There has been an explosion of research into the lives of the Black inhabitants of the Dutch colony of New Netherland in recent years. This special virtual event, which takes the place of the annual New Netherland Institute Conference, brings together scholars who are at the cutting edge of this work. How did Blacks live in New Amsterdam? What was “slavery” in the colony? When did the first Africans arrive?

Andrea Mosterman, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Orleans, will give the keynote address, on the topic of her newly released book, Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York. Her talk will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Nicole Maskiell, Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, author of the forthcoming Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry; Jaap Jacobs, Honorary Reader at the University of St. Andrews, author of a soon-to-be-published article about the first Blacks in New Amsterdam; and Debra Bruno, author of a recent Washington Post article about her search for her slave-owning ancestors. The panel will be moderated by Lavada Nahon, culinary and cultural historian.

Sponsored by the New Netherland Institute in Collaboration with the New Amsterdam History Center and the New York State Office of Cultural Education.

In the break between the keynote and the panel discussion we will announce the 2021 Wendell Research Scholar and the winners of the New Netherland Institute’s 2021 Hendricks Award and the Clague and Carol Van Slyke Article Prize.