The first writer on New Netherland, was Johan (John) de Laet, a learned man, a native of Antwerp) but a resident of the city of Leyden. He wrote in 1622, and first published in 1625, sixteen years only afler the discovery, through the Elzevirs at Leyden a "History of the New World," which contains the first historical account of what is now New York. He was a director of the Dutch West India Company, subsequently one of the first patroons of New Nether-

1 De Laet's New World, I. N. T. Hist. Society's Coll., 2d series, 297.

2 Ruttenber's Hiet. River Indians, 47. Moulton Hist., N. T., 36.

THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.

land, and a personal friend of Hudson, whose private journal, as he tells us, he had before him when he wrote and from which, the extracts in his pages, are all that exist of Hudson's own account of his great discovery. At that time, de Laet says, the Indians on the west side of the Bay and River were called " Sank/iicanni," or Sanhicans, and those on the east, " Makicanni," or Mahicans, Mohicans, or Mohegans' the latter being Connecticut spelling of the word* The Dutch termed them " Mahikanders," and the natives on both sides of the Hudson collectively, the " River Indians." The Dutch word, however in general use, when speaking or writing of them was, "the Wilden," literally the wild men, or the savages.

The Long Island Indians the Dutch called Matouwacks. They were Mohicans and were divided into twelve or thirteen sub-tribes or chieftaincies. All bore different names and possessed distinct, and different, localities. The ruling tribe were the Montauks who possessed the eastern extremity of the island. They owed their supremacy to the abundance of clams in their waters, from the shells of which they made the seawant or Indian money.