Chapter 3: Expansion
The sound of wheels rolling on stone paths that the Dutch colonists had made in order to make the town a bit nicer to live in were heard all the way across town. The whinnies of horses could also be heard every so often, and the yell of a foreign tongue that was not in Dutch. This alerted Peter, who was talking to some of the locals near the outskirts of town. The governor of Nieuw-Nederland was worried, but it did not seem like there were enough natives for an attack.
Peter straightened his coat, and looked haughtily at the visiting Aztecs, who were leading a large caravan of silver. The metal shined in the sunlight, and there were some droplets of water collecting on the outsides of some pieces; results of the humidity. Peter looked at the Aztec man leading the wagon, and raised an eyebrow.
"We have come, to give gifts, to your people," the Aztec man said in broken Dutch. He gestured at the mass of silver inside of the wooden wagon. As if on cue, some sunlight came in from the trees, and made the bars glisten. Peter studied the wagon, and thanked the man in his tongue. The Aztec man nodded, releasing his horse from the wagon, of a breed brought from Europe, mounted it, and rode away back to Tenochtitlan.
As our Merchantman finally docked in the piers of Amsterdam, the crew unloaded, and took a deep breath of the familiar Dutch air. It had been a long time, and they were finally back, but only for a short period of time. A Master Distiller, named Thaddius Holta, sat on a crate, staring at the boat. Inside of the crate were his distilling supplies, and near him were barrels of fine Dutch liqueur. As the crew walked to Thaddius, he stood up, nodded, and started carrying the barrels to the boat.
Unbeknownst to the crew, a strong man, carrying a hatchet and a gun, walked to the boat, examining it.
"Mighty fine specimen ya got there," the man announced.
"Why thank you," replied the captain. He stared at the man. "Who are you exactly?"
"My name doesn't matter; I'm coming with you to the New World. Got paid a mighty fine price for it too; that Peter Stuy-spaghetti guy sure is great," he answered. Without waiting for an answer, he picked up the remaining two liqueur barrels, along with his hatchet and supplies, and went onto the boat.
"Can't imagine how a man of his stature can keep up so much muscle," remarked a crew member to the captain. The captain nodded, and headed onto the boat, ready to head back to the New World.
It took months for the Merchantman to arrive back into the New World, but when they made it there, Thaddius decided to take up residence in New Amsterdam. He set up shop there, making alcohol from the sugar gathered in the west, but that business would have to last a short while, and leave on hiatus, as we were using more sugar than we were harvesting.
The hardy man, not seeming to want to unpack his stuff, announced to the town he was heading northwest in order to establish another colony.
"Headin' up to the northwest; I heard it has some good stuff up there, and the King will obviously be asking for another colony here sooner or later," he explained. The man put his stuff into a wagon, and headed off, with the best of wishes from Peter Stuyvesant and the townsfolk of New Amsterdam.
It did not take long for the man to found Fort Orange to the northwest, and he immediately started to order the new arrivals of people to build a Dock, in order to make the water near the town more useful. To the west, we could hear some distant voices speaking another language. How strange.