From "The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson," by Robert Juet

Only a few fragments of Heniy Hudson's own journal of his 1609 voyage appear to survive, embedded in Johan de Laet's Nieuwe Wereldt, ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, first published in 1625. The fragments describe a pleasant country of very who were so devastated at prospect Hudson might be afraid of their bows, that, arrows, they broke them in pieces, and threw them into fire, etc.1 A more complicated tale appears in sole surviving complete source on voyage, originally published by Samuel Purchas in same year as de Laet's work. We know next to nothing about its author, Robert Juet, except he was an officer on Hudson's ship, de Halve Maen; that, less than two years after composing these words, he was among mutineers who set Hudson adrift to die in frozen northern waters; and subsequently he himself failed to make it back to Europe alive. The portion of Juet's text dealing directly with 1609 exploration of river now bears Hudson's name is reprinted here, J. Franklin Jameson's early twentieth-century edition.2According to de Laet, from all they could judge and learn, there had never been any ships or Christians in quarter before; so they were first to discover this river and ascend it so far.3 That statement was convenient those asserting a right of first discovery, but there is no way to confirm it. Whatever case, Native people of quarter were not first whom Hudson and his crew had met after their long voyage across North Atlantic, as they wandered down North American coast today's Nova Scotia to North Carolina and finally back to New York Harbor. According to Juet, Indians of Maine, seeming glad of our comming, had claimed that there were Gold, Silver, and Copper mynes hard by us; and French-men doe Trade with them. Confirming latter assertion were facts one of them spake some words oi and that, a few days later, crew espied two French shallops full of Countrey trading furs for red Cassockes, Knives, Hatchets, Copper, Kettles, Trevits, Beads, and other trifles.4Something about all this set Hudson's crew on edge. Keeping good watch feare of being betrayed by people, Europeans seized next canoe-load of Indians they saw, then set out in a Boat & Scute with twelve men and Muskets, and two stone Pieces or Murderers, and drave Salvages their Houses, and tooke spoyle of them, as they would have done of us.5 No further explanation violence seemed necessary, although a contemporary Dutch commentator admitted the crew behaved badly towards people of country, taking their property by force, out of which there arose quarrels among themselves.6 This was not, then, a happy ship exploring a pleasant country. Despite a more civil encounter near Cape Cod with a Native man brought on board de Halve Maen and offered food and drink before being sent back home with three or foure glasse Buttons,7 many of Hudson's men had concluded that, as Juet twice observes in this excerpt, they durst not trust Indians. These experiences make it unlikely John Colman, said to have been killed in a skirmish in upper New York Bay, was an innocent victim of an unprovoked attack. Hudson's feuding crew expected trouble, and they tended to find it.Whether or not varied Munsee-speaking inhabitants of New York Harbor and Hudson Valley had yet laid eyes on Europeans, they seem to have had clear ideas about what to expect. Some of those who lived near mouth of river had probably seen European ships on horizon or European people on their shores. Certainly all had heard tales of dangerous, hairy-faced newcomers who had been sailing these waters better part of a century, who had taught their language to Native people a few hundred miles away, and who, in persons of Samuel de Champlain and a small party of French harquebussers, had several weeks earlier fought alongside an Indian war party in what would later be thus known as Champlain Valley. …

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