The Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions,[2] sometimes referred to as the Charter of Privileges and Exemptions,[3] is a document written by the Dutch West India Company in an effort to settle its colony of New Netherland in North America through the establishment of feudal patroonships purchased and supplied by members of the West India Company.

The principal objective of this organization was to go after the spoils of war, which promised rich harvests in the captured fleets of the Spanish, with colonization being only a secondary consideration.

Noting that the capture of the silver fleet in 1628 left the company proceeds of $115,000,000, and that the next year sundry privateers brought in a bounty of over $18,000,000, it was hardly surprising that so little attention was paid to the settlements in the Hudson River Valley.

Those were "get rich quick" days for large corporations, and the slow and tedious procedure of colonizing and cultivating new countries found little favor in the eyes of the men at the helm.

[3] The realization that greater inducements had to be offered to increase the development of the colony led the West India Company to the creation of the so-called "patroon system".

The tenants would be free from all taxation for 10 years, but during this period they would not be allowed to change from one estate to another nor to move from the country to the town.

[7] There are some notable aspects of the charter, which, while aiming to make the West India Company wealthy and successful, offered great incentives to the patroons and respect to the indigenous peoples.

Article VI states that the patroon "shall forever own and possess and hold from the Company as a perpetual fief of inheritance, all the land lying within the aforesaid limits", which made the patroonship a fiefdom.

On October 15, Michael Pauw made his intention known to settle the islands of Fernando de Noronha, located off the Brazilian coast.

[15] From the Mahicans[20] he purchased a plot of land now represented by Albany and Rensselaer counties, which he called Rensselaerswyck and to which he brought several families from the town of Nijkerk, the place of his birth.