Join NNI and help tell the story of the Dutch legacy in America.

For more than three decades, the New Netherland Institute (NNI) has helped cast light on America’s long-neglected Dutch roots. Created in 1986 as the Friends of the New Netherland Project, it has supported the transcription, translation, and publication of the 17th-century Dutch colonial records held by the New York State Archives and State Library. These records constitute the world’s largest collection of original documentation of the Dutch West India Company and its New World colonies. They represent an irreplaceable resource for researchers exploring this important chapter in American history, with its legacy of cultural traditions, and its qualities of tolerance, diversity, and entrepreneurship.

As an independent, non-profit organization, NNI supports the New Netherland Research Center (NNRC) in partnership with the New York State Office of Cultural Education (OCE), the parent agency of the State Library, State Archives, and State Museum. In 2009 Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Willem Alexander and Princess Máxima of the Netherlands visited Albany to launch the NNRC with a three-year matching grant to NNI. In conjunction with the grant, the OCE participates in the International Mutual Cultural Heritage Program of the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands. This international collaboration of nations and states that hold collections of Dutch colonial materials is working to make the documentation of the Dutch West India Company in all its possessions around the Atlantic rim accessible for study worldwide.

NNI is registered with the U.S. Treasury Department as a tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) organization. A copy of the Institute’s latest annual filing may be obtained from the Institute directly or from the Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.