New Netherland, or
Nieuw-Nederland in
Dutch, was the seventeenth-century
colonial province of the
Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on
the
East Coast of
North America.
The claimed
territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula
to extreme southwestern Cape Cod
.
The
settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic States of New York
, New Jersey
, Delaware
, and
Connecticut
, with small outposts in Pennsylvania
and Rhode
Island
. Its capital, New
Amsterdam, was located at the southern tip of the island of
Manhattan
on Upper New York Bay
.
Initially a private venture to exploit the North American
fur trade, New Netherland was slowly settled
during the first decades of its existence, in part due to conflicts
with
Native
Americans and mismanagement by the
Dutch West India Company (WIC). The
colony of
New Sweden developed on its
southern flank and its northern border was re-drawn in recognition
of early
New England
settlements.
During the 1650s it experienced exponential
growth and became a major port for trade in the North Atlantic
. The surrender of Fort Amsterdam
to the British
control in
1664 was formalized in 1667, and was one of the reasons for the
Second Anglo–Dutch
War. In 1673 the Dutch re-took the area and later
relinquished it with 1674
Treaty of Westminster.
The inhabitants of New Netherland were Native Americans, Europeans,
and Africans. Descendants of the original settlers played a
prominent role in
colonial America.
New Netherland Dutch culture characterized
the region (today's Capital District
, Hudson Valley,
western Long
Island
, northeastern New
Jersey and the five
boroughs of New York City
) for two
centuries. The concepts of civil liberties and pluralism
introduced in the province became a mainstay of American political
and social life.
Origins
Seventeenth-century Europe was a time of expansive social, cultural, and
economic growth, and in the Netherlands
is known as the Dutch
Golden Age. Nations were vying for domination of
lucrative trade routes across the globe, particularly those to
Asia. Simultaneously, philosophical/theological
battles were manifested in military battles taking place across the
continent. The
Republic of the Seven
United Netherlands had become a home to many intellectuals,
international businessmen, and religious refugees.
The English
had a
settlement at Jamestown
, the French had a small settlement at Quebec
and the Spanish were
developing colonies to exploit trade in South America and the Caribbean
.
Henry Hudson was an English sea captain
and explorer who believed he could find a
northwest passage to Asia.
In 1609, under
contract with the Dutch East
India Company (VOC), located in Amsterdam
, he explored the waters off the east coast of North America aboard the yacht Halve
Maen. His first landfall was at Newfoundland
and the second at Cape Cod
. He sailed south to the
Chesapeake Bay, close to but not approaching
the English colony at Jamestown.
He then turned northward, travelling
along the shore and after passing Sandy Hook
entered the narrows
into the Upper New York Bay
. (The narrows are named for Giovanni da Verrazzano who had
sighted them in 1524.) Believing he may have found a water route
across the continent he proceeded up the river which would later
bear his name (the Hudson River) but at
the site of present-day Albany
the water became too shallow to
proceed.
Upon returning to the Netherlands, Hudson reported that he had
found a fertile and fecund land and a people amicable to engaging
his crew in small-scale bartering of furs, trinkets, clothes, and
small manufactured goods. His report stimulated further interest in
the prospect of exploiting this new trade resource, and was the
catalyst for Dutch merchant-traders to fund more expeditions. At
least one was made the following year, under the command of Symen
Lambertsz Mau.
In
1611–1612, the Admiralty of
Amsterdam sent two covert expeditions to find a passage to
China
with the yachts Craen and Vos,
captained by Jan Cornelisz Mey and Symon Willemsz Cat,
respectively. In four voyages made between 1611 and 1614,
the area between present-day Delaware
and Massachusetts
was explored, surveyed, and charted by Adriaen Block, Hendrick Christiaensen, and Cornelius Jacobsen Mey. The
results of these explorations, surveys, and charts made from 1609
through 1614 were consolidated in Block’s map, which used the name
New Netherland for the first time. On maps it was also
called
Nova Belgica. During this period there appears to
have been some trading with the native population.
Jan Rodrigues, born in Santo Domingo
of Portuguese and
African descent, spent the winter of
1613–1614 trapping for pelts and trading with the local population,
and is the first recorded non-Native American to do
so.
Development
Chartered trading companies
On March 17, 1614, the
States General, the
governing body of the
Republic of the
Seven United Netherlands, proclaimed it would grant an
exclusive patent for trade between the 40th and 45th
parallels. This monopoly would be valid
for four voyages, all of which had to be undertaken within three
years after it was awarded. Block's map, and the report which
accompanied it, were used by the
New Netherland Company (a newly
formed alliance of trading companies) to win its patent, which
would expire on January 1, 1618.
The New Netherland Company also ordered a survey of the Delaware
area. This was undertakenby skipper
Cornelis Hendricksz of
Monnickendam, who explored the Zuyd Rivier (the
Delaware River) from its bay to its
northernmost navigable reaches in 1616. His observations were
preserved in a map drawn in 1616. Hendricksz's voyages were made
aboard the
IJseren Vercken (Iron Hog), a vessel that was
built in America. Despite the survey, the company was unable to
secure an exclusive patent from the States General for the area
between the 38th and 40th parallels.
The issue of patents by the States General in 1614 turned New
Netherland into a private, commercial venture.
Soon thereafter
Fort Nassau was
constructed on Castle Island
, up Hudson's river, in the area of present-day
Albany
. The primary purpose of the fort was to
defend river traffic against interlopers and to conduct
fur trading operations with the natives. The
location of the fort proved to be impractical, due to repeated
flooding of the island in the summers, and the fort was abandoned
in 1618, which coincided with the patent's expiration.
The
Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie, or
Chartered West India Company (WIC),
was granted a
charter by the
Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on June 3, 1621.
It gave
the exclusive right to operate in West
Africa (between the Tropic of Cancer
and the Cape of Good Hope
) and the Americas.
In New Netherland, profit was originally to be made from the
North American fur
trade.
Among the founders of the WIC was
Willem Usselincx who, between 1600 and
1606, hadpromoted the concept that a main objective of the company
should be the establishment of colonies in the
New World. In 1620, Usselincx made a last appeal
to the States General, which rejected his principal vision as a
primary goal. The formula of trading posts with small populations
and a military presence to protect them, which was working in the
East Indies, was preferred over mass immigration and the
establishment of large colonies. Not until 1654, when forced to
surrender
Dutch Brazil and forfeit the
richest sugar-producing area in the world, did the company
belatedly focus on colonization in North America.
Pre-colonial population
The first trading partners of the
New
Netherlanders were the
Iroquois and
Algonquian peoples who lived
there at the time of their arrival. The Dutch did very little, if
any, trapping themselves, but depended on the indigenous population
to capture, skin and deliver pelts, especially beaver, to them. It
is likely that Hudson's peaceful contact with the local
Mahicans encouraged them to establish, in 1614,
Fort Nassau, the first of
many garrisoned trading stations to be built. In 1628, the
Mohawk (members of the Iroquois Confederacy)
conquered the Mahicans who then retreated to Connecticut. The
Mohawks gained a near monopoly in the fur trade with the Dutch,
controlling the
Adirondacks and
Mohawk Valley.
The
Algonquian Lenape population around
New
York Bay and along the
Lower Hudson
were seasonally migrational people who became known collectively as
the River Indians. Among them were the
Wecquaesgeek,
Hackensack,
Raritan,
Canarsee,
Tappan. It was these groups who
had most frequent contact with the New Netherlanders. The
Munsee inhabited the
Highlands and
Hudson Valley, while
Minquas lived along the
Zuyd Rivier.
Company policy required that land be purchased from the existing
peoples. The
WIC would
offer a land patent, the recipient of which would be responsible
for negotiating a deal with representatives, usual the
sachem, or high chief, of the local population. The
concept of ownership as understood by the
Swannekins, or
salt water people, was foreign to the
Wilden, or
natives. The exchange of gifts in the form of
sewant or manufactured goods was perceived as trade
agreement and defense alliance which included farming, hunting, and
fishing rights. Often, the Indians did not vacate the property or
reappeared as their migration patterns dictated. The Europeans were
welcomed on the land, but the Indians had no intention of leaving.
This misunderstanding, and other differences, would later lead to
violent conflict, though at the same time were the beginnings of a
what would later become multicultural society.
Early settlement
The earliest Dutch settlement was built around 1613, and consisted
of a number of small huts built by the crew of the
"
Tijger" (
Tiger), a Dutch ship under the command
of Captain
Adriaen Block which had
caught fire while sailing on the Hudson.
Soon after, the first
of two Fort Nassau was
built and small factorijen, or trading posts, where
commerce could be conducted with Algonquian and Iroquois population, went up (possibly at Schenectady
, Schoharie
, Esopus
, Quinnipiac,
Communipaw and elsewhere).
In 1624 New Netherland became a province of the Dutch Republic,
which had lowered the northern border of its North American
dominion to
42 degrees latitude
in acknowledgment of the claim by the English north of Cape Cod.
The Dutch
named the three main rivers of the province the Zuyd
Rivier (South River), the
Noort Rivier (North River
), and the Versche Rivier (Fresh River).
International law required
not only discovery and charting but also settlement to perfect a
territorial claim.
To this end, in May 1624 the WIC landed 30
families on Noten Eylant (today's Governors Island
) at the mouth of the North River. They
disembarked from the ship
New Netherland, under the
command of
Cornelis Jacobsz
May, the first
Director of the New
Netherland. He was replaced the following year by
Willem Verhulst.
In June 1625, 45 additional colonists disembarked on Noten Eylant
from three ships named
Horse, Cow, and
Sheep,
which also delivered 103 horses, steers, cows, pigs, and sheep.
Some
settlers were dispersed to the various garrisons built across the
territory: upstream to Fort Orange
, to Kievets Hoek
on the Fresh River, and Fort Wilhelmus on the South River.
Most of the settlers were not Dutch, but
Walloons,
Huguenots, or
Africans (who were brought as
slaves).
North River and The Manhattans

Map (c.
1639) Manhattan situated on the North River
Peter Minuit became
Director of the New
Netherland in 1626 and made a decision that would greatly
affect the new colony. Originally, the capital of the province was
to be located on the South River, but it was soon realized that the
location was susceptible to mosquito infestation in the summer and
the freezing of its waterways in the winter.
He chose instead the
island of Manhattan
at the mouth of the river explored by Hudson, at that time called the North
River
. In what is one of the most legendary
real-estate deals ever made, Minuit traded some goods with the
local population and reported that he had purchased it from the
natives, as was company policy.
He ordered the construction of Fort
Amsterdam
at its
southern tip, around which would grow the heart of the province,
which rather than New Netherland, would be called in the vernacular
of the day The Manhattoes.The
port city outside the walls of the fort,
New Amsterdam would become a major hub for
trade between North America, the Caribbean and Europe, and the
place where raw materials such as pelts, lumber, and tobacco would
be loaded. Sanctioned
privateering would
contribute to its growth.
When given its municipal charter in 1653 the
Commonality of New Amsterdam included
the isle of Manhattan, Staaten Eylandt
, Pavonia and
the Lange Eylandt
towns.
In the hope of encouraging immigration, the Dutch West India
Company, in 1629, established the
Charter of Freedoms and
Exemptions, which gave it the power to offer vast land grants
and the title of
patroon to some of its
invested members. The vast tracts were called patroonships, and the
title came with powerful
manorial
rights and
privileges, such as the creation of
civil and
criminal courts and the
appointing of local officials. In return, a patroon was required by
the
Company to establish a
settlement of at least 50 families, who would live as tenant
farmers, within four years.
Of the original five patents given, the
largest and only truly successful endeavour was Rensselaerswyck
, at the highest navigable point on the North River,
which became the main thoroughfare of the province.
Beverwijck, grew from a trading post to a
bustling, independent town in the midst of Rensselaerwyck, as would
Wiltwyck
, south of the patroonship in Esopus
country.
Kieft's War and the Remonstrance of New Netherland
Willem Kieft was
Director New Netherland
from 1638 until 1647. Though the colony had grown somewhat before
his arrival, it did not flourish, and Kieft was under pressure to
increase profits. At first he suggested collecting tribute from the
Indians (as was common among the various dominant tribes), but his
demands to the
Tappan and
Wecquaesgeek were simply ignored.
Subsequently, when a colonist was murdered in an act of revenge for
some killings that had taken place years earlier and the Indians
refused to turn over the perpetrator, Kieft suggested they be
taught a lesson by ransacking their villages. In an attempt to gain
public support he created a citizens commission, the
Council of Twelve Men. They did not, as was
expected, rubber-stamp his ideas, but took the opportunity to
mention grievances that they had with company's mismanagement and
its unresponsiveness to their suggestions.
Kieft thanked and
disbanded them, and against their advice ordered that groups of
Tappan and Wecquaesgeek (who had sought refuge from their more
powerful Mahican enemies) be attacked at
Pavonia and Corlear's
Hook
. The massacre left 130 dead. Within days the
surrounding tribes, in a unique move, united and rampaged the
countryside, forcing settlers who escaped to find safety at Fort
Amsterdam. For two years, a series of raids and reprisals raged
across the province, until 1645 when
Kieft's
War ended with a treaty, in a large part brokered by the
Hackensack sagamore Oratam.
Disenchanted with the previous governor, his ignorance of
indigenous peoples, the unresponsiveness of the WIC to their rights
and requests, they submitted to the
States General the
Remonstrance of New Netherland. This document, penned by the
Leiden-educated New Netherland
lawyer
Adriaen van der Donck,
condemned the WIC for mismanagement and demanded full rights as
citizens of province of the Netherlands.
Director-General of New Netherland
Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New
Amsterdam in 1647, the only
governor of the
colony to be called
Director-General.
Stuyvesant was a company man, selected to protect the interests of
the
WIC. The approach of
ruling firmly for the profit of the WIC came in direct conflict
with the New Netherlanders.Some years earlier land ownership policy
was liberalized and trading was somewhat deregulated, and many
New Netherlanders considered
themselves
entrepreneurs in a
free market.
During the period of his governorship the province experienced
exponential growth.Demands were made upon Stuyevesant from all
sides: the West India Company, the States General, and the New
Netherlanders. Dutch territory was being nibbled at by the English
to the north and the
Swedes to the south,
while in the heart of the province the
Esopus
were trying to contain further Dutch expansion.
Military battles were
occurring in the Caribbean
and along the South Atlantic
coast. In 1654, the Netherlands lost New Holland in Brazil to the Portuguese
, encouraging some of its residents to emigrate
north and making the North American
colonies more appealing to some investors. The Esopus Wars
are so named for the branch of Lenape that lived around Wiltwijck
, which was the Dutch settlement on the west bank of
Hudson River between Beverwyk
and New
Amsterdam. These conflicts were generally over
settlement of land by New Netherlanders for which contracts had not
been clarified, and were seen by the natives as an unwanted
incursion into their territory. Previously, the Esopus, a clan of
the
Munsee Lenape, had much less contact with
the
River Indians and
the
Mohawks.
Society
New Netherlanders were not
necessarily Dutch, and New Netherland was never a homogenous
society. An early governor,
Peter
Minuit, was a German-born Walloon who spoke English and worked
for a Dutch company.
The term New
Netherland Dutch generally includes all the Europeans who came
to live there, but may also refer to Africans, Caribbeans
, and South Americans
and even the Native American who
were integral to the society. Though Dutch was the
official language, and likely the
lingua franca of the province, it was but one
of many spoken there. There were various
Algonquian languages;
Walloons and
Huguenots
tended to speak
French, and
Scandinavians brought their own tongues, as did
the
Germans. It is likely the
Africans, both
freeman and
slaves,
spoke their mother tongues as well.
English was already on the rise to become
the
vehicular language in world
trade, and settlement by individuals or groups of English-speakers
started soon after the inception of the province.
The arrival of
refugees from New Holland in Brazil
may have
brought Portuguese, Spanish, and Ladino (with Hebrew as
a liturgical language). Commercial activity in the harbor
could have been transacted simultaneously in any of a number of
tongues.
The
Union of Utrecht, the founding
document of the
Dutch Republic,
signed in 1579, stated “that everyone shall remain free in religion
and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of
religion”. The
Dutch West India
Company, however, established the
Reformed Church as the official
religious institution of New Netherland,. The colonists had to
attract, “through attitude and by example”, the natives and
nonbelievers to God’s word “without, on the other hand, to
persecute someone by reason of his religion, and to leave everyone
the freedom of his conscience.” In addition, the laws and
ordinances of the states of Holland were incorporated by reference
in those first instructions to the Governors Island settlers in
1624. There were two
test case
during Stuyvesant's governorship in which the rule prevailed: the
official granting of full residency for both
Ashkenazi and
Sephardi Jews in New
Amsterdam in 1655, and the
Flushing Remonstrance, involving
Quakers, in1657.During the 1640s two
religious leaders, both women, took refuge in New Netherland:
Anne Hutchinson and the
Anabaptist Lady
Deborah Moody.
Incursions
South River and New Sweden
Apart from the second
Fort
Nassau, and the small community that supported it, settlement
along the
Zuyd Rivier was limited.
Zwaanendael, during the absence of the
patroon's agent,
David Pietersen de Vries, was
destroyed by the local population soon after its founding in
1631.
Peter Minuit,
who had construed a deed for Manhattan
(and was soon after dismissed as director), knew
that the Dutch would be unable to defend the southern flank of its
North American territory and had not
signed treaties with or purchased land from the Minquas. After gaining the
support from the Queen of Sweden
, he chose
the southern banks of the Delaware Bay
to establish a colony there, which he did in 1638,
calling it Fort
Christina
, New Sweden. As expected, the government at
New Amsterdam took no other action than to protest. Other
settlements sprang up as colony grew, mostly populated by
Swedes,
Finns,
Germans, and
Dutch.In 1651,
Fort Nassau was dismantled and relocated
in an attempt to disrupt trade and reassert control, receiving the
name
Fort Casimir.
Fort Beversreede was built in the same
year, but was short-lived.
In 1655, Stuyvesant led a military expedition and
regained control of the region, calling its main town New
Amstel
. During this expedition some villages and
plantations at the Manhattans
(Pavonia and Staten Island
) were attacked in a incident that is known as the
Peach Tree War. These raids
are sometimes considered revenge for the murder of an Indian girl
attempting to pluck a peach, though it was likely that they were a
retaliation for the attacks at
New
Sweden.A new experimental settlement was begun in 1673, just
before the British takeover in 1674.
Franciscus van den Enden had drawn
up charter for a utopian society that included equal education of
all classes, joint ownership of property, and a democratically
elected government.
Pieter
Corneliszoon Plockhoy attempted such a settlement near the site
of Zwaanendael, but it soon expired under English rule.
Fresh River and New England
Few settlers to New Netherland made
Fort
Goede Hoop on the
Fresh River
their home.
As early 1637 English settlers from the
Massachusetts Colony began to
settle along its banks and on Lange Eylandt
, some with the permission from the colonial
government, and others with complete disregard for it.
Developing simultaneously with that of New Netherland, the English
colonies grew more rapidly since settlement by religious sects
(rather than trade) was the impetus for their creation.
It was
fear of an invasion by them that the wal, or rampart, at
contemporary Wall
Street
was originally built. Initially there was
limited contact between New Englanders and New Netherlanders, but
with a swelling English population and territorial disputes the two
provinces engaged direct diplomatic relations.
The New England Confederation was
formed in 1643 as a political and military alliance of the British
colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. The latter two were
actually on land owned by the United Provinces (and thus under its
jurisdiction), but unable to populate or militarily defend their
territorial claim, the Dutch could do nothing but protest the
growing flood of English settlers.
With the 1650 Treaty of Hartford, Stuyvesant
provisionally ceded the Connecticut
River region to New
England
, drawing New Netherland's eastern border 50 Dutch
miles west of the Connecticut's mouth on the mainland and just west
of Oyster
Bay
on Long
Island
. The Dutch West India Company refused to
recognize the treaty, but since it failed to reach any agreement
with the English, the Hartford Treaty set the
de facto
border. Although Connecticut mostly assimilated into New England
the western part of the state maintains stronger ties with the
Tri-State Region.
Capitulation, restitution, and concession
In March 1664,
Charles II of
England resolved to annex New Netherland and “bring all his
Kingdoms under one form of government, both in church and state,
and to install the Anglican government as in old England”. The
directors of the Dutch West India Company concluded that the
religious freedom of the colony made military defense against New
England unnecessary. They wrote to
Director-General Peter Stuyvesant:
.
.
. we are in hopes that as the English at the north (in
New Netherland) have removed mostly from old England for the causes
aforesaid, they will not give us henceforth so much trouble, but
prefer to live free under us at peace with their consciences than
to risk getting rid of our authority and then falling again under a
government from which they had formerly fled.
On August 27, 1664, four English frigates sailed into New
Amsterdam’s harbor and demanded New Netherland’s surrender. They
met no resistance because numerous citizens’ requests for
protection by a suitable Dutch garrison against “the deplorable and
tragic massacres” by the natives had gone unheeded. That lack of
adequate fortification, ammunition, and manpower as well as the
indifference from the West India Company to previous pleas for
reinforcement of men and ships against “the continual troubles,
threats, encroachments and invasions of the English neighbors” made
New Amsterdam defenseless. Stuyvesant negotiated successfully for
good terms from his “too powerful enemies.” In the Articles of
Transfer, he and his council secured the principle of religious
tolerance in Article VIII, which assured that
New Netherlanders “shall keep and enjoy the
liberty of their consciences in religion” under English rule.
In the
1667 Treaty of Breda ending
the Second Anglo-Dutch War,
the Dutch did not press their claims on New Netherland and the
status quo, with the Dutch occupying Suriname
and the nutmeg island of
Run
, was
maintained.
Within six years, the nations were again at war, and in August 1673
the Dutch recaptured New Netherland with a fleet of 21 ships, then
the largest ever seen in North America. They chose
Anthony Colve as governor and renamed the city
“New Orange”, reflecting the installation of
William of Orange as Lord-Lieutenant
(
stadtholder) of Holland in 1672. (He
would become King William III of England in 1689.) Nevertheless,
after the conclusion of the
Third
Anglo-Dutch War in 1672–1674 — the historic “disaster
years” in which the Dutch Republic was simultaneously attacked by
the French under Louis XIV, the English, and the Bishops of Munster
and Cologne — the republic was financially and morally
bankrupt.
The States of Zeeland
had tried to convince the States of Holland to take on the
responsibility for the New Netherland province, but to no
avail. In November 1674, the
Treaty of Westminster concluded
the war and ceded New Netherland to the English.
Legacy
In addition to founding the largest
metropolis on the North American continent, New
Netherland has left a profoundly enduring legacy on both American
cultural and political life, greatly influenced by social and
political climate in the
Dutch
Republic at the timeas well as by the character of those who
immigrated to it.
It was during the early British colonial period that the New Netherlanders actually developed
the land and society that would have an enduring impact on the
Capital
District
, the Hudson Valley,
North Jersey, western Long Island
, New York
City
, and ultimately the United States
.
Political Culture
Manifested, and occasionally embraced, as
multiculturalism in late twentieth-century
USA, the concept of tolerance was the mainstay of province's mother
country. The
Dutch Republic was a
haven for many religious and intellectual refugees fleeing
oppression as well as home to the world's major ports in the newly
developing
global economy.
Concepts
of religious freedom and free-trade (including a stock market) were
Netherlands
imports. In 1682, the visiting Virginian
William Byrd commented about New Amsterdam that "they have as many
sects of religion there as at Amsterdam".
The Dutch Republic was one of the first
nation-states of Europe where
citizenship and
civil
liberties were extended to large segments of the population.
The framers of the
U.S. Constitution were influenced by the
Constitution of the Republic of the United Provinces, though that
influence was more as an example of things to avoid than of things
to imitate. In addition, the
Act of
Abjuration, essentially the declaration of independence of the
United Provinces from the Spanish throne, is strikingly similar to
the later
American
Declaration of Independence though concrete evidence that the
former directly influenced the latter is absent.
John Adams went so far as to say that “the
origins of the two Republics are so much alike that the history of
one seems but a transcript from that of the other.”The Articles of
Capitulation (outlining the terms of transfer to the English) in
1664, provided for the right to worship as one wished, and were
incorporated into subsequent city, state, and national
constitutions in the USA, and are the legal and cultural code that
lies at the root of the
New York
Tri-State traditions.
Many prominent US citizens are
Dutch
American directly descended from the Dutch families of New
Netherland. The
Roosevelt family,
which produced two
Presidents, are descended
from Claes van Roosevelt, who emigrated about 1650. The Van Buren
family of President
Martin Van
Buren also originated in New Netherland.
Lore and language
The tradition of
Santa Claus comes from
a celebration of the festival day of
Saint
Nicolas on December 5 each year by the settlers of New
Netherland. The folk tales of the Dutch peasants of the
Hudson Valley gave literary inspiration to
Washington Irving for his two most
famous short stories, "
Rip Van
Winkle" and "
The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow". His "A History of New York", written in the
early 1800s, satirically describes the enduring influence of the
New Netherlanders on contemporary
cultural life.
The
colors of the flags of the City of New York
, Albany
and Nassau County
are those of the old Dutch
flag. The blue, white and orange are also seen in
materials from New York's two
World's
Fairs and the uniforms of the
New York
Mets baseball club,
New York
Knicks basketball club, and
New
York Islanders hockey club.
Hofstra University
, founded in 1935, takes its flag from the
original.
The seven arrows in the lion's left claw in the Republic's coat of
arms, representing the seven provinces, was a precedent for the
thirteen arrows in the eagle's left claw in the
Great Seal of the United
States.
Pidgin Delaware
developed early in the province as a
vehicular language to expedite trade.
A dialect
known as Jersey Dutch was spoken in and
around rural Bergen
and Passaic
counties in New Jersey
until the early 20th century. Mohawk Dutch, spoken around Albany
, is also now extinct.
Many
words of Dutch origin
came into American
vernacular directly
from New Netherland. For example, the quintessential American word
Yankee may be a corruption of a
Dutch name,
Jan Kees.
Knickerbocker, originally a surname, has
been used to describe a number of things, including breeches,
glasses, and a basketball team.
Cookie is from the
Dutch word
koekje or (informally)
koekie.
Boss, from
baas, evolved in New Netherland to the usage known
today.
Early settlers and their descendents gave many placenames still in
use throughout the region that was New Netherland.
Using Dutch, and the
Latin alphabet, they also "Batavianized" names of Native American
geographical locations such as Manhattan
, Hackensack, Sing-Sing
, and Canarsie
. Peekskill
, Catskill
, and Cresskill
all refer to the streams, or kils, around
which they grew. Schuylkill
River is somewhat redundant, since
kil is already
built into it.
Among those that use hoek, meaning
point, are: Red Hooks, Sandy Hook
, Constable Hook, and
Kinderhook
.Nearly pure Dutch forms name the bodies of
water Spuyten
Duyvil
, Kill van Kull
, and Hell Gate.
Countless towns, streets, and parks bear names derived from Dutch
places or from the
surnames of the early
Dutch settlers.
Hudson and the
House of Orange-Nassau lend their
names to numerous places in the
Northeast.
See also
Articles
Links to articles
Notes
References
- http://www.lowensteyn.com/iroquois/
- see John Smith's 1616 map as self-appointed Admiral of New
England
- Cornelis Meyln: "I was obliged to flee for the sake of saving
my life, and to sojourn with wife and children at the Menatans till
the year 1647."
- www.council.nyc.gov/html/about/history.shtml
- Map of Long Island
Townshttp://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Town/OldBklyn.html
- Ruttenber,E.M.,Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, ISBN
0-910746-98-2 (Hope Farm Press, 3rd ed, 2001)
- *
- *
- *
- Yankee : from Jan
Kees, a personal name, originally used mockingly to describe
pro-French revolutionary citizens, with allusion to the small
keeshond dog, then for
"colonials" in New Amsterdam. The Oxford English Dictionary,
however, has quotations with the term from as early as 1765, quite
some time before the French Revolution.
- From Dutch baas, a term of respect originally used to
address an older relative. Later, in New Amsterdam, it came to mean
a person in charge who was not a master.
External links