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The explosion of research into the lives of the Black inhabitants of the Dutch colony of New Netherland in recent years inspired this program. This special program brings together scholars who are at the cutting edge of this work. When did the first people of African descent arrive in New Netherland, how did they live once there and for years after, and what constituted slavery in the colony?  NNI and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society are pleased to co-host this program that takes the place of the annual New Netherland Institute Conference. 

October 23rd

2 pm Opening and Welcomes, 2:10 pm Featured Speaker 

Dr. Andrea Mosterman, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Orleans, will give the keynote address, on the topic of her newly released book, Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York.  

Followed by: 

Panel discussion moderated by Lavada Nahon, culinary and cultural historian, featuring: 

Dr. Nicole Maskiell, Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, author of the forthcoming Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry 

Dr. Jaap Jacobs, Honorary Reader at the University of St. Andrews, author of a soon-to-be-published article about the first Blacks in New Amsterdam; and  

Debra Bruno, author of a recent Washington Post article about her search for her slave-owning ancestors.  

Sponsored by NNI and NYG&B in collaboration with the New Amsterdam History Center and the New York State Department of Education Office of Cultural Education. 

To register (for free!) click here

On September 15, Dr. Deborah Hamer hosted the first seminar in NNI’s 2021 fall series for scholars of early America and the Atlantic world.  Dr. Evan Haefeli’s pre-circulated paper, “Forging Peace Despite the Covenant Chain: The Delaware Indian Scare of 1694” was discussed by a group of over 20 participants.  Other seminars will be held October 13, November 17, and December 15, from 12 to 2pm (ET).  A copy of each manuscript to be discussed, and the Zoom link to attend, can be requested up to a week in advance by emailing NNI.Seminar@gmail.com. Attendees are expected to have read the work in advance of the seminar.  Scholars of all ranks, including graduate students, are warmly welcomed to attend and contribute to the discussions.  Future speakers and topics are:

 10/13 – Dr. Erin Kramer, Trinity University, “Brother Corlaer's New House: Reorienting Mohawk-Dutch Spaces, 1660—1686."

 11/17 – Dr. Mark Thompson, University of Groningen, “Mattahorn’s Dilemma.”

 12/15 – Dr. Wim Klooster, Clark University, “A Petition to Keep New Netherland: Amsterdam’s Fear of English Ascendancy.”

From September 28 to November 2, 5:30 to 7pm (ET), the Gotham Center is offering six 90-minute sessions centered on “Nieuw Amsterdam: Myth and Meaning in Gotham’s Dutch Past.”  The Dutch colony of New Netherland had a profound influence on what became New York, yet its significance has been obscured by centuries of myth, misinterpretation, and marginalization. The purpose of this seminar is to share the new view of New York’s beginnings with a wider audience, and to explore its influence on later American history.  The seminar will be moderated by Russell Shorto and Dr. Dennis Maika. The moderators will be joined in each session by other New Netherland historians who will discuss their respective areas of specialization in a lively, engaging format.

For more information, click here

On November 9, 6 to 7:30pm (ET), the New Amsterdam History Center and the Center for Brooklyn History are offering a program entitled “The Early Dutch in Brooklyn”. It will focus on the New Netherland years, the history of Dutch settlement in the area between the Narrows and Coney Island in Brooklyn, on certain tensions that arose between the Dutch and English, and will update the story of Anthony van Salée, the first New Netherland resident of Muslim background, and his feisty wife Grietje. Their speakers will be Professor Alan Mikhail of Yale University, and Professor Eric Platt of St. Francis College in Brooklyn. This in-person event (Covid permitting) will take place at the Brooklyn Public Library.

For more information, click here

On November 22, 2021 from 6:30 to 8pm (ET), the Gotham Center will present “A History of Slavery and Resistance in New Amsterdam.”  In her new book, Spaces of Enslavement, Dr. Andrea Mosterman addresses the persistent myth that the Dutch were more humane slaveowners. Investigating practices in New Netherland and the founding colony that became New York, the historian of the early US and Atlantic world shows that slavery in the old city held much in common with the southern plantation. Detailing how the movement of enslaved persons was controlled in both homes and public spaces like workshops, courts, and churches, the work also explores how the enslaved responded by escaping from or modifying those spaces. Stretching across the 17th and 18th centuries, Mosterman interrogates how the region's Dutch communities engaged in a daily struggle with Black New Yorkers who consistently found ways to resist oppression and claim spaces of freedom.  Joining her in conversation is Dr. Nicole Maskiell, Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina and author of a forthcoming book comparing the development of elite northern culture by examining the social and kinship networks intertwining enslavers and the enslaved.

For more information, click here

From January 5 through 8, 2022, the Society for Historical Archaeology is hosting its annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology in Philadelphia, with a theme of “Enduring and Elusive Freedoms.”  NNRC director Dr. Charles Gehring is giving a talk on the archaeology of New Netherland.

For more information, click here

In 2013 the New Netherland Institute awarded Ruth Piwonka the coveted Alice P. Kenney Memorial Award for her contributions in research and writing on the Dutch colonial experience in North America. The NNIʼs presentation to Ruth of this award, named after her friend Alice Kenney, speaks volumes of the esteem Ruth garnered among scholars. Ruth’s untimely passing on August 2, 2021, is a truly tragic loss to New Netherland studies, the scholarly community, and to me personally. As Kinderhook, New York, town historian Ruth demonstrated how local history adds to our understanding of events in the wider historic narrative. In doing so, she placed the local community into its rightful epical context. Her views substantially enriched the research of others. To call Ruth a ‟local” historian is a misnomer, for her knowledge and influence transcends local and regional to become one of universal import.

Ruth, however, had not been formally trained to be an historian, she held an M.A. in English Literature from Indiana University. But after moving to Kinderhook in 1969 she became fascinated by the history and material culture of her adopted community. Throwing herself into community service, she became actively involved on numerous boards and committees. She was, for example, the first director of the Columbia Land Conservancy, where she fought for the preservation of agricultural and natural open spaces in Columbia County. It is in the realm of historical research and preservation, however, that she is best known. She was a particularly influential force at the Columbia County Historical Society, of which organization she served as executive director in 1976—1983. During this period she published in collaboration with Rod Blackburn A Visible Heritage; Columbia County, New York: A History in Art and Architecture (1977), A Remnant in the Wilderness: New York Dutch Scripture History Paintings of the Early Eighteenth Century (1980), and Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America, 1609—1776 (1988). These wonderful books introduced New Netherland social and material culture to a wide audience.

These works, however, barely touch upon Ruthʼs enormous outpouring of research. Among others are A Portrait of Livingston Manor, 1686—1850 (1986) and, with Arthur Baker, Wooden Churches: Columbia County Legacy (2003); such exhibition catalogs as Views of Mount Merino, South Bay and The City of Hudson (1978), The Landscape of Montgomery Livingston (1816—1855): a Catalogue of His Work (1980), After Church: Artists in Mid-Twentieth Century Columbia County, New York (1997), and Living in Style: Selections from the George Way Collection of Dutch Fine and Decorative Art, and contributions to numerous books as New World Dutch Studies: Dutch Art and Culture in Colonial America, 1609—1776, and journals as The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Hudson Valley Regional Review, and de Halve Maen: Journal of the Holland Society of New York.

Ruth was also a consistent friend, and I was honored to be included among them. We often traveled to Rensselaerswijck conferences and other events together. One truly pleasant scholarly experience was working with Ruth on Marybeth De Filippis’s Bard Graduate Center exhibit, ‟Dutch New York Between East and West: the World of Margrieta van Varick,” and the subsequent volume by that name.

Ruth and I presented a public conversation on Flatbush in the seventeenth century at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan with Peter Miller hosting. Our contrasting personalities resulted in a dynamic and lively discussion and was one of the most satisfying evenings of my life. It was out of this friendship that Ruth helped me to fulfill my life dream. She willingly agreed in 2014 to help establish the Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History in the City of Hudson. She tirelessly aided me through the financial and legal complications of setting the Institute up and faithfully worked on behalf of the Institute’s goals as a Trustee and as Treasurer.

Ruth's interests were broad, ranging from Ancient Egypt to mystery novels. A particular passion of hers were Scottish Deerhounds, serving as the secretary of the Scottish Deerhound Club of America for many years. Often, late at night, I would receive a call from her relating to some new discovery she had made or a new thought she had, whether it was in textiles or in race relations or politics. There will be many from her universe that will grieve her passing. As for myself, I am deeply grateful to have known Ruth as a colleague, companion, confident, and mentor. She and her late-night calls are missed.

In 1996, Arthur made a decision that greatly influenced the future of the New Netherland Project. He invited me, a female fellow Dutch countryman, to live in his house in Schodack, NY. He even looked me up in the Netherlands to make sure I understood he was quite serious about his offer. Apparently, he trusted me not to rob him or abuse his hospitality. And, also important, being somewhat familiar with the work of Crailo Historic Site, he probably hoped and expected that I would continue work in the New Netherland Project’s undertaking of translating the Dutch seventeenth-century documents in the New York State Archives. I ended up making use of his offer and moved in on Fountain Way.

Not only was Arthur’s proposal to me a great gesture of trust, hospitality, and friendship but it also showed how much he, a scholar himself in the field of chemistry, valued scholarship where it concerned the research of the period where American and Dutch history came together —the history of his country of residence and his native country.

By 1996, Charles Gehring had worked some twenty-two years on the documents and I had joined him in 1984/85. After Arthur’s offer, it turned out that Charly and I would continue to work together for another twenty-four years. In those years several NEH proposals and performance reports were written; seven volumes of translations, a book on 17th-century Albany, and one on Kiliaen van Rensselaer were published along with a good quantity of articles.  History and Dutch language courses were taught, numerous talks and interviews were given, seminars were organized and meetings attended, and the transcription of all Dutch documents (in addition to many more of other repositories) was finished. All I can do is hope that Arthur’s choice of supporting the NNP (now named NNRC—New Netherland Research Center) in such a personal way was not put to shame.

In addition to securing the Dutch element of the NNP, Arthur also became a member of the Project’s support group, the Friends of the New Netherland Project (later named the Friends of New Netherland and, since 2009, the New Netherland Institute), of which he remained a board member until his death, joining such committees as the Kenney Award committee. As much as he enjoyed the social aspect of the Project’s annual seminar, the Friends’ Hendricks Manuscript Award Dinner, its annual meeting, and all of the other events and the NNI meetings (plus following lunches)—for him the documents and their translation always remained the basis of all of it.

As a personal note: I feel lucky to have known Arthur for so long. He has been a true example of a person who loved life and lived it to the fullest. His great sense of humor, the seriousness with which he worked and cared for scholarly work, his love for America’s nature but also for the Netherlands and Amsterdam, his love for hiking—whether that was on one of his great travels in far-away-countries or in Schodack Town Park, his love for world-famous orchestras as well as the local symphony, his pleasure in eating a fantastic dinner in a good restaurant accompanied by a perfect glass of wine but also immensely enjoying a plate of stamppot andijvie or boerenkool with a meatball at home, and especially his enthusiasm for the things he did was truly inspirational. Hardly any snowstorm or hurricane could keep him away from his work at RPI, the tennis match he would play with his club, going to a concert, participating in his reading club and attending the NNI meetings, even though once in a while in winter he and his Subaru would end up in the high snow banks on the side of his often slippery driveway up the hill to his house on Fountain Way.

I am grateful to have been a small part in Arthur’s life and for the chance he offered Charly and me to keep working together on opening up a sliver of America’s and the Netherlands’ history.