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New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the seventeenth-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod. The settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Its capital, New Amsterdam, was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan on the Upper New York Bay.
Initially a private venture to exploit the North American fur trade, New Netherland was slowly settled during the first decades of its existence, in part due to conflicts with Native Americans and mismanagement by the Dutch West India Company (WIC).
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New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the seventeenth-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod. The settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Its capital, New Amsterdam, was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan on the Upper New York Bay.
Initially a private venture to exploit the North American fur trade, New Netherland was slowly settled during the first decades of its existence, in part due to conflicts with Native Americans and mismanagement by the Dutch West India Company (WIC). The colony of New Sweden developed on it's southern flank and its northern border was re-drawn in recognition of early New England settlements. During the 1650s it experienced exponential growth and became a major port for trade in the North Atlantic. Its surrender to the British in 1664 was finalized with the Treaty of Westminster in 1674.
The inhabitants of New Netherland were Native Americans, a variety of Europeans and Africans. Descendents of the original settlers played a prominent role in colonial America. New Netherland Dutch culture characterized the region (today's Capital District, Hudson Valley, western Long Island, northeastern New Jersey and the five boroughs of New York City) for two centuries. The concepts of civil liberties and pluralism introduced in the province became a mainstay of American political and social life.
Origins
Seventeenth-century Europe was a time of expansive social, cultural, and economic growth, and in the Netherlands is known as the Dutch Golden Age. Nations were vying for domination of lucrative trade routes across the globe, particularly those to Asia. Simultaneously, philosophical/theological battles were manifested in military battles taking place across the continent. The Netherlands had become a home to many intellectuals, international businessmen, and religious refugees. The English had a settlement at Jamestown, the French had a small settlement at Quebec and the Spanish were developing colonies to exploit trade in South America and the Caribbean.
Henry Hudson was an English sea captain and explorer who believed he could find a northwest passage to Asia. In 1609, under contract with the Dutch East India Company (VOC), located in Amsterdam, he explored the waters off the east coast of North America aboard the yacht Halve Maen. His first landfall was at Newfoundland and the second at Cape Cod. He sailed south to the Chesapeake River, close to but not approaching the English colony at Jamestown. He then turned northward, travelling along the shore and after passing Sandy Hook entered the narrows into the Upper New York Bay. (The narrows are named for Giovanni da Verrazzano who had sighted them in 1524.) Believing he may have found a water route across the continent he proceeded up the river which would later bear his name (the Hudson) but at the site of present-day Albany the water became too shallow to proceed.
Upon returning to The Netherlands, Hudson reported that he had found a fertile and fecund land and a people amicable to engaging his crew in small-scale bartering of furs, trinkets, clothes, and small manufactured goods. His report stimulated further interest in the prospect of exploiting this new trade resource, and was the catalyst for Dutch merchant-traders to fund more expeditions. At least one was made the following year, under the command of Symen Lambertsz Mau.
In 1611–1612, the Admiralty of Amsterdam sent two covert expeditions to find a passage to China with the yachts Craen and Vos, captained by Jan Cornelisz May and Symon Willemsz Cat, respectively. In four voyages made between 1611 and 1614, the area between present-day Delaware and Massachusetts was explored, surveyed, and charted by Adriaen Block, Hendrick Christiaensen, and Cornelis Jacobsz May. The results of these explorations, surveys, and charts made from 1609 through 1614 were consolidated in Block’s map, which used the name New Netherland for the first time. During this period there appears to have been some trading with the native population. Jan Rodrigues, born in Santo Domingo of African descent, spent the winter of 1613–1614, on the island of Manhattan trapping for pelts, and is the first recorded non-Native American to do so.
Development
New Netherland Company and Dutch West India Company
On March 17, 1614, the States General, the governing body of The Netherlands, proclaimed it would grant an exclusive patent for trade between the 40th and 45th parallels. This monopoly would be valid for four voyages, all of which had to be undertaken within three years after it was awarded. Block's map, and the report which accompanied it, were used by the New Netherland Company (a newly formed alliance of trading companies) to win its patent, which would expire on January 1, 1618.
The New Netherland Company also ordered a survey of the Delaware area. This task was undertaken
by skipper Cornelis Hendricksz of Monnickendam, who explored the Zuyd Rivier (the Delaware River) from its bay to its northernmost navigable reaches in 1614, 1615, and 1616. His observations were preserved in a map drawn in 1616. Hendricksz's voyages were made aboard the Onrust (Restless), a vessel that Block ordered built before he returned to the Netherlands; it was a replacement for the yacht Tyger, which had been lost to fire in January 1614. Despite the survey, the company was unable to secure an exclusive patent from the States General for the area between the 38th and 40th parallels.
The issue of patents by the States General in 1614 turned New Netherland into a private, commercial venture. Soon thereafter Fort Nassau was constructed on Castle Island, up Hudson's river, in the area of present-day Albany. The primary purpose of the fort was to defend river traffic against interlopers and to conduct fur trading operations with the natives. The location of the fort proved to be impractical, due to repeated flooding of the island in the summers, and the fort was abandoned in 1618, which coincided with the patent's expiration.
The Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie, or Chartered West India Company (WIC), was granted a charter by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on June 3, 1621. It gave the exclusive right to operate in West Africa (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope) and the Americas. In New Netherland, profit was originally to be made from the North American fur trade.
Among the founders of the WIC was Willem Usselincx who, between 1600 and 1606, had
promoted the concept that a main objective of the company should be the establishment of colonies in the New World. In 1620, Usselincx made a last appeal to the States General, which rejected his principal vision as a primary goal. The formula of trading posts with small populations and a military presence to protect them, which was working in the East Indies, was preferred over mass immigration and the establishment of large colonies. Not until 1654, when forced to surrender Dutch Brazil and forfeit the richest sugar-producing area in the world, did the company belatedly focus on colonization in North America.
Algonquians and Iroquois
The first trading partners of the New Netherlanders were the Iroquois and Algonquian peoples who lived there at the time of their arrival. The Dutch did very little, if any, trapping themselves, but depended on the indigenous population to capture, skin and deliver pelts, especially beaver, to them. It is likely that Hudson's peaceful contact with the local Mahicans encouraged them to establish, in 1614, Fort Nassau, the first of many garrisoned trading stations to be built. In 1628, the Mohawks (members of the Iroquois Confederacy) conquered the Mahicans who then retreated to Connecticut. The Mohawks gained a near monopoly in the fur trade with the Dutch, controlling the Adirondacks and Mohawk Valley.
The Algonquian Lenape population around New York Bay and along the Lower Hudson were seasonally migrational people who became known collectively as the River Indians. Among them were the Wecquaesgeek, Hackensack, Raritan, Canarsee, Tappan. It was these groups who had most frequent contact with the New Netherlanders. The Munsee inhabited the Highlands and Hudson Valley, while Minquas lived along the Zuyd Rivier.
Company policy required that land be purchased from the existing peoples. The WIC would offer a land patent, the recipient of which would be responsible for negotiating a deal with representatives, usual the sachem, or high chief, of the local population. The concept of ownership as understood by the Swannekins, or salt water people, was foreign to the Wilden, or natives. The exchange of gifts in the form of sewant or manufactured goods was perceived as trade agreement and defense alliance which included farming, hunting, and fishing rights. Often, the Indians did not vacate the property or reappeared as their migrational patterns dictated. The Europeans were welcomed on the land, but the Indians had no intention of leaving. This misunderstanding, and other differences, would later lead to violent conflict, though at the same time were the beginnings of a what would later become multicultural society.
Early settlement
The earliest Dutch settlement was built around 1613, and consisted of a number of small huts built by the crew of the "Tijger" (Tiger), a Dutch ship under the command of Captain Adriaen Block which had caught fire while sailing on the Hudson. Soon after, the first of two Fort Nassaus was built and small factorijen, or trading posts, where commerce could be conducted with Algonquian and Iroquois population, went up (possibly at Schenectady, Schoharie, Esopus, Quinnipiac, Communipaw and elsewhere).
In 1624 New Netherland became a province of the Dutch Republic, which had lowered the northern border of its North American dominion to 42 degrees latitude in acknowledgment of the claim by the English north of Cape Cod.[see John Smith's 1616 map as self-appointed Admiral of New England] The Dutch named the three main rivers of the province the Zuyd Rivier (South River), the Noort Rivier (North River), and the Versche Rivier (Fresh River).
International law required not only discovery and charting but also settlement to perfect a territorial claim. To this end, in May 1624 the WIC landed 30 families on Noten Eylant (today's Governors Island) at the mouth of the North River. They disembarked from the ship New Netherland, under the command of Cornelis Jacobsz May, the first Director of the New Netherland. He was replaced the following year by Willem Verhulst.
In June 1625, 45 additional colonists disembarked on Noten Eylant from three ships named Horse, Cow, and Sheep, which also delivered 103 horses, steers, cows, pigs, and sheep. Some settlers were dispersed to the various garrisons built across the territory: upstream to Fort Orange, to Fort Goede Hoop on the Fresh River, and Fort Nassau on the South River.Most of the settlers were not Dutch, but Walloons, Huguenots, or Africans (who were brought as slaves).
North River and The Manhattans
Peter Minuit became Director of the New Netherland in 1626 and made a decision that would greatly affect the new colony. Originally, the capital of the province was to be located on the South River, but it was soon realized that the location was susceptible to mosquito infestation in the summer and the freezing of its waterways in the winter. He chose instead the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the river explored by Hudson, at that time called the North River. In what is one of the most legendary real-estate deals ever made, Minuit traded some goods with the local population and reported that he had purchased it from the natives, as was company policy. He ordered the construction of Fort Amsterdam at its southern tip, around which would grow the heart of the province, which rather than New Netherland, would be called in the vernacular of the day The Manhattoes.
The port city outside the walls of the fort, New Amsterdam would become a major hub for trade between North America, the Caribbean and Europe, and the place where raw materials such as pelts, lumber, and tobacco would be loaded. Sanctioned privateering would contribute to its growth. When given its municipal charter in 1652 the Commonality of New Amsterdam included the isle of Manhattan, Staaten Eylandt, Pavonia and the Lange Eylandt towns.
In the hope of encouraging immigration the Dutch West India Company, in 1629, started to offer vast land grants and the title of patroon to some of invested members. The vast tracts were called patroonships, and the title came with powerful manorial rights and privileges, such as the creation of civil and criminal courts and the appointing of local officials. In return, a patroon was required by the Company to establish a settlement of at least 50 families, who would live as tenant farmers, within four years. Of the original five patents given, the largest and only truly successful endeavour was Rensselaerwyck, at the highest navigable point on the North River, which became the main thoroughfare of the province. Beverwijck, grew from a trading post to a bustling, independent town in the midst of Rensselaerwyck, as would Wiltwyck, south of the patroonship in Esopus country.
Kieft's War and the Remonstrance of New Netherland
Willem Kieft was Director New Netherland from 1638 until 1647. Though the colony had grown somewhat before his arrival, it did not flourish, and Kieft was under pressure to increase profits. At first he suggested collecting tribute from the Indians (as was common among the various dominant tribes), but his demands to the Tappan and Wecquaesgeek were simply ignored. Subsequently, when a colonist was murdered in an act of revenge for some killings that had taken place years earlier and the Indians refused to turn over the perpetrator, Kieft suggested they be taught a lesson by ransacking their villages. In an attempt to gain public support he created a citizens commission, the council of twelve men. They did not, as was expected, rubber-stamp his ideas, but took the opportunity to mention grievances that they had with company's mismanagement and its unresponsiveness to their suggestions. Kieft thanked and disbanded them, and against their advice ordered that groups of Tappan and Wecquaesgeek (who had sought refuge from their more powerful Mahican enemies) be attacked at Pavonia and Corlear's Hook. The massacre left 130 dead. Within days the surrounding tribes, in a unique move, united and rampaged the countryside, forcing settlers who escaped to find safety at Fort Amsterdam. For two years, a series of raids and reprisals raged across the province, until 1645 when Kieft's War ended with a treaty, in a large part brokered by the Hackensack sagamore Oratam. Disenchanted with the previous governor, his ignorance of indigenous peoples, the unresponsiveness of the WIC to their rights and requests, they submitted to the States General the Remonstrance of New Netherland. This document, penned by the Leiden-educated New Netherland lawyer Adriaen van der Donck, condemned the WIC for mismanagement and demanded full rights as citizens of province of the Netherlands.
Director-General of New Netherland
Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam in 1648, the only governor of the colony to be called Director-General of New Netherland. As his title reflects, Stuyvesant was a company man and military man, selected to protect the interests of the WIC. The approach of ruling firmly for the profit of the WIC came in direct conflict with the New Netherlanders.
Some years earlier land ownership policy was liberalized and trading was somewhat deregulated, and many New Netherlanders considered themselves entrepreneurs in a free market.
During the period of his governorship the province experienced exponential growth.
Demands were made upon Stuyevesant from all sides: the West India Company, the States General, and the New Netherlanders. Dutch territory was being nibbled at by the English to the north and the Swedes to the south, while in the heart of the province the Esopus were trying to contain further Dutch expansion. Military battles were occurring in the Carribbean and along the South Atlantic coast. In 1654, the Netherlands lost New Holland in Brazil to the Portuguese, encouraging some of its residents to emigrate north and making the North American colonies more appealing to some investors. The Esopus Wars are so named for the branch of Lenape that lived around Wiltwyck, which was the Dutch settlement on the west bank of Hudson River between Beverwyk and New Amsterdam. These conflicts were generally over settlement of land by New Netherlanders for which contracts had not been clarified, and were seen by the natives as an unwanted incursion into their territory. Previously, the Esopus, a clan of the Munsee Lenape, had much less contact with the River Indians and the Mohawks.
Society
New Netherlanders were not necessarily Dutch, and New Netherland was never a homogenous society. An early governor, Peter Minuit, was a German-born Walloon who spoke English and worked for a Dutch company. The term New Netherland Dutch generally includes all the Europeans who came to live there, but may also refer to Africans, Caribbeans, and South Americans and even the Native Americans who were integral to the society. Though Dutch was the official language, and likely the lingua franca of the province, it was but one of many spoken there. There were various Algonquian languages; Walloons and Huguenots tended to speak French, and Scandinavians brought their own tongues, as did the Germans. It is likely the Africans, both freeman and slaves, spoke their mother tongues as well. English was already on the rise to become the vehicular language in world trade, and settlement by individuals or groups of English-speakers started soon after the inception of the province. The arrival of refugees from New Holland in Brazil may have brought Portuguese, Spanish, and Ladino (with Hebrew as a liturgical language). Commercial activity in the harbor could have been transacted simultaneously in any of a number of tongues.
The Union of Utrecht, the founding document of the Dutch Republic, signed in 1579, stated “that everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion”. Although the Dutch West India Company had established the Reformed Church as the official religious institution of New Netherland, the early Dutch settlers planted the concept of religious tolerance as a legal right in North America as per explicit orders in 1624. They had to attract, “through attitude and by example”, the natives and nonbelievers to God’s word “without, on the other hand, to persecute someone by reason of his religion, and to leave everyone the freedom of his conscience.” In addition, the laws and ordinances of the states of Holland were incorporated by reference in those first instructions to the Governors Island settlers in 1624. There were two test cases during Stuyvesant's governorship in which the rule prevailed: the official granting of full residency for both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews in New Amsterdam in 1655, and the Flushing Remonstrance, involving Quakers, in
1657.
During the 1640s two religious leaders, both women, took refuge in New Netherland: Anne Hutchinson and the Anabaptist Lady Deborah Moody.
Incursions
South River and New Sweden
Apart from the second Fort Nassau, and the small community that supported it, settlement along the Zuyd Rivier was limited. Zwaanendael, during the absence of the patroon's agent, David Pietersen de Vries, was destroyed by the local population soon after its founding in 1631.
Peter Minuit, who had construed a deed for Manhattan (and was soon after dismissed as director), knew that the Dutch would be unable to defend the southern flank of its North American territory and had not signed treaties with or purchased land from the Minquas. After gaining the support from the Queen of Sweden, he chose the southern banks of the Delaware Bay to establish a colony there, which he did in 1638, calling it Fort Christina, New Sweden. As expected, the government at New Amsterdam took no other action than to protest. Other settlements sprang up as colony grew, mostly populated by Swedes, Finns, Germans, and Dutch.
In 1651, Fort Nassau was dismantled and relocated in an attempt to disrupt trade and reassert control, receiving the name Fort Casimir. Fort Beversreede was built in the same year, but was short-lived. In 1655, Stuyvesant led a military expedition and regained control of the region, calling its main town New Amstel. During this expedition some villages and plantations at the Manhattans (Pavonia and Staten Island) were attacked in a incident that is known as the Peach Tree War. These raids are sometimes considered revenge for the murder of an Indian girl attempting to pluck a peach, though it was likely that they were a retaliation for the attacks at New Sweden.
A new experimental settlement was begun in 1673, just before the British takeover in 1674. Franciscus van den Enden had drawn up charter for a utopian society that included equal education of all classes, joint ownership of property, and a democratically elected government. Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy attempted such a settlement near the site of Zwaanendael, but it soon expired under English rule.
Fresh River and New England
Few settlers to New Netherland made Fort Goede Hoop on the Fresh River their home. As early 1637 English settlers from the Massachusetts Colony began to settle along its banks and on Lange Eylandt, some with the permission from the colonial government, and others with complete disregard for it. Developing simultaneously with that of New Netherland, the English colonies grew more rapidly since settlement by religious sects (rather than trade) was the impetus for their creation. It was fear of an invasion by them that the wal, or rampart, at contemporary Wall Street was originally built. Initially there was limited contact between New Englanders and New Netherlanders, but with a swelling English population and territorial disputes the two provinces engaged direct diplomatic relations. The New England Confederation was formed in 1643 as a political and military alliance of the British colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. The latter two were actually on land claimed by the United Provinces, but unable to populate or militarily defend their territorial claim, the Dutch could do nothing but protest the growing flood of English settlers. With the 1650 Treaty of Hartford, Stuyvesant provisionally ceded the Connecticut River region to New England, drawing New Netherland's eastern border 50 Dutch miles west of the Connecticut's mouth on the mainland and just west of Oyster Bay on Long Island. The Dutch West India Company refused to recognize the treaty, but since it failed to reach any agreement with the English, the Hartford Treaty set the de facto border.
Capitulation, restitution, and concession
In March 1664, Charles II of England resolved to annex New Netherland and “bring all his Kingdoms under one form of government, both in church and state, and to install the Anglican government as in old England”. The directors of the Dutch West India Company concluded that the religious freedom of the colony made military defense against New England unnecessary. They wrote to Director-General Peter Stuyvesant:
. . . we are in hopes that as the English at the north (in New Netherland) have removed mostly from old England for the causes aforesaid, they will not give us henceforth so much trouble, but prefer to live free under us at peace with their consciences than to risk getting rid of our authority and then falling again under a government from which they had formerly fled.
On August 27, 1664, four English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam’s harbor and demanded New Netherland’s surrender. They met no resistance because numerous citizens’ requests for protection by a suitable Dutch garrison against “the deplorable and tragic massacres” by the natives had gone unheeded. That lack of adequate fortification, ammunition, and manpower as well as the indifference from the West India Company to previous pleas for reinforcement of men and ships against “the continual troubles, threats, encroachments and invasions of the English neighbors” made New Amsterdam defenseless. Stuyvesant negotiated successfully for good terms from his “too powerful enemies.” In the Articles of Transfer, he and his council secured the principle of religious tolerance in Article VIII, which assured that New Netherlanders “shall keep and enjoy the liberty of their consciences in religion” under English rule. In the 1667 Treaty of Breda ending the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch did not press their claims on New Netherland and the status quo, with the Dutch occupying Suriname and the nutmeg island of Run, was maintained.
Within six years, the nations were again at war, and in August 1673 the Dutch recaptured New Netherland with a fleet of 21 ships, then the largest ever seen in North America. They chose Anthony Colve as governor and renamed the city “New Orange”, reflecting the installation of William of Orange as Lord-Lieutenant (stadtholder) of Holland in 1672. (He would become King William III of England in 1689.) Nevertheless, after the conclusion of the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672–1674 — the historic “disaster years” in which the Dutch Republic was simultaneously attacked by the French under Louis XIV, the English, and the Bishops of Munster and Cologne — the republic was financially and morally bankrupt. The States of Zeeland had tried to convince the States of Holland to take on the responsibility for the New Netherland province, but to no avail. In November 1674, the Treaty of Westminster concluded the war and ceded New Netherland to the English.
Legacy
In addition to founding the largest metropolis on the North American continent, New Netherland has left a profoundly enduring legacy on both American cultural and political life, greatly influenced by social and political climate in the Dutch Republic at the time
as well as by the character of those who immigrated to it. It was during the early British colonial period that the New Netherlanders actually developed the land and society that would have an enduring impact on the Capital District, the Hudson Valley, northeastern New Jersey, western Long Island, New York City, and ultimately the United States.
Political Culture
Manifested, and occasionally embraced, as multiculturalism in late twentieth-century USA, the concept of tolerance was the mainstay of province's mother country. The Dutch Republic was a haven for many religious and intellectual refugees fleeing oppression as well as home to the world's major ports in the newly developing global economy. Concepts of religious freedom and free-trade (including a stock market) were Netherlands imports. In 1682, the visiting Virginian William Byrd commented about New Amsterdam that "they have as many sects of religion there as at Amsterdam".
The Dutch Republic was one of the first nation-states of Europe where citizenship and civil liberties were extended to large segments of the population. The framers of the U.S. Constitution were influenced by the Constitution of the Republic of the United Provinces, though that influence was more as an example of things to avoid than of things to imitate. In addition, the Act of Abjuration, essentially the declaration of independence of the United Provinces from the Spanish throne, is strikingly similar to the later American Declaration of Independence though concrete evidence that the former directly influenced the latter is absent. John Adams went so far as to say that “the origins of the two Republics are so much alike that the history of one seems but a transcript from that of the other.”
The Articles of Capitulation (outlining the terms of transfer to the English) in 1664, provided for the right to worship as one wished, and were incorporated into subsequent city, state, and national constitutions in the USA, and are the legal and cultural code that lies at the root of the New York Tri-State traditions.
Many prominent US citizens are Dutch American directly descended from the Dutch families of New Netherland. The Roosevelt family, which produced two Presidents, are descended from Claes van Roosevelt, who emigrated about 1650. The Van Buren family of President Martin Van Buren also originated in New Netherland.
Lore and Language
The tradition of Santa Claus comes from a celebration of the festival day of Saint Nicolas on December 5 each year by the settlers of New Netherland. The folk tales of the Dutch peasants of the Hudson Valley gave literary inspiration to Washington Irving for his two most famous short stories, "Rip van Winkle" and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow". His "A History of New York", written in the early 1800s somewhat satirically describes the enduring influence of the New Netherlanders on contemporary cultural life.
The colors of the flags of the City of New York, Albany and Nassau County are those of the old Dutch flag. The blue, white and orange are also seen in materials from New York's two World's Fairs and the uniforms of the New York Mets baseball club, New York Knicks basketball club, and New York Islanders hockey club.
The seven arrows in the lion's left claw in the Republic's coat of arms, representing the seven provinces, was a precedent for the thirteen arrows in the eagle's left claw in the Great Seal of the United States.
Pidgen Delaware developed early in the province as a vehicular language to expediate trade. A dialect known as Jersey Dutch was spoken in and around rural Bergen and Passaic counties in New Jersey until the early 20th century. Mohawk Dutch, spoken around Albany, is also now extinct.
Many words of Dutch origin came into American vernacular directly from New Netherland. For example, the quintessential American word Yankee may be a corruption of a Dutch name, Jan Kees. [Yankee : from Jan Kees, a personal name, originally used mockingly to describe pro-French revolutionary citizens, with allusion to the small keeshond dog, then for "colonials" in New Amsterdam. The Oxford English Dictionary, however, has quotations with the term from as early as 1765, quite some time before the French Revolution.] Knickerbocker, originally a surname, has been used to describe a number of things, including breeches, glasses, and a basketball team. Cookie is from the Dutch word koekje or (informally) koekie. Boss, from baas, evolved in New Netherland to the usage known today. [From Dutch baas, a term of respect originally used to address an older relative. Later, in New Amsterdam, it came to mean a person in charge who was not a master.]
Early settlers and their descendents gave many placenames still in use throughout the region that was New Netherland. Using Dutch, and the Latin alphabet, they also "Batavianized" names of Native American geographical locations such as Manhattan, Hackensack, Sing-Sing, and Canarsie. Peekskill, Catskill, and Cresskill all refer to the streams, or kils, around which they grew. Schuylkill River is somewhat of a misnomer, since kil is already built into it. Among those that have kept use of hoek, meaning point, are the two the Red Hooks, Sandy Hook, Constable Hook, and Kinderhook.
Nearly pure Dutch forms name the bodies of water Spuyten Duyvil, Kill van Kull, and Hell Gate. Countless towns, streets, and parks bear the surname of the first Europeans to own the land on which they sit. Hudson and the House of Orange-Nassau lend their names to numerous places in the Northeast.
See also
External links
- , a virtual tour of New Netherland at the New Netherland Project
- Project Gutenberg: , by J.F. Jameson, Ed
- at the Royal Library of Belgium
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