Henry Hudson, $24 and mad hatters

On to the interesting tidbits of the history of Manhattan's settlement:

• Do you know how Henry Hudson died? He was on a voyage in 1610 searching for the northwest passage to the West Indies. He was driving his crew very hard. Their sails were frozen. They were no longer finding bears and seals to eat on the ice. The food they brought was long gone. Their toes were falling off from frostbite. Their gums were bleeding and their teeth were falling out from eating moss... Henry Hudson froze to death. Not because his ship was stuck in the ice but because his crew turned into mutineers. They were fed up with the voyage and did not share the same conviction for discovery that Hudson had. As he woke up one morning, his crew tied him up and lowered him and his young son, John, into a small row boat. His crew sailed back to London and left him there to die in Hudson Bay. Certainly an ironic end for one of history's great explorers, the man who sailed into New York Harbor flying the Dutch flag, navigating all the way up the Hudson River to Fort Orange (Albany is the name the English later gave it)...

• It is somewhat common knowledge that the island of Manhattan was purchased for $24. But this isn't quite accurate and is actually very misleading. Peter Minuit (pronounced Min-wee) purchased the island from a group of local Indians in 1626 for 60 guilders worth of goods. It was the 19th century historian, Edmund O'Callaghan, who calculated it to be $24. Was this really the ruthless and conniving Europeans ripping off the naive Indians? Would the Indians really sell what was most precious to them for $24? No, not really. First of all, the Indians had a much different concept of land ownership and also didn't really have property transfer. They saw the "transaction" more as a land rental agreement and a new defensive alliance. It's not as if they vacated the land after the sale. They fully intended to continue to use and live on the land, and they did. Secondly, the $24 figure dates to the mid 19th century and isn't relevant to buying power 200 years earlier. 60 actual guilders would have been completely useless to the Indians because they had no use for money. The price paid was 60 guilders worth of goods. But again, you have to think about relative worth. As Shorto points out, a steel knife would be worth very little to people in Amsterdam, worth more to a settler living in primitive conditions and worth much much more to Indians living in relative wilderness. Shorto continues to show that, while land in the new world was indeed cheap, the Manhattan transfer was in line with other documented land sales and trades of goods between settlers.


• Do you know where the term "mad hatter" comes from? Beaver fur and skin was one of the most prevalent goods traded between Dutch settlers and Indians. Beaver skin was shipped back to Europe to make into felt. Hat makers used the skin to make felt hats and were subsequently exposed to a high level of mercury during the production process. This lead to mercury poisoning, which led to crazy hat makers, which lead to the term we all know today.