Episode 16: Transcript

There’s a lot of talk in today’s news about at wall at the southern border of the United States. Proponents of the wall claim that in some way, shape or form-this wall will make america great again. Don’t worry, this isn’t a podcast about that wall. Today we will be discussing a very old wall that did, at least in financial terms, help make America into the financial powerhouse it is today. Today’s topic is the history of Wall Street.

Hello and welcome to lucky episode 16 of the Plutarch Project Podcast- A bi-weeklyish podcast based on subjects within the realm of the humanities. I’m your aspiring yacht owner host Josh Nieubuurt. We’d like to thank all of the folks who have taken a look or listen to our content and a special thanks to you benevolent folks who help to support us on the website or shopping through the amazon banner. If you like what you hear today don’t be shy, leave a comment, share with your friends, or give us a thumbs up and subscribe if you’re listening from the realm of YouTube. Well, it’s time to put on your best 17th century Dutch attire, have a sit in your private library, and light your pipe with one of those spare Benjamins hanging about, and imagine yourself on the cover of Forbes Magazine. We’re headed way back to April of 1524.

Today’s gallop through history begins with the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. In April of 1524 Verrazzano, from his ship La Dauphin, was the first known European to enter what is now New York Harbor. He was on an exploratory mission sponsored by King Francis the first of France. Verrazanno reported that the harbor was [quote]

““a very agreeable situation located within two small prominent hills, in the midst of which flowed to the sea a very big river, which was deep within the mouth: and from sea to the hills of that (place) with the rising of the tides, which we found eight feet, any laden ship might have passed.”(New York Map Society) [unqoute]

Verrazzano named the place, Nouvelle-Angoulême, in honor of his patron who had gone by the name Francis of Angouleme before his ascension to the throne. Verrazzano noted on the comings and goings of the indigenous peoples before making his merry way onward. Verrazzano’s brother, Girolamo da Verrazano made the first map of the region and compiled into into a world map in 1629, giving a record of the first name of what would later become New York. Over the better part of a century other explorers and fur traders would periodically find their way into the harbor.

It wasn’t until the early 1600’s and the arrival of the English and the Dutch that the area began to receive focused attention from Europe. In 1609, after two failed attempts to find the mystical northern passage to China for England, Henry Hudson was commissioned by the Dutch to covertly attempt the same endeavor. Hudson “rediscovered” the harbor along his journey up the river that would later bear his name. His report on the abundance of beaver pelts available led to the first European colony within the harbor.

Beaver might not be a hot commodity today, but in 17th century Europe it was all the rage. The pelts could be made into waterproof hats and for castoreum– a secretion from anal glands found in beavers. Even today castoreum can be found in some perfumes, cigarettes, and as a food additive. Next time you spray yourself with a perfume with a note suggesting leather you can take a good guess at where that smell was sourced from.

A bit of a side note, Hudson would later venture even further into what is now modern day Canada into what is now the Hudson Strait and the great expanse of the Hudson Bay. After enduring a brutal winter Hudson wished to press further into the bay but his crew mutinied. He, his son, and seven others were set adrift never to be seen again. How does that saying go…Shoot for the moon… and if you miss… you might just end up adrift. Risks of the job, I suppose.

In the years following Hudson’s expedition the Dutch sent other expeditions to map out the area and an array of commercial vessels to partake in the fur trade.

With the establishment of the Dutch WEST India Company in 1621. Due in part to the massive financial successes of the Dutch East India Company, business minded folks of the time turned their gaze toward the new world. By the inception of the Dutch West India Company another capital venture, the United New Netherland Company, had been trading-primarily furs- along the Hudson River Basin for several years. This company was absorbed by the Dutch West India Company and plans were made to send settlers to the area of New Amsterdam.

The Compant built Fort Orange- now Albany, N.Y., and Fort Nassau on the Delaware River in 1624, Fort Good Hope on the site of Hartford on the Connecticut River, and finally-where our topic leads us today- Fort Amsterdam in 1626.

The land that Fort Amsterdam was built on was purchased for sixty guilders… or what would now be roughly $1200 USD in today’s money. Now that’s the deal of a century. The New Netherland director, Peter Minuit, purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsee natives. It’s important to note that although Minuit did pay someone it was actually Wappinger Confederation who was in control of the area. Another example of a long train of misdeeds done against the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The Dutch settlers began setting farms and plantations using imported slave labor. Property were rented to tenants who paid the company for the use of the land, equipment, and buildings. Over the following decades more settlers came and Fort Amsterdam transitioned into a colony beginning its first growth spurt into what would later become the sprawling metropolis of New York City.

By the year 1639, New Amsterdam had a permanent population of 270 people and eighteen different languages were spoken within the boundaries of the colony. The religious services were held in one Reformed Protestant Dutch Church and other needs of the human condition were serviced by the colonies 17 taverns. At least they had their priorities straight.

The Dutch West India Company was finally allowed self-rule in 1653 with headed by Peter Stuyvesant. The New Amsterdam of Peter’s time was in stark contrast to the financial district that now claims the land. Author Sandra Deden recounting the world of New Amsterdam writes, [quote]

“Passing by the trading ships in the harbor, Stuyvesant might have headed toward downtown New Amsterdam, located along Beaver Bridge and Stone Streets. These streets still have their original names today. Along these streets of dirt and mud stood the small one-story wooden buildings of the fifteen homes, two taverns, firehouse, and brewery of the West India Company. Many of the homes had small vegetable patches and fruit trees. The colonists’ animals–pigs, cows, goats, and dogs–often wandered through the streets. The sounds of Dutch punctuated with French, Italian, American Indian, and African dialects filled the air.” [unquote].

A very far cry from the world as it is now. Shortly after taking over Peter and other leaders in the community found it pertinent to build a wall. The goal of the wall was to protect the community from the wilderness and all of its dangers; including the indigenous populations and those rascally New Englanders that also called the surrounding areas home.

The wall was initially 12 feet tall and ran east to west protecting the northern border of the fort. This need for defense wasn’t without warrant.

On September 15, 1655, The New Netherland colony was attacked by Native Americans over a raised tensions over New Sweden, a nearby colony in which the land had been initially claimed by Peter Minuit but was later a disputed territory between many European nations including Sweden and England. Historians Berthold Fernow and Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan noted in 1881 that these tensions were said to have broken out into an all out conflict after the murder of a young Wappinger woman named Tachiniki. Whom was said to have been murdered by a Dutch settler for stealing a peach. This conflict was later given the name the Peach Tree War. In total the native americans destroyed 28 farms, killed 100 settlers, and took 150 prisoners. Fort Amsterdam was also directly attacked by six hundred warriors who used boats to land on the shores of the mostly undefended fort.

The fort was left relatively intact and luckily no one was killed. Many of the colonial forts were depopulated and sent to New Amsterdam-some temporarily and others permanently.

A major thoroughfare was eventually developed along the wall which was given the name Wall Street. After some time the wall began to fall into disrepair primarily due to the colonists and the West India Company arguing who was responsible for maintaining the wall. It became so laughable that local farmers would run their livestock through it to prove its worthlessness. Peter Stuyvesant tried raising money for its repair but ultimately failed.

The Fort remained New Amsterdam until British ships captured the city in 1664. Remarkably the wall stood until 1699 when the British finally tore it down. By this time Wall Street had become a place of trade and commerce. It was a bustling place of shops, merchants, warehouses, and even the city hall.

It remained in British control until the Revolutionary War. After the conclusion of the war the United State’s first president, good ol’ George Washington, took his oath of office at Federal Hall located on Wall Street in New York City. It remained a center for local business transactions and an important hub for the growing nation until the early 19th century.

The first stock exchange in the US was based in Philadelphia and opened in 1790. A New York based merchant group visited the stock exchange in Philadelphia and quickly returned to New York to establish the New York Stock Exchange. Initially the stock exchange had a rather homely home- a rented room on Wall Street. A seat on the exchange came at a cost of $25 bucks… or what would now be about $460 dollars. To put this in a contemporary context a seat would now cost anywhere from $4000 to $4 million dollars.

By 1886 over a million shares were traded daily, by 1929 10 million shares, by 1982 100 million shares, and today anywhere from 2-6 billion shares are traded daily on the New York Stock Exchange.

The New York Stock Exchange remained mostly unchanged until it found its current home in 1903 at a cost of $4 million dollars about $114 million in today’s dollars.

Those working on Wall Street today couldn’t possibly imagine the lives of those who trod the same ground before them. According to Bloomberg’s report on the finances of those working in the financial industry in New York,

[quote] “Annual pay, including bonuses, in New York City’s securities industry rose to $422,500 on average in 2017. Salaries gained as pretax profits rose 42 percent to $24.5 billion last year.” [unquote]

From its humble origins as a beaver mine to its current position of financial powerhouse Wall Street remains long after the wall itself has been torn down. Thanks for listening.

If you found this podcast interesting or of some value- consider supporting us. The biggest- and honestly the easiest thing you can do is share this content. We’re a hobby podcast just looking for an audience. If you really like us and want to help us up the quality of this podcast there are ways you can do that too. Go to the website, plutarchproject.com, and click the support us category. You can click an advert on the website, shop through our amazon banner, or even book a hotel through our booking.com banner. 100% of the money goes back to the podcast. Next on our list of tools to raise the quality of this podcast is a better mic. Alternatively, if you’re flush with cash you can support us on Patreon.com. There’s a couple levels of support that start at $2 bucks a month. $2 to keep popping open the treasure trove of knowledge from the humanities on a bi-weekly basis. Not too shabby. If nothing else, thanks for taking the time to listen. And as always, Onward.

Sources:

http://www.newyorkmapsociety.org/FSAngouleme.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Angoulême

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hudson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoreum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_District,_Manhattan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam

https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/united-states-and-canada/miscellaneous-us-geography/new-amsterdam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peach_Tree_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington#Presidency_(1789–1797)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Hall