The New York Gazetteer published by James Rivington in the years just prior to the American Revolution was the most influential of the city’s Loyalist newspapers. Rivington, whose publishing career had started in London, immigrated to the colonies hoping to take advantage of the promising financial opportunities he was sure existed in America. Quite sensitive to the political atmosphere in New York where “so many Persons of a vast Variety of Views and Inclinations are to be satisfied,” Rivington promised his readers that “no personal Satire and acrimonious Centures on any Society or Class of Men shall ever stain this paper.” However, as the possibility of independence grew ever closer, his press became less and less objective despite his repeated attempts to convince the Patriot faction that his sole goal in life was “to live and die a free and impartial Printer.” This statemen proved false and Rivington was soon appointed the King’s Printer for New York at a salary of 100 pounds. During the war his newspaper, renamed the Royal Gazette, served as a Loyalist mouthpiece for the King. It published stories of Patriot atrocities, defeats, desertions, and wilting morale. The promise that only “truth, candor and decorum” would inhabit the pages of his paper became a travesty. After the war Rivington wished to remain in New York City. And unlike most of the Loyalists of his ilk, he was allowed to do so. Apparently Rivington, for whatever reason, had acted as a secret agent for the Continental Army for which his services were amply rewarded with money and the promise of personal protection by Washington.
The following two pieces are examples of the type of materials that could be found in his New York Gazette. The first piece is a poem Rivington published in response to the frustration he felt arising from Patriot complaints that his paper was biased. The language in the poem must have done little to assuage the Patriot’s suspicions. The second piece is exerted from a letter addressed to the worthy citizens of New York by James Varnell, a young and brilliant professor at King’s College who wrote using the pseudonym Poplicola. His main purpose was to argue against opposition to the Tea Act, but in this particular section basic loyalist themes of obligation and faithfulness to the mother country, the need for a civil society of laws promulgated by legitimate authorities, not by extralegal committees of a few men who have “have presumed to act in the Character of Representatives and Substitutes of the Province,” of the Patriot’s danger to liberty, and of their tyrannical behavior, are stressed. Ironically, Varnell’s talents were apparently not limited solely to polemics because like Rivington, he also became a spy. It was the Reverend Varnell (he had left for England to be ordained since the ceremony in the Anglican Church required a bishop and there was none in the colonies and had stayed on as a minister to the British government) that was instrumental in purloining the secret correspondence which passed between the American delegation and the French court from March to October of 1777.
Who dare their high behests oppose.
Stark raving mad, with party rage,
With coward arms, those foes engage,
And lurk in print, a nameless crew,
Intent to slander, rob, undo.
Conscious of guilt, they hide their shame,
And stab conceal’d the printer’s fame.
Dares the poor man impartial be.
He’s doom’d to want and infamy.
Condemn’d by their imperial ire
Treating all men as mortal foes,
To poison, pillage, daggers, fire;
Precarious lives in constant dread,
Tar, feathers, murder, haunt his bed;
If he dares publish, ought but lies.
…Alas, vain men, how blind, how weak;
Is this the liberty we seek!
Alas, by nobler motives led
A Hampden fell, a Sydney bled.
Can any man, after this, doubt whether he injures his country, when he cherishes the rival of the parent state in this most important commerce? For his opposition to such destructive conduct, the author of this paper has been injuriously and cruelly maligned. But whiles he desires to molest no fellow citizen in the enjoyment of liberty of the press, he is received never to relinquish himself an equal enjoyment of the same invaluable privilege the birthright of Englishmen, while he loves America, he will never consider it a disgrace to love Old England also. He is no friend to either who wishes to see their interests divided. Destroy the parental trunk and the branches must perish with it.
Examine, fellow-citizens! The conduct of the men, who would revive our fatal dissentions; and you can be no longer deceived. Their politicians have already proved subversive of LIBERTY; their measures introductive of the most imperious TYRANNY. Have they restrained their career? No, fellow-citizens! I feel indignation and shame mingling in my bosom, when I reflect that a few men whom only the political storm could cast up from the bottom in notice) have presumed to act in the character of representatives and substitutes of the Province. When did they derive the authority to treat with the commissioners, as ambassadors for the venerable body of merchants, the mechanics, and the landed interest of this colony? Who vested them with the power of delegates? Who commissioned them to compound for us, to state the measure of our demands and the terms which should satisfy us? If to be governed without our consent, given immediately, or by our representatives, is SLAVERY, then, fellow citizens! Have we been treated as SLAVES. –But it may be said in their excuse, “that their jealousy for our liberties, has hurried them into misconduct.” But what marks of public spirit have they discovered? If the illicit trade is fatal to our country; why have they not renounced it? This is the surest proof they can give of disinterestedness; why then is it not given? “Perish the noxious commodity, (would be the voice of every good citizen) rather than debate the dernier resort of government—the SANCTITY OF OATHS; or support the interest of a foreign country, in opposition to our own!” Spirits of immortal worthies! That expired in the bright cause of freedom, teach us , O teach us by your example,----that a love of liberty is a love of our country---that we cannot love our country, if we prefer the interest of a rival to hers---That genuine liberty can only be found in civil society---that without laws, civil society cannot stand---that laws are of no benefit, if they may be transgresses at pleasure---that if one part of the community transgresses them, another may also---that where all are free from the restraints of law, there is no security for any.
POPLICOLA
Sources:
Callahan, North. Royal Raiders: The Tories of the American Revolution. New York:
Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1963.
Potter, Janice. The Liberty We Seek: Loyalist Ideology in Colonial New York and
Massachusetts. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983.
Rivington Press, 1773.
Rivington’s New York Newspaper: Exerts from a Loyalist Press, 1773-1783. Compiled
by Kenneth Scott. New York: New-York Historical Society, 1973.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
SLAVERY IN NEW AMSTERDAM
Slavery came indirectly to New Amsterdam as a result of events elsewhere in Europe and the New World. The Dutch finally had won their independence from Spain in 1648. This meant that the Dutch West India Company, whose income depended in large part from the prosecution of war, was left with little revenue. Additionally, though the DWI had supplied slaves during the 1630’s and 1640’s from Africa to work the Brazilian sugar plantations, their ability to control that market was slipping away from them. As a result the DWI turned to the British and French West Indies where indentured servants had been producing tobacco on small and numerous farms. They convinced the planters to switch to the more profitable production of sugar, even providing them with the initial capital outlays to buy the needed equipment for it. By the 1660’s sugar was fast becoming the major crop produced by large plantations that were hungry for the slave labor provided by the DWI.
The new director of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, saw these changes as an economic opportunity for his colony. Why not establish New Amsterdam as a convenient entrepôt for the slave trade in North America? He further reasoned that he could establish a profitable local market for slaves and possibly use them to repopulate areas devastated by Kieft’s War and to help protect the colony from English encroachment by New England. After the loss of Brazil in 1654, his ideas were quickly put into action. By the mid-1660’s New Netherland had about 700 slaves, 300 of whom were in New Amsterdam along with 75 free Negroes, constituting roughly 20% of the town’s population.
However, even before the loss of Brazil by the Dutch slavery did exist in New Amsterdam. As early as 1626 slaves taken from Spanish and Portuguese ships as well as from private transactions with enterprising sea captains had led to the development of a small Negro community. And in 1647 the DWI proposed that slaves from Brazil be used to help increase the agricultural output of the New Netherland colony and at the same time provide Brazil with provisions at a cheaper rate than was otherwise available. The Dutch ship Tamadore arrived in 1646 with what is thought to be the first cargo of slaves, but no evidence of any other transactions linking Brazil with New Netherland exists. By these haphazard accretions the DWI built a slave labor force that was engaged in agriculture and other unskilled tasks necessary to New Amsterdam’s survival.
The WIC saw that their slave labor force was supervised by an overseer and also that its welfare was protected by providing housing and medical care. Negroes were used in a variety of ways. For instance, when the town of Harlem was settled, it was the slaves that built the road on Manhattan Island between it and New Amsterdam.
Slavery was an integral part of the DWI’s corporate structure and was condoned both in the Netherlands and in the Dutch colonies by its political and religious leaders. The first bill of sale documenting an individual Negro transaction in New Amsterdam dates from 1646. But individual ownership in the colony before 1646 was uncommon—the practice of leasing slaves for a period of time was far more prevalent. In this way the WIC created an unfree labor pool that could be tapped by individuals.
As noted earlier the acquisition of slaves remained a haphazard affair until the loss of Brazil by the Dutch. Attempts to build an economy based on slaves were useless without assurances of a reliable slave supply. After the loss of Brazil in 1654 the DWI made the slave trade its main business for the last twenty years of its existence. Dutch ships sent food provisions from New Amsterdam to Curacao (also under Peter Stuyvesant’s domain) in return for horses, salt, and slaves. With the safe delivery of two cargoes of slaves to New Amsterdamin 1660, the DWI decided that slaves could be not only kept in New Netherland but they could be exported to the English colonies in the Chesapeake as well. At least 400 slaves entered New Netherland between 1660 and 1664. Of this number 230 were male and 170 female. With respect to the whole of the Dutch slave trade these numbers were small and they were not composed of the quality slaves assigned to plantations.
The slaves were offered for sale to the town’s residents under controlled conditions. Instructions included a directive that all slaves were to be sold at public auction only. It was important to make slaves available to both the well-to-do and the burghers and farmers. To this end payment for slaves was allowed not only in beaver and tobacco, but also in beef, pork, wheat or peas. Slave ownership represented all the town’s major ethnic groups—the Dutch, English, French, and German.
At the time of the British conquest in 1664 slavery was no longer solely in the hands of the DWI. The city’s government and its burghers and farmers had come to rely heavily on the free labor of its unfree Negroes.
Sources:
Burrows, Edwin G. , and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.Goodfried, Joyce, D. “ Burghers and Blacks: The Evolution of a Slave Society at New Amsterdam.” New York History, 59:2 (1978: April) p. 125-144.
Slavery came indirectly to New Amsterdam as a result of events elsewhere in Europe and the New World. The Dutch finally had won their independence from Spain in 1648. This meant that the Dutch West India Company, whose income depended in large part from the prosecution of war, was left with little revenue. Additionally, though the DWI had supplied slaves during the 1630’s and 1640’s from Africa to work the Brazilian sugar plantations, their ability to control that market was slipping away from them. As a result the DWI turned to the British and French West Indies where indentured servants had been producing tobacco on small and numerous farms. They convinced the planters to switch to the more profitable production of sugar, even providing them with the initial capital outlays to buy the needed equipment for it. By the 1660’s sugar was fast becoming the major crop produced by large plantations that were hungry for the slave labor provided by the DWI.
The new director of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, saw these changes as an economic opportunity for his colony. Why not establish New Amsterdam as a convenient entrepôt for the slave trade in North America? He further reasoned that he could establish a profitable local market for slaves and possibly use them to repopulate areas devastated by Kieft’s War and to help protect the colony from English encroachment by New England. After the loss of Brazil in 1654, his ideas were quickly put into action. By the mid-1660’s New Netherland had about 700 slaves, 300 of whom were in New Amsterdam along with 75 free Negroes, constituting roughly 20% of the town’s population.
However, even before the loss of Brazil by the Dutch slavery did exist in New Amsterdam. As early as 1626 slaves taken from Spanish and Portuguese ships as well as from private transactions with enterprising sea captains had led to the development of a small Negro community. And in 1647 the DWI proposed that slaves from Brazil be used to help increase the agricultural output of the New Netherland colony and at the same time provide Brazil with provisions at a cheaper rate than was otherwise available. The Dutch ship Tamadore arrived in 1646 with what is thought to be the first cargo of slaves, but no evidence of any other transactions linking Brazil with New Netherland exists. By these haphazard accretions the DWI built a slave labor force that was engaged in agriculture and other unskilled tasks necessary to New Amsterdam’s survival.
The WIC saw that their slave labor force was supervised by an overseer and also that its welfare was protected by providing housing and medical care. Negroes were used in a variety of ways. For instance, when the town of Harlem was settled, it was the slaves that built the road on Manhattan Island between it and New Amsterdam.
Slavery was an integral part of the DWI’s corporate structure and was condoned both in the Netherlands and in the Dutch colonies by its political and religious leaders. The first bill of sale documenting an individual Negro transaction in New Amsterdam dates from 1646. But individual ownership in the colony before 1646 was uncommon—the practice of leasing slaves for a period of time was far more prevalent. In this way the WIC created an unfree labor pool that could be tapped by individuals.
As noted earlier the acquisition of slaves remained a haphazard affair until the loss of Brazil by the Dutch. Attempts to build an economy based on slaves were useless without assurances of a reliable slave supply. After the loss of Brazil in 1654 the DWI made the slave trade its main business for the last twenty years of its existence. Dutch ships sent food provisions from New Amsterdam to Curacao (also under Peter Stuyvesant’s domain) in return for horses, salt, and slaves. With the safe delivery of two cargoes of slaves to New Amsterdamin 1660, the DWI decided that slaves could be not only kept in New Netherland but they could be exported to the English colonies in the Chesapeake as well. At least 400 slaves entered New Netherland between 1660 and 1664. Of this number 230 were male and 170 female. With respect to the whole of the Dutch slave trade these numbers were small and they were not composed of the quality slaves assigned to plantations.
The slaves were offered for sale to the town’s residents under controlled conditions. Instructions included a directive that all slaves were to be sold at public auction only. It was important to make slaves available to both the well-to-do and the burghers and farmers. To this end payment for slaves was allowed not only in beaver and tobacco, but also in beef, pork, wheat or peas. Slave ownership represented all the town’s major ethnic groups—the Dutch, English, French, and German.
At the time of the British conquest in 1664 slavery was no longer solely in the hands of the DWI. The city’s government and its burghers and farmers had come to rely heavily on the free labor of its unfree Negroes.
Sources:
Burrows, Edwin G. , and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.Goodfried, Joyce, D. “ Burghers and Blacks: The Evolution of a Slave Society at New Amsterdam.” New York History, 59:2 (1978: April) p. 125-144.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
KIEFT'S WAR 1643-1645
The Dutch, like all Europeans that came to the New World, engaged in a series of conflicts with coastal Native Americans during the first half-century after settlement. However, it should be noted that after the British takeover in 1664 there were few serious Indian-European conflicts in the coastal areas of the former New Netherland because by that time Dutch policies had already led to European supremacy and to the moral defeat of nearly all of the coastal tribes.
During the period of Dutch rule Indian-European relations were confined primarily to the lower and upper Hudson River Valley. Initially, the Algonquian tribes of the lower Hudson provided the lion’s share of furs and pelts to the Dutch traders. But as these areas were depleted it became necessary to tap the seemingly endless supply from the interior, and that meant establishing a favorable relationship with the Mohawks and Mahicans of the upper Hudson Valley. Because of the importance of the fur trade, this relationship was maintained at all costs.
The first twenty years of Dutch settlement marked an era of fairly peaceful relations with Native Americans. There were few settlers and they were primarily interested in the fur trade. But in the 1640’s several circumstances led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Europeans. Chief among them was a change in the policies of the West India Company that afforded new incentives to prospective colonists that included relinquishing its monopoly on the fur trade and a promise of 200 acres of land for each head of household. The combination of an expanding European population and a lessening of dependence on Native Americans for furs and food, led to an escalation of tensions between the two groups.
Abuses arose from the trade of alcohol and armaments, but more often than not, land was the cause of the conflict. Both groups were agrarian so possession and use of it was fundamental to each of them. Unlike the English, the Dutch recognized the Indians prior ownership of the land and were careful to legally obtain it through treaty and purchase. But in the end there just was not enough land to go around for both societies. European livestock trampled Indian planting fields. Heavy deforestation for firewood and construction disrupted Indian hunting grounds. They retaliated by killing livestock and sometimes its owners.
When war broke out it was New Amsterdam’s Governor Willem Kieft who orchestrated the colonial response. It should be noted that the governor of New Amsterdam was also the director-general of the entire colony of New Netherland. Kieft had a very thorough understanding of the the local Native Americans and of what Europeans could expect in the event of an all out attack by them. However, he did not have a sympathetic view of their culture, he felt, in fact, that they should be removed and exterminated.
In the summer of 1939 Kieft decided to levy a tax on the Algonquian tribes under the pretext that it would serve to defray the cost of protecting them from their enemies. The Indians thought his reasoning insulting as well as outrageous. Kieft’s real reason for the tax may have been to simply increase the colony’s supply of wampum that was so important in the fur trade. He knew that the New Englanders had received substantial quantities of wampum after defeating the Pequots in the Pequot War of 1637 and certainly he may have wanted to counter their gain.
The Indians refused to pay. A series of unrelated incidents followed. The Dutch captain of a ship charged with the collection of pelts as tribute had his face slashed; a group of Raritans were accused of killing some swine on the Staten Island plantation of David de Vries; and an elderly wheelwright, Claes Swits, was seemingly randomly killed by a young Wiechquaesquck. It was in fact, possible to explain all of these events and in so doing partially justify the actions of the Indians. But Kieft wanted war. He decided to invite the heads of families in New Amsterdam to help him chose a council of twelve to decide what should be done to respond to these events. The council decided against all out war. Kieft dismissed them and had his war—a very brutal and barbarous affair.
On February 25, 1643 Kieft launched a cruel attack on several tribes at Pavonia, present day Jersey City, massacring scores of men, women and children. Sucklings were torn from their mother’s breast and hacked to pieces as their parents looked on. Hands and legs were cut off, entrails opened to the air. The carnage touched off a full-scale war and served to unite the eleven tribes of the lower Hudson Valley against the Dutch. That autumn a force of 1500 natives invaded New Netherlands and among the dead was Anne Hutchinson, the dissident preacher. Random attacks continued to occur over the next two years. Settlers were killed; their houses, farms and grain stores burned.
When it was over the power and will of the tribes of the lower Hudson Valley were broken. And it had been a very bloody affair considering that 1,600 natives were killed when the population of New Amsterdam was only around 250. Many Dutch settlers returned to the Netherlands frightened and convinced that the West India Company could not protect them. Kieft, whose brutal policies had been almost as hard on the colonists as the natives, was recalled to explain his actions to the States General, the Netherlands’ governing body. And a new governor, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed to run the colony. The war had united many in New Netherlands against Kieft and his dictatorial governing style provoking several of the leading citizens to send letters of remonstrance to the States General demanding his removal and the institution of a representative form of government at least as liberal as that in the Netherlands. Significant changes were on the way. New Amsterdam would soon get it own city charter and the right to government by representative council. It was a beginning.
Sources:
Burrows, Edwin G. , and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Trelease, Allen W. Spring 1962. “Indian-White Contacts in Eastern North America: The Dutch in New Netherland.” Ethnohistory, Vol. 9, No. 2 , pp.137-146. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/480673 > [30 September 2008] .
Wikipedia contributors, “ Kieft’s War,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieft (accessed September 30, 2008).
During the period of Dutch rule Indian-European relations were confined primarily to the lower and upper Hudson River Valley. Initially, the Algonquian tribes of the lower Hudson provided the lion’s share of furs and pelts to the Dutch traders. But as these areas were depleted it became necessary to tap the seemingly endless supply from the interior, and that meant establishing a favorable relationship with the Mohawks and Mahicans of the upper Hudson Valley. Because of the importance of the fur trade, this relationship was maintained at all costs.
The first twenty years of Dutch settlement marked an era of fairly peaceful relations with Native Americans. There were few settlers and they were primarily interested in the fur trade. But in the 1640’s several circumstances led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Europeans. Chief among them was a change in the policies of the West India Company that afforded new incentives to prospective colonists that included relinquishing its monopoly on the fur trade and a promise of 200 acres of land for each head of household. The combination of an expanding European population and a lessening of dependence on Native Americans for furs and food, led to an escalation of tensions between the two groups.
Abuses arose from the trade of alcohol and armaments, but more often than not, land was the cause of the conflict. Both groups were agrarian so possession and use of it was fundamental to each of them. Unlike the English, the Dutch recognized the Indians prior ownership of the land and were careful to legally obtain it through treaty and purchase. But in the end there just was not enough land to go around for both societies. European livestock trampled Indian planting fields. Heavy deforestation for firewood and construction disrupted Indian hunting grounds. They retaliated by killing livestock and sometimes its owners.
When war broke out it was New Amsterdam’s Governor Willem Kieft who orchestrated the colonial response. It should be noted that the governor of New Amsterdam was also the director-general of the entire colony of New Netherland. Kieft had a very thorough understanding of the the local Native Americans and of what Europeans could expect in the event of an all out attack by them. However, he did not have a sympathetic view of their culture, he felt, in fact, that they should be removed and exterminated.
In the summer of 1939 Kieft decided to levy a tax on the Algonquian tribes under the pretext that it would serve to defray the cost of protecting them from their enemies. The Indians thought his reasoning insulting as well as outrageous. Kieft’s real reason for the tax may have been to simply increase the colony’s supply of wampum that was so important in the fur trade. He knew that the New Englanders had received substantial quantities of wampum after defeating the Pequots in the Pequot War of 1637 and certainly he may have wanted to counter their gain.
The Indians refused to pay. A series of unrelated incidents followed. The Dutch captain of a ship charged with the collection of pelts as tribute had his face slashed; a group of Raritans were accused of killing some swine on the Staten Island plantation of David de Vries; and an elderly wheelwright, Claes Swits, was seemingly randomly killed by a young Wiechquaesquck. It was in fact, possible to explain all of these events and in so doing partially justify the actions of the Indians. But Kieft wanted war. He decided to invite the heads of families in New Amsterdam to help him chose a council of twelve to decide what should be done to respond to these events. The council decided against all out war. Kieft dismissed them and had his war—a very brutal and barbarous affair.
On February 25, 1643 Kieft launched a cruel attack on several tribes at Pavonia, present day Jersey City, massacring scores of men, women and children. Sucklings were torn from their mother’s breast and hacked to pieces as their parents looked on. Hands and legs were cut off, entrails opened to the air. The carnage touched off a full-scale war and served to unite the eleven tribes of the lower Hudson Valley against the Dutch. That autumn a force of 1500 natives invaded New Netherlands and among the dead was Anne Hutchinson, the dissident preacher. Random attacks continued to occur over the next two years. Settlers were killed; their houses, farms and grain stores burned.
When it was over the power and will of the tribes of the lower Hudson Valley were broken. And it had been a very bloody affair considering that 1,600 natives were killed when the population of New Amsterdam was only around 250. Many Dutch settlers returned to the Netherlands frightened and convinced that the West India Company could not protect them. Kieft, whose brutal policies had been almost as hard on the colonists as the natives, was recalled to explain his actions to the States General, the Netherlands’ governing body. And a new governor, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed to run the colony. The war had united many in New Netherlands against Kieft and his dictatorial governing style provoking several of the leading citizens to send letters of remonstrance to the States General demanding his removal and the institution of a representative form of government at least as liberal as that in the Netherlands. Significant changes were on the way. New Amsterdam would soon get it own city charter and the right to government by representative council. It was a beginning.
Sources:
Burrows, Edwin G. , and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Trelease, Allen W. Spring 1962. “Indian-White Contacts in Eastern North America: The Dutch in New Netherland.” Ethnohistory, Vol. 9, No. 2 , pp.137-146. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/480673 > [30 September 2008] .
Wikipedia contributors, “ Kieft’s War,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieft (accessed September 30, 2008).
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
New Amsterdam's Sailors
NEW AMSTERDAM’S SAILORS
I would see them come ashore after months at sea—tired and very glad to put their feet on dry land. Many of the townspeople thought of them as the dregs of society grouping them in the same category as vagrants, menial workers, and the unemployed. Sailors were considered irresponsible members of society who squandered their money in taverns and brothels. Maybe so, but living on the edge of the world as we were, a lot of us could have fit into that category.
So as not to see out little outpost degenerate into a cesspool of lawlessness, the authorities decided to institute a series of measures designed to protect and reflect the morals and values of our motherland, as well as to limit intrusions by outsiders. Sailors became the primary targets of these measures. The earliest laws of the colony dating from 1638 forbade seamen from staying on shore after sundown, i.e., they could not be lodged in the town overnight. Nailed to each ship’s mainmast was a copy of this injunction so that no sailor might be able to claim ignorance of it. Within a few months, a tavern keeper was fined for lodging a seaman after sundown. However, the onus of these laws usually fell on the seaman. In one case, several sailors who had been convicted of staying ashore illegally were sentenced to three months hard labor chained to a wheelbarrow and given nothing more to eat than bread and water.
By the 1650’s it was no longer illegal for a sailor to spend the night in town. Instead the authorities redirected their energies toward upholding the sacredness of the Sabbath. Ordinances were passed against tapping, sports, games, cards, and other pleasures on the Lord’s Day. Our shout fiscal, or sheriff was responsible for their enforcement. Our tapsters were told to stop the sale of alcohol at ten o’clock, a directive that Peter Stuyvesant, a true paragon of the Dutch Reformed Church, changed to nine o’clock. The sailors that came ashore found these measures abhorrent. They wanted to let loose and have some fun. I couldn't blame them.
Yet another restriction on sailor’s relating to a common practice known as primage, further antagonized them. Typically, a sailor would store in his sea chest a small quantity to goods that he could then sell or trade without having to worry about the normal duties, excise taxes and customs. The monopoly minded West India Company decided to ban this customary practice in the colony’s early years. But by the 1640’s a more relaxed set of rules allowed sailors to do a modicum of trading—goods valued at no more than 2 months pay. Of course, things got out of hand and our merchants complained to the authorities that they could not compete with the sailors who were by now adding smuggled items to their allotted duty free merchandise. Governor Stuyvesant, at the behest of the WIC, imposed an all-out ban on any further primage by sailors. This did not sit well with them.
Additionally, if you worked for the WIC, you were also required to work on civic projects if needed. So for instance, it was not uncommon to see sailors working on the refurbishment of Fort Amsterdam. Sometimes “the civic project” was war with the result that the colonial government could impress seamen into military service.
Despite all, sailors for the most part found comfort and safety in our port. There were not only Dutch taverns, but English and French as well—twelve in all. And they offered more than alcoholic beverages. There was dancing and gaming and gambling and opportunities to encounter the opposite sex. Even though our population was only about 1500 a discreet prostitution industry sprang up. The fear of deportation back to Holland faced the more boisterous participants.
Sailors often ran out of cash, but that only gave the more enterprising tapsters another opportunity to make money. They acted as lenders and pawnbrokers, collecting their fees from the sailors’ captains before they sailed. This led to a whole lot of drunkenness and dereliction of duty. So a ban on the practice was put into place. From what I saw though, things did not change one bit.
The courts of New Amsterdam provided sailors with a means to protect their rights and privileges. Most cases involved complaints from sailors who had not been paid as promised, but often times too they were the result of cruel and scurrilous ship owners. The judges meted out justice evenly and fairly even as a type of class society began to emerge in our town. The fact that we had a chronic shortage of labor, particularly skilled seamen, no doubt helped to influence their attitudes.
Many mariners found our town to their liking and asked to be released from their service to the WIC. From them came not only some of our most prominent citizens, but members of our growing middling, if you will, class—carpenters, cordwainers, carters, etc. We are a different place now and many of us like me once were sailors.
We will probably see even more changes now that the British under Colonel Nicholls has sailed into our harbor forcing the surrender of New Netherlands. It is 1664. We are to be called New York from now on.
SOURCE:
Wagman, Morton. “Liberty in New Amsterdam: A Sailor’s Life in Early New York.” New York History 64:2 (April 1983): 101-119.
I would see them come ashore after months at sea—tired and very glad to put their feet on dry land. Many of the townspeople thought of them as the dregs of society grouping them in the same category as vagrants, menial workers, and the unemployed. Sailors were considered irresponsible members of society who squandered their money in taverns and brothels. Maybe so, but living on the edge of the world as we were, a lot of us could have fit into that category.
So as not to see out little outpost degenerate into a cesspool of lawlessness, the authorities decided to institute a series of measures designed to protect and reflect the morals and values of our motherland, as well as to limit intrusions by outsiders. Sailors became the primary targets of these measures. The earliest laws of the colony dating from 1638 forbade seamen from staying on shore after sundown, i.e., they could not be lodged in the town overnight. Nailed to each ship’s mainmast was a copy of this injunction so that no sailor might be able to claim ignorance of it. Within a few months, a tavern keeper was fined for lodging a seaman after sundown. However, the onus of these laws usually fell on the seaman. In one case, several sailors who had been convicted of staying ashore illegally were sentenced to three months hard labor chained to a wheelbarrow and given nothing more to eat than bread and water.
By the 1650’s it was no longer illegal for a sailor to spend the night in town. Instead the authorities redirected their energies toward upholding the sacredness of the Sabbath. Ordinances were passed against tapping, sports, games, cards, and other pleasures on the Lord’s Day. Our shout fiscal, or sheriff was responsible for their enforcement. Our tapsters were told to stop the sale of alcohol at ten o’clock, a directive that Peter Stuyvesant, a true paragon of the Dutch Reformed Church, changed to nine o’clock. The sailors that came ashore found these measures abhorrent. They wanted to let loose and have some fun. I couldn't blame them.
Yet another restriction on sailor’s relating to a common practice known as primage, further antagonized them. Typically, a sailor would store in his sea chest a small quantity to goods that he could then sell or trade without having to worry about the normal duties, excise taxes and customs. The monopoly minded West India Company decided to ban this customary practice in the colony’s early years. But by the 1640’s a more relaxed set of rules allowed sailors to do a modicum of trading—goods valued at no more than 2 months pay. Of course, things got out of hand and our merchants complained to the authorities that they could not compete with the sailors who were by now adding smuggled items to their allotted duty free merchandise. Governor Stuyvesant, at the behest of the WIC, imposed an all-out ban on any further primage by sailors. This did not sit well with them.
Additionally, if you worked for the WIC, you were also required to work on civic projects if needed. So for instance, it was not uncommon to see sailors working on the refurbishment of Fort Amsterdam. Sometimes “the civic project” was war with the result that the colonial government could impress seamen into military service.
Despite all, sailors for the most part found comfort and safety in our port. There were not only Dutch taverns, but English and French as well—twelve in all. And they offered more than alcoholic beverages. There was dancing and gaming and gambling and opportunities to encounter the opposite sex. Even though our population was only about 1500 a discreet prostitution industry sprang up. The fear of deportation back to Holland faced the more boisterous participants.
Sailors often ran out of cash, but that only gave the more enterprising tapsters another opportunity to make money. They acted as lenders and pawnbrokers, collecting their fees from the sailors’ captains before they sailed. This led to a whole lot of drunkenness and dereliction of duty. So a ban on the practice was put into place. From what I saw though, things did not change one bit.
The courts of New Amsterdam provided sailors with a means to protect their rights and privileges. Most cases involved complaints from sailors who had not been paid as promised, but often times too they were the result of cruel and scurrilous ship owners. The judges meted out justice evenly and fairly even as a type of class society began to emerge in our town. The fact that we had a chronic shortage of labor, particularly skilled seamen, no doubt helped to influence their attitudes.
Many mariners found our town to their liking and asked to be released from their service to the WIC. From them came not only some of our most prominent citizens, but members of our growing middling, if you will, class—carpenters, cordwainers, carters, etc. We are a different place now and many of us like me once were sailors.
We will probably see even more changes now that the British under Colonel Nicholls has sailed into our harbor forcing the surrender of New Netherlands. It is 1664. We are to be called New York from now on.
SOURCE:
Wagman, Morton. “Liberty in New Amsterdam: A Sailor’s Life in Early New York.” New York History 64:2 (April 1983): 101-119.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
THE SURVIVAL OF NEW AMSTERDAM
I first came to live in New Amsterdam in the year 1628 after having spent several years sailing on Dutch vessels between Africa, Brazil and the Netherlands. I was not yet twenty. I had heard that when the first wave of settlers had arrived 4 years ago they were overwhelmed by the bounty of the land. There had been no starvation among them their first year, only wanting for cows, hogs, and other cattle fit to eat and that had come the following spring. The town was small to say the least, only about three hundred people. It was merely an entrepot for the Dutch West India Company. One of the first things the company did was build a fort at the southern tip of Manhattan- not so much for the protection from Indians, but more importantly as a defensive center against their enemy-- Spain. As settlers we were told that we had to obey company rules—where to live, what to plant, and where to go if we were needed for a special project. Early on there were complaints by company officials that some us who had not been contracted to perform manual labor, expected too much in the way of free food and shelter while we got rich on the fur trade. They saw some us as a rough lot that had to be forced to work. Most of us remember being told that we could expect other things: cheap livestock, easy credit for the purchase of supplies, freedom of worship and after six years of service to the company, free land on which to settle. It soon became apparent that since the WIC had a monopoly on all trade going in and out of the area, it would not make sense for them to go to the expense of attempting to house and feed a growing number of colonists, especially colonists who might want more land and might interact unfavorably with the Indians. They were there simply to reap the profits from the furs and fishing and not to plant a colony. I had had other ideas.
As a consequence the colony grew slowly and so did the hopes of individual entrepreneurs expecting to make great profits. After 2-3 years of high expenses and little or no profit, investors in the Dutch West India Company were looking for a way out and an opportunity to concentrate on their more profitable holdings in Brazil and the West Indies. The fact that in Holland religious tolerance and peace existed did not help to encourage immigration. I wondered what would happen next.
But in 1628, our Dutch Admiral Piet Heyn made a major heist, capturing a Spanish treasure fleet worth 15 million guilders, more that enough to pay dividends to the WIC investors. The company was persuaded to give New Netherlands a second chance.
The Freedom and Exemptions of 1629 was the first major attempt by the WIC to attract large numbers to the colony. The company agreed to give large tracts of land, estates, to “patroons” who would purchase the land from the Indians. In return they agreed to develop the land by bringing over 50 or more settlers at their expense. The patroon had to provide a farm already stocked, a school and a minister for each of his settlements. In turn his tenants would be virtual serfs and required to remain on the land for 10 years. The patroons would have legal rights to settle all capital cases as well, in effect, making them manorial lords. However, the company insisted on maintaining its monopoly on the fur and fishing trade. There were not many takers until a 1630 revision gave the patroons the opportunity to engage in these trades, a company decision mostly driven by the pressure on the fur trade as a result of an ever expanding population of British settlers and traders. The Hudson Valley was soon dotted with Dutch estates.
Still, over the next decade little was done to encourage Dutch settlement of the colony even as British populations continued to encroach on our northern and southern extremities. What now I wondered would save us from abandonment? The answer came in yet another revision of the Freedoms and Exemptions.
Holland had just experience the collapse of the Tulip Mania, an inflation driven craze that had made a great fortune for many. When prices for tulips suddenly collapsed, many were driven into bankruptcy and many more into unemployment. What were they going to do with Holland's indigent? Knowing that little had really been done to expand and encourage growth of New Netherlands, the leaders of Holland threatened to take over the WIC. In response the Freedoms and Exemptions were again reworked. Now emigrants could come here with the promise of free transport, 200 acres, and a schoolmaster for their children. Trade was open to all nations subject to import and export duties. Did these enticements save our colony? You will have to ask Willem Kieft, our next governor. We were four hundred of us at the time.
SOURCES:
Burrows, Edwin G. , and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: A Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.
As a consequence the colony grew slowly and so did the hopes of individual entrepreneurs expecting to make great profits. After 2-3 years of high expenses and little or no profit, investors in the Dutch West India Company were looking for a way out and an opportunity to concentrate on their more profitable holdings in Brazil and the West Indies. The fact that in Holland religious tolerance and peace existed did not help to encourage immigration. I wondered what would happen next.
But in 1628, our Dutch Admiral Piet Heyn made a major heist, capturing a Spanish treasure fleet worth 15 million guilders, more that enough to pay dividends to the WIC investors. The company was persuaded to give New Netherlands a second chance.
The Freedom and Exemptions of 1629 was the first major attempt by the WIC to attract large numbers to the colony. The company agreed to give large tracts of land, estates, to “patroons” who would purchase the land from the Indians. In return they agreed to develop the land by bringing over 50 or more settlers at their expense. The patroon had to provide a farm already stocked, a school and a minister for each of his settlements. In turn his tenants would be virtual serfs and required to remain on the land for 10 years. The patroons would have legal rights to settle all capital cases as well, in effect, making them manorial lords. However, the company insisted on maintaining its monopoly on the fur and fishing trade. There were not many takers until a 1630 revision gave the patroons the opportunity to engage in these trades, a company decision mostly driven by the pressure on the fur trade as a result of an ever expanding population of British settlers and traders. The Hudson Valley was soon dotted with Dutch estates.
Still, over the next decade little was done to encourage Dutch settlement of the colony even as British populations continued to encroach on our northern and southern extremities. What now I wondered would save us from abandonment? The answer came in yet another revision of the Freedoms and Exemptions.
Holland had just experience the collapse of the Tulip Mania, an inflation driven craze that had made a great fortune for many. When prices for tulips suddenly collapsed, many were driven into bankruptcy and many more into unemployment. What were they going to do with Holland's indigent? Knowing that little had really been done to expand and encourage growth of New Netherlands, the leaders of Holland threatened to take over the WIC. In response the Freedoms and Exemptions were again reworked. Now emigrants could come here with the promise of free transport, 200 acres, and a schoolmaster for their children. Trade was open to all nations subject to import and export duties. Did these enticements save our colony? You will have to ask Willem Kieft, our next governor. We were four hundred of us at the time.
SOURCES:
Burrows, Edwin G. , and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: A Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Friday, September 12, 2008
THE ARRIVAL OF THE DUTCH
The material for the proceeding blog comes from an article written in 1765 by John Heckewelder, a Moravian minister who worked among the Delaware and Mohican tribes in the Ohio Valley. The tribes had been living in the area of Manhattan Island at the time of the Dutch arrival, but were pushed steadily westward by the continuous pressure from European colonization. Heckewelder claims to have written down verbatim the words related to him by aged and respected members of the Delaware and Mohican tribes. I have changed the tense and person, but otherwise have simply paraphrased his original piece.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE DUTCH ca. 1609
We are fishing at the mouth of the great river (the Hudson River) when we see something swimming or floating on the water—a thing we had never seen before. This was in a time before we knew of white men. . We quickly return to shore to tell our people what we have seen. Though they see the same thing, there is no agreement as to what it might be. Some think it a very large fish, others an animal and still others a great house. Word is immediately sent by way of runners and water men to all the tribes and chiefs in the area. It is decided that what they we are seeing is either a house or boat in which the great Mannitto (Supreme Being) resides, and that he has come to pay us a visit. By now all the chiefs of the different tribes are assembled on York Island (Manhattan Island) and decisions are made as to how to best greet our important guest. Meat is provided for a sacrifice, the women cook special foods, idols are made presentable and a great dance is planned. All this is done to please the great Mannitto in case he is angry with us. We are quite scared and we appeal to our conjurors and chiefs to provide us comfort and advice. Then we hear news from some runners that it is indeed a great house filled with people whose skin is different form ours and whose dress is unknown. One is dressed in red and assumed to be the Mannitto himself. We are hailed from the ship, but in a language that we do not understand. Some of us are fearful and wish to run into the woods, but others tell us to stay as not to offend our visitors and besides they may seek us out and kill us. The house stops and a smaller canoe brings the red man and some of his people with him. Some men stay behind to guard the canoe. The man in red and two others walk into a circle formed by our chiefs and greetings are exchanged. A small cup is filled with an unknown liquid that Mannitto drinks. The glass is filled again by his servants and the Mannitto hands it to one of our chiefs, but he does not drink from it nor do any of the others. Finally, one brave man among them decides that it would be very dangerous and impolite to refuse the offering. He drinks the liquid knowing that it might be his end. Quickly, we see him begin to stagger and fall. A sleep ensues, but when he wakes up, the man declares that he has never felt as happy as he did after drinking from the cup. Now everyone is drinking and wanting even more. Once this drinking frenzy is over, the white man with the red clothes who had retired to his house, returns and gives us gifts of beads, axes, hoes and stockings. Through the use of signs we understand he will return next year, but that then he may require a little land to plant a garden. This is the story my great-grandfather told me about the coming of the white man as he saw it.
The following year the white men did return. But the whites laughed at the natives as they had used the hoes and axes to ornament their breasts and the stockings to carry their tobacco. Once they were shown the proper use of these tools they also laughed at themselves for having been so ignorant. They were now told that the white man wished to stay among them and would like a bit of land. The request was for no more than the hide of a bullock would cover. This they agreed to readily. But then, the whites took a knife and cut the hide into one long, thin, continuous strip that once unraveled and joined at the ends, encompassed a large area. They knew that they had been outwitted, but as they had plenty of land they did not desire to contend with them over such a small piece of it. Of course, we know now that that was just the beginning.
Sources:
Calloway,Colin G., ed. The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America. Boston: Bedford Books of St. John’s Press, 1994.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE DUTCH ca. 1609
We are fishing at the mouth of the great river (the Hudson River) when we see something swimming or floating on the water—a thing we had never seen before. This was in a time before we knew of white men. . We quickly return to shore to tell our people what we have seen. Though they see the same thing, there is no agreement as to what it might be. Some think it a very large fish, others an animal and still others a great house. Word is immediately sent by way of runners and water men to all the tribes and chiefs in the area. It is decided that what they we are seeing is either a house or boat in which the great Mannitto (Supreme Being) resides, and that he has come to pay us a visit. By now all the chiefs of the different tribes are assembled on York Island (Manhattan Island) and decisions are made as to how to best greet our important guest. Meat is provided for a sacrifice, the women cook special foods, idols are made presentable and a great dance is planned. All this is done to please the great Mannitto in case he is angry with us. We are quite scared and we appeal to our conjurors and chiefs to provide us comfort and advice. Then we hear news from some runners that it is indeed a great house filled with people whose skin is different form ours and whose dress is unknown. One is dressed in red and assumed to be the Mannitto himself. We are hailed from the ship, but in a language that we do not understand. Some of us are fearful and wish to run into the woods, but others tell us to stay as not to offend our visitors and besides they may seek us out and kill us. The house stops and a smaller canoe brings the red man and some of his people with him. Some men stay behind to guard the canoe. The man in red and two others walk into a circle formed by our chiefs and greetings are exchanged. A small cup is filled with an unknown liquid that Mannitto drinks. The glass is filled again by his servants and the Mannitto hands it to one of our chiefs, but he does not drink from it nor do any of the others. Finally, one brave man among them decides that it would be very dangerous and impolite to refuse the offering. He drinks the liquid knowing that it might be his end. Quickly, we see him begin to stagger and fall. A sleep ensues, but when he wakes up, the man declares that he has never felt as happy as he did after drinking from the cup. Now everyone is drinking and wanting even more. Once this drinking frenzy is over, the white man with the red clothes who had retired to his house, returns and gives us gifts of beads, axes, hoes and stockings. Through the use of signs we understand he will return next year, but that then he may require a little land to plant a garden. This is the story my great-grandfather told me about the coming of the white man as he saw it.
The following year the white men did return. But the whites laughed at the natives as they had used the hoes and axes to ornament their breasts and the stockings to carry their tobacco. Once they were shown the proper use of these tools they also laughed at themselves for having been so ignorant. They were now told that the white man wished to stay among them and would like a bit of land. The request was for no more than the hide of a bullock would cover. This they agreed to readily. But then, the whites took a knife and cut the hide into one long, thin, continuous strip that once unraveled and joined at the ends, encompassed a large area. They knew that they had been outwitted, but as they had plenty of land they did not desire to contend with them over such a small piece of it. Of course, we know now that that was just the beginning.
Sources:
Calloway,Colin G., ed. The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America. Boston: Bedford Books of St. John’s Press, 1994.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
WHO FOUNDED THE COLONY OF NEW YORK?
WHO FOUNDED THE COLONY OF NEW YORK?
Who founded the colony of New York? Everyone may not be sure of the answer to that question, but I bet a lot of us know that some guy paid $24 for Manhattan Island or rather the equivalent in beads and trinkets. It was actually the Italian Giovanni da Verrazano who first recorded sailing into New York harbor in 1524. But only much later in 1609 did the English explorer Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch on the Half Moon, claim the area for the Netherlands. Over the next decade Dutch vessels traveled to what eventually would become New York on several voyages primarily trading liquor,cloth, forearms and trinkets for beaver and otter pelts. It was not until the newly incorporated Dutch West India company obtained a trading monopoly in America that a permanent colony was planted. The company's main goal was to control trade between the Netherlands whose principal city, Amsterdam was the wealthiest and busiest port in Europe and the New World. In 1624 the ship Nieu Netherland departed with the first wave of settlers. Some of these early settlers were deposited on Governor's Island and some at Fort Orange, near the present site of Albany. It wasn't this first wave of pilgrims that paid for the Island of Manhattan, but Peter Minuit, one of the colony's early governors who anted up to the local Indians by giving them 60 dutch guilders or 2,400 English cents worth of goods, most notably trinkets and beads. The dollar of course did not exist then, but it is close enough to 2,400 English cents is it not? The actual deed for the purchase has not survived so we do not know the terms and conditions that it spells out, but the purchase price is engraved in the minds of most American school children. This story is found in virtually all accounts of the founding of the colony that would become New York. But in 1986 the historian Peter Francis, Jr. wrote an article that pointed out that the mention of beads first appeared in the historical literature in a work by Martha J. Lamb on the history of New York City written in 1877. "He [Minuit] then called together some of the principal Indian chiefs and offered beads, buttons and other trinkets in exchange for their real estate. They accepted the terms with unfeigned delight, and the bargain was closed." The story has been and is repeated so often as to defy all questions of its authenticity. It has become part of our national story, but is more likely myth than historical fact.
The Dutch ran the colony of New Netherland until 1664 when a British fleet sailed into New York harbor and took control not only of Manhattan, but all of New Netherland, not withstanding a brief return to Dutch rule form 1673-1674. Washington Irving in the early eighteenth century described the end of Dutch rule as one with "no other outrage that that of changing the name of the province and its metropolis which thenceforth was denominated New York." All the inhabitants were allowed to retain their possessions. But at the same time the leading citizens of the town agreed unanimously to "never ask any of their conquerors to dinner." Writing in 1906 Theodore Roosevelt described the event stating, "the arrogant red flag fluttered without rival along the whole seaboard from Acadia to Florida." Seems as though neither of these writers was enamored of the British, even centuries after the event and decades after the American Revolution.
Besides the legend of the story of the $24 another one seems to also have currency--that the colonists who came to America came for primarily to escape religious and political oppression. Maybe elsewhere, but in the New Netherlands they came seeking wealth and the majority of those who came were single males. Unable at first to attract large numbers of newcomers the Dutch West India soon established a policy of welcoming settlers from any nation. At least 18 languages were spoken in New York in 1640 and the major one was not English. There were also considerably more taverns than in Puritan New England. This is not like the picture most Americans are likely to envisions when thinking about the original thirteen colonies. Right from the very start this was a polyglot post of entrepreneurs and free spirits.
That the thirteen colonies were originally all founded by the British is another common belief. Clearly the Dutch not only founded the colony that was to become New York, but their influence was to profoundly influence the nature of New York's financial, political and cultural institutions. The onset of British rule did not precipitate the expulsion of Dutch influence, money or populace, but rather created a unique environment where the two trading giants were able to continue to do business--a sort of Dutch treat if you will.
SOURCES:
Davis, Kenneth C. Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History But Never Learned. New York: Avon Books, 1990.
Francis,Peter J. "The Beads That Did Not Buy Manhattan." New York History 67:1 (1986:Jan) p.5.
Knickerbocker, Diedrich [Washington Irving]. Irving's Works. Chicago:Belford, Clark and Co., 180?
Roosevelt, Theodore. New York. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/171/. [Date of Printout].
Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: the Epic Story of Dutch Manhattanand the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Van Der Zee, Henri and Barbara Van Der Zee. A Sweet and Alien Land: The Story of Dutch New York. New York: Viking Press, 1978.
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