Document: Agreement by the settlers of Esopus to form a village

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We, the undersigned, all inhabitants of the Aesophios, having from time to time experienced very distressing calamities and felt and discovered, to our loss, the unreliable and unbearable audacity of the savage barbarous natives, how unsafe it is to trust to their promises, how dangerous and full of anxiety to live at separate places away from each other among so faithless and mischievous tribes, have resolved (upon the proposition and promise made by the Director General, the Honorable Petro Stuyvesant, that he will give us a safeguard and further help to assist us in future emergencies) and deemed it necessary for the greater safety of our wives and children, to pull down our scattered habitations in the most convenient manner immediately after signing this agreement and to move close to each other to the place indicated by the honorable general, to enclose the place with palisades of proper length with the assistance provided thereto by the honorable general, so that we may protect ourselves and our property by such means, to which the All-Good God may give His blessing, against a sudden attack of the Indians; while we bind ourselves, after imploring God and His divine blessing on all lawful means, to carry out directly unanimously and without opposition the foregoing agreement and to accomplish it as quick as possible under a penalty of one thousand guilders to be paid for the benefit of the settlement by him, who should hereafter make any opposition by word or deed. To insure this still more, we have signed this agreement faith our own hands in presence of the honorable director general and Sr. Goovert Loockermans, former schepen of the city of Amsterdam in New Netherland. Done the last of May Anno 1658.

Jacop Jansz Stoll
Thomas Chambers
Cornelis Barentsz Slecht
Willem Jansz
Pieter Dircksz
Jan Jansen
Jan Broersen
Dirck Hendricksz Graaft
Jan Lootman
P. Stuyvesant
Govert Loockerman