Artifacts from New Amsterdam, The Island at the Center of the World:
An Exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum
from the collection of the
Dutch National Archives
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Block map of New York
This is the first map -on parchment- that shows Manhattan as a separate island , the land of the "Manhates" Indians. Adriaen Block, a Dutch fur trader who arrived in 1613 and was marooned on Manhattan when his ship Tyger burned down, began a coastal trip in the spring of 1614 on which he gathered information for his map.
He sailed in his ship Onrust (Restless, the first European ship built on Manhattan Island) "through Hellegat [East River] into the great bay [Long Island Sound] and explored all the places thereabout". The territories of the "Mahicans", "Pequats", and other Indian tribes, soon to be well known to colonial settlers, are here shown; the "Meer Vand Irocoisen" (Lake Champlain) appears far east of the Connecticut River. Block Island was named after Adriaen Block.
Schaghen Letter, the birth certificate of New York (1626)
The Indians called Manhattan Mana Hatta, in their language, Island of Hills. In 1626 Peter Minuit, the new Dutch leader in New Netherland, negotiated a treaty with the Indians for it. This treaty was long ago lost, but some months after the historic event occurred a ship from New Netherland arrived in the Dutch Republic bringing word of it.
A Dutch government officer named Peter Schaghen documented the contents of the ship, and wrote a letter to government leaders itemizing the purchases. The so-called Schaghen letter has become one of history's more remarkable documents, because it indicates clearly and prosaically this moment in time: High and Mighty Lords, Yesterday the ship the Arms of Amsterdam arrived here. It sailed from New Netherland out of the River Mauritius on the 23d of September. They report that our people are in good spirit and live in peace. The women also have borne some children there.
They have purchased the Island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders. It is 11,000 morgens in size. They had all their grain sowed by the middle of May, and reaped by the middle of August. They sent samples of these summer grains: wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, beans and flax. The cargo of the aforesaid ship is 7246 Beaver skins, 178 Otter skins, 675 Otter skins, 48 Mink skins, 36 Lynx skins, 33 Minks, 34 Muskrat skins, Many oak timbers and nut wood. Herewith, High and Mighty Lords, be commended to the mercy of the Almighty, In Amsterdam, the 5th of November Anno 1626 Your High and Mightinesses' obedient, P.Schaghen
It wasn't a "sale" in the European sense; Minuit surely knew that for the Indians the 60 guilders' worth of goods he gave (which a 19th century historian famously calculated at 24 dollars) was not an outright payment but a token of alliance. The Indian idea was they had entered into a defensive alliance: the Europeans would be entitled to use Manhattan Island, and at the same time if either side was attacked the other would come to its aid.
Vingboons, View on New Amsterdam (1664)
This is the iconic picture of New Amsterdam and the most famous Vingboons watercolor: a detailed 1664 painting, portraying the early city of New Amsterdam on the tip of Manhattan like a small Dutch village of the period. A windmill stands out in the background, and the town's gallows are prominently on the coast in plain view of arriving ships. The big white house on the right is City Hall.
The Manhattan area in 1616
Beautiful and very early map of the Manhattan area, with lots of images and names of Indian tribes and villages.
Peter Stuvyesant takes control
In May of 1645 Peter Stuyvesant, a vigorous, disciplined company man, was appointed by the Dutch West India Company as Director General of New Netherland. He tried to improve relations with the neighboring Indians and the English. But tensions with the English rose again as a result of the First Anglo-Dutch War (1650-52).
He arrived in New Amsterdam in May, 1647. In September, 1647, he appointed a council of representatives, but during his time in office he tried to govern the colony as a dictator. This seems to have been in line with his character, but to be fair to him: the New Amsterdam residents were a motley group right from the start.
Several times Peter Stuyvesant tried to bar groups from settling in New Netherland on the grounds that their religion would bring unrest. In 1654, Jews appealed his ruling in the Netherlands and won. Then when English Quakers wanted to settle in the village of Vlissingen (called Flushing by the English) on Long Island, Stuyvesant again tried to bar them, and the English inhabitants also appealed his ruling. Tolerance--"the glory of the Outward State of Holland," in the words of the petition--meant the Dutch colony should allow all religious groups to settle. Again, the Dutch authorities sided with the petitioners. This document, called the Flushing Remonstrance, has gone down in American history as the originating source of religious freedom in the United States.
In May 1664, in the prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67), a small fleet of British men-of-war left Portsmouth for the New World. Its purpose was to end the Dutch presence in America by conquering New Amsterdam and its surrounding settlements and to stop the Dutch competition in trade. When the British sailed into the harbor, Stuyvesant knew that the game was over. He tried to convince his fellow citizens to resist the invaders. But they declined when the British informed them that they would not interfere with their businesses and that their commercial interests would be protected.
New Amsterdam surrendered on August 27, 1664. Within a week, all other Dutch settlements in the area followed suit. New Amsterdam was renamed New York. In 1665, Stuyvesant went to the Netherlands to report on his term as governor.
On his return, he spent the remainder of his life on his farm of sixty-two acres outside the city, called the Great Bouwerie (Dutch for Farm, giving its name to The Bowery) , beyond which stretched the woods and swamps of the village of Haarlem (now Harlem). A pear-tree that he reputedly brought from the Netherlands in 1647 remained at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue until 1867, bearing fruit almost to the last. The house was destroyed by fire in 1777. He also built an executive mansion of stone called Whitehall in downtown Manhattan. He died in August of 1672 and he was interred a St. Mark's in the Bowery Church in downtown Manhattan, where his grave can still be visited.
Little drawing of Early Manhattan
An early sketch of New Amsterdam by Arnoldus Buchelius, a Dutch Advocate of religious freedom. Manhattan is named as 'Manhath'. This sketch has never been on display before.
Description of New Netherland
Adriaen van der Donck was a New Amsterdam lawyer who clashed with the autocratic governor Peter Stuyvesant. In part to justify his own actions in the dispute with Stuyvesant, and to attract more settlers to the Colony, Van der Donck published his detailed Description of New Netherland, one of the most important original sources for the study of the colony.
The city of Yonkers is named after Van der Dock, whose nickname was 'The Jonker' (a low aristocratic title in Dutch). Van der Donck's book about New Netherland, which appeared in 1655, is full of wonderful quotes about the beauty and economic potential of the colony; a true compliment to the region. His story is based upon his personal experiences with nature, the settlers and the Indians in New Netherland.
Van der Donck describes the coast and elaborates on the rivers and the regions beyond the river banks. He couldn't write much about the inland because few Dutch settlers had explored these parts. There were times the Dutch settlers travelled twenty days to trade fur with the Indians (who lived the furthest inland) but they had no idea about the larger lay of the land.
Van der Donck loved American summers. The climate was good for the European settlers, better than West Africa and the Caribbean. Van der Donck described the air as dry, pure and healthy without thick and stinking smoke. Van der Donck wrote that if you fell ill somewhere else, you would get better very soon in New Netherland.
The treaty of Breda (1667)
The Dutch presence in North America came officially to an end with the Treaty of Breda. This treaty between England (which received the New Netherland Colony including New York), the Dutch Republic, France and Denmark, brought to an inconclusive end the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67) in which France and Denmark had supported the Dutch. The Dutch had the military advantage during the war (fought mostly at sea) but were compelled to make peace quickly to deal with Louis XIV's invasion of the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium). The English Navigation Acts were changed in favor of the Dutch to permit Dutch ships to carry to England goods that had come down the Rhine River.
Several Dutch trading principles were accepted, including confining the definition of "contraband" to implements of war. The Dutch position in world trade had not been shaken, and England had failed to take over a part of the spice trade. The Dutch retained Surinam in South America. The Dutch were happy with this treaty. Little did they know they had given up the city that would become the capital of the world.