The Island at the Center of the World (47 page)

twenty-seven pounds: Docs. Rel., 2: 460.

He spent thirteen days: Black,
Younger John Winthrop,
210; Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
1: 695. Detailed notes: Doris Quinn, “Theft of the Manhattans.”

comparing notes: E. B. O'Callaghan,
Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State,
296.

parrots and parakeets: Charles Gehring and J. A. Schiltkamp,
Curaçao Papers, 1640–1665,
115.

“He has always”: Docs. Rel., 14: 525.

later Winthrop wrote: John Beresford,
Godfather of Downing Street: Sir George Downing,
128.

a map that Winthrop: Doris C. Quinn, “Theft of the Manhattans,” 29.

Hamlet, 'Tis a Pity:
Samuel Pepys's diary for July through October 1661; Robert C. Black III,
The
Younger John Winthrop,
212.

confused with Josiah Winslow: Black,
Younger John Winthrop,
244.

Charles had given: Ibid., 225.

Winthrop's reply: Ibid., 264.

“your anxiety over”: Docs. Rel., 14: 551.

Stuyvesant complained: Ibid., 2: 230, 484–88; O'Callaghan,
Calendar of Historical Manuscripts,
307.

“a sad and perilous”: Docs. Rel., 2: 484.

“yield obedience”: Black,
Younger John Winthrop,
268.

“unrighteous, stubborn”: Docs. Rel., 2: 484.

Japan would trade: Jonathan I. Israel,
Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740,
172; other products: Israel, chapters 5 and 6.

“be instruments of good”: Beresford,
Godfather of Downing Street,
155; Downing's attitude and convictions: Pieter Geyl,
Orange and Stuart,
191.

“Go on in Guinea”: Keith Feiling,
British Foreign Policy 1660–1672,
130–31.

The second Charles Stuart: My characterization of Charles is based on Antonia Fraser,
Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration;
John Macleod,
Dynasty: The Stuarts, 1560–1807,
chapters 8 and 9; and Arthur Bryant, ed.,
The Letters, Speeches, and Declarations of King Charles II.

James Stuart: My characterization of James is based in part on Maurice Ashley,
James II;
Jock Haswell,
James II, Soldier and Sailor;
and J. S. Clarke,
The Life of James the Second . . . .

Reading the letters, minutes: Feiling,
British Foreign Policy,
97–131; Docs. Rel., 3:51–66; Royal African Company, “The several declarations of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa . . .”

In his years of exile: Haswell,
James II,
104–20.

Royal Mint commemorated: K. G. Davies,
The Royal African Company,
181.

Reorganized as: Ibid., 346.

“the Royal Company being”: Royal African Company, “The several declarations of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa . . .”

“And pray”: Feiling,
British Foreign Policy,
125.

“What ever injuries”: Beresford,
Godfather of Downing Street,
170.

“Together with all”: Peter Christoph and Florence Christoph, eds.,
Books of General Entries of the Colony of New York, 1664–1673,
1–4.

a committee at Whitehall: Feiling,
British Foreign Policy,
124.

the next month: Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
1: 736.

within the month: Black,
Younger John Winthrop,
272.

James himself took to sea: Ashley,
James II,
80.

“the welfare and”: Docs. Rel., 3: 61.

“putt Mr. Winthropp”: Ibid., 55.

“apt to entertaine”: Christoph,
General Entries,
25.

“the effusion of”: Ibid., 26.

“These to the”: Ibid., 27.

“would be disapproved”: Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
I, 739.

pasted back together: Docs. Rel., 2: 445–47.

There is then: E. B. O'Callaghan,
History of New Netherland,
2: 525–26.

The ministers talked: Docs. Rel., 2: 509; O'Callaghan,
History of New Netherland,
2: 525–26; Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
1: 740.

“we are oblieged”: Christoph,
General Entries,
29.

“misery, sorrow”: Docs. Rel., 2: 248.

They were now wealthy: Leo Hershkowitz, “The Troublesome Turk: An Illustration of Judicial Process in New Amsterdam.”

Asser Levy, Polish Jew: Leo Hershkowitz, “New Amsterdam's Twenty-Three Jews—Myth or Reality?”

for the past five years: Charles Gehring, unpublished translation of New Netherland documents no. 10(3):329 and 10(3):330.

“I would much rather”: Brodhead,
History of the State of New York,
1: 741–42.

CHAPTER
15

Starting in the 1660s: Harry M. Ward, “The Search for American Identity: Early Histories of New England.”

John Adams: David McCullough,
John Adams,
245, 254.

“first born of all”: The quote is from Urian Oakes, in Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker,
The Puritan Oligarchy: The Founding of American Civilization,
33.

“'Tis Satan's policy”: Ibid., 32.

The Puritans' systematic: The examples in this paragraph are from ibid., 224–40.

“the right of our manifest”: Stephanson,
Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right,
42.

In the early twentieth: On Wilson's expansion of the term, and for the Wilson quotes, I am relying on ibid., chapter 4.

In fact, ships: Christian Koot, “In Pursuit of Profit: The Netherlands' Trade in Colonial New York, 1664–1688,” talk given at Conference on New York City History, CUNY Graduate Center, October 2001.

Notaries in Amsterdam: Rockefeller notarial archives, Jacob de Winter, notary, nos. 2309, 2313, 2326.

“they shall continue”: Docs. Rel., 3: 57.

“The Dutch here”: Peter Christoph and Florence Christoph, eds.,
Books of General Entries of the Colony of New York, 1664–1673,
36–37.

“continue as now they are”: Ibid., 35–37.

“immunities and privileges”: Leo Hershkowitz, “The New York City Charter, 1686.”

“neglect or treachery”: Docs. Rel., 2: 420, 491.

Balthasar Stuyvesant: Charles Gehring and J. A. Schiltkamp, trans. and eds.,
Curaçao Papers,
1640–1665,
220.

He died: Docs. Rel., 3: 363–379, 419–510; John Romeyn Brodhead,
The
History of the State of New York,
1609–1691,
2: 131–32.

“Wherby there is”: John Winthrop to the Earl of Clarendon, “The Clarendon Papers,”
Collections,
New-York Historical Society (1869), 58.

“the best of all”: Docs. Rel., 3: 106.

“You will have heard”: Arthur Bryant, ed.,
The Letters, Speeches, and Declarations of King Charles II,
168.

the Dutch government allowed: Docs. Rel., 2: 516–17.

as an “invitation”: Jonathan Israel,
The Anglo-Dutch Moment,
Chapter 3, “The Dutch Role in the Glorious Revolution,” especially 124–29.

Jacob Leisler: David Voorhees, “The ‘fervent Zeale' of Jacob Leisler”; Firth Haring Fabend, “The Pro-Leislerian Dutch Farmers in New York: A ‘Mad Rabble,' or ‘Gentlemen Standing Up for Their Rights'?”

the relationships between: Joyce D. Goodfriend,
Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City,
chapters 4 and 5.

What mattered was: Milton Klein, “Origins of the Bill of Rights in Colonial New York,” 391.

French, German, Scottish, and Irish: Goodfriend,
Before the Melting Pot,
16, 56–60.

“Our chiefest unhappyness”: Charles Lodwick, “New York in 1692 . . . ,” 244. 371.

As late as the 1750s: James Tanis, “The Dutch-American Connection . . . ,” 24.

In fact, the irony: Firth Haring Fabend,
Zion on the Hudson: Dutch New York and New Jersey in the Age of Revivals,
especially chapter 10.

“following the example”: Newark
Daily Advertiser,
December 6, 1850.

“Yielding to no one”: John Romeyn Brodhead, unpublished manuscript, the Brodhead Collection, Rutgers University.

“clamoring for scholarly”: Editorial,
New York Times,
7 August 2001.

“What then is”: J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur,
Letters from an American Farmer,
46–47.

district attorney derived from
schout:
W. Scott van Alstyne, Jr., “The District Attorney—An Historical Puzzle”; A. J. Reiss, “Public Prosecutors and Criminal Prosecution in the United States of America.” As with nearly everything in history, the origins of the office of district attorney are open to debate, but the arguments that Reiss and van Alstyne make show a straightforward chain of influence. The most forceful argument against the district attorney office originating in the office of
schout
is interesting in that it has the classic features of American Anglocentrism. Jack Kress (“Progress and Prosecution”), notes that England had no such office, that the Dutch did, that the first district attorneys in English America appeared in precisely the area where the Dutch colony had been, and that those first district attorneys were called “scout” by the English, seemingly a clear indicator of their Dutch origin. But he then dismisses the argument on the grounds that the Dutch couldn't have made a lasting impact because the Dutch colony was small and the period of Dutch control was “quite brief, lasting only from 1653 until 1664 and that it is questionable if this was sufficient time for the institution of the
schout
to take root . . .” Besides getting the date of the colony's founding wrong by thirty years, Kress adopts the classic pattern of reasoning that American history has applied to the Dutch colony: assume the colony had no real presence, then, on the basis of your assumption, dismiss evidence to the contrary.

Santa Claus: Elisabeth Paling Funk, “Washington Irving and the Dutch Heritage,” manuscript in progress, chapter 3: “The Popular Culture of New Netherland.” My thanks to the author for sending me this portion of her work.

“ancient City”: The charter is printed in Stephen Schechter,
Roots of the Republic: American Founding Documents Interpreted,
91. My reading of the colony's political legacy comes in part from Leo Hershkowitz, “The New York City Charter, 1686”; Robert C. Ritchie,
The Duke's Province: A Study of New York Politics and Society, 1664–1691,
chapter 1; Paul Finkelman, “The Soul and the State: Religious Freedom in New York and the Origin of the First Amendment”; Milton M. Klein, “Origins of the Bill of Rights in Colonial New York”; Betsy Rosenblatt, “New York State's Role in the Creation and Adoption of the Bill of Rights.”

The names of the twenty-six: Rosenblatt, “New York State's Role in the Creation and Adoption of the Bill of Rights”; “Albany Committee,”
New York Journal and Weekly Register,
April 26, 1788.

EPILOGUE

While the records: My sources on the history, condition, and preservation of the colony's records are: The A. J. F. van Laer Papers, New York State Library; the John Romeyn Brodhead Papers, Rutgers University; the Andrew Elliot Papers, New York State Library; A. J. F. van Laer, “The Translation and Publication of the Manuscript Dutch Records of New Netherland, with an Account of Previous Attempts at Translation,” New York State Library Education Department Bulletin, January 1, 1910; Vivian C. Hopkins, “The Dutch Records of New York: Francis Adrian van der Kemp and De Witt Clinton,”
New York History,
October 1962; New York Secretary of State, “Inventory of Dutch and English Colonial Papers”; Hugh Hastings, ed.,
Public Papers of George Clinton,
1: 7–10; Charles Gehring, “New Netherland Manuscripts in United States Repositories,”
de Halve Maen
57 (August 1983); Charles Gehring, “New Netherland Translating New York's Dutch Past,”
Humanities
(November/December 1993); Ronald Howard, “John Romeyn Brodhead,”
de Halve Maen
59 (July 1985); Peter Christoph, “Story of the New Netherland Project,”
de Halve Maen
61 (September 1988); Charles K. Winne, Jr., “Arnold J. F. van Laer (1869–1955), An Appreciation,” in A. J. F. van Laer, trans.,
New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch,
vol. 1; Application Form, U. S. Department of the Interior, “Save America's Treasures” Program, Project: Dutch Colonial Manuscripts, 1638–1670; and interviews with Charles Gehring, Peter Christoph, Christina Holden, Janny Venema.

Threats were made: Information about Tryon comes from Paul David Nelson,
William Tryon and the Course of Empire,
and from original documents in the Andrew Elliot Papers at the New York State Library.

“Sir—As I am”: J. V. N. Yates, “Report of the Secretary of State, relative to the records &c. in his office,” 44.

mold set in: Interview (August 27, 2002) with Maria Holden, conservator, New York State Archives.

according to a letter: It has been assumed the records spent the entire war aboard the
Duchess of Gordon
and another ship, the
Warwick,
but a letter from Crèvecoeur to Franklin, written in 1783, provides evidence that they were moved to the Tower late in the conflict. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur,
Letters from an American Farmer,
341.

“much mill-dewed”: Yates, “Report of the Secretary of State” 46.

“immediate measures ought”: Van Laer, “Translation and Publication of the Manuscript Dutch Records of New Netherland.”

a fiasco of small errors: Historians had long suspected Van der Kemp's translations were flawed. Charles Gehring was able to assess just how bad they were after he discovered two volumes that had escaped destruction in the fire.

having a drinking problem: In fact, it is Stuyvesant, writing to the company directors, who refers to the man as the “drunkard Johannes Dijckmans.”

“Then, one day in 1655”: The change in handwriting—the moment at which Dijckman's career ends—occurs on Tuesday, May 9, 1655, and appears on page 193 of Charles Gehring,
Fort Orange Court Minutes, 1652–1660.