They quarreled over the fur trade, property issues, and relations with American Indian tribes. As early as 1640, the Dutch complained of being mistreated by the English and charged that the English accused them of crimes that they had not committed. In 1661 Governor Winthrop of Connecticut wrote a memo referring to the Dutch as "noxious neighbours," and after their colony was conquered by the English in 1664, the Dutch were considered an alien culture by the English colonists. This view of them persisted until approximately 1800. A series of border wars between New England and New York and continuing economic competition fueled tensions over the years. But the most important source of early conflict appeared just after the Revolutionary War. At this time, immigration from New England into New York increased rapidly. The tide from New England grew even greater after 1783, when New Englanders swept "up the Mohawk gateway, and.. out across the fertile lands of central and western New York" (Ellis et al., p. 189). These settiers, who sought to secure rich farmland and escape the high taxes in place in Massachusetts, immigrated in such great numbers into the Hudson- Mohawk valleys that they overwhelmed most Dutch and German communities.
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