Ch. 2: New Amsterdam

Question 1

New Netherland

Answer 1

1614 – Dutch Republic charters the Colony of New Netherland
• Intended to be a private commercial venture
• New Netherland Company (NNC) granted exclusive rights for 4 years
• 1621 –West India Company (WIC) wins exclusive rights to New Netherland • WIC intended to profit from the fur trade
• 1624 – New Netherland becomes official province of Dutch Republic • Primary goal – establish permanent settlements

Question 2

New Netherland Directors

Answer 2

Directors: 
Peter Minuit
Bastiaen Jansen Krol
Wouter van Twiller
Willem Kieft
Peter Stuyvesant (Director General)
"Council of Men" forms

Question 3

Who purchased Manhattan?

Answer 3

Peter Minuit, Director of New Netherland
From:
Lenape "tribe" 1626
For:
60 guilders of goods

Question 4

Dutch Golden Age

Answer 4

17th century
• Progressive advancements in science, art,
military, and trade
• Considered the first “global power”
• Established first stock exchange (1602)
• Tolerant of diverse religions

Question 5

Settling New Amsterdam

Answer 5

First settlers were 30 Walloon families in 1624
• 17 different languages reported being spoken in
1634
• Approximately 50% of immigrants arriving were of Dutch ancestry
• 1,500-2,500 people by 1664

Question 6

How is it that, “We know more about some aspects of daily life in the ancient Babylon of 3,000 BC than we do about daily life in parts of Europe or America a hundred years ago.”

Answer 6

• Documents by African Americans were lost because they weren’t important enough to save
• Babylon’s more interesting, more worth pursuing
• A lot of records on NY were kept by elite few

Question 7

What are some possible problems with what the authors call “micro-histories”?

Answer 7

• Micro-history: Very detailed study of a small-scale history such as somebody’s life and family
• Problem: Only one view, assumes one person/family represents other families but fails to due to different ethnic groups, social statuses, and lifestyles
• Macro-history: Global, colonialism
• Midi-history: Region
• Micro-history: Family

Question 8

What feature or deposit did the authors analyze and why/how does it provide an important “window into the past?”
• what did they find?
• what are some limitations to these finds?

Answer 8

• Privy (outhouses), trash, objects people threw out, artifacts that didn’t break down
• Plates, pipes, candle sticks
• Limitations: Wrote about how white colonists used artifacts when the households were much more diverse

Question 9

What did researchers learn about the Dutch material culture?

Answer 9

• Everybody wanted to recreate their culture (it was all that they knew)
• Wanted to preserve culture, comfortable
• One house switched from Dutch pipes to English pipes

Question 10

What did researchers learn about the Dutch and their foodways in New
Amsterdam?

Answer 10

• Had to adapt to similar style as Native Americans to survive
• Resilliant for long time

Question 11

What did the authors have to say about the Dutch-to-English Transition?

Answer 11

• Long, slow, gradual, over time