CHAPTER XIII

OUTSIDE FEUDALISM:  THE FREE  FARMERS

" In Netherlands' story the people is ever the
true hero," wrote Motley, who told one part of
the patriots' story in Patria. Yet no less true is
this in the story of Dutch America. The pompous
corporation officials have attracted attention, even
to caricature or transfiguration, but it was the
plain people who made New Netherland. Theirs
were the heroic figures, and the best things in the
Empire State are inheritances from them. Like
most office-holders, the Company's servants suc¬
cumbed to the intoxication of authority, but the
people sanely and soberly laid the foundations
and reared the enduring structure. On Long
Island, at Esopus and New Paltz, and especially
at Schenectady, — places outside of feudalism and
only in'part subject to "John Company," — was
this truth most manifest.

Arendt van Curler was a true people's man.
There was a number of farmers with their families
at Rensselaerwijk, who, preferring freedom to im¬
mediate prosperity, wished to settle outside the Pa¬
troon's manor. They would rather take the risks
of living on the frontier, and thus own their
homes, than be semi-serfs under feudalism.