Table of Contents

Introduction: "A Blessed Country, Where Milk and Honey Flow" 1. Reconnaissance and Exploration 2. Population and Immigration 3. Authority, Government, and Justice 4. Trade, Agriculture, and Artisans 5. The Reformed Church and the Others 6. Burghers and Status 7. Living in a Colony Epilogue: "It has pleased the Lord [to ordain] that we must learn English" List of Abbreviations Notes Glossary Bibliography Index

About the Author

Jaap Jacobs (Ph.D. Leiden University) is Lecturer in History at Harvard University. He has been Visiting Professor of Early American History at Ohio University and Quinn Foundation Senior Fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies and Quinn Foundation Visiting Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University.

Reviews

"Jaap Jacobs's The Colony of New Netherland is rich, deep, layered, and authoritative. It puts its subject in its proper place both in American and in Dutch history. For anyone with an interest in the Dutch presence in North America, it is essential."-Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World "The Colony of New Netherland is the definitive modern study of the early Dutch experience in North America. Jacobs offers many important new insights derived from scrupulous research in Dutch-language sources and situates the story of New Netherland in a truly Atlantic context. This book marks a crucial step in the process of diversifying our understanding of early North American history."-Jon Parmenter, Cornell University, author of The Edge of the Woods: Iroquoia, 1534-1701 "Jaap Jacobs has read virtually everything about New Netherland, primary and secondary, in Dutch and English, and produced a model synthesis of social, political, and economic history for a colonial experience that has far too long been terra incognita. Jacobs is particularly strong in his ability to take a genuinely transatlantic perspective, detailing the many struggles within the Dutch West India Company over whether its North American interest was to be a colony of trade or a colony of settlement (or, indeed, a colony at all) as well as the efforts of the motley lot of a few thousand Europeans to recreate something resembling a society in New Amsterdam, Fort Orange, and points adjacent."-Daniel K. Richter, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of History and the Richard S. Dunn Director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, author of The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization "The unique character of New Netherland has eluded many chroniclers of early America, but Jaap Jacob's first-rate scholarship and thoughtful analysis demonstrate how well he understands the intricacies and intrigues that marked the Dutch settlement. His book is a captivating treasure hunt for lovers of New York history and an essential, illuminating guide to an oft-neglected corner of our shared American past."-Elizabeth L. Bradley, author of Knickerbocker "The Colony of New Netherland will convince specialists and students alike of the pivotal role played by the Dutch West India Company colony in seventeenth-century America."-Joyce D. Goodfriend, author of Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730 "Finally, we have an accessible introduction to the West India Company's colony in North America. Jaap Jacobs's contribution will be useful to both undergraduate and graduate students, or anyone looking for an authoritative context in which to place his or her New Netherland ancestors."-Charles Gehring, New Netherland Project, New York State Library