|
|
|
Book Reviews
Revisiting New Netherland: Perspectives on Early Dutch America.
Edited by Joyce Goodfriend. Vol. 4, The Atlantic World: Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500–1830 Series. (Leiden, the Netherlands, and Boston, Mass.: Brill, 2005. Pp. 345. $176.00.)
Reviewed by Martha Dickinson Shattuck, New Netherland Project, Albany, New York.
| The English long had their eye on taking over the Dutch colony of New Netherland in order to rid America of the Dutch presence between New England and Virginia and to get control of its important seaport at New Amsterdam. The first conquest attempt during the First Anglo-Dutch War was aborted when peace was declared between England and the Netherlands in 1654. However, the attack in 1664 just before the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War was successful and England took over the 350-mile-long Dutch colony. Then, in 1673 the Dutch, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, took back the colony, to the joy of its Dutch inhabitants, only to cede it to the English in favor of Surinam in the Treaty of Westminster in 1674. On hearing the news, the patroon of Rensselaerswijck, Jeremias van Rensselaer, wrote to his brother in Holland in August 1674 as he awaited the English arrival, saying, "We expect here every day that we shall have to become English." |
1
|
|
The reality of Van Rensselaer's doleful comment is reflected by Joyce Goodfriend, the editor of Revisiting New Netherland: Perspectives on Early Dutch America, in her informative introduction to the book's twelve articles. In 1674 the Dutch, she suggests " ... surrendered control over not only the sword, but the pen" (p. 1). It was the English pen put to paper that centered the national origins in Massachusetts Bay and Virginia, thus marginalizing the Dutch presence in the story of America's beginnings. However, Goodfriend notes that this Anglocentric historical view has been weakened with the movement in cultural studies toward questioning old truisms and the revisiting of colonial history within the broader perspective of Atlantic history, thus providing avenues of inclusion for Dutch history in the "master narrative of seventeenth-century American history" (p. 4). The book's articles are some of the papers presented at a conference called "New Netherland at the Millennium: The State of New World Dutch Studies" which was held in New York City in October 2001. While they are examples of the current New Netherland scholarship, the rich historiography of prior decades has not been neglected. Fortunately, David Voorhees's thoughtful discussion of many of the publications up to the time of the conference amply refutes any idea that scholarly activities heretofore have been minimal, while pointing out the many, and diverse, areas that still need examining. Charles Gehring, director and translator of the New Netherland Project, provides not only the history of the Dutch documents, but also a useful and thorough examination of the broad range of sources available for research. |
2
|
|
Genealogy is perhaps an under-used source for historians. As Harry Macy, Jr., points out, well-researched genealogy can be very helpful in the historical understanding of family and its place in society. Historians are also well served by his discussion of reliable sources and the needs within the discipline. Firth Fabend points to the value of genealogy in her detailed historiographic assessment of past publications and suggestions of future needs concerning women and the family in New Netherland. The potential for genealogy in the historian's work is in ample evidence in biographies of two New Netherland directors. Willem Frijhoff investigates the family background of the much-maligned Willem Kieft, while Jaap Jacobs situates Petrus Stuyvesant's early years within the context of the biography of his Reformed minister father. The use of extensive genealogical research in these essays leads to a detailed examination of the background of both men and their families. The results suggest aspects of their personalities that could help to enlarge the understanding of their governing styles. |
3
|
|
Dennis Maika's and Simon Middleton's essays move the dialogue into the civic arena in New Amsterdam. Maika provides a thorough background on the chartering of New Amsterdam's municipal government in 1653, followed four years later by the adoption of the Great and Small Burgher Rights, which followed the practice in Amsterdam. For a fee, the rights defined a resident's position and privileges in Manhattan. The great burgher right included the elite of the island, such as leading merchants with overseas connections, and former and current members of the local court that also held the right to admit new citizens. The small burgher right included small traders, shopkeepers, and craftsmen. Simon Middleton argues that the craftsmen and tradesmen who held the small burgher right worked not just at the behest of the elite great burgher right holders. Rather, "the regulation of artisanal trade" was effected by a dialogue between their leaders and the local government "in which public duties were balanced by privileges claimed by ordinary burghers" (p. 141). |
4
|
|
Wim Klooster and Richard Waldron reach across the Atlantic to examine the establishment of New Netherland and New Sweden from a European perspective. Klooster maintains that New Netherland held little importance in the West India Company's plans; it was of no military use in the actions with Spain, and farming and fur trading did not bring enough profits to the company coffers to make continued support a realistic option. Richard Waldron looks at the Dutch and the Swedish competition for the Delaware River through a discussion of the Swedish reasoning behind the establishment of their colony of New Sweden. |
5
|
|
Through time, the face of the Dutch presence in American history has taken on various expressions, not all of them accurate. Annette Stott suggests that one of the ways to understand how people envisioned the Dutch is through the pictorial images of the nineteenth century. Her sound research clearly reveals that these images had more to do with wishful thinking than actuality. Bertrand van Ruymbeke's informative article unlaces the ties that, inaccurately, bound two groups together in nineteenth- and twentieth-century histories. With a careful use of European history of the Huguenots and Walloons, Van Ruymbeke clarifies the difference between the two and their place in New Netherland's history. |
6
|
|
In sum, these important essays provide new insights into New Netherland's history. Moreover, by adding other dimensions to prior scholarship, they strengthen the foundation for further studies. |
7
|
|
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|