[As I’ve done for each of the last few years, this week I’ll start 2024 by AmericanStudying a few anniversaries for the new year. Leading up to a special post on the 200th anniversary of a frustratingly familiar election.]
On two
important legacies that endured when New Netherland became a permanent part of
Anglo America with the 1674
Treaty of Westminster.
1674 was
only the final moment in a decade-long back and forth between the English and
the Dutch over who would take control of the mid-atlantic region known as New
Netherland. In 1664, at the outset of the continental as well as transatlantic conflict
that became known as the Second
Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667), the English
gained control of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island and thus of New
Amsterdam, the de facto capital of New Netherland. But the Dutch held onto much
of the rest of the region at that time, and when the Third
Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674) began a few years later, the Dutch retook the
fort and island as well. It was only at the culmination of that latter conflict
with the Treaty of Westminster that the Dutch permanently ceded not just
Manhattan Island/New Amsterdam but the entirety of their New Netherland colony
to the English, essentially trading it for the South American colony
of Suriname.
As usual
when a place officially
changes hands from one national entity to another, however, a great deal of
the existing community of New Netherland remained after the handover. One of
the most defining elements of New Netherland society was its striking level of
diversity, particularly religious diversity due to the Dutch Republic’s
overarching policy (from the
1579 Union of Utrecht) that “everyone shall remain free in religion and
that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion.” That meant
for example that New Netherland had a sizeable Jewish community, which was granted
full
residential rights in 1655. But the community, like the Dutch colonies
throughout the Western Hemisphere, was also notably diverse in terms of both
nationality and ethnicity: on the first note, the term “New Netherland Dutch”
referred to immigrants from a variety of European cultures; while on the
second, New Netherland included a significant refugee
population from Brazil as well as sizeable Native American and African communities
among others. The diversity of modern Manhattan is truly a legacy of its New
Amsterdam roots.
The policy
of religious freedom didn’t just help create that foundational diversity,
though—it also reflected a broader
culture of tolerance (in the Dutch Republic overall, but certainly extended
to its colonies as well) that was at least somewhat unique among European
colonies in the Americas and served as an inspiration for future U.S. ideals. The
Dutch Republic’s Constitution, which guaranteed such liberties as well as
citizenship to most of its residents, was cited by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers No.
20 as a direct influence on the proposed U.S. Constitution. Likewise,
the 1581
Act of Adjuration through which the Dutch Republic declared its
independence from Spain was similar enough to the American Declaration of
Independence that John
Adams later declared, “the origins of the two Republics are so much alike
that the history of one seems but a transcript from that of the other.” All
ways that New Netherland remained very much part of the evolving United States
long after the 1674 handover.
Next
anniversary tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
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