half Moon soon arrived at 'that side of the river that is called Manna-hata'. Some six months after leaving Holland, and more than four thousand miles from where he was supposed to be, Hudson had arrived at the island of Manhattan.

  Although most of Hudson's writings have been lost, a fragment of his journal was transcribed by a Dutch merchant called John de Laet. De Laet quotes Hudson's account of being paddled ashore by an elderly Indian, a passage that throws considerable light on the English captain's personality. There is none of the intolerance shown by Juet and his men. Instead, Hudson seems intrigued by the Indian customs and impressed by their kindness. 'I sailed to the shore in one of their canoes with an old man who was the chief of the tribe,' he writes, 'consisting of forty men and seventeen women; these I saw there in a house well constructed of oak bark, and circular in shape, so that it had the appearance of being well built, with an arched roof.' Hudson was surprised at the abundance of food, for the house 'contained a great quantity of maize or Indian corn, and beans of last year's growth, and there lay near the house for the purpose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was growing in the fields'. He was immediately made welcome by the Indians who, 'on our coming into the house, [spread] two mats ... and immediately some food was served in well made red wooden bowls'. It soon became apparent that Hudson was to partake in a lengthy feast:

  Two men were also despatched at once with bows and arrows in quest of game, who soon after brought in a

  pair of pigeons which they had shot. They likewise killed a fat dog, and skinned it in great haste, with shells which they had got out of the water. They supposed that I would remain with them for the night, but I returned after a short time on board the ship.

  The land is the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon, and it also abounds in trees of every description. The natives are a very good people, for when they saw that I would not remain they supposed that I was afraid of their bows, and taking the arrows, they broke them in pieces and threw them into the fire.

  The journals and letters written by men like Hudson and Juet, along with the accounts preserved by the English East India Company, form an invaluable record of the first European contact with native tribes. Much rarer are the records of what the natives thought of the unshaven English mariners who pitched up on their shores. Hudson's arrival at Manhattan is the exception, a result of the work undertaken by a diligent American missionary called Reverend John Heckewelder. In January 1801, almost two centuries after the Half Moon dropped anchor on Manhattan's western shoreline, Heckewelder wrote to a friend in Jerusalem explaining that he had spent several years working with native Indians and had struck up friendship with many of the chieftains. As he chatted about their early history he was surprised to learn that Hudson's arrival had long ago entered tribal lore. Learning that the story had been handed down from father to son, but was nowhere written down, Heckewelder reached for his notebook: A long time ago,' he wrote, 'when there was no such thing known to the Indians as people with a white skin, some Indians who had been out a-fishing ... espied at a great distance something remarkably large swimming or floating on the water, and such as they had never seen before.' Immediately returning to their homes, the men gathered their bravest warriors and set out to discover what it might be. But the closer they got to this strange object, the more puzzled they became. 'Some concluded it either to be an uncommon large fish or other animal, while others were of opinion it must be some very large house. It was at length agreed among those who were spectators, that as this phenomenon moved towards the land, whether or not it was an animal, or anything that had life in it, it would be well to inform all the Indians on the inhabited islands of what they had seen and put them on their guard.'

  The various chieftains duly arrived to discuss this strange object and there was a great deal of argument. At length they agreed that it was a giant canoe in which Mannitto, the Supreme Being, lived and that he was coming to pay them a visit. This sent the assembled crowds into a panic: men were sent to search for meat for a sacrifice, women were ordered to prepare fine victuals, idols were repaired and repainted and a grand dance was organised in order to please their god.

  While preparations were under way, news arrived from the fleet of runners sent to monitor the floating object. Having observed it for some hours they confidently declared it to be a large house painted in different colours and filled with people. Not only were these of a different colour to them, but they wore peculiar garments around their bodies. The one dressed in red, they said, was Mannitto himself who was behaving in a most undignified manner, shouting and bawling to those on the shore and creating the most ungodly noise.

  At length, Hudson came ashore with two colleagues and saluted the chieftains and wise men. The chieftains returned the salute, all the while studying this strange character and wondering what type of cloth would shimmer so brightly in the sunlight. (It was Hudson's lace ruff.) They watched in astonishment as Mannitto opened a bottle of pure alcohol, poured it into a glass beaker, and gulped down the lot. He then handed the bottle and glass to the nearest Indian chieftain and instructed him to drink.

  'The chief receives the glass but only smells it, and passes it to the next chief who does the same. The glass thus passes through the circle without the contents being tasted by anyone; and is upon the point of being returned again to the red-clothed man when one of their number, a spirited man and great warrior, jumps up, harangues the assembly on the impropriety of returning the glass with the contents in it.' He argued that Mannitto had offered them the glass in the spirit of friendship and for the peace of their people, 'and that as no-one was willing to drink it he would, let the consequence be what it would. He then took the glass and bidding the assembly a farewell, drank it off. Every eye was fixed on their resolute companion to see what an effect this would have upon him, and he soon beginning to stagger about, and at last dropping to the ground, they bemoan him. He falls into a sleep, and they view him as expiring.'

  But after a few minutes the man suddenly leaped to his feet and, to gasps of amazement from the crowd, declared that he had never felt so happy in all his life and demanded that he be given another glassful. 'His wish is granted, and the whole assembly soon join him, and become intoxicated.
'

  This last detail gives the story the ring of authenticity. Juet's journal frequently records how only a tiny quantity of alcohol was needed to get the Indians drunk, 'for they could not tell how to take it'; and tales of the drunkenness that greeted Hudson's arrival persisted among the native Indians until the last century. Indeed Heckewelder claims that the name Manhattan is derived from the drunkenness that took place there, since the Indian word manahactanienk means 'the island of general intoxication'.

  When the Indians had sobered up Hudson stepped ashore once again to distribute beads, axes, hoes and stockings. The Indians were overjoyed with their presents although they had no idea of their use. It was a cause of much mirth when it was later discovered that they were wearing the axes and hoes as jewellery and using the stockings as tobacco pouches.

  On 19 September 1609, the Half Moon continued its journey upstream in search of the passage that, it was hoped, would lead to the warm waters of the Pacific. Hudson anchored somewhere in the region of Albany and sent his Dutch mate and four others upstream in the ship's small boat. They returned at dusk bearing bad news. The channel narrowed and the water became shallow; it was clear to all on board that this mighty river did not lead to the spices, of the East.

  Their return journey was marred by a series of violent interludes. Dropping anchor 'down below the mountains', presumably the Highlands near Peekskill, Hudson's crew invited a band of natives on board and proudly showed off their weaponry. All was amicable until Juet spotted an Indian, who had been paddling his canoe around the stern of the ship, clamber onto the rudder and filch a pillow and two shirts from his cabin. The guns that had caused so much wonder were now demonstrated with deadly effect. Taking aim at the Indian, Juet blasted him in the chest, killing him instantly. His action caused a sudden panic and the Indians dived into the water, many of them still clutching items they hoped to buy, while the crew of the Half Moon, furious at losing their goods, jumped into their little boat and forcibly recovered their possessions, shooting several Indians in the process.