THE DIRECTORS 53

According to this chronicler, every one in New
Netherland who fills no public office is busy with
his own affairs. One trades, one builds houses,
another plants farms. Each farmer pastures the
cows under his charge on the bouwerie of the Com-
pany, which also owns the cattle; but the milk is
the property of the farmer, who sells it to the
settlers. "The houses of settlers," he says, "are
now outside the fort; but when that is finished
they will all remove within, in order to garrison it
and be safe from sudden attack."

One of Minuit's first acts as Director was the
purchase of Manhattan Island, covering some
twenty-two thousand acres, for merchandise
valued at sixty guilders or twenty-four dollars.
He thus secured the land at the rate of approxi-
mately ten acres for one cent. A good bargain*
Peter Minuit! The transaction was doubly effec-
tive in placating the savages, or the wilden, as the
settlers called them, and in establishing the Dutch
claim as against the English by urging rights both
of discovery and of purchase.

In spite of the goodwill manifested by the
natives, the settlers were constantly anxious lest
some conspiracy might suddenly break out. Vaa
Wassenaer, reporting the news from the colony as