THE AGE OF DISCOVERY
The 16th and 17th centuries were times of extensive discovery and exploration. Columbus and the Spanish made the first forays into the “New World” and exploited the region for trade and riches. (In 1524 Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano sailed into what would become New York Harbor and claimed it for the French—though they ignored this area and settled to the north in Quebec in 1608.) The English founded a small colony in Virginia (Jamestown 1606) and claimed lands in those latitudes.
The Dutch were late comers. But they won the big prize. They founded a trading post called New Amsterdam which King Charles of England would eventually call the “linchpin of the New World”! New Amsterdam had a magnificent deep water harbor, which was confluent with a wide navigable “North River” (Hudson River) that permitted access to the great wealth of the interior heartland of the continent by way of Lake George and Lake Champlain—and thence into the Great Lakes.
The Dutch lived by the sea and of the sea. In the 16th and17th century, their small nation, with few natural resources forced them to seek profit and wealth by maritime trade. Aware, in this endeavor, that they were well behind competitors Spain, France and England, they were eager to catch up. For them wealth was only a sea voyage away if they could find a shortcut sea route west—to the land of “silk and spices” in Asia. They had public interest, well-to-do investors, seaworthy ships and the financial support of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC). They needed only an experienced and determined mariner.
In 1608 they sought out the services of English mariner, Henry Hudson, a man with a reputation as a determined explorer. Hudson had tried and failed twice before to find a route to the east by sailing northwest though the ice-bound high latitudes. The investors and owners of the Dutch East India Company, well aware of these unprofitable western explorations, were eager for Hudson to abandon that route and explore a sea route from Netherlands to the east —toward Finland and Russia for the fabled route to riches.
After Hudson”s failed explorations in the high latitudes, he remained convinced that the famed passage to Asia was “west, west, straight west through some wide passage in the New World”. That conviction was strengthened with new information provided to Hudson by his friend and associate, Capt. John Smith. Smith’s 1606 trips to the English colony in Virginia reinforced his conviction that there was a navigable waterway to the Asia—but not in the mid latitudes—not where Hudson had been seeking—but somewhere along the northeast coast of what would become North America.
Though he promised his investors in the DEIC that he would explore a route to Asia by sailing north from the Netherlands, then go east along the coast of Norway on a northeast course into the icy Barrents Sea. But Hudson was convinced his mariner instincts were more valid than the Dutch investor’s ideas. Obsessed with fame and discovery—he secretly planned to ignore his promise and sail west as his .
Thus on 4th of April in the spring of 1609 Hudson left from Amsterdam with 20 men, in a three masted square rigged, 85 foot (@26 m) wooden vessel, the “Half Moon”, to seek his fortune and make the investors of the Dutch East India Company wealthy men.
Three days later, coursing due west, from Amsterdam, the Half Moon passed England’s most western landmark, Lizard Point, on its starboard beam. The following day, withcool NE winds, and its sails drum-head taut, the Half Moon left a foamy wake as it sailed passed the coast of the English Scilly Isles and continued on course in the north latitudes directly west across the Atlantic.
The Half Moon made first landfall off the coast of Newfoundland at about 46ºN in July of 1609. For six weeks he sailed south staying off-shore, seeking evidence of a great seaway to the west. Finding none, he ordered the ship to come about just off the coast of Virginia, to avoid conflict in a region he knew was claimed by his English countrymen.
He continued north, closer to shore and at about 38º N he entered a wide sea way which would be known at a later date as the Delaware River. Hudson noted that this seaway had few evidences strong currents characteristic of a westward seaway. Sailors at the ship’s bow tossing the lead line for depth indicated a sea bed that was rapidly shoaling.
Disappointed, he continued north, sailing along a low-lying (New Jersey) shore. At about 40 ºN the 85 foot vessel rounded a sandy hook and entered a six-mile wide harbor with many channels and islands (Lower Bay in New York Harbor) and with multiple river systems entering it. It seemed a promising place for Hudson’s quest for a seaway to the west.
A steady southwesterly wind filled the sails of the Half Moon as Hudson directed the crew to wear ship west into what would be Raritan Bay. From there, he turned north and coasted along the shore of a big island (Staten Island) in the harbor.
The crew fascinated at the sight, hung on the rigging and port-side bulwarks taking in views of a verdant and wooded shore. Encouraged to explore the land, they anchored and sent a party ashore in the ship’s tender to land on the island (Staten Island). They found huge oak trees and “abundant blue plums” (probably those still abundant today, Beach Plums, (Prunus maritima).
They encountered friendly natives at another site. They wore animal skins and brought the sailors corn “bread” and green tobacco as gifts. They sailed on into multiple[ local bays, and in several places encountered friendly natives with whom they traded. At one site on what may have been the Brooklyn shore they visited a local native settlement and went into their camp where they entered their circular, bark-covered huts or wigwams. They traded with the natives, (likely the Canarsees a tribe of the Lenape nation), who offered them tobacco, dried beans, dried fruit, and fresh oysters, for which the natives received as trade items a few Dutch-made knives, hatchets and colored beads.
Finally, as they sailed north they passed a heavily wooded and hilly island on the east (Manhattan).and further north entered into a mile-wide river with steep black rock cliffs on the west and rolling hills on the east side.
To Hudson, who found the water salty, deep, and the current swift—it seemed a promising sea route west. But as they advanced upriver, the river flow weakened, the channel narrowed, and too shallow to sail further northward.
At this point, near present day Albany, they anchored and made contact with local natives. Here too in the northern part of the river, they found friendly natives who were eager to trade. These natives, rather than corn, beans and tobacco, offered exotic, rich, brown beaver pelts and bearskins for Dutch trinkets. Beaver pelts were in great demand in Europe to make felt for the popular hats of that era.
Hudson was disappointed by the realization that this was not to be a northwest passage, his crew was tired and with their supplies low, they turned back to sail downstream. Back near the mouth of the river they mapped and recorded the beautiful and wide bays and islands of what would become New York Harbor. Then they departed for the long voyage back to Amsterdam.
Hudson’s hope for finding the westward sea passage to riches was deflated, but not over. Hudson, ever determined, made one last voyage west..into the icy north, a voyage from which he never returned.
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY
But in Amsterdam Hudson’s discoveries did not go unheeded. He met with his investors at the offices of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) where his intention was to describe in glowing detail to his unhappy investors the potentially lucrative fur trading possibilities of his discoveries. The Dutch investors accepted his gifts of furs and tobacco, as well as the maps of the harbor and islands he discovered. They listened to Hudson’s glowing tales of these new lands of vast forests, natives eager to trade, rich harbors, and unimaginable lands available for Dutch exploitation. But like Hudson, the DEIC investors were fixated on the idea of quick profits from the discovery of a sea lane to Asia, and took no immediate action.
Beyond the oak paneled boardroom of the DEIC, Hudson’s reports must have had a powerful impact on some. For it was only five years later, in1614, that independent Dutch traders were making regular and successful fur trading contacts with the “Indians” at the north end of “Hudson’s River”. There, Mohican, Mohawk and Iroquois natives eagerly traded exotic and valuable Beaver pelts, and furs for inexpensive Dutch-made kettles, beads, hatchets and knives.
ADRIEAN BLOCK AND EXPLORATION IN THE ONRUST
Adriean Block (1567-1627) a Dutch adventurer, mariner, fur trader, explorer, who, learning of Hudson’s discoveries followed that mariner’s 1609 route to the “North River” to trade for beaver pelts which were bringing high prices in Europe. Block was very successful on his 1614 trading voyage up the “North River”. After a series of successful trade encounters with the natives the ship Tiger was loaded to the gunwales with furs. Seeking a safe harbor to make some repairs and fill the ship’s water barrels Block sailed the Tiger south landing near the tip of Manhattan Island, probably in the East River near present day Red Hook.
Wooden sailing ships were subject to fire, with their flammable construction, fabric sails, and with night-time lighting in dark cabins and holds restricted to open-flame candles or oil lanterns, disastrous fires were common. In addition, vessels with tall masts were subject to lightning strikes. In addition to these fire threats, ship’s cargoes were often subject to spontaneous combustion. Ship’s cargo packed away in damp areas below deck where bacterial decay could generate heat if confined closely enough the mass could reach ignition temperature and burst into flame (i.e. spontaneous combustion).
It is assumed that Block’s fur-loaded ship Tiger for one of these reasons burned to the water line while anchored in the East River in late summer, near the tip of Manhattan island. His cargo of (perhaps) poorly dried beaver pelts may have undergone spontaneous combustion and caused the fire. No reports are available to confirm this.
With the Tiger no longer sea worthy, Block and his crew were marooned in Manhattan in 1614. They were forced to over-winter in a what would become New Amsterdam. He and his men, set up camp, possibly on Nut Island or on the Brooklyn shore (Red Hook?). With the help of the local Canarsee natives, and using salvaged rigging and hardware from the burned hulk of the Tiger they built a new vessel, which they christened: Onrust (Restless).
That spring in the Onrust, Block and his crew explored the wider region of New York Harbor, Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River, sailing as far up river to what would become Hartford, where he again traded successfully for beaver pelts. With his maps of these new discoveries and the additions to Dutch lands in the New World as well as a valuable cargo, Block returned to Amsterdam.
DUTCH NEW AMSTERDAM— A STRICTL BUSINESS DEAL
The interest of the managers of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) were intensified as a result of Block’s discoveries and his demonstration of the profitability of the fur trade . In Amsterdam Henry Hudson’s and Adrien Block’s explorations provided powerful impetus for the Dutch investor organizations to make plans for establishing a more structured and more profitable system to exploit the territory.
As a result in1624 the newly established Dutch West India Company (DWIC) provided ships and supplies for two dozen Dutch families from Holland to populate a planned settlement and trading post. On arrival, they split up into two groups. One sailed north to settle at a site named Fort Orange at the north end of the Hudson River (later, Albany NY), while the second chose a location in the south end, in Upper Bay, on what the Dutch called “Nut Island” (later Governor’s Island).
The tear-shaped, 70 acre, heavily wooded “Nut Island” was located at the mouth of the East River as it empties into Upper Bay, about a half mile from the southern tip of what the local Lenape natives called “Manna hatta”, or “Reed Island”. The forest on Nut Island* dominated by Hickory, Oak, American Chestnut, and Black Walnut trees was a valuable source of timber for construction, fire wood for cooking and heat, and a source of useful edible nuts. Block likely exploited these oak and other hardwood trees to build the Onrust.
The island location, half a mile south of Manhattan and about a quarter mile from the Brooklyn shore provided favorable docking for ships arriving from Holland, had access to larger sea-going vessels, and provided a protection from the possibility of attack from hostile natives. In the first year on the island, the Dutch constructed a log-wood-palisaded fort. On the breezy west side, they built a wind-powered sawmill to cut and saw logs into dimension lumber.
*(Thirteen years later in 1637, long after the island was abandoned for New Amsterdam on Manhattan, a private Dutch entrepreneur citizen, Wouter Van Twiller, purchased Nut Island from the Lenape for “two axe heads, a string of beads, and a handful of nails” for private speculation.)
The results of these profitable fur trading ventures at Nut Island and Fort Orange in New Amsterdam, as well as the knowledge and diversity of the vast lands claimed as a result of Hudson’s and Block’s voyages and explorations were finally fully realized for their potential for profit and expansion to the investors and managers of the Dutch West India Company and to the Netherlands itself.
With the Hudson and Block maps in their possession, the Dutch company came to realize the potential of the vast property which they claimed which ranged from the south, at the mouth of the Delaware River, north along the East Coast to the Hudson River and its magnificent harbor, and beyond to Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River where Block’s 1614 explorations added to their holdings. Dutch claims in the New World included most of Long Island, as well as all the vast forest lands northward to where Dutch claims butted against those of the French possessions in Canada.
The potential for profits from the expansion of the fur trade, and the value of the vast tracts of land (for the land-poor Dutch) and its potential for exploitation not only of furs but of valuable forest products were immense. Wood for ship building and wood for cooperage (or barrel making) was scarce in Europe and not present at all in Holland.
NEW AMSTERDAM: MORE THAN FUR TRADING
Timber for ships and their masts were an essential product similar to what petroleum products are today. Wood for cooperage (making barrels) was essential to almost all businesses. Wood was needed to build barrels, hogsheads and “pipes” (small barrels) to store and transport all goods. Everything from dry fish, whale oil, flour, biscuits, gun powder, and rusty nails had to be transported in wooden barrels made from several hardwood species common in the forests of the new lands of New Netherland as Adriaen Block’s map indicates.
Not to be ignored was the fact that the new colony of New Amsterdam could act as a useful “way station” for their expanding New World trade routes. Dutch traders sailing home to Amsterdam from Spanish possessions in the south could refit at New Amsterdam before making the long Atlantic crossing. All these considerations led to their decision to expand their investment and their footprint around New Amsterdam.
Thus in1626 they made the decision to expand their holdings into more than a simple trade station. On this date they “purchased” Reed Island or “Manna hatta” (Manhattan Island) from the local Lenape tribe at a tribal meeting at the northwest corner of Manhattan island near present-day Inwood where a large Lenape village was located.
BUYING MANHATTAN ISLAND
An apocryphal or uncertain claim that the meeting took place at Shorakkopacch Rock near present day Inwood, where the local Leanape sachem is claimed to have sold off the island to the then WIC company Director-General, Peter Minuit for a token offering of kettles, pots, axes, beads and knives valued at about 60 Dutch Guilders (@$24).
For the Lenape sachem, the famed transaction had little to do with the transfer of land ownership, for the Lenape had no understanding of that concept, but probably considered the transaction as one of permission for “land usage” or payment for a “protection alliance”.
The Lenape of the Delaware Nation had native American enemies in the form of the Iroquois and other northern tribes who would make regular raiding parties south to attack or threaten attack, and take protection “pay offs” in the form of food, dried fish, valuable Quahog shells (Mercenaria mercenaria, with its attractive and rare in nature blue spot interior) for wampum and wampum belts, and other valuables. (This author excavated a large North Fork, Long Island site where this species of mollusk were processed in bulk for the wampum trade, probably during the Late Woodland Stage (500-10,000 AD) of occupation.
It is often presumed that Director Minuit and his group of Dutch settlers, witnesses and signatories to the purchase transaction may have walked up from New Amsterdam to the north end of “Manna Hatta” island from their settlement on the southeast tip of Manhattan. Were this the case they would have followed a well-used native foot-path which connected the various Lenape villages on the island, and today is known as Broadway. The walk would have been a long 10-12 mile procession. Walking at a brisk 20 minute mile it would take a good four hours (4 hrs) to complete the treck not counting stops along the way. (20 min x12 miles =240min, 240min/60min=4hrs).
A BUSINESS MEETING BY LAND OR BY SEA?
A trip by boat (in a small lugger or Catboat with a sailing speed of perhaps (7 knots) or about 8 miles per hour, the trip from New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan to the Spuyten Duyvil site would require about and hour and a half) (This is all conjecture on my part..there is no evidence for it)
A day trip to Inwood for Peter Minuit and his entourage would more likely be by small sail boat—perhaps a “lugger” or “cat” rigged small sail boat. Then if by boat, a more likely site would be a shore site such as the small peninsula (Inwood Nature Center) on the south shore of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek in present day Inwood.
Thus I suspect the famous “$24 sale of Manhattan” meeting site was more likely made along the shore of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, possibly at the site of the present day Inwood Hill Nature Center, where a small peninsula in the creek might have been served as landing site or Native American camp site and a convenient landing site for the Minuit entourage arriving by boat.
The Dutch settlers who moved from the safety of Nut Island to newly acquired Manhattan, chose for settlement a region in the southeast of the island near present day Chinatown where a source of freshwater, a pond, known as “Collect Pond”,originally served the local natives for fresh water, and around which the new settlement of New Amsterdam was to develop. Another pond was also located further south closer to the present day Battery.
THE 1639 MAP OF MANHATTAN ON THE NORTH RIVER
The Manatus Map Manatus Gelegen Op De Noot Rivier (Manhattan Lying Along the North River) depicts New Netherlands and New Amsterdam and its surroundings in the year 1639. It was published at a later date (1800s). It is a pen and ink depiction of Manhattan on the North River (Hudson River) as well as much of Brooklyn and Staten Island.
The southern tip of Manhattan is depicted fortified with a typical four bastion “star fort” This was Fort Amsterdam, built in 1625. Two wind mills (likely one to grind grain and another operating as a saw mill) were situated on the west shore just north of the fort. The southern tip of the island is more densely occupied, while at this date, (1639) the area north of “Wall Street” remains undeveloped pasturage. Along a path that would later be occupied by the “Wall Street” defense wall (and Wall Street) are depicted five relatively larger “boweries” or farm homesteads. In 1639 there were about thirty structures indicated, most in the southern part (south of the “Wall Street line”. The population is estimated at this time at about 300 including African slaves who occupied a specific property noted in the legend of the map.
The Manatus Map indicates to the west across the bay Staten Island represented with one structure on it at the base of what is today Todt Hill and perhaps Grymes Hill. Botth of these hills can be observed today as metamorphic rock outcrops of a greenish rock known as serpentinite . The hills are the highest point in the metropolitan area and they are represented as such on the old Dutch pmap.
From Staten Island across the Narrows (now spanned with the Verrazzano Bridge) is the City borough of Brooklyn. The Narrows exist as a result of the fact that the Pleistocene glaciation deposited a terminal moraine at this point. The hilly glacial terminal moraine ended here. Its more resistance to erosion is responsible for the narrowing (Narrows) of this part of New York Harbor. Both sides of the Narrows on Staten Island and Brooklyn are depicted as a hilly mostly forested land. The terminal moraine in Brooklyn occupies a region in the northwest corner of that borough which eventually became the religions of Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge,
South and southwest of the moraine the topography becomes a gently sloping plain (in geologic terms an “outwash plain”). The southern plain is broken by streams, estuarine intles and marshlands. In Dutch, this form of “broken up” topography was likely the the source of the name Brooklyn derived from “Breukelen” or “gebroeken lende” or “broken land” (i.e. broken land is not continuous land or “hilly” land not suitable for farming ). Other’s claim that the origin of the probably more likely that the place was named after a village of that name outside of Amsterdam which was of a similar topography.
Coney Island* is depicted on the map and its location aids in locating other sites on land. The “island” is represent by its western end, drawn as an irregular shaped island or peninsula on the eastern shore of Gravesend Bay. The shoreline of Gravesend Bay to the west of Coney Island indicates the presence of two small marine inlets along the shoreline. Based on its relationship to Coney Island the one in the west appears to be coincident with present day Dyker Park and the more eastern inlet one may be related to modern day Bensonhurst Park.
(*In Dutch konijn is a rabbit. While the name “coney” in English is derived from the Latin for that species: coniculus , thus: “Rabbit Island)
NEW UTRECHT BEGINNINGS
Brooklyn’s Dyker Park Golf Course has a small pond in it even today. That small body of water was much larger in the 1950s when as a young boy I often intruded into the golf course on boyhood explorations— out of mere curiosity and later on for nature study forays. In winter, the pond-shore froze over and was a fine place for “thin-ice” ice skating. Dyker Pond was fed by an artesian spring, thus even in the coldest winters the center of the pond did not freeze. Dyker Park pond and its artesian spring may have been a headwater freshwater source of the original west inlet as depicted on the 1639 Manatus Map.
Both Bensonhurst ‘inlet” and Dyker Park, appear as coastal inlets along a shoreline where ‘longshore currents” were likely to carry sediment that would eventually close off the inlet form the ocean. These tidal inlets are often closed off from the sea by natural shoreline process that deposit sand and gravel across the mouth of the inlet and generate enclosed coastal ponds separated from the marine origin by the wave and current drift of sediment along the coast. That process no doubt contributed to their alteration, but both were certainly heavily altered by filling of wetlands in the late 19th and early 20th century. In addition during the1940s massive urban development both shore areas were more drastically changed during the construction of the Belt Parkway.
BREUKELEN? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
The 1634 Dutch DWIC “Achter Kol” map depicts western Long Island with the designation: “Gebroke Land” or broken land. In the east the map indicates “Matouwacks” most likely indicating this is the land of the Montaukets. Two “boweries” or Dutch homesteads existed there in Brooklyn (Breukelen or Breukelund) from as early as 1639 near modern day Willamsburg.
In1652 the town of New Utrecht was established in “Breukelen” (Breukelen in Dutch “broken land” or “marshland” i.e. perhaps meaning hilly or simply land not useful for farming).
The Manatus Map of 1639 clearly shows four large structures which have no Dutch surname appended are likely Nayack or Canarsee native American encampments or farming sites. Furthermore, these mapped features are not itemized as “Dutch homes or boweries on the list of Dutch properties appende on the Manaus Map.
On the Manatus 1639 map one of these large structures is located in modern day Bensonhurst-Dyker Heights which were the later developments which eventually engulfed the old Dutch village of New Utrecht The likely Lenape Canarsie Indian structures on the 1639 map are just northwest of the coastal inlet depicted on the Manatus map. However, the copy of the Manatus map available to this author does not make this distinction clear.
In1657 the marshy area associated with the marine inlet was annexed as part of the 1652 purchase of New Utrecht by Cornelius Van Werkehoven. This region was to become one of the original six Dutch villages in what would later become New Utrecht and Brooklyn.
Breukelen of1639 had a smattering of boweries or homesteads or farms in the area. Much of it appears to remain wooded (based on the green color pattern on the Manatus Map.) There are faint indications of pathways. Apparently the native Canarsee or Nyack tribe still resided in the area, though their occupation was likely seasonal. The map maker may have included the location of native habitations as well as locations of Dutch occupation. These may be represented as unusual “longhouse” like structures indicated by the map’s author at several sites on the map. These sites do not appear to on the list of Dutch properties. Though there are indecipherable indications of ownership along side of each of the four “longhouse” properties.. on this author’s copy. Could this be the occupation site of the Nayack tribe that later sold New Utrecht to Cornelius Van Werkehoven in 1652?
North-south pathways are indicated of the Manatus Map. It is likely that the first roadways were established along these Native American footpaths. Perhaps in 1652 when Cornelius Van Werkhoven had the site for New Utrecht mapped out and subdivided, Main Street of New Utrecht was simply laid out along one of these early footpaths. That would explain why it is oriented along an azimuth of N 50 deg W, rather than a standard and common N-S or E-W direction.
The following are names of Dutch owners of properties listed on the Manatus Map:
Cornelius Lambertsen Cool owned a homestead located near Gowanus.
Jakob Soffelsen lived near Bushwick,
C Swits was located in Flatbush,
Areies Hudde and Wolfert Gerritsen in New Amesfoort or Flatlands,
Fred Lubbertsen was located in Red Hook or Gowanus
Hendrick Petersen’s bowerie was sited in Wallabout Bay near the eventual site if the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
Jan Eversen Bout’s bowerie was located near Willamsberg or Bushwick
Jakob Corlaer in vicinity of Wallabout Bay
Apparently there were homesteads and farms spread about the region, some in Brooklyn as well. Canarsee Indians still lived there in 1652 based on the fact of the purchase of land from the Nayacks to establish New Utrecht on that date. One of the “longhouse” symbols with a name written near it (undecipherable) is halfway between the north (Dyker Park inlet) and the Bensonhurst Park inlet. That would be very close to the location of the New Utrecht village site.
“New Utrecht was one of the original six Dutch towns settled in what is now Brooklyn, New York. It was founded in1652 by Cornelis van Werckhoven, a Dutch immigrant from Utrecht in the Netherlands. Van Werckhoven, a magistrate of the Dutch West India Company, acquired land from the local Lenape people and sought to establish a prosperous farming community. However, he died shortly after, and the settlement was developed by his associates.
In 1664, the English seized control of New Netherland, including New Utrecht, and incorporated it into the Province of New York. Despite the change in rule, Dutch cultural and architectural influences remained strong in the area for many years.
During the American Revolution, New Utrecht was occupied by British forces, and the area played a role in the Battle of Long Island in 1776. A key historic site in New Utrecht is the New Utrecht Reformed Church, which was established in 1677 and later rebuilt in 1828. The church’s cemetery contains graves of Revolutionary War soldiers.
By the 19th and early 20th centuries, New Utrecht became more urbanized and was officially annexed into Brooklyn in 1894, before Brooklyn itself became part of New York City in 1898. Today, remnants of its Dutch past can still be found in street names, landmarks, and the New Utrecht Reformed Church.”
Anonymous
Call me a traditionalist or blame me for conservatism, but I think we should honor these Dutch roots of ours. Why not abandon the meaningless Bensonhurst designation —named after a local developer—we have so many of those—and rename that area New Utrecht as it was in 1652.
NEW UTRECHT HISTORY
The following information has been sources from “Gotham”, (A history of New York to 1898) by Edwin Burroughs and Mike Wallace (Oxford University Press 1998..
1639 in New Amsterdam
The first settlers in New Utrecht may have been undesireable residents expelled from New Amsterdam for immoral behavior..
There were few women in New Amsterdam and the single men of the garrison were often drunk, getting into brawls and causing destruction of property. In 1638 the Goverenor’s Councilhired a Nickolas Corn as company sergeant to control the men at arms. But the few women in the colony also caused disturbances of propriety. 1639 Gretchen Reyniers who was married to Anthony “the Turk” Jansen was reported to the Calvinist oversees as being indecorous. Her name got into the history books as a woman of questionable morality when she was accused of measuring the length of the sex organs of several sailors with the use of a broomstick. Her misbehavior and that of her husband eventually led to their being expelled by the council in 1639 from Manhattan Island (New Amsterdam). They simply took up residence across the East River in Brooklyn in an area which would later become New Utrecht. They cleared land and took up farming in New Utrecht, where their plantation was known form many years as Turk’s Plantaion. It is likely that they grew turnips, potatoes, tobacco and other crops that they sold to the New Amsterdam colony.
- The indigenous people’s concept of land:ownership was at odds withy that of the Europeans. The transaction was complicated by the contrasting views of land possession. The Nayacks held a collective, non-proprietary concept of land, and the initial sale did not lead to their immediate departure.
- The second exchange: To facilitate their relocation, van Werkhoven paid the Nayacks a second time, with additional goods again in multiple of six including coats, kettles, mirrors, and more knives. After this, the Nayacks moved to Staten Island.
In 1664 Lysbet Antoniosent is punished to be burned at a stake for burning down her master’s house in New Utrecht.
Lysabet was a child of black slaves who had been partly manumitted by the Antoniosent family. The Antoniosent family apparently lived in New Utrecht at this date. Lysbet, was tried and sentenced to be chained to a stake, strangled and then burned for her crime of burning down the Antoniosent house. On the date of her execution in 1664 the council commuted her sentence. Was she set free, or continued in slavery? We can conclude that at this date slaves were common in New Utrecht and crimes were punished severely.
1665
Peach War
- September 15, 1655: Several hundred Munsee warriors, in 64 war canoes accompanied by a Susquehannock sachem, landed in New Amsterdam and caused damage and disruption, but no initial fatalities.
- The shooting of Hendrick van Dyck: As the Munsee were preparing to depart, Hendrick van Dyck was shot and wounded with an arrow.
- Dutch response and ensuing skirmish: New Netherland's fiscal, Cornelis van Tienhoven, ordered the guard to open fire, leading to the deaths of three Munsee and three colonists.
- Attacks on Pavonia and Staten Island: Following the skirmish, a group of Munsee attacked Pavonia (present-day Hoboken/Jersey City), and another group raided Staten Island.
- Casualties and destruction: Director-General Peter Stuyvesant later reported that 40 colonists were killed and 100, mostly women and children, were taken captive. 28 farms were destroyed, 12,000 skipples of grain were burned, and 500 head of cattle were killed or taken.
- * Much of the above is taken from the excellent book “The Island at the Center of the World” by Russel Shorto. And equally impressive “Gotham” by .Burroughs and Wallace.
