Resulting patroonships
The earliest venture to explore New Netherland for future colonization by a potential patroon was upon notification to the Directors on January 13, 1629, that Samuel Godyn, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, and Samuel Blommaert had sent Gillis Houset and Jacob Jansz Cuyper to determine satisfactory locations for settlement. This took place before the Charter was ratified, but was done in agreement with a draft of the Charter from March 28, 1628.[9]
Upon ratification of the charter on June 7, 1629, Michael Pauw informed the Directors of his intention to settle along the "Sickenames River", a stream east of the Connecticut River.[10] On June 19, Samuel Godyn declared his intention to settle "the bay of the South River", the current day Delaware Bay, naming the settlement Zwaanendael.[11] After the settlement had been in existence for only a short while, the colonists—32 in number—were murdered by the local Indians.[12] Godyn sold his holdings back to the West India Company.
Patroonships were not limited to the area of the northeastern United States. On October 15, Michael Pauw made his intention known to settle the islands of Fernando de Noronha, located off the Brazilian coast.[11] Likewise on October 22, Albertus Conradus declared himself patroon of the island of Saint Vincent.[13] On November 1, Conradus also registered as patroon of the east side of South Bay, that which had not been taken by Samuel Godyn on June 19.[13] It was abandoned and no colony was actually established.[14]
On November 16, 1629, Samuel Blommaert declared himself patroon of the Fresh River presumedly adjoining the one to the east on the Sickenames River previously registered by Michael Pauw.[15] No colony was ever established and the patroonship was eventually abandoned.[16] On January 10, 1630, Pauw declared himself patroon of an area along the southern end of the North River, including land on the present site of Jersey City,[12] and Staten Island, so called in honor of the "Staten", or States General.[17] The patroonship was called Pavonia.[18] The enterprise however, was not a financial success and he finally sold his holdings to the West India Company.[12]
The most successful of the settlements started under the patroonship charter was on the upper Hudson River by Kiliaen van Rensselaer, an Amsterdam jeweler and member of the Chamber of Amsterdam.[19] Van Rensselaer declared his intentions of settling a patroonship on November 19, 1629.[15] From the Mahicans[20] he purchased a plot of land now represented by Albany and Rensselaer counties, which he called Rensselaerswyck and to which he brought several families from the town of Nijkerk, the place of his birth.[19] Rensselaerswyck would stay in the van Rensselaer family until its dissolution during the Anti-Rent War in the 1840s, with its last patroon, Stephen van Rensselaer III dying a very rich man.[21] To this day, he is listed as the tenth richest American in history, having been worth about $10 million (about $88 billion in 2007 dollars).[22]
