CHAPTER III

PATROONS AND LORDS OF THE MANOR

THEIR High Mightinesses, the States-General of
the United Netherlands, as we have seen, granted
to the Dutch West India Company a charter
conveying powers nearly equaling and often over-
lapping those of the States themselves. The West
India Company in turn, with a view to stimulating
colonization, granted to certain members known
as patroons manorial rights frequently in conflict
with the authority of the Company. And for a
time it seemed as though the patroonship would be
the prevailing form of grant in New Netherland.

The system of patroonships seems to have been
suggested by Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, one of the
directors of the West India Company and a lapi-
dary of Amsterdam, who later became the most
successful of the patroons. A shrewd, keen, far-
seeing man, he was one of the first of the West
India Company to perceive that the building;up of

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