Under the control of the Dutch West India Company, New Netherland was run as a profit-making business. Beginning in 1624, the Company established a number of trading posts and paid skilled workers to move to New Netherland as Company employees. Although the Dutch West India Company benefited from taxes, fines and profits from the fur trade, expanding into a colony was a costly endeavor.
In order to increase profits, the Company enacted the
Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions to find subcontractors, called "patroons" (a word derived from "patron" meaning master), to which they would grant large tracts of land. In turn, the patroons would bring over settlers as well as pay for the costs related to colonization. In another attempt to raise profits, the Dutch West India Company allowed patroons to engage in the fur trade, paying a tax of one gilder per pelt. This, in effect, dissolved the monopoly previously held by the Dutch West India Company. Under this patroonship plan, New Netherland started to expand.
Attracting new colonists was not an easy task. With no established colony and highly unfavorable living conditions in the middle of Indian Territory, the prospect of settling in New Netherlands was not appealing. Most settlers were builders and carpenters brought over to construct grist and saw mills. They were expected to build their own homes and half of their earnings went to the patroon. By 1630 the population of New Netherland was about 300, with many being Walloons, who are a group of people from Belgium who spoke a dialect of French.
The incentives related to the fur trade should have improved the climate for colonization, but unfortunately a poor choice in colony director led to problems, and eventually to war.
It was in 1638 that Willem Kieft was appointed the sixth Director of New Netherland. Kieft was selected based on his skill in business, not his governing experience. Kieft decided to form a Council of Twelve Men to advise him on relations with the Native Americans, though it has been noted that Kieft mainly ignored the recommendations of the council. He decided to tax the Indians as a way to collect revenue for the colony, but the Indians rebelled and the conflict turned into a war which lasted two years. The violence that erupted led settlers from outlying regions to head to New Amsterdam (present-day Manhattan) for safety. By 1645 more than one thousand native men, woman and children had been killed. The Dutch withdrew their support of Kieft and asked that he be replaced.
