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New Amsterdam ( nl, Nieuw Amsterdam, or ) was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in
New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...
. The initial trading ''
factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...
'' gave rise to the settlement around Fort Amsterdam. The fort was situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was meant to defend the fur trade operations of the Dutch West India Company in the North River (
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...
). In 1624, it became a provincial extension of the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands ( Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiograph ...
and was designated as the capital of the province in 1625. By 1655, the population of New Netherland had grown to 2,000 people, with 1,500 living in New Amsterdam. By 1664, the population of New Netherland had risen to almost 9,000 people, 2,500 of whom lived in New Amsterdam, 1,000 lived near Fort Orange, and the remainder in other towns and villages. In 1664, the English took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York after the Duke of York (later James II & VII). After the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–67, England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands agreed to the status quo in the Treaty of Breda. The English kept the island of Manhattan, the Dutch giving up their claim to the town and the rest of the colony, while the English formally abandoned Surinam in South America, and the island of
Run Run(s) or RUN may refer to: Places * Run (island), one of the Banda Islands in Indonesia * Run (stream), a stream in the Dutch province of North Brabant People * Run (rapper), Joseph Simmons, now known as "Reverend Run", from the hip-hop group ...
in the
East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around ...
to the Dutch, confirming their control of the valuable Spice Islands. What was once New Amsterdam became New York City's downtown, today known as Lower Manhattan.


Etymology

The indigenous
Munsee The Munsee (or Minsi or Muncee) or mə́n'si·w ( del, Monsiyok)Online Lenape Talking Dictionary, "Munsee Indians"Link/ref> are a subtribe of the Lenape, originally constituting one of the three great divisions of that nation and dwelling along ...
term for the southern tip of the island was Manhattoe, and variations of this name were also applied to the first Dutch settlement there. With the construction of Fort Amsterdam, the town also became variously known as "Amsterdam" or "New Amsterdam". New Amsterdam's city limits did not extend north of the wall of Wall Street, and neither the remainder of the island of Manhattan nor of wider New Netherland fell under its definition.


History


Early settlement (1609–1624)

In 1524, nearly a century before the arrival of the Dutch, the site that would later become New Amsterdam was named Nouvelle Angoulême by the Italian explorer
Giovanni da Verrazzano Giovanni da Verrazzano ( , , often misspelled Verrazano in English; 1485–1528) was an Italian ( Florentine) explorer of North America, in the service of King Francis I of France. He is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlanti ...
, to commemorate his patron King
Francis I of France Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin on ...
, whose family consisted of the
Counts of Angoulême Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York ...
. The first recorded exploration by the Dutch of the area around what is now called New York Bay was in 1609 with the voyage of the ship '' Halve Maen'' (English: "Half Moon"), commanded by
Henry Hudson Henry Hudson ( 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States. In 1607 and 16 ...
in the service of the Dutch Republic, as the emissary of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and stadholder of Holland. Hudson named the river the Mauritius River. He was also covertly attempting to find the
Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the ...
for the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
. Instead, he brought back news about the possibility of exploitation of
beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers a ...
by the Dutch who sent commercial, private missions to the area the following years. At the time, beaver pelts were highly prized in Europe, because the fur could be
felt Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood ...
ed to make waterproof hats. A by-product of the trade in beaver pelts was
castoreum Castoreum is a yellowish exudate from the castor sacs of mature beavers. Beavers use castoreum in combination with urine to scent mark their territory. Both beaver sexes have a pair of castor sacs and a pair of anal glands, located in two cavities ...
—the secretion of the animals' anal glands—which was used for its medicinal properties and for perfumes. The expeditions by Adriaen Block and
Hendrick Christiaensen Hendrick Christiaensen (died 1619) was a Dutch explorer who was involved in the earlier exploration of what became the colony of New Netherland. Life Hendrick Christiaensen was a ship captain and trader employed by the Van Tweenhuysen Company of ...
in 1611, 1612, 1613 and 1614, resulted in the surveying and charting of the region from the 38th parallel to the 45th parallel. On their 1614 map, which gave them a four-year trade monopoly under a patent of the States General, they named the newly discovered and mapped territory New Netherland for the first time. It also showed the first year-round trading presence in New Netherland, Fort Nassau, which would be replaced in 1624 by Fort Orange, which eventually grew into the town of Beverwijck, renamed Albany in 1664. Spanish trader Juan Rodriguez (rendered in Dutch as Jan Rodrigues), was born in the
Captaincy General of Santo Domingo The Captaincy General of Santo Domingo ( es, Capitanía General de Santo Domingo ) was the first colony in the New World, established by Spain in 1492 on the island of Hispaniola. The colony, under the jurisdiction of the Real Audiencia of San ...
, the first
Spanish Colony The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...
in the Americas. Allegedly of Portuguese and African descent, he arrived on Manhattan Island during the winter of 1613–1614 under the command of Thijs Volckenz Mossel captain of the ''Jonge Tobias'', trapping beavers and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch East India Company. He is the first recorded non-Native American inhabitant of what would eventually become New York City. The territory of New Netherland was originally a private, profit-making commercial enterprise focused on cementing alliances and conducting trade with the local Native American ethnic groups. Surveying and exploration of the region was conducted as a prelude to an anticipated official settlement by the Dutch Republic, which occurred in 1624.


Pilgrims' attempt to settle in the Hudson River area

In 1620 the Pilgrims attempted to sail to the Hudson River from England. However, ''
Mayflower ''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, ...
'' reached
Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...
(now part of Massachusetts) on November 9, 1620, after a voyage of 64 days. (page 20). For a variety of reasons, primarily a shortage of supplies, ''Mayflower'' could not proceed to the Hudson River, and the colonists decided to settle near Cape Cod, establishing the
Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was, from 1620 to 1691, the first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the passengers on the ...
.


Dutch return

The mouth of the
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...
was selected as the ideal place for initial settlement as it had easy access to the ocean while also securing an ice-free lifeline to the beaver trading post near present-day Albany. Here, Native American hunters supplied them with pelts in exchange for European-made trade goods and wampum, which was soon being made by the Dutch on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
. In 1621, the Dutch West India Company was founded. Between 1621 and 1623, orders were given to the private, commercial traders to vacate the territory, thus opening up the territory to Dutch settlers and company traders. It also allowed the laws and ordinances of the states of Holland to apply. Previously, during the private, commercial period, only the law of the ship had applied. In May 1624, the first settlers in New Netherland arrived on Noten Eylandt (Nut or Nutten Island, now Governors Island) aboard the ship ''New Netherland'' under the command of
Cornelius Jacobsen May Cornelis Jacobsen Mey (in Dutch often rendered as Cornelius Jacobsz. May) was a Dutch explorer, captain and fur trader. Cape May, Cape May County, and the city of Cape May, New Jersey, are named after him. Russell Shorto, ''The Island at the Ce ...
, who disembarked on the island with thirty families to take legal possession of the New Netherland territory. The families were then dispersed to Fort Wilhelmus on Verhulsten Island ( Burlington Island) in the South River (now the Delaware River), to Kievitshoek (now Old Saybrook, Connecticut) at the mouth of the Verse River (now the Connecticut River) and further north at Fort Nassau on the Mauritius or North River (now the
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...
), near what is now Albany. A fort and
sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
were soon erected at Nut Island. The latter was constructed by Franchoys Fezard and was taken apart for iron in 1648.


Fort Amsterdam (1624)

The threat of attack from other European colonial powers prompted the directors of the Dutch West India Company to formulate a plan to protect the entrance to the Hudson River. In 1624, 30 families were sponsored by Dutch West India Company moving from Nut Island to Manhattan Island, where a citadel to contain Fort Amsterdam was being laid out by Cryn Frederickz van Lobbrecht at the direction of Willem Verhulst. By the end of 1625, the site had been staked out directly south of Bowling Green on the site of the present U.S. Custom House. The Mohawk-Mahican War in the Hudson Valley led the company to relocate even more settlers to the vicinity of the new Fort Amsterdam. In the end, colonizing was a prohibitively expensive undertaking, only partly subsidized by the fur trade. This led to a scaling back of the original plans. By 1628, a smaller fort was constructed with walls containing a mixture of clay and sand. The fort also served as the center of trading activity. It contained a barracks, the church, a house for the West India Company director and a warehouse for the storage of company goods. Troops from the fort used the triangle between the '' Heerestraat'' and what came to be known as Whitehall Street for marching drills.


1624–1664

Verhulst, with his council, was responsible for the selection of Manhattan as a permanent place of settlement and for situating Fort Amsterdam. He was replaced as the company director of New Netherland by Peter Minuit in 1626. According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, to legally safeguard the settlers' investments, possessions and farms on Manhattan island, Minuit negotiated the "purchase" of Manhattan from a band of Canarse from Brooklyn who occupied the bottom quarter of Manhattan, known then as the
Manhattoes Manhattoe/Manhattoes is a term describing a place and, mistakenly, a people. The location was the very southern tip of the Manhattan island during the time of the Dutch colonization of the Americas at what became New Amsterdam there. The people w ...
, for 60
guilders Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch and German ''gulden'', originally shortened from Middle High German ''guldin pfenninc'' " gold penny". This was the term that became current in the southern and western parts of the Holy Roman E ...
' worth of trade goods. Minuit conducted the transaction with the Canarse chief Seyseys, who was only too happy to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks. The deed itself has not survived, so the specific details are unknown. A textual reference to the deed became the foundation for the legend that Minuit had purchased Manhattan from the Native Americans for twenty-four dollars' worth of trinkets and beads, the guilder rate at the time being about two and a half to a Spanish dollar. The price of 60 Dutch guilders in 1626 amounts to around $1,100 in 2012 dollars. Further complicating the calculation is that the value of goods in the area would have been different than the value of those same goods in the developed market of the Netherlands. The Dutch exploited the hydropower of existing creeks by constructing mills at Turtle Bay (between present-day East 45th–48th Streets) and Montagne's Kill, later called Harlem Mill Creek (East 108th Street). In 1639 a sawmill was located in the northern forest at what was later the corner of East 74th Street and Second Avenue, at which African slaves cut lumber. The New Amsterdam settlement had a population of approximately 270 people, including infants. In 1642 the new director Willem Kieft decided to build a stone church within the fort. The work was carried out by recent English immigrants, the brothers John and Richard Ogden. The church was finished in 1645 and stood until destroyed in the Slave Insurrection of 1741. A pen-and-ink view of New Amsterdam, drawn on-the-spot and discovered in the map collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna in 1991, provides a unique view of New Amsterdam as it appeared from Capske (small Cape) Rock in 1648. It was associated with Adriaen van der Donck's ''Remonstrance of New Netherland'', and may have inspired later views as by
Claes Jansz. Visscher Claes Janszoon Visscher (1587 – 19 June 1652) was a Dutch Golden Age draughtsman, engraver, mapmaker, and publisher. He was the founder of the successful Visscher family mapmaking business. The firm that he established in Amsterdam would be p ...
. Capske Rock was situated in the water close to Manhattan between Manhattan and Noten Eylant, and signified the start of the East River roadstead. New Amsterdam received municipal rights on February 2, 1653, thus becoming a city. Albany, then named ''Beverwyck'', received its city rights in 1652. ''Nieuw Haarlem'', now known as
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
, was formally recognized in 1658. The first
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
known to have lived in New Amsterdam arrived in 1654. First to arrive were Solomon Pietersen and Jacob Barsimson, who sailed during the summer of 1654 directly from Holland, with passports that gave them permission to trade in the colony. Then in early September, 23 Jewish refugees arrived from the Brazilian city of
Recife That it may shine on all (Matthew 5:15) , image_map = Brazil Pernambuco Recife location map.svg , mapsize = 250px , map_caption = Location in the state of Pernambuco , pushpin_map = Brazil#South Am ...
, which had been conquered by the Portuguese in January 1654. The director-general of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, sought to turn them away but was ultimately overruled by the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam. Asser Levy, an Ashkenazi Jew who was one of the 23 refugees, eventually prospered and in 1661 became the first Jew to own a house in New Amsterdam, which also made him the first Jew known to have owned a house anywhere in North America. In 1661, the Communipaw ferry was founded and began a long history of trans-Hudson ferry and ultimately rail and road transportation. On September 15, 1655, New Amsterdam was attacked by 2,000 Native Americans as part of the Peach Tree War. They destroyed 28 farms, killed 100 settlers, and took 150 prisoners. In 1664, Jan van Bonnel built a
saw mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...
on East 74th Street and the East River, where a long stream that began in the north of today's Central Park, which became known as the Saw Kill or Saw Kill Creek, emptied into the river. Later owners of the property George Elphinstone and Abraham Shotwell replaced the sawmill with a leather mill in 1677. The Saw Kill was later redirected into a culvert, arched over, and its trickling little stream was called Arch Brook.


English capture

On August 27, 1664, while England and the Dutch Republic were at peace, four English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherland's surrender, effecting the bloodless
capture of New Amsterdam Capture may refer to: *Asteroid capture, a phenomenon in which an asteroid enters a stable orbit around another body *Capture, a software for lighting design, documentation and visualisation *"Capture" a song by Simon Townshend *Capture (band), an ...
. On September 6, the local Dutch deciding not to offer resistance, Stuyvesant's lawyer Johannes de Decker and five other delegates signed the official Articles of Surrender of New Netherland. This was swiftly followed by the Second Anglo-Dutch War, between England and the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands ( Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiograph ...
. In June 1665, New Amsterdam was reincorporated under English law as New York City, named after the Duke of York (later King James II). He was the brother of King Charles II, who had been granted the lands. In 1667, the Treaty of Breda ended the conflict in favor of the Dutch. The Dutch did not press their claims on New Netherland but did demand control over the valuable sugar plantations and factories captured by them that year on the coast of Surinam, giving them full control over the coast of what is now Guyana and
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the nor ...
. In July 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch quickly but briefly retook the colony of New Netherland, which the English called "New York", with a combined fleet of a squadron of ships from Amsterdam and a squadron of ships from Zeeland. The commanders were Jacob Benckes (Koudum, 1637–1677) and Cornelis Evertsen de Jongste (Vlissingen, 1642–1706) under instruction of the States General of the Dutch Republic. Anthony Colve was installed as the first Dutch
governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
of the province. Previously there had only been West India Company Directors and a Director-General. Amidst the recapture, New York City would be again renamed, this time to New Orange. However, after the signing of the Treaty of Westminster in November 1674, both the Dutch territories were relinquished to the English. With the transfer of control, the names New Netherland and New Orange reverted to the English versions of "New York" and "New York City", respectively. Surinam became an official Dutch possession in return.


Cartography

The beginnings of New Amsterdam, unlike most other colonies in the New World, were thoroughly documented in
city map A city map is a large-scale thematic map of a city (or part of a city) created to enable the fastest possible orientation in an urban space. The graphic representation of objects on a city map is therefore usually greatly simplified, and reduce ...
s. During the time of New Netherland's colonization, the Dutch were the pre-eminent cartographers in Europe. The delegated authority of the Dutch West India Company over New Netherland required maintaining sovereignty on behalf of the States General, generating cash flow through commercial enterprise for its shareholders, and funding the province's growth. Thus its directors regularly required that censuses be taken. These tools to measure and monitor the province's progress were accompanied by accurate maps and plans. These surveys, as well as grassroots activities to seek redress of grievances, account for the existence of some of the most important of the early documents. There is a particularly detailed city map called the
Castello Plan The Castello Planofficially entitled ''Afbeeldinge van de Stadt Amsterdam in Nieuw Neederlandt'' (Dutch, "Picture of the City of Amsterdam in New Netherland")is an early city map of what is now the Financial District of Lower Manhattan from an o ...
produced in 1660. Virtually every structure in New Amsterdam at the time is believed to be represented, and by cross-referencing the ''Nicasius de Sille List'' of 1660, which enumerates all the citizens of New Amsterdam and their addresses, it can be determined who resided in every house. The city map known as the Duke's Plan probably derived from the same 1660 census as the Castello Plan. The Duke's Plan includes two outlying areas of development on Manhattan along the top of the plan. The work was created for James (1633–1701), the Duke of York and Albany, after whom New York,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and New York's Capital – Albany, were named just after the seizure of New Amsterdam by the British. After that provisional relinquishment of New Netherland, Stuyvesant reported to his superiors that he "had endeavored to promote the increase of population, agriculture and commerce...the flourishing condition which might have been more flourishing if the now afflicted inhabitants had been protected by a suitable garrison...and had been helped with the long sought for settlement of the boundary, or in default thereof had they been seconded with the oft besought reinforcement of men and ships against the continual troubles, threats, encroachments and invasions of the British neighbors and government of Hartford Colony, our too powerful enemies". The existence of these city maps has proven to be very useful in the archaeology of New York City. For instance, the Castello map aided the excavation of the Stadthuys (
City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
) of New Amsterdam in determining the exact location of the building.


Layout

The maps enable a precise reconstruction of the town. Fort Amsterdam was located at the southernmost tip of the island of Manhattan, which today is surrounded by Bowling Green. The Battery is a reference to its
battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
of cannon. Broadway was the main street that led out of town north towards Harlem. The town was surrounded to the north by a wall leading from the eastern to the western shore. Today, where the course of this city wall was, is Wall Street. Nearby, a canal which led from the harbor inland was filled in 1676, and is today Broad Street. The layout of the streets was winding, as in a European city. Only starting from Wall Street going toward uptown did the typical grid become enforced long after the town ceased to be Dutch. Most of the Financial District overlaps with New Amsterdam and has retained its original street layout.


Legacy

The 1625 date of the founding of New Amsterdam is now commemorated in the official
Seal of New York City The seal of New York City is the city's official corporate insignia. According to the city's Administrative Code, it is used to identify documents or publications issued under the authority of the city or its departments. It is also engraved int ...
. (Formerly, the year on the seal was 1664, the year of the provisional Articles of Transfer, assuring New Netherlanders that they "shall keep and enjoy the liberty of their consciences in religion", negotiated with the English by Peter Stuyvesant and his council.) Sometimes considered a dysfunctional trading post by the English who later acquired it from the Dutch, Russell Shorto, author of ''The Island at the Center of the World'', suggests that the city left its cultural marks on later New York and, by extension, the United States as a whole. Major recent historical research has been based on a set of documents that have survived from that period, untranslated. They are the administrative records of the colony, unreadable by most scholars. Since the 1970s, Charles Gehring of the
New Netherland Institute The New Netherland Institute (formerly Friends of the New Netherland Project) is a non-profit organization created to support the translation and publication of 17th-century Dutch documents from the period of the Dutch colonization of New Netherlan ...
has made it his life's work to translate this first-hand history of the Colony of New Netherland. The scholarly conclusion has largely been that the settlement of New Amsterdam is much more like current New York than previously thought. Cultural diversity and a mindset that resembles the American Dream were already present in the first few years of this colony. Writers like Russell Shorto argue that the large influence of New Amsterdam on the American psyche has largely been overlooked in the classic telling of American beginnings, because of animosity between the English victors and the conquered Dutch. The original 17th-century architecture of New Amsterdam has completely vanished (affected by the fires of 1776 and 1835), leaving only archaeological remnants. The original street plan of New Amsterdam has stayed largely intact, as have some houses outside Manhattan. The presentation of the legacy of the unique culture of 17th-century New Amsterdam remains a concern of
preservationists Preservationist is generally understood to mean ''historic preservationist'': one who advocates to preserve architecturally or historically significant buildings, structures, objects, or sites from demolition or degradation. Historic preservation u ...
and educators. In 2009 the
National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...
celebrated the 400th anniversary of
Henry Hudson Henry Hudson ( 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States. In 1607 and 16 ...
's 1609 voyage on behalf of the Dutch with the New Amsterdam Trail. The
Dutch-American Dutch Americans ( nl, Nederlandse Amerikanen) are Americans of Dutch descent whose ancestors came from the Netherlands in the recent or distant past. Dutch settlement in the Americas started in 1613 with New Amsterdam, which was exchanged with ...
historian and journalist
Hendrik Willem van Loon Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian, journalist, and children's book author. Life He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon and Elisabeth Johanna Hanken. ...
wrote in 1933 a work of alternative history entitled "If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam" (in '' If, Or History Rewritten'', edited by J. C. Squire, 1931,
Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publi ...
). A similar theme, at greater length, was taken up by writer
Elizabeth Bear Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky (born September 22, 1971) is an American author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres, writing under the name Elizabeth Bear. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo ...
, who published the " New Amsterdam" series of detective stories that take place in a world where the city remained Dutch until the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...
and retained its name also afterward. One of New York's Broadway theatres is the New Amsterdam Theatre. The name New Amsterdam is also written on the
architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can a ...
situated on top of the row of columns in front of the Manhattan Municipal Building, commemorating the name of the Dutch colony. Although no architectural monuments or buildings have survived, the legacy lived on in the form of Dutch Colonial Revival architecture. A number of structures in New York City were constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries in this style, such as Wallabout Market in Brooklyn, South William Street in Manhattan, West End Collegiate Church at West 77th Street, and others. File:Wyckoff-house.jpg, The Wyckoff Farm in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Some of its construction still dates from the Dutch period of what is currently New York City. File:DSCN3495 pearlstreet e.JPG, 13–15 South William Street, constructed in the Dutch Colonial Revival architecture evoking New Amsterdam


See also

* Jacobus van de Water


Notes


Further reading


Secondary sources

* Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. ''Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898'' (2000
excerpt and text search
* * Jacobs, Jaap. ''The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America'' (2009
excerpt and text search
* Kammen, Michael. ''Colonial New York: A History'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. * McFarlane, Jim. ''Penelope: A Novel of New Amsterdam'', Greer, SC: Twisted Cedar Press, 2012. 371 pages. * Schmidt, Benjamin, ''Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570–1670'', Cambridge: University Press, 2001. * Scheltema, Gajus and Westerhuijs, Heleen, eds. ''Exploring Historic Dutch New York'' (Museum of the City of New York/Dover Publications, 2011). * * Swerling, Beverley, ''City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan'', Simon & Schuster, 2002. *


Primary sources

* Jackson, Kenneth T. and David S. Dunbar, eds. ''Empire City: New York Through the Centuries'' (2005), 1015 pages of excerpts
excerpt


External links

*

a downloadable audio walking tour of Lower Manhattan

an audio history from the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy

from the New Netherland Project
"Conditions as Created by Their Lords Burgomasters of Amsterdam"
is a publication, from 1656, about goals to populate New Amsterdam {{Dutch colonies + 1625 establishments in the Dutch Empire 1664 disestablishments in the Dutch Empire 1664 disestablishments in the Thirteen Colonies Dutch-American culture in New York (state) Historic Jewish communities in the United States History of New York City Populated places established by the Dutch West India Company Populated places established in the 1620s Pre-statehood history of New York (state)