New Amsterdam: new world company town: how the place that became New York City was born.* OBJECTIVE Students should understand * the unusual origins of New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of as the property of a for-profit company whose citizens insisted on their own government. * how the Dutch share a legacy in colonial America with the British. * TEACHING STRATEGY Discuss: Why do people form governments? Do large groups always require leaders? What are some advantages and disadvantages of concentrating power in a single person or office? * BACKGROUND * The Lenape Indians had a long history in Manhattan. The Dutch adapted a Lenape trail that ran the length of the island, calling the southern section of it Heere Straet, or Gentleman's Street. The English named it Broadway. * Peter Stuyvesant was a formidable character in every way. As a West India Company There has been more than one West India Company:
in midwinter, gave his cloak to a freezing beggar. [Christian Hagiog.: Brewer Dictionary] See : Kindness , that he lost his leg to a Spanish cannonball. * CRITICAL THINKING NOTING DETAILS: Who was the West India West` In´di`a 1. Belonging or relating to the West Indies. West India tea (Bot.) a shrubby plant (Capraria biflora) having oblanceolate toothed leaves which are sometimes used in the West Indies as a substitute for tea. Company's last New Netherland New Netherland, territory included in a commercial grant by the government of Holland to the Dutch West India Company in 1621. Colonists were settled along the Hudson River region; in 1624 the first permanent settlement was established at Fort Orange (now Albany, N.Y. director? How did he lose that position of power? (Peter Stuyvesant. He surrendered to the commander of an English fleet.) * ACTIVITY EXPLORE PRIMARY SOURCES: Have students read the 1626 letter by colonist Peter Schaghen (at Web site below). It mentions the Dutch "purchase" of Manhattan Island from the Indians, and describes the wealth of goods the colonists sent back to the Netherlands. Have students consider and discuss the relative values of that one shipment of skins and the money paid to the indians. (For a hint, click on the "value of 60 guilders" link.) Can any trade be fair if the people involved have different value systems? nnp.org/documents/schagen_main.html STANDARDS SOCIAL STUDIES, GRADES 5-8 * Power, authority, and governance: How governance in an early colony evolved from corporate (business) management to the beginnings of democratic (by the people) rule. * Individuals, groups, and institutions: How institutions change over time, and how that change affects and is influenced by individuals. RESOURCES * Barter, James, Colonial New York (Thomson Gale (Thomson Gale, a Thomson Learning business, Farmington Hills, MI, www.gale.com). A leading information publishing company for libraries, schools and businesses. Thomson Gale was formed in 1998 as a merger of Gale Research, Information Access Company and Primary Source Media, three Thomson , 2003). Grades 6 & up. * Krizner, L. J., and Lisa Sita, Peter Stuyvesant (PowerPlus Books, 2002). Grades 5-7. WEB SITES * Big Apple History/Peter Stuyvesant pbskids.org/bigapplehistory/early/topic7.html * New Netherland time line nnp.org/projeet/fimeline.html CAST OF CHARACTERS Isaack de Rasiere (rah-see-AIR), West India Company secretary Joris Rapalje (YAW-riss-rah-PAHL-yah), a settler David de Vries de Vries. For some persons thus named use Vries. (VREES), a farmer Peter Stuyvesant, the director of New Netherland Govert Loockersmans (LOW-kers-mons), a businessman Adriaen van der Donck  Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck (c. 1618 – 1655) was a lawyer and landowner in New Netherland after whose honorific Jonkheer the city of Yonkers, New York is named. , a lawyer * Quaker settler * Catholic settler * Jewish settler * Magistrates 1-3 Narrators A-D A-D Advance-Decline, or measurement of the number of issues trading above their previous closing prices less the number trading below their previous closing prices over a particular period. * Starred characters are fictitious. Introduction At first, everything was strictly business. In 1621, the Dutch government gave control of a 250-mile strip of the American continent, called New Netherland, to the Dutch West India Company Dutch West India Company, trading and colonizing company, chartered by the States-General of the Dutch republic in 1621 and organized in 1623. Through its agency New Netherland was founded. . For directors of the company, New Netherland was all about making money by trading for animal furs with the Indians. As people arrived to settle the West India Company's colony, a little town grew up on the southern tip of Manhattan. The settlers named it New Amsterdam New Amsterdam, Dutch settlement at the mouth of the Hudson River and on the southern end of Manhattan island; est. 1624. It was the capital of the colony of New Netherland from 1626 to 1664, when it was captured by the British and renamed New York. , after the Dutch capital. From this tiny seed grew something wholly unexpected-a company town that insisted on governing itself. In time, it would become the city of New York. SCENE 1 Narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. A: In 1624, 30 Families arrive to begin settling New Netherland for the West India Company. Most are Walloons, French-speaking Protestants, from the Dutch town of Leyden [LY-dun]. Like the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony, settlement made by the Pilgrims on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620. Founding Previous attempts at colonization in America (1606, 1607–8) by the Plymouth Company, chartered in 1606 along with the London Company (see to the north, they are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a better life in the New World. At first, things go well for the colonists. Isaack de Rasiere (in a letter home): A community called New Amsterdam is forming around Fort Amsterdam Fort Amsterdam (subsequently named Fort James, Fort Willem Hendrick, Fort James (again), Fort William, Fort Anne and Fort George) was a fort on the southern tip of Manhattan that was the administrative headquarters for the Dutch and then British , at the foot of the island of Manhattan. Relations with the Indians here are good. Director Peter Minuit gave them some tools, blankets, and other items in exchange for our use of the land. Narrator A: The gifts to the Lenape [LEN-nuh-pee] Indians are worth about $700 in today's money. The trade in beaver and other skins earns the Dutch much more than that. But by 1638, the beaver is disappearing, and tensions with the Indians are growing. Willem Kieft
Joris Rapalje: That man is always making trouble with the Indians. We need their goodwill to survive. I hear he blamed the Raritan Indians for stealing the pigs on your farm. David de Vries: Not only that, he sent some soldiers from the fort--and they massacred those poor people in their sleep! I told Kieft that the Indians would band together and fight back. Now they have burned many of us out of our farms. We're all crowding into town for shelter! Narrator A: Settlers call the conflict the Pig War
The Pig War (also called the Pig Episode, the San Juan Boundary Dispute or the Northwestern Boundary Dispute . Tensions are already high when Kieft announces a tax on fur to pay for the war's costs. Enraged en·rage tr.v. en·raged, en·rag·ing, en·rag·es To put into a rage; infuriate. [Middle English *enragen, from Old French enrager : en-, causative pref. , a council of eight men meets secretly. They draw up a petition to the West India Company in Amsterdam, demanding that Kieft be fired. SCENE 2 Narrator B: The company agrees to send a new director, who arrives in May 1647. Peter Stuyvesant is an iron-willed career soldier who immediately takes charge. Peter Stuyvesant: I will govern you as a father does his children. First of all, New Amsterdam is a mess. You have no proper garbage service, and your houses are firetraps. That's just for starters. This place will change! Narrator B: And change it does. Stuyvesant calls for proper streets to be laid out in place of muddy lanes. Under the new director, the colony and its main town begin to prosper. But his insistence on total control angers the leaders of the New Amsterdam community, who meet privately to discuss their grievances. Govert Loockersmans: Welcome re our home, Adriaen. We have much to talk about. Adriaen van der Donck: Yes, it's time It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election in Australia. Campaigning on the perceived need for change after 23 years of conservative (Liberal Party of Australia) government, Labor put forward a we got organized to handle our own affairs. As it is now, the West India Company makes all the rules. The farmers can't even plant any crops without their permission. Loockersmans: And the director wants to control everything. If we don't tell him exactly what he wants to hear, he becomes enraged! Now he's trying to banish two of our people who drafted the petition to get Kieft fired. Van der Donck: Let us gather our complaints together. We must build a case and appeal to the Dutch government. We deserve our own government, free of the company's control. Narrator B: Van der Donck becomes a leader of the community's new council, called the Board of Nine. SCENE 3 Narrator C: In the winter of 1649, Stuyvesant's meetings with the Board of Nine grow increasingly stormy. Peter Stuyvesant: I get my authority from God and the West India Company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant subjects. Van der Donck: As a matter of fact, we are asking the Dutch government to take management of the colony away from the company. Stuyvesant: We, you say! The men of this council are a bunch of rascals, liars, and rebels. Hanging is almost too good for you! Narrator C: Facing open rebellion, Stuyvesant jails Van der Donck--but is forced to release him after a public outcry. Late that summer, Van der Donck and other colonists sail across the Atlantic Ocean Across the Atlantic Ocean is the twenty-eighth episode[1] of Mobile Suit Gundam. Plot summary Amuro and Sayla manage to reduce their time in docking the Gundam and the G-Fighter to fifteen seconds. to argue the colony's case before the Dutch government. They remain in the Netherlands for many months. Van der Donck writes back to friends in New Amsterdam ... Van der Donck: There are multiple delays here, and the Dutch government is distracted by war with England. So I have good news and bad news. The company still has control of the colony. But Director Stuyvesant has been instructed to institute a municipal government in New Amsterdam. I think we have won! Narrator C: Stuyvesant appoints a group of seven men as magistrates. In February 1653, they gather in the City Tavern--soon to be the City Hall--for the first meeting of the government of New Amsterdam. One of their first acts is to build a wall to protect the town (at the site of modern-day Wall Street). Stuyvesant comes to accept the new government. SCENE 4 Narrator D: New Amsterdam now enters the period of its greatest prosperity. Quaker settler: This place is booming. They say that you can hear more than 18 languages on the streets of New Amsterdam. Catholic settler: Van der Donck deserves some of the credit. When he was in Europe, he published a pamphlet about the opportunities here. Boatloads of people have been arriving ever since. Jewish settler: A group of us fled from persecution in Brazil to come here. There is no other place on this continent that we could go--and few cities in Europe, other than Amsterdam itself. Narrator D: But American colonies are now pawns in the war between England and the Netherlands. The colonies of England threaten to engulf en·gulf tr.v. en·gulfed, en·gulf·ing, en·gulfs To swallow up or overwhelm by or as if by overflowing and enclosing: The spring tide engulfed the beach houses. New Netherland from the north and east. Then, in August 1664, a fleet of English warships sent by the Duke of York
The title Duke of York is a title of nobility in the British peerage. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, been usually given to the second son of the British monarch. masses in the harbor. The commander of the fleet, Colonel Richard Nicholls, sends terms of surrender in a letter to Stuyvesant. That night, at the City Hall ... Magistrate 1: It's madness to fight the English. They can reduce this place to firewood in five minutes. Magistrate 2: We don't have enough soldiers to defend ourselves. Besides, what do we owe the West India Company? We can do business just as well under the English. Magistrate 3: We hear that Colonel Nicholls is offering to let us live and work as we have been if we surrender. Let us see his letter. Stuyvesant: Not a chance! Narrator D: He rips up Nicholls's letter. The room erupts in protest. Magistrate 1: That's the last straw last straw n. The last of a series of annoyances or disappointments that leads one to a final loss of patience, temper, trust, or hope. [ . I vote that we let the English in. They can't be any worse than Stuyvesant! Narrator D: Stuyvesant storms back to the fort, vowing to fight to the end. But soon, 93 leading citizens of New Amsterdam, including Stuyvesant's own son, send a petition demanding that he give up. Stuyvesant: Never. I would rather be carried out dead! Narrator D: But the director is running out of options--and allies. Finally, on September 8, 1664, Stuyvesant surrenders Fort Amsterdam to Colonel Nicholls. In honor of the Duke of York, Nicholls gives the town the name it is known by today: New York. AFTERWORD af·ter·word n. See epilogue. The seizing of New Amsterdam cemented English control of the eastern coast of America. But the Dutch heritage remained crucial in New York. Just as Amsterdam in the Netherlands was the melting pot melting pot America as the home of many races and cultures. [Am. Pop. Culture: Misc.] See : America of 17th-century Europe, New York became the most diverse, open society in the New World. In the process, it became a portrait-in-miniature of the future United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Words to Know * banish: send away. * municipal: of or relating le local self-government Local self-government is a form of public administration, such that the inhabitants of a certain territory form a community that is recognized by the central government and has a specific legal status. . * persecution: harsh treatment on the basis of race or beliefs. * petition: a formal appeal. * prosper: gain in wealth. Your Turn WORD MATCH 1. persecution A. drive away 2. petition B. officials 3. banish C. formal appeal 4. municipal D. of local self-government 5. magistrates E. harsh treatment 1. E; 2. C; 3. A; 4. D; 5. B THINK ABOUT IT 1. How did the Pig War start? 2. What strategies did early settlers use to form a new government? Were they successful? Explain your answer. * Decide whether each sentence is true, false, or an opinion. Write your answer on the blank line (Print.) a vacant space of the breadth of a line, on a printed page; a line of quadrats. See also: Blank provided. --21. New Netherland's main source of income came from skins that Indians traded to the Dutch, who sold them to Europeans. --22. The site of New Amsterdam's city wall later became Broadway. --23. The Pig War was a dispute between Director Kieft of the Dutch West India Company and the settlers. --24. The West India Company should have allowed New Netherland farmers to plant whatever crops they chose. --25. Peter Stuyvesant's plan to treat the people of New Amsterdam the way a father treats his children was the wrong way to run a colony. 21. true 22. false (became Wall Street) 23. false (between Kieft and local Indians) 24. opinion 25. opinion |
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