Postcard Thursday: The Fall of New Netherland

A postcard reproduction of The Fall of New Amsterdam, from the series "The Pageant of a Nation" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (ca. 1932)

On September 24, 1664, the colony of New Netherland surrendered to the English, officially becoming New York.

As we write in Inside the Apple:

[Following] the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660...the king’s ministers—notably his brother, James, Duke of York—had great territorial plans for the New World, which included complete English control of the area from Boston to the Carolinas.... Despite having been sheltered in the Netherlands during Cromwell’s interregnum (or, perhaps, because of it), the Duke had a very low opinion of the Dutch. In March 1664, his brother the king granted him a remarkable charter for most of New England, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and—most particularly—New Netherland. The Duke not only wanted to annoy the Dutch, he wanted to disrupt Dutch shipping, specifically between New Netherland, the Caribbean, and the African (or “Guinea”) Coast.... 

To conquer New Amsterdam, the Duke dispatched Richard Nicolls, who had fought in the Civil War and had, for his service, been elevated to the role of Groom of the Bedchamber (the knight in charge of dressing the Duke). Nicolls was given four ships, approximately six hundred soldiers, and instructions to keep New Amsterdam as intact as possible.... 

In twenty-three Articles of Capitulation, he extracted concessions from the English, including forbidding them from quartering soldiers in civilian homes, and making them promise to quit the island if word arrived from Europe that the Dutch had won it back. 

On September 8, 1664, with great pomp, Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch garrison marched out of Fort Amsterdam and the flag of the Dutch West India Company was lowered for the last time. By nightfall, the cross of St. George was in its place and the town had a new name: New York, in honor of the Duke, its new patron.

On September 24, the second-most important town, Fort Orange—today the capital, Albany—surrendered to the English, making the takeover of the colony complete.

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REMINDER!

On Sunday, October 11, at 3PM

join us for a walking tour of Little Italy

Go to http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2015/09/postcard-thursday-little-italy-walking.html
for details about the tour and information on how to sign up.

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Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Available from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or from independent bookstores across the country. 

Giving New York Back to the English

New York has an overabundance of birthdays. Last year, the city celebrated its 400th anniversary, using Henry Hudson's arrival in New York harbor in 1609 as the starting point of the city's history. And -- as we talk about in Inside the Apple -- the date on the city's official seal has changed multiple times, from 1686 (the year of the first official English charter -- see illustration at right) to 1664 (the year of the English takeover of New Amsterdam) to 1625 (the year that the Dutch colonists began permanent settlement on Manhattan).

But today, February 19, might be a good day to celebrate, too; on this day in 1674, King Charles II signed the Treaty of Westminster, which ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War. While the Dutch and the English had been fighting on and off since the 1650s, this conflict had one crucial difference: in August 1673 the Dutch had seized New York, installed a new Dutch governor named Anthony Colve, and renamed the city "New Orange." Thus, by signing the Treaty of Westminster, Charles II was confirming once and for all that New York was an English colony -- but it didn't have to end up that way.

The New Orange chapter in the city's history is largely ignored. The Dutch had held the city for less than seven months when the peace treaty was signed and while it took them another few months to hand the reins of power back to the English, New Orange lasted for less than a year. However, the seeds of rebellion that were planted during that year of renewed Dutch self-rule had a profound effect on the development of the city over the next century. The ongoing conflict between the Dutch citizens and the English government would make New York develop in a way completely different than any other American colony.

With the signing of the Treaty of Westminster, the English regained control of New York and would not lose it again until the American Revolution. In exchange for giving the island back, the Dutch retained control of Suriname, an important sugar producing colony for them. But it's not inconceivable that if the political winds had been blowing differently, the Dutch might have ceded Suriname to the English and insisted on keeping New Orange for themselves. Imagine how different life would be today in New Orange!

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Read more about Dutch New Amsterdam and the English takeover
in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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