Gotham Center Discussion Boards / 1624 or 1625?

admin · 2008-07-22 10:41:12

"New York Times" Editorial, Published July 17, 2008, in response to a Sam Roberts podcast several days before.
A transcript of the podcast can be found here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/should-the-city-seal-be-redesigned/#more-3412

1625, More or Less

1625 was probably a very nice year, as years in the early 17th century went. It contained some weather. Many people were born and died, including, among the latter, King James I of England. Perhaps the best-known thing that did not happen in 1625 is the founding of New Amsterdam, better known as New York — yet the date 1625 is what appears on both the New York City seal and flag.

Dutch settlers arrived on Governors Island in 1623 or 1624 — and the island of Manhattan was purchased from its native inhabitants in 1626. As Sam Roberts noted in The Times this week, the decision to enshrine 1625 was made only in 1974. It was proposed by Paul O’Dwyer, the Anglophobic City Council president, who was determined to deny the British (who took control of New Amsterdam in 1664 and renamed it New York) any glory in New York’s founding, even 300-plus years after the fact. Mr. O’Dwyer said he chose 1625 because it was the year that the Dutch West India Company designated New Amsterdam “as the seat of government for all lands held by the Netherlands in this continent.�

This historical error should be corrected, by all means. But given the complex early history of New York — a multiethnic settlement from the very beginning, whenever that was — there seems little point in choosing any particular year as the date of the city’s founding. After all, this is a city that has been founded over and over, a city that is constantly reinventing itself, a place where even an intricate past can look like the blank slate necessary for a new beginning.

admin · 2008-07-22 11:45:27

Joep de Koning of www.TolerancePark.org and www.GovernosIslandToleranceMonument.com said this:

NY City was established in 1625, not by incidental activity, but by deliberate decision of a governing council. Based on your suggestion of people first arriving and staying? (how long?), the date would be 1613 because Jan Rodrigues, as Adriaen Block’s factor, resided on Governors Island from May 1613 through December 1613. The 1624 settlers to Governors Island were specifically instructed to secure the great rivers of New Netherland so named first in 1614 on a map produced by the Amsterdam explorer and fur trader Adriaen Block in order to receive a trading patent from the States General. Hence these settlers were distributed along the various designated places in or at the Delaware, Hudson and Connecticut rivers. By thus taking possession, the New Netherland territory was established as an extension and province of the Dutch Republic where its laws and ordinances became legally binding. That legal-political condition was placed in 1624 on Governors Island with the first instructions to the first settlers to the region. Because no permanent settlement had as yet been selected in 1624 for New Netherland’s capitol, Fort Amsterdam, the date of 1624 cannot be used as the birth date of New York City except as the birth date of New York State or the Province of New Netherland.

admin · 2008-07-22 11:46:52

Kenneth T. Jackson of Columbia University said this:

I believe an equally good argument could be made for 1624 because Governors Island is as much a part of NYC as Manhattan and is only a few hundred yards south of the Battery, a distance even I could swim.

admin · 2008-07-22 11:49:36

Kenneth T. Jackson of Columbia University went on to say:

Certainly no one knows the ins and outs of Dutch government and settlement in New Netherland better than Joep, and I am surely not qualified to debate him. I am willing to accept his definition of 1625 if only because we have to choose some date and because there is ample justification for 1625. But Joep tends to put things in terms of Dutch law, as if settlements in history always date from legislation or fiat. Why should the English or the Indians or the French be so concerned about Dutch law. When New Amsterdam got in the way of the British, the Royal Navy took Manhattan, whether legally or not. And the Americans took it away from the British in 1783, not because of legislation but because General Conrwallis surrendered at Yorktown.

My argument is simple. European settlement in North America was by definition illegal, and high minded pronouncements from Amsterdam can never change that basic fact. The Indians were essentially destroyed by the Dutch so let us not spend so much time worrying about how the Dutch justified their self-serving actions. We should instead ignore legal pronouncements and focus on what happened in the real world. In 1613, the Dutch remained only a few months; in 1624 some of them remained permanently and then simply shifted their operations to another place that also happened to be in what we now call NYC. Dutch intentions are not always the point; their actions should merit our attention also.

I admire what the Dutch accomplished in the new world as much as Joep does and think that New York has much to teach the world about toleration and living together in peace. But we do not help the cause by overstating the case or by focusing on issues as trivial as whether to focus on 1624, 1625, or 1626. None of those dates are ever going to impress the Indians, other Europeans, South and Central Americans, or Asians.

From my perspective, the real issue is that most Americans, and perhaps even most New Yorkers, have no idea that the Dutch had anything at all to do with early American history. If we argue about the small stuff, the larger story will never be known.

admin · 2008-07-22 11:51:14

Joep de Koning of www.TolerancePark.org and www.GovernorsIslandToleranceMuseum.com said:

Upon birth one is usually given a name. If one changes his/her name later, one’s date of birth, one’s birthplace and one’s character are not changed. One’s innate personality – in spite of carrying another name and perhaps facing new external challenges – may blossom and flourish in the same way that great persons already had the seeds of greatness often at birth– in their DNA.

The name “Amsterdam� was given in 1625 upon the birth of the fort on Manhattan Island in 1625. The birth of the “Province New Netherland� – which gave the NY Tri-State region its specific [legal-cultural] DNA – occurred on Governors Island in 1624. These events, forever, distinguished the New York Tri-State culture from the neighboring cultures of Virginia and New England.

admin · 2008-07-22 11:53:07

Michael Miscione, Manhattan Borough Historian, said:

As the one who prompted this controversy -- I mentioned to Sam Roberts that the date on the seal/flag was in dispute while he was working on another story -- I want to say that I am thrilled by the robust and thought-provoking e-discussion that has taken place here and elsewhere. (Jeop & Ken are not the only ones who have shared their opinions with me, btw. I have heard from others outside this thread. Several of those, incidentally, dismiss the whole 1624 vs 1625 debate outright, and want to see a entirely different date used.)

Since I consider my primary role as Borough Historian to be a NYC history booster, it breaks my heart that this lively discussion is taking place privately, and not out where the public could enjoy it. Therefore, at the suggestion of Arthur Piccolo of the Bowling Green Association, I am going to try to organize a good-natured but fact-filled PUBLIC DEBATE on this topic. Each camp (and there would be several) would have an opportunity to make a case for its date choice, and maybe challenge the other camps too. There might even be a camp that says that NO date should be used because any one would be entirely arbitrary (Ken?). It would be a purely academic exercise, but one with the makings of great theater, I think.

admin · 2008-07-22 11:57:34

Kenneth T. Jackson of Columbia University said:

A perfect metaphor. A birth is a physical fact and has nothing to do with whether or not someone or some government gives a name to a place, a cat, or a person. So Fort Amsterdam got a name in 1625. But in 1624 a group of people landed on Governors Island and decided to stay, shifting their residence the next year a couple of hundred yards to the north. After having traversed the Atlantic Ocean with all of its perils, I doubt those seafaring people would have regarded the distance from Governors Island to the Battery to be much of a trip.

admin · 2008-07-22 11:59:42

Joep de Koning of www.TolerancePark.org and www.GovernorsIslandToleranceMonument.com said:

[Kenneth T. Jackson wrote:]
A birth is a physical fact and has nothing to do with whether or not someone or some government gives a name to a place, a cat, or a person.

[Joep de Koning continued:]
Fort Amsterdam as capitol and capital of the Province New Netherland was born and named in 1625:

Cryn Fredericxsz, engineer and surveyor, was authorized and instructed to build Fort Amsterdam - a physical fact - and was given “specific� instructions on April 25, 1625, that he was “to build a fortification and housing� immediately upon arrival...when the best possible place by the Council is selected.�

One may agree that one doesn't establish a capitol - a structure for a law-making body - when there is no region to which laws can be applied and administered. The laws and ordinances of the states of Holland and Zeeland were incorporated by reference in the instructions to the first settlers and were to apply to the New Netherland Province (incorporation by reference is still common practice today) founded on Governors Island in 1624.

The first law of New Netherland Province was specifically mentioned in the instructions and reads as follows:

"In het administreren van Justicie, cas van huwelycke successien ende contracten sullen voor eerst ghevolcht ende naeghecomen werden, de ordonnantien ende costumen van Hollant ende Zeelant ende die casserende ghemeene beschreven wetten, oock namentlyck in cas van successien ab intestato Het Placcaet vande grootmoghende Heeren Staeten van Hollant gheemaneert inden jaere 1587, waer van hen eenighe dubbelden toeghesonden werden." etc.

Charly Gehring will doubtlessly be able to give you the perfect translation.

admin · 2008-07-22 12:04:42

Kenneth T. Jackson of Columbia University said:

Being designated as a capitol or capital has little to do with the birth of a city, as at least 90 percent of the world's urban places are not capitals and never have been. Interestingly, New York is now regarded as the capital of the world even though it is not technically the capital of anything.

Obviously, I would not argue that New York, or New Amsterdam or Fort Amsterdam, was a capitol before 1625. I am just suggesting, in what I hope is a jovial sort of way, that if you visited the harbor in the winter of 1624/1625 you could have said hello to a person who was not an Indian. And of course our whole argument has a racist tinge
because there were human beings on Manhattan (itself an interesting point because most of what is now the United States was essentially unoccupied in 1600). The question, I think, is when in a comparative sense did white Europeans first colonize those places we now regard as cities in the US. Some of them disappeared (Jamestown, Plymouth), others did not grow until the twentieth century (St. Augustine, Santa Fe), and a few became major centers (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, Baltimore, etc). And among those few, New Amsterdam was settled first. And it grew because it was a great harbor with a great river to the interior and so on. It does not make a lot of difference whether the first settlement was on Staten Island, or Brooklyn, or Jersey City, or Governors Island, or Manhattan, or what. Once found,
this was going to be a world city because its natural advantages over its competitors were overwhelming. I think it matters that the Dutch established early traditions of toleration, aspiration, and diversity that have characterized this place ever since.

By the way, I just looked up, unsuccessfully, the name of the place where Virginia Dare was born (Roanoke?) and I checked the colonial entry in the Oxford Companion to American History. Unbelievably, but typically, it does not even mention the Dutch. It has a passing mention of New York, listed of course after Boston, where the Puritans did not get off the boat until 1630.

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-23 20:58:37

[Kenneth t. Jackson wrote:} I think it matters that the Dutch
established early traditions of toleration, aspirtation, and diversity
that have characterized this place ever since.

[Joep de Koning continued:] Historians,

My previous e-mails should point out that viewing the Dutch-American colonial history via obsolete or standard assumptions - often no more than opinions - don't hold water because one can't possibly understand that history through the glasses of what happened at Jamestown or New Plymouth. The storied reasoning pertaining to these settlements, therefore, has no bearing on what lies behind the very well planned settlement in 1624 to Governors Island.

As previously noted by some of you, Dutch-American colonial history is ignored or simply doesn't exist. And where it rises its head or is mentioned, it is reduced to erroneous or contemptuous storytelling with little basis in historical fact. Gross distortions or pure inventions are the order of the day. They amount to nothing more than judgmental beliefs or politically convenient rhetoric - often because "it sells."

As historians we should not be concerned with approaches that undermine the truth but should try to follow a road in the pursuit of historical truth in order to come to historical understanding. That takes work - broad and deep archival work rather than drawing on flimsy secondary, culturally prejudiced information.

For example, can historians in the year 2300 talk intelligently about New York's culture in 2000 by reviewing only the pronouncements of Mayor Rudy Giuliani or dishing up stories by drawing on the police blotter or Court minutes exclusively?

That the laws and ordinances of the Dutch Republic pertained to the New Netherland Province in 1624 is indeed very important. That they were upheld in spite of the difficulty in efficient communications because of distance is also very important. That de Court resided in Fort Amsterdam (i.e., capitol) is very important. Why? Because that was the only basis for the above statement: "I think it matters that the Dutch established early traditions of toleration, aspiration, and diversity that have characterized this place ever since." These traditions were established thus.

When Russell Shorto wrote his historical novel "The Island at there Center of the World" I tried to paint the real picture of that history in order to help him place his story in the proper and greater context of what happened here. Because of its relevance to this discussion, I am attaching it herewith.

Whether you are willing to accept my thesis is another matter. What you can't deny though are that the laws, ordinances, regulations, etc. of the Dutch Republic and the West India Company were in full force and in the end adhered to. They formed the rule of law in New Netherland and the culture of the New York Tri-State to this very day.

Joep de Koning
www.GovernorsIslandToleranceMonument.com

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-23 21:07:49

(April 22, 2003) From Joep de Koning to Russell Shorto [His book – Island at the Center of the World – was published by Doubleday, March 2004]:

Placing the role of Van der Donck into the big picture requires that you sketch that big picture first to provide context.

The fact is that people, including often historians, can neither make heads nor tails out of the period and its characters. Even Firth asked me last year “Why was Stuyvesant so intolerant?� Surprisingly, no one seems to know even Stuyvesant’s and Van der Doncks’s respective religions which may shed some light on their personalities. Given that the beginnings of NN (as a province) were rooted in a political/religious independence struggle and that the (sophisticated, not mediaeval) organization of the WIC was directly related to the various factions involved in that struggle, diverse and varied interests and wishes were incorporated in its patent that was negotiated and discussed among many factions over a period of 15 years. Administratively it mirrored the polity of the United Provinces. Stuyvesant’s and Van der Donck’s characters were merely a reflection of that struggle and each represented a particular aspect of the differing interests thus complementing each other into a larger whole. Now, I don’t think that Stuyvesant was personally intolerant; he was however selectively intolerant as a personality trait within the political confines and realities of the day and his orthodox and military upbringing.

In 1606, the States of Holland already envisaged an effort to effectuate a cultural transplantation in non-populated areas of the Western Hemisphere like the Wild Coast (Guyana). (This is the reason that I personally suspect the [secret] mission of Hudson to chart the uncharted coast of North America in order to expressly claim and take possession of the as yet unpopulated territory). The goal of an idealistic “people planting� (with its concomitant result of evangelization), in the end, was not entirely dismissed upon the founding of the WIC in 1621. It remained in article 2 of the 1621 WIC patent (“colonize fertile and unpopulated quarters� ) even though it was (and remained until 1654) an afterthought relative to the WIC’s main military and commercial goal of conquering Brazil and attacking Spanish and Portuguese prizes for military, political and monetary gains. The three pillars of the WIC were therefore trade, colonization and privateering. The motives of colonization, though, had totally different roots, meanings and results with respect to Brazil (the conquest of existing agrarian property with an existing alien settler culture and its commercial exploitation) and New Netherland (an agrarian people planting in a noman land, subsidized by the monopolization and institutionalization of previously private fur trading activities at privately founded fur trading posts in the privately charted NN territory although induced by the Republic’s governing body, the States General, by promising a patent for trade). Nearly all WIC resources (managerial, military and financial) were concentrated on the area were most financial gain could be had (that meant NN got short shrift so long as the “action� was somewhere else).

Therefore, the WIC was a dichotomy as its goals as a military war machine were conflicting (with its secondary goal of promoting a costly agricultural colonization) for a stockholder driven organization even though it was chartered by the States General who had given it delegated sovereign authority. The States General influence was therefore initially minimal but grew steadily the more the WIC required direct help from the States General. The inherent contradictions of the 1621 patent must have made it difficult for the WIC to balance private gain with public good as required for the colonization of New Netherland.

Stuyvesant and Van der Donck were undoubtedly the two most influential personalities of New Netherland and both were true patriots each in their own way. Stuyvesant (most probably an orthodox Calvinist, a counter remonstrant influenced by Gomarus) was a proponent of the military faction of the WIC (as advocated by Prince Maurits=Mauritius River so named by Hudson) which was rooted in the orthodox Calvinist movement/goal to unite all 17 provinces of the Netherlands against Spain whereas Van der Donck was a likely proponent of the (obfuscated) agrarian colonizing goal of the WIC (a liberal Calvinist influenced by Arminius) inspired by Maurits’s father, William the Silent, and believing in transplanting the ideals of the open society founded with the origination of the Dutch Republic and where tolerance and the rule of law would be the real source of strength as opposed to WIC fiat. Stuyvesant, on the other hand, a disciplinarian, believed in a “reformed Protestant� society that required protection from catholic political influences and stood to benefit directly by the reduction of competitive economic forces of the Spanish/Portuguese enemy.

It should be noted that (as far as I can determine) there was and is no 17th century precedent for referring to an overseas territory as a “province� . Just because nobody has noticed it or thought about it previously doesn’t mean that there didn’t exist a legal or cultural distinction between a “colony� and a “province� . There were ample provisioning stations, trading posts and colonies all over the world. Yet, not one of them has ever been referred to as a “Province� wherein a semblance of the United Provinces’s legal political infrastructure prevailed indirectly or directly and wherein the idealistic notions of a republic (like the functioning one of patria) could take hold.

In the development of New Netherland two essential transformations took place;
(1) territorial transformation from a privately charted and claimed, not yet discovered territory (1609, 1614 and 1616) into a “province� whereupon the law of the ship ceased to exist and the law of patria was imposed upon NN (this transformation took place on Governors Island in1624) even though the applicable sovereign and judicial powers, though elementary, had been delegated by the States General to the WIC. This was preceded by an explicit act of recalling all private traders in the territory in 1621 and 1622 setting the stage for the founding of a North American Province; and
(2) Stuyvesant’s personal transformation, after he had no more battles of intolerance to fight, into acquiescing to Van der Donck’s de-facto cultural contribution. As a military authoritarian, rooted in religious orthodoxy, he had seen it as his task to first maintain territorial integrity militarily rather than culturally. Cultural unity to Stuyvesant as a person was only to be achieved institutionally by way of the Calvinist church’s hegemony rather than by the constitutional prerogatives of individual protection that afforded freedom of conscience and religion. When push came to shove, he acted as he was; an obedient servant of both the WIC as well as the States General. He had belonged to the trading faction in the WIC rather than the settler faction as lead by Van der Donck whom he was forced, finally, into accepting because Van der Donck too represented an aspect of the WIC (which in turn reflected the differing forces of the United Provinces) as proven by the success of his appeals on behalf of the citizenry and the backing of the States General.

Religion As the son of an orthodox Calvinist minister Stuyvesant was personally tolerant to those of differing religions as long as they were belonging to the reformed Protestant persuasion. But he was suspicious and personally exclusionary of non-Reformist sects like Lutherans and those Protestants with extremist or radical religious views such as Anabaptists and Quakers as well as those of dubious political allegiances such as Catholics and Jews. In fact, he appeared personally outright fearful of the interspersion among the burghers of a large number of members of a non-Christian alien nation such as Jews. The latter fear was not so much religiously impelled as economically motivated in order to maintain NN’s competitive economic position. It was the Jewish competitive effects on New Amsterdam’s economic success Stuyvesant had in mind when he tried to seek their exclusion by writing to the WIC that “they take the trade to themselves (QUOTE HERE NOT THE RELIGIOUS/ETHNIC EXCLUSION BUT THE TRADE EXCLUSION)� . For him the potential cultural corruption on [Christian] unity (Concordia as still in the seal of Brooklyn) by a competitive non-Christian nation of dubious allegiance over which he would have little control had to be fought. In the end, he was, with the aid of Van der Donck, always overruled by patria and succumbed to accept the predicament of cultural pluralism as embodied in the United Provinces legal-political condition - and now embedded in its overseas North American province. In that, Van der Donck had been Stuyvesant’s antithesis. It were these two strong personalities, complementary to form the whole, who caused the battle for American tolerance to be fought on Manhattan Island. The relevance to the world of this ongoing process for toleration, now on a larger global scale as was seen by the 9/11 event but previously shown in horrific local events as in the 1930’s proves that enduring awareness of the ideology of cultural pluralism and tolerance is the guarantor of individual liberty and Western civilization’s only unifying implement and the extinguisher of inconsiderate hatred and exclusion by some of one group over another.

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-23 21:13:47

[Kenneth T. Jackson wrote:] Being designated as a capitol or capital has little to do with the
birth of a city, as at least 90 percent of the world's urban places
are not capitals and never have been.

[Joep de Koning continued:] There is a simpler way to explain, for the layman perhaps, why the dates 1624 and 1625 are distinctly different and mutually exclusive. It is embedded literally in two events:

(1) In 1624 colonists left Netherland in the ship New Netherland. Upon arrival on Noten Eylant (now Governors Island) they were spread out into the New Netherland territory to take physical possession of it as a province (i.e., Dutch laws to apply): some on Governors Island in New York harbor, some on Burlington Island in the Delaware River, some at Albany up the Hudson River and some at the mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Seabrook.

(2) In 1625, farmers (including five master farmers), a variety of craftsmen and colonists, including a surveyor/fortification engineer, left Amsterdam - the capital of Holland - in the ships named Horse, Cow and Sheep (domestic farm animals) with detailed instructions to built Fort Amsterdam and to lay out the farms perpendicular to it. Netherland-Amsterdam was extrapolated thus to New Netherland-Fort Amsterdam/New Amsterdam (i.e., the capital of the New Netherland province).

These two dates (one for the Province -1624, and one for the Town -1625) completed the cultural transplantation - including laws, ordinances and regulations - of the Dutch Republic to North America.

Joep de Koning
www.TolerancePark.org

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-24 10:07:06

[NY Times reporter Sam Roberts wrote "1624 seemed the most plausible alternative, but most of the people who arrived then were Walloons from what became Belgium. So much for the pretext of honoring the Dutch" on http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/should-the-city-seal-be-redesigned/#more-3412]

[Joep de Koning responded] This is evidence of historical ignorance resulting in fables and gross misunderstanding. Allow me to explain -and stay with me during this process.

After the fall of Antwerp to the Spanish, the Netherlands (plural) - also referred to as the Low Lands or its Latin appellation of Belgium - was split up in a Belgium Regium (under Spanish Royal authority) and Belgium Foederatum (i.e., an independent federal republic also referred to as the Dutch Republic, or United Provinces in 1581).

In these Low Lands or Netherlands, many languages and dialects were spoken in what comprised 17 provinces. But upon independence of the northern part into Belgium Foederatum (Seven Provinces) and also referred to in the Dutch language as Nederland (singular) or Netherland in English, many refugees from religious intolerance under Spanish authority fled to the north since 1568. In the south under Spanish authority they had three years to become catholic or leave Belgium Regium after the fall of Antwerp in 1585.

Wallonia was a region in the south of the Netherlands and the people originating from there were called Walloons where French was spoken. The Walloons - Calvinists - had their own churches in the federal north e.g., in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Leyden. The ones that came to New Netherland (Novum Belgium - see attachment) on the ship New Netherland most likely spoke the Dutch language (as that was the official language for anyone to go anywhere). For example, no language other than the Dutch language was to be used here in all official correspondence. Yes, the 1624 settlers (“mostly Walloon� ) came from the Dutch Republic and were most likely first second or second generation Dutch-speaking Walloons from the Dutch Republic even though they held their church services there in French.

Because, today in America, one may go to a church, mosque or synagogue service in Latin, Spanish, Greek, Hebrew or Arab, doesn't mean one isn't an American. Referring to one's region of origin, many generations ago, doesn't disqualify him/her from being a citizen or permanent resident of the United States. In the same way, the Walloons were as Dutch as anybody else living in the Dutch Republic.

The English and Americans never bothered to adjust to the new historical reality after 1581 and have kept referring to Netherland in the plural form (i.e., The Netherlands) although they do recognize the southern portion of the original Netherlands as just Belgium (now obviously no longer Belgium Regium and independent from Spain).

Again, these two dates (one for the Province -1624, and one for the Town -1625) completed the cultural transplantation - including laws, ordinances and regulations - of the Dutch Republic to North America. Both are VERY IMPORTANT because they delivered the precept of toleration (religious tolerance as the basis for ethnic diversity) as the active dynamic in American freedom to this continent: 1624, the introduction of the legal-political condition of the Dutch Republic to North America; 1625, the construction of Fort Amsterdam as law-making Capitol – wherein housed the Executive to administer justice.

david voorhees · 2008-07-24 23:43:27

In regard to the Walloons speaking French in New Netherland, according to Jaspar Danckaerts, who in 1679-1680 twice visited with Catalina Trico, who came to New Netherland on the first ship of settlers:

"This place belongs to the oldest European woman in the country. . . . She was from Luyck (Liege), and still spoke good Wallsche (old French), with us" [p. 121]

In other places, he mention Walloons as speaking French in New Netherland/New York, although undoubtedly they also spoke Dutch. For example, Pierre le Gardinier (Pierre Cresson), from Sluis, Flanders, "who had been a gardener of the Prince of Orange" was "so glad to see strangers who conversed with him and his in the French language about the good, that he leaped for joy" [p. 146].

There are also numerous other references to the Walloons in New Netherland speaking French. In 1628, for example, Rev. Jonas Michaelius, New Netherland's first domine, noted in a letter that the "Walloons and French have no service on Sundays, for those who understand no Dutch are very few. . . .Nevertheless, the Lord's Supper was administered to them in the French language, and according to the French mode, with a discourse preceding"

I am not sure what a debate about language has to do with the date of the birth of New York, but there is fairly substantial evidence that the Walloons spoke French in New Netherland, as did most educated people in Holland, England, Scandinavia, and the Germanies in the seventeenth century.

David William Voorhees

AH2 · 2008-07-27 18:04:17

Along with Russell Shorto ( and others ) who authored the much acclaimed "Island At The Center Of The World" his volume about the earliest years of New Amsterdam - I strongly recommend 1653 specifically February 2, 1653, as the GLORIOUS date that should be forever seen on the NYC seal and flag.

On that date New Amsterdam soon to be renamed New York City established its legacy of as a self-governing city that would grow to become the world's greatest. And the story of how that charter came to be created and signed as told so well by Russell Shorto add an inspiring mythological element to the history of our city. How PROUD we should all be to see the meaningless date of 1625 replaced by 1653 on NYC's flaf and official seal.

February 2, 1653, is the actual date that New Amsterdam was created. There is a basic and irrefutable logic to using the specific date on which a municipality was actually created as the date on the flag and seal. Prior to February 2, 1653, what would become New York City was nothing but a small collection of individuals who had settled at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. A trading post for the Dutch West India company with no standing other than as their "property, operated by an all powerful company official. "

If one wants to argue for another date then it would be when the first individuals ever set foot on this island even though they had no specific intention of cresting a municipality or a city. That distinction would have to go to Adrienne Block who was the first European to come ashore on Manhattan Island in November 1613. I personally think that is a very weak basis for making 1613 the date of the funding of the City.

For those who might pick other dates between 1613 and 1653 my response is what is more significant about those dates than 1653 and "legalistically" if you choose a date of your liking when you claim some settlers arrived please substantiate your claim with PROOF that it is certain they were the first. Because short of absolute proof I can easily argue there may well hsve been others here first.

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-28 12:33:45

Art Piccolo's GLORIOUS 1653 date may benefit from the following information:

The Births of the State and City of New York
Main Events Synopsis
Province of New Netherland /New York State (1624)
Town of New Amsterdam /New York City (1625)

Distilled from primary sources:
The Provisional Order of March 30, 1624; the Instruction to Willem Verhulst of January 1625; the Subsequent Instruction to Verhulst of April 25, 1625; the Specific Instruction for Cryn Fredericksz’s of April 25, 1625; and the Letter of I. De Rasière of 22 September 1626.

By Joep de Koning,
President@TolerancePark.org
www.HistoricNewAmsterdam.com
www.TolerancePark.org
www.GovernorsIslandNationalSymbol.org

June 2004

Important names to remember (Province of New Netherland 1624-1674):
Zuidt Rivier or South River or Delaware River
Noord Rivier or North River, or Mauritius River or Hudson River
First official of New Netherland, Director Cornelis Jacobsz May
Second official of New Netherland, Director Willem Verhulst
Third official of New Netherland, Director Pierre Minuyt (Peter Minuit)
Fourth official of New Netherland, Director Sebastiaen Jansz Crol
Fifth official of New Netherland, Director Wouter van Twiller
Sixth official of New Netherland, Director Willem Kieft
Seventh official of New Netherland, Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant
Eighth official of New Netherland, Governor Anthony Colve (last New Netherland official)

CONCLUSION: The legendary tale of the “purchase� of Manhattan Island in 1626 as the best real estate deal is unrelated to the founding of the town of New Amsterdam or New York City which started with the construction of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in July 1625 (i.e., the official date of birth of New York City as imprinted on the City Seal).*

Governors Island (originally named Noten Eylant by the Amsterdam explorer and fur trader Adriaen Block and later in pidgin language referred to as Nutten Island until 1784) was the locus for the transformation of the New Netherland (“NN� ) territory – currently referred to as the New York Tri-State region – to a North American province of the Dutch Republic in 1624 from having been a place for private commercial interests through patents issued by the [Dutch Republic's] States General (parliament) since 1614 (see details of Block’s 1614 map on www.TolerancePark.org).

Prior to 1614, this region was discovered, surveyed and mapped by varied Dutch explorers sponsored by assorted companies and private financiers starting with the discovery of the Mauritius River – now Hudson or North River – by the [Dutch] East India Company yacht Half Moon, captained by Henry Hudson, in 1609.

Therefore, Governors Island and the year 1624 are, respectively, the birthplace and date of birth of New York State (then the Province of NN ― see Legislative Resolutions no. 5476 and 2708) because the first delivery of 30 families from the Low Lands (Netherlands) as well as the planting in North America of the legal-political order of the States of Holland and Zeeland took place first on Governors Island. Hence, in 1624, the law of the ship effectively ceased to exist in the NN territory and the laws and ordinances of Holland and Zeeland (the two most important states of the Dutch Republic) became applicable and effective.

The historical facts are that, in that year of 1624, settlements existed at a fort on Noten Island (Governors Island) just south of Manhattan, at Fort Orange (Albany) at the top of the Hudson River, on Verhulsten Island (Burlington Island) in the Delaware River as well as at the mouth of the Connecticut River thus delineating physical possession of the New Netherland Province according to the Law of Nations (Hugo Grotius).

RATIONALE:

The Letter of Secretary Isaac De Rasière of 22 September 1626:

Peter Minuit had returned from New Netherland to the Dutch Republic in 1625. On January 9, 1626 he left Amsterdam to arrive again in New Netherland as “volunteer� , together with second director Willem Verhulst, with the ship Meeutje on May 4, 1626.

Isaack de Rasière wrote that he (de Rasière) had arrived in front of “Fort Amsterdam� on July 28, 1626 (“so that we anchored in the river on July 28 in front of the fort Amsterdam with many sick people with scurvy).� On that date, Peter Minuit was at Fort Orange (now Albany). De Rasière’s statement is textual evidence that Fort Amsterdam existed in one way, shape or form upon his arrival at Manhattan on July 28, 1626.

It is therefore not possible that Peter Minuit (who is often [erroneously] credited with constructing Fort Amsterdam in 1626) could have built Fort Amsterdam in less than three months from his arrival in New Amsterdam on May 4, 1626, until De Rasière’s arrival in front of Fort Amsterdam on July 28, 1626.

Moreover, Minuit was neither authorized nor instructed to build Fort Amsterdam. That task was entrusted to Cryn Fredericxsz, engineer and surveyor, who had been given “specific� instructions on April 25, 1625. He was “to build a fortification and housing� immediately upon arrival “when the best possible place by the Council is selected� in order to settle “according to our instructions with all the livestock.� Fredericxsz had arrived in June 1625 with the second shipment of colonists (i.e., farmers and livestock) to the fort on Noten Eylant (Governors Island) most of whom were moved with the farm animals to Manhattan within a few days of each other over a period of a few weeks as there was not enough pasture land on Noten Eylant (i.e., no later than July 1625).**

July 1625 is the month in which Cryn Fredericxsz demarcated a citadel on Manhattan Island wherein situated Fort Amsterdam as described in: “First, surveyor Cryn Fredericxsz shall mark out the [three-sided] moat and the parapets in size as follows and in the manner as indicated in the concept which is to be square and open on the waterside…As soon as the moat is finished, Director Verhulst and the Council shall start the fortification according to concept no. C which shall be named Amsterdam.�

DISCUSSION:

The Provisional Order of March 30, 1624:

"Provisional orders upon which the respective colonists have agreed and were dispatched in the service of the West India Company (“WIC� ) to New Netherland in order to take up their residence on the river of the Prince Mauritius or at other such places the people shall be employed by the Commander and his Council."

Those first authorized WIC settlers were delivered by New Netherland’s first director, Cornelis Jacobsz May, to Noten (Governors) Island (not Manhattan Island) with the ship New Netherland in May, 1624. They had been given a Provisional Order on March 30, 1624 in which they were instructed “to take up their residence on the river of the Prince Mauritius (Hudson River) or at other such places the people shall be employed by the commander (Director) and his council.� and “to use all means possible to fortify their residence through common effort as well as building the necessary civic housing.� That March 30, 1624, Provisional Order also contained official language specifically related to the precept of toleration (religious tolerance as in the 1579 founding document of the Dutch Republic: “that everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion� ), namely, that the settlers should try “to attract the Indians and other nonbelievers to the knowledge of God’s word through their Christian living and walk (i.e., through attitude and by example) without, on the other hand, to persecute anyone for reason of his religion but to leave everyone the freedom of his conscience.� On that date, the first settlers swore the oath of allegiance to both the States General (the governing body of the Dutch Republic) and the West India Company (WIC) on the New Netherland prior to departure.

The Instruction to Willem Verhulst of January 1625:

“Instruction for Willem van Hulst, Commissioner on the journey to New Netherland and, provisionally, Director of the colonists who are already there and as yet will be shipped to there until the Company is ready to install new government.�

In January 1625, the second [provisional] director, Willem Verhulst, received detailed instructions in a letter of that date. Verhulst sailed that month from Amsterdam (on the ship Den Orangen Boom) with, amongst other, a comforter of the sick, Sebastiaen Crol, and “Pierre Minuyt as volunteer� together with a few other new settlers to New Netherland (arriving in March 1625).

These settlers were to be distributed to existing habitations but especially to the colony in the Zuidt (South or Delaware) River. Peter Minuit, together with other selected colonists, was to sail as high as possible up the South and North rivers in order to survey the land and to seek trade with the Indians. Verhulst was instructed to survey both rivers and to select and recommend the best places for more defensive fortifications for future colonists other than the ones already made and occupied. If the existing fort [Orange] at the top of the Noord (Hudson) River was at risk of flooding, he was to gather the [1624] settlers at Fort Orange and “to transport them to the fort on Governors Island and to maintain only quarters for trade with the Indians or, upon having found a more favorable place for fortification in the Noord [Hudson] River than Noten Eylant as habitat for the colonists and farmers, to put them there and immediately advise us about the reason for the change.�

Furthermore, Verhulst was also instructed to “make a provisional fortification on Verhulsten Island (in the Zuidt or Delaware River) to protect the settlers and their livestock� . Furthermore, he had to placate any Indians who lived or pretended to live on Verhulsten Island (in the Delaware River), or in other places selected by the colonists which could be of service to the Company, and to “get rid of them not with force or threats but to persuade them with good words or otherwise appease them to their satisfaction by giving them something or to let them live among us thereby making a contract which they shall sign in their manner and which contracts could be of much service to the Company at other occasions (e.g., an instruction similar to the so-called “purchase� of Manhattan in 1626).�

Verhulst was to maintain his chief residence in the South (Delaware) River and his [South River] Council there was to comprise the ship captains at hand. He was to visit the North River frequently to put things in good order and to deliberate and resolve everything with Deputy Director Adriaen Thienpont, Deputy Commisioner Daniel van Cryeckenbeeck and the captains Fezard and Lampo as provisional [North River] Council. Peter Minuit was instructed to research minerals and crystals from the North and South Rivers.

Subsequent Instruction to Verhulst of April 25, 1625:**

“Subsequent Instruction, composed by the Directors of the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company, for Willem vanderHulst, Commissioner, as well as for those of the resident Councils in the rivers, islands, and the lands of New Netherland, carried by Gerrit Fongersz, Deputy Commissioner and Gerrit Jsbrantsz, captain of the yacht Macrel, according to which Vander Hulst and the members of the Councils, as well as the farmers and everybody else who now have been dispatched thither with the ships Macrel, Horse, Cow and Scheep and are now sailing, shall conform with obedience, faithfulness and humility, in order to take their residence on the South or North River or such other places as shall be of service to the Company…�

This instruction reveals that the 1624 settlers had been distributed to Noten (Governors) Island (not Manhattan), Fort Orange and the Delaware River. The instruction states that upon arrival in the North River and before they unload their ships and set up a place for the cattle, they had to “summon Director Willem Verhulst or Deputy-Director Adriaen Jorrissz Thienpont in order to chose by mutual agreement, the best places for their houses, pastures, and sowing fields… which would be especially advisable to do so at the mouth of the [North] river for which we are recommending first the west side (of the Hudson River) because the couriers pass along that place when going from the North to the South River, the corner of Manattes north of Noten Island, or on another appropriate place which they will find of service after proper investigation.�

“In case no appropriate place can be found which has been deserted or not occupied by the Indians and is at least 800 or 1000 morgen large and suitable for sowing and pastures, we find it not advisable to make such a heavy fortification and such a large moat as given in the plans to the surveyor but to settle provisionally.�

“Meanwhile, if Director Verhulst with the help of the surveyor Cryn Fredericxsz…finds no [deserted or empty] place in both rivers in order to settle there with livestock, but finds the desired place for fortification already occupied by Indians, he should ponder whether he could negotiate with them for goods or can come to terms by way of other amicable agreements so that they leave us ownership and possession without forcing them to such ends in the least or to obtain the place through cunning or with ease (i.e., an expanded instruction designed to legally protect the WIC’s and colonists’ work/investments ― such as Fort Amsterdam and its outlaying farms ― which, doubtless, was the motivation for the mythical “purchase� of Manhattan in 1626).�

Specific Instruction for Cryn Fredericksz’s of April 25, 1625:

“Specific instruction for the engineer and surveyor Cryn Fredericxsz as well as for the Director (Willem Verhulst) and his Council…concerning the fortification and the construction of houses upon the Council having found an appropriate location in order to settle with all livestock according to our instruction.�

Cryn Fredericxsz was instructed that “As soon as the moat has been constructed, Director Verhulst and the Council will immediately start the fortification according to concept No. C which shall be named Amsterdam and which shall be worked on by as many people as can be missed possibly from the farmers, sailors and colonists.�

Cryn returned to the Dutch Republic in the ship “Arms of Amsterdam� on September 23, 1626, from Fort Amsterdam, never to return to New Netherland. Peter Minuit was appointed [as the forth] director of New Netherland by the Council in New Netherland on September 26, 1626.

It was Verhulst and the Council (comprising Willem vander Hulst, Adriaen Jorissz Thienpont, Joost vanden Boogaert, Daniel van Cryeckenbeeck, Gerrit Fongersz, Pierre Minuyt, Cryn Fredericxsz, Franchoys Fezard and Johan Lampo) who had chosen Manhattan Island as the place for the construction of Fort Amsterdam in 1625 – the birthplace and date of birth of New York City. They were the town’s founders.
__________________________________

* In November 1626, in Amsterdam, Peter Schaghen, the representative of the States General in the WIC, reported that the ship “Arms of Amsterdam� had sailed from New Netherland out of the River Mauritius on September 23 and that “they have purchased the Island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders� … and that they “had all their grain sowed by the middle of May, and reaped by the middle of August They sent samples of these summer grains: wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, canary seed, beans and flax.�

** On April 22, 1625, the ships Horse, Cow, Sheep and the yacht Macrel sailed out of the Dutch Republic to arrive in June, 1625 at Noten Eylant (Governors Island). The Macrel carried with them the “Subsequent Instruction� to Verhulst wherein it was recommended that the farmers and the other settlers should “take their residence on the South or North River or such other places as shall be of service to the Company…�

AH2 · 2008-07-28 13:49:54

All Mr. Joep deKoning’s response to my post does is confirm the logic of 1653 as a very specific and logical year from which to date the BIRTH of New York City as New Amsterdam. A REAL MUNICIPALITY WAS CREATED ON February 2, 1653. END OF STORY.

This "legal brief" in reply to my original post is filled with so much contradictory and obscure and inconclusive informatiion that he PROVES to pick any of these earlier dates would simply result in more controversy. He certainly makes at least as much a case for 1624 or 1626 as 1625 as well as for 1614 and even earlier. His ultimate "conclusion" that 1625 should remain the choice is undermined by the many other claims this writer tries to detail.

Big deal if his argument is that someone named Cryn Fredericxszwas was in the writer’s view authorized to construct a fort somewhere on the Manhattan Island ( or Governors Island ) on April 25, 1625 justifies 1625 as the date on the city flag and seal is nothing short of bizarre. Equating a statement that a fort should be built as defining the date of birth for this city is simply Mr. de Koning’s idea unsubstantiated by any generally agreed definition.

Mr. de Koning I hope you will review his lengthy post, appreciate how confusing and insignificant these arguments are, and most of all vigorously support 1653 as the OFFICIAL date of the New York City’s founding. The date the charter was signed inside the fort creating the city of New Amsterdam !

A GLORIOUS date in the history of our city. A very SPECIFIC and well documented date.

Arthur Piccolo

Last edited by AH2 (2008-07-28 15:25:01)

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-29 16:55:44

[Mr. Piccolo writes] contradictory and obscure and inconclusive informatiion

[Joep de Koning responded] The primary information provided above only supports 1624 as the date on which New Netherland ceased to be a territory for private traders under patents issued by the States General and where the law of the ship no longer sufficed in matters of justice. 1624 was the year in which the territory was transformed thus to a province by specifically delivering the laws and ordinances of the Dutch Republic to North American soil and administering the territory as an extension of the Dutch Republic under the sovereignty of the States General by way of the delegated authority of the West India Company. These laws and ordinances were responsible for the culture of diversity, inclusiveness and toleration unique to the New Netherland region among other regions on the east coast of North America at the time. That specific culture or personality is still the identity of what is now called the New York Tri-State region. In 1625, Cryn Fredericxsz was instructed to build the fort that was to be named "Amsterdam" and to build the civic houses necessary for the settlers where they settled in 1625 as a village named New Amsterdam which subsequently became a sizable town and a city with its own municipal rights in 1653. 1625 was the year in which the fort and the village of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island came into being. The name was [provisionally] changed in June 1665 to the City of New York upon reincorporation under English law - yet, its original 1625 personality never changed materially, not even with the granting of municipal rights in 1653.

AH2 · 2008-07-29 17:44:18

In reply to Mr. deKoning it is still not clear whether he is justifying 1624 or 1625 or an earlier date as his view of the "legitimate" date a settlement was created here. If he is now arguing the use of a "name" defines the date of the founding of New York City then by deduction he must be arguing for returning to 1664 when the British named the city New York.

My argument for 1653 is precise and unambiguous. On February 2, 1653, a charter was agreed to by those living on the southern of this island turning a privately owned a temporary trading post that would have been abandoned by the Dutch West India Company if and when they had decided it no longer had economic value for their enterprise.

This trading post operated by a representative of the company for their pleasure became a REAL municipality the CITY of New Amsterdam with a set of initial laws and a common council with responsibility to GOVERN the new city of New Amsterdam. At that point this city became REAL and from that date on there is an established municipality with a Common Council with an unbroken existence to this very day now known as the City Council.

When the City flag and seal finally read 1653 the world will clearly know and most of all those who live here when our city was TRULY founded. I can’t wait Mr. de Koning as long as the effort takes. February 2, 1653 holds a special importance in American history it is time even you recognized that fact.

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-29 17:53:37

[David Voorhees writes] Catalina Trico (who came in 1624 with the first settlers to Governors Island) “was from Luyck (Liege), and still spoke good Wallsche (old French), with us (in 1679)."

[Joep de Koning responds] That suggests that, otherwise, she spoke a daily language other than French. Could that have been Dutch?

Another person who came with the 1624 settlers was Adriaen Jorrissz Thienpont. He was Deputy-Director in charge of the Noord Rivier (Hudson River). His name indicates that he too was from Walloon stock. However, as a WIC official he had to be able to speak and write the Dutch language as a rule. Prior to the transformation of New Netherland to a province in 1624, Thienpont had been active in the territory as private trader.

The point about this “Walloon� discussion is that the first settlers in 1624 – mostly Walloon, not all – were as Netherlandic or Dutch as my New York City born daughters are American even though they can and occasionally do speak Dutch. Even I, after 40 years in New York, still speak good Dutch – occasionally, albeit only when required.

This Walloon discussion became an issue with the date of New York (City or State?) when Sam Roberts of the New York Times wrote: “1624 seemed the most plausible alternative, but most of the people who arrived then were Walloons from what became Belgium. So much for the pretext of honoring the Dutch.�

Otherwise, this discussion is pointless as ethnic diversity through the precept “that everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion� was the cause of 18 languages being spoken in New Netherland in 1643.

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-29 23:19:29

[Art Piccolo writes] a charter was agreed to by those living on the southern of this island turning a privately owned a temporary trading post that would have been abandoned by the Dutch West India Company if and when they had decided it no longer had economic value for their enterprise.

[Joep de Koning responds] This statement is so much lacking in even the most basic facts of New Netherland history and is factually so erroneous that there is no point in arguing Mr. Piccolo’s point any further. The above sentence alone has five historical errors and falls under the rubric of imaginative storytelling akin to fairytales. It is total nonsense.

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-30 19:38:33

A decent primer on New Netherland by way of 34 slides can be seen on http://www.nnp.org/nni/Virtual%20Papers/Governors%20Island,%20Lifeblood%20of%20American%20Liberty.pdf

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2008-07-30 20:05:25

New York State recognized its date of birth of 1624 and its birthplace of Governors Island in Legislative Resolutions No. 5476 and No. 2708.

State of New York
Legislative Resolution

Senate No. 5476
Assembly No. 2708

BY: Senators Marchi, Farley and Johnson

BY: Committee on Rules at the request of M. of A. McEneny, Silver, Canestrari, Englebright, Morelle, Markey, Cahill, Christensen, Colman, Cook, Destito, Farrell, Glick, Gordon, Gottfried, Gromack, Gunther, Jacobs, Lavelle, Mayersohn, McLaughlin, Millman, Ortiz, Prentiss, Schimminger, Seddio, Sidikman, Sweeney, Tonko and Townsend

MEMORIALIZING Governor George E. Pataki to recognize the official place
and date of birth of the State of New York as being Governors Island in the year 1624

WHEREAS, At the start of the 12-year armistice (1609-1621) between the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands (the Dutch Republic) and Spain, Captain Henry Hudson, commissioned by the [Dutch] East India Company and aboard the ship Halve Maen (Half Moon), arrived in the River Mauritius (Hudson River) as the first official explorer representing the Dutch Republic; Hudson conducted New York’s first recorded commercial transaction in 1609 which formed the basis for ongoing private commercial interests in the fur trade for that region; and

WHEREAS, Various private commercial entities from the Republic had competed for a share in the fur trade in the Hudson River regions since 1610 and, for the purpose of obtaining a fur-trading monopoly, amalgamated into the New Netherland Company on October 11, 1614; and

WHEREAS, The New Netherland Company was the result of the explorations, from 1611 through 1614, of the Amsterdam explorer and private commercial fur trader, Adriaen Block; the first explorer of any country to chart the eastern coast of what is now Marblehead Bay, north of Cape Cod, to the Hudson River, and who named it New Netherland; and

WHEREAS, Upon the end of the armistice and the creation of the [Dutch] West India Company in 1621, the Dutch Republic sought to effectuate a cultural transplantation on the North American continent by way of an eighth province for the purpose of imposing its sovereignty onto the territory, now extending south to the Delaware Bay, through the delegated authority of the West India Company; and

WHEREAS, The West India Company recalled all private commercial parties operating in the New Netherland territory in 1621 and 1622 and invalidated all private commercial interests, thus voiding the law of the ship as only legal recourse in the region; and

WHEREAS, The Dutch Republic officially established its institutional, administrative and cultural infrastructure onto the New Netherland territory by planting its first colony of thirty families on Noten Eylant in 1624 (renamed Governors Island in 1784); these colonists had disembarked on Governors Island in the summer of 1624 from the ship named “New Netherland� under the command of Cornelis Jacobszoon May (as in Cape May in New Jersey); and

WHEREAS, In June, 1625, forty-five more colonists disembarked on Governors Island from three ships named Horse, Cow and Sheep which also delivered 103 horses, steers and cows, in addition to numerous pigs and sheep - thus successfully completing the Republic’s first planting of a colony in 1624, and extrapolating the Republic’s culture, its 1579 Constitution and legal-political guaranty of tolerance onto the North American continent; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to memorialize Governor George E. Pataki to recognize the official place and date of birth of the State of New York as being Governors Island in the year 1624, continuing a heritage from Dutch settlers which will endure even as New York City contemplates possible new uses for the island, such as facilities for The City University of New York; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the New Netherland infrastructure formed the foundation for New York’s continuing development and that the cultural imprint of the New Netherland community, upon relinquishing political control to the English in 1674, had a profound and enduring impact on New York’s unique cultural heritage; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted to George E. Pataki, Governor of the State of New York.

ADOPTED IN SENATE ON
May 14, 2002

John J. Marchi

By order of the Senate,

Steven M. Boggess, Secretary

ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY ON
May 30, 2002

John J. McEneny

By order of the Assembly,

Karen L. McCann, Acting Clerk

Chris Moore · 2008-08-01 05:19:29

With the presumed tolerance of our Lenape ancestors, I vote for Joep de Koning's founding dates for the first European settlement, aka New Netherland and New Amsterdam, within the Lenapehoking and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) territory.
Chris Moore

HistoricNewAmsterdam.com · 2009-01-13 12:18:51

The key issue seems to be that people don't seem to be able to distinguish between New York STATE and New York CITY, i.e., New Nettherland and New Amsterdam respectively (i.e., 1624 as a provincial legal entity and 1625 as Fort Amsterdam as Capitol and provincial Capital.) Perhaps this summary may help:

Historical facts support the year1624 as the date of birth of New York State and the date on which the New York Tri-State region (named New Netherland first in 1614) ceased to be a territory for private traders under patents issued by the States General (i.e., the Parliament of the Dutch Republic) and where the law of the ship no longer sufficed in matters of justice (Legislative Resolutions No. 5476 and No. 2708).

The year 1624 was the year in which the territory was transformed thus to a provincial legal entity by specifically delivering the laws and ordinances of the Dutch Republic to North American soil. As of that year, the territory was administered as an extension of the Dutch Republic under the sovereignty of the States General by way of the delegated authority of the West India Company.

These laws and ordinances were delivered by the first settlers to Governors Island – the birthplace of New York State – and were responsible for the culture of toleration as the basis for ethnic diversity and for the tradition of inclusiveness in the region. This distinctive regional personality of cultural tolerance is still the identity of what is now called the New York Tri-State region.

At the time, that tolerance was unique to the New Netherland region when compared to its adjoining regions on the east coast of North America. These three regions – Virginia, New Netherland and New England – metamorphosed ultimately into the Original Thirteen.

The vibrant precept of tolerance – together with its complementary more inert partner of liberty – thus became the foundation of what now denotes the conception of American freedom. It is America’s ultimate virtue of tolerance which therefore is responsible for defending and defining American freedom dynamically.

The following year, in 1625, NY City’s birth date was founded by the deliberate decision of a governing council – seated [in a fort] on Governors Island – which selected Manhattan Island as the permanent, principal place of settlement as well as for the construction of Fort Amsterdam as capitol of New Netherland. Cryn Fredericxsz – surveyor and fortification engineer – had disembarked on Governors Island in 1625 with specific instructions to build the fort that was to be named "Amsterdam." In addition, he was to build the civic houses necessary for the settlers and to lay out the farms outside of Fort Amsterdam in which and around of which they settled in 1625. New Amsterdam as capital of New Netherland grew subsequently into a town and city with its own municipal rights in 1653.

Hence, the year 1625 was the year in which Fort Amsterdam and the village of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island came into being. The name was [provisionally] changed in June 1665 to the City of New York upon re-incorporation under English law.

Yet, the town’s original 1625 personality never changed materially – not with the granting of municipal rights in 1653, not even with the change of sovereignty over New Netherland to English jurisdiction in 1664 provisionally and in 1674 definitively, or upon the realizing of the Original Thirteen as an independent nation in 1776.

This can still be observed today.

Announcement

#1 2008-07-22 10:41:12

1624 or 1625?

#2 2008-07-22 11:45:27

Re: 1624 or 1625?

#3 2008-07-22 11:46:52

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#4 2008-07-22 11:49:36

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#5 2008-07-22 11:51:14

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#6 2008-07-22 11:53:07

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#7 2008-07-22 11:57:34

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#8 2008-07-22 11:59:42

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#9 2008-07-22 12:04:42

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#10 2008-07-23 20:58:37

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#11 2008-07-23 21:07:49

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#12 2008-07-23 21:13:47

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#13 2008-07-24 10:07:06

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#14 2008-07-24 23:43:27

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#15 2008-07-27 18:04:17

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#16 2008-07-28 12:33:45

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#17 2008-07-28 13:49:54

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#18 2008-07-29 16:55:44

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#19 2008-07-29 17:44:18

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#20 2008-07-29 17:53:37

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#21 2008-07-29 23:19:29

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#22 2008-07-30 19:38:33

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#23 2008-07-30 20:05:25

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#24 2008-08-01 05:19:29

Re: 1624 or 1625?

#25 2009-01-13 12:18:51

Re: 1624 or 1625?