Lessons from New Amsterdam

LENAPE: ORIGINAL INHABITANTS

Hunters, gatherers, farmers 15,000 inhabitants in present-day NYC, 1000 years ago (Lenapehoking) Speak Munsee language Practice seasonal mobility, slash-and-burn farming, multi-crop fields Centuries of Lenape uses of environment leave vast, open spaces on Manhattan Island containing abundant wildlife and plant life

EUROPEAN NEWCOMERS
Pursuit of fur-bearing animals for European fur trade AND a quick and easy passage to Asia (Northwest Passage) Giovanni da Verrazzano: April 1524 16th century: European navigators, fur traders, and merchants arrive in area around Manhattan Island, establish commercial relationships with Lenape and other natives Native cultures and societies transformed

HENRY HUDSON
1609: Dutch East India Company hires Hudson to undertake voyage to discover Northeast or Northwest Passage September 1609: arrives near present-day Sandy Hook, New Jersey; sails up North River to present-day Albany SURPRISE! You cant sail to China from Albany, but Hudsons voyage helped establish Dutch claims to a vast region stretching from Manhattan, north to Albany, and to areas west and south of present-day NYC Hudsons fate: crew mutinies in 1611, thrown off the ship, never heard from again

CORPORATE CONTROL
1611-14: competition among Dutch fur traders in Hudson River Valley 1614: to reduce competition, merchants form New Netherland Company, with charter from States-General 1621: West India Company establishedend of private trading among Dutch in North AmericaWIC granted monopoly power 1624: Walloon settlers arrive in New Amsterdam, on Manhattan Islandcompany employees Colonists promised a share of fur trade profits, land, livestock, and provisions in exchange for labor Establish settlements at Fort Orange, and along Delaware and Connecticut Rivers

RIVALRIES

Conflicts with Native Americans near Fort Orange spur evacuation of all WIC settlers to Manhattan (order of Director-General Pieter Minuit, 1626) 1626: Minuit purchases Manhattan from Lenape for 60 guilders (equivalent of $24 worth of junk) Increasing tensions with English: overlapping land claims, clashes over fur trading rights 1633: Wouter van Twiller appointed Director-General: arrives with soldiers, ordered to seal the border between New Netherland and New England: failure 1638: Willem Kieft replaces van Twiller as DirectorGeneral: an Amsterdam merchant and a well-known crook

DIVERSITY & SQUALOR

New Amsterdam: 90 buildings, about 400 residents in 1638, but the WIC has not maintained the townit s a mess! Residents: over half are not Dutch; mostly single men; very few women; all WIC employees; some free and enslaved Africans; speaking 18 different languages Slaves have many more rights and privileges than those held in other North American colonies 25% of the buildings are either bars, smoking houses, or brothels Crime out of control Kieft cracks down and enlarges the city boundaries, hoping to attract families and landowners

THE PIG WAR

Tensions between WIC and Lenape reach boiling point: indigenous population reduced by European diseases, increasing conflicts surrounding livestock and the destruction of farmland 1639: Kieft imposes tax on Indians to pay for Dutch military protection: Indians tell Kieft to go to hell 1641: Dutch launch a war on local Native Americans massacre entire families and villages 1644-45: English help Dutch defeat the Natives Dutch leaders in Amsterdam: see New Netherland as increasingly vulnerable, unstableremove Kieft from power in 1647

PETER STUYVESANT
7th Director-General, 1647-1664 Confronts increasing English encroachment on Dutchcontrolled landsStuyvesant uses diplomacy, cedes lands to the English Anglo-Dutch War of 1652: England accuses Netherlands of violating Navigation Acts of 1651 Stuyvesant strengthens colony s defenses: Rattle Watch Truce announced in 1654, English invasion called off 1664: Charles II grants Dutch-controlled lands to his brother James, Duke of York August 1664: English invasion force sails into New Amsterdam HarborStuyvesant surrenders Settlement immediately renamed New York