Congratulations to Joyce D. Goodfriend, winner of the 2019 Annual Hendricks Award for her book Who Should Rule at Home? Confronting the British Elite in New York City. As the award committee wrote, "Capping off a life-long study of early New York and in particular the history of the Dutch and their influence in the colony and city, Goodfriend has written a stimulating, deeply imaginative, revisionist history that will become the standard work for understanding society and culture in eighteenth-century New York City for years to come."

Usually considered a southern issue, slavery played a surprisingly large role in colonial and revolutionary era New York. In this talk, Travis Bowman, Senior Curator of the New York State Bureau of Historic Sites, will examine how slavery evolved in New York under the Dutch, British, and American systems of government and how the institution functioned at a local and personal level among middle class farmers in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys. 

September 12, 2019, 6–7:30pm

Thanks to generous support from the Kenney estate, the New Netherland Institute is offering, for the first time in 2019, the Alice P. Kenney Travel Scholarship, which will help cover travel costs for "students" to attend our 42nd Annual Conference at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY on October 5. Current enrollment in an academic program is not required.

Curious if you are eligible? Just ask.

Through sixty-seven works of art organized thematically, In Praise of Painting orients visitors to key issues in seventeenth-century Dutch culture—from debates about religion and conspicuous consumption to painters' fascination with the domestic lives of women.

Until October 4, 2020

In the twenty-first century, histories of New York are plentiful. In the eighteenth century there was only one: William Smith Jr’s The history of the province of New-York, from the first discovery to the year 1732: to which is annexed a description of the country with a short account of the inhabitants, their religious and political state, and the constitution of the courts of justice in that colony, published in 1757.

Polymath and politician Cadwallader Colden (pictured) was no fan of Smith’s work and wrote a series of letters to his son (Colden’s, not Smith's) detailing his complaints. Colden's remarks on the Dutch in a 1759 letter are an interesting window into the memories of New Netherland at that time. Nearly 100 years after they were signed, the 1664 Articles of Surrender/Transfer were still politically releveant. “The Dutch in this Province it is probable think the Articles of Surrender are still in force and that any breach of them is a piece of injustice to them," wrote Colden.  That he took the time to make a list of reasons (3 items) of why the Articles were no longer in effect, indicates that this was more than a fringe belief among New Yorkers.

Colden's letters on Smith are in Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1868.

Charly Gehring reports that “the memory of our good friend and supporter Kees-Jan Waterman, who recently died in the prime of life, will live on at the NNRC's library through the generous donation of his Dutch-language reference books by his wife Karlijn.” Kees was the 2007 Annual Hendricks Award winner for his book To Do Justice to Him & Myself: Evert Wendell's Account Book of the Fur Trade with Indians in Albany, New York, 1695–1726.

The Jacob Leisler Institute received his English-language collection of books relating to the colonial European-Indian interaction in the Hudson River Valley. Acquisition of this collection was made possible by Kees-Jan Waterman’s heirs and through the support of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.

2019 marks the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt van Rijn, the greatest master of the Dutch Golden Age. Several cultural institutions in the Netherlands will commemorate Rembrandt’s legacy with special events and exhibitions.

Talking with Charly over coffee this past month, New Netherland came up as it often does. “Did you know,” he said, “that 347 years ago on the 8th of August 1672 Alexander d'Hiniyossa, former director of Nieuw Amstel, Amsterdam's colony on the South River, was beheaded at Edam for inciting the unit under his command to mutiny at Wesel during the Third Anglo-Dutch War?” D’Hiniyossa was a veteran of the Dutch West India Company’s war to conquer Brazil. As director of Nieuw Amstel, he was considered by some to be a harsh ruler and developed a strained relationship with Willem Beeckman, commander of the Dutch West India Company at Fort Altena (Fort Christina under the Swedes). To read more about their relationship and what was happening in Delaware, Charly recommends you read volumes XVIII–IX, Delaware Papers (Dutch Period) available in print and online. As director, D'Hiniyossa was carrying out a successful business with the English in Maryland and the future of Nieuw Amstel looked promising. This was not to last, and on September 30, 1664 things changed dramatically. To find out about what happened, Charly suggests you read L. F. Tantillo’s account in his beautifully-illustrated The Edge of New Netherland.

That’s all for this month—but don’t forget the e-Marcurius comes out monthly, so if you want your item in next month’s issue, please send them to me here. I can also still be reached at Marilyn.Douglas@nysed.gov.

Marilyn Douglas, NNI VP