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The following stories and articles have been contributed by historians and scholars who specialize in early New Amsterdam and Dutch history. We hope that they will help you best understand and experience how the early inhabitants of New Amsterdam built the city of New York.

Making History Visible: New Visions of Old New York at the Municipal Archives

On December 11, 2025, a full house filled the New York City Municipal Archives for New Visions of Old New York, closing an exhibition and opening new collaborations reimagining history.

The New Amsterdam History Center launches the NAHC Book Talk Series, featuring authors discussing recent books on New Netherland and New Amsterdam. Offered online and in person, the series highlights new scholarship and engaging perspectives on this formative period.

One Dutch Family’s Experience of the English, Or Historians Are Never Done with History

The 17th-18th century Hudson Valley was dominated by great landowners: Kiliaen van Rensselaer, Robert Livingston, the Van Cortlandts, and Frederick Philipse, each controlling vast estates.

Michael J. Douma’s The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York offers a groundbreaking cultural, economic, and demographic analysis, previewed here exclusively for New Amsterdam History Center readers.

Lana Holden’s Catalyntje Trico: A Life in New Amsterdam vividly re-creates 17th-century New Netherland, tracing Catalyntje's journey from Amsterdam in 1623 until her death in 1689, capturing pivotal historical events.

A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family

Debra Bruno’s Reckoning confronts her revered ancestors’ history as slave owners. With a journalist’s curiosity and historian’s rigor, she presents her findings in an engaging, conversational style.

Spring Lecture at the New York Botanical Garden

On April 25, a lecture titled "Peaches, Pears, and Purslane – Recreating Dutch Gardens in 17th Century New Amsterdam" attracted historians, plant researchers, and the public to the New York Botanical Garden’s Mertz Library.

Shipwreck and Salvation – The Wreck of The Prince Maurice 1657

VIDEO - On March 8, 1657, a Nor’easter drove Dutch ship The Prince Maurice into Fire Island. Indigenous night watchers heard the wreck and rescued the 129 aboard. This dramatic event is part of their 400-year history.

NAHC and the New-York Historical Society – New York before New York Opening

The creative team behind NAHC’s "Mapping Early New York" project, guests, and trustees joined over 400 people at the New-York Historical Society on March 20, 2024, for the "New York Before New York" exhibit opening.

From the Sultans’ Garden to the Park Avenue Malls

This year, the Park Avenue Malls featured orange Balloon and Peony Dutch hybrid tulips to mark the 400th anniversary of Dutch settlers arriving in New Amsterdam.

NAHC Salutes Artist Len Tantillo’s Latest Work

Fine artist Len Tantillo, renowned for his historical paintings of New Amsterdam and New Netherland, recently unveiled a new work in Schenectady, indirectly linked to the NAHC.

Two hundred and forty years ago, on 19 April 1782, the Dutch States General decided to recognize John Adams as the envoy of the United States of America ...

In December 28, 1662, a black African woman named Mayken van Angola pursued freedom in New Amsterdam. She did not stand alone...

Read how colonial New Amsterdam became New York City and how the name evolved has many twists and turns and is, in fact, a tale of war and peace.

Settler colonialism is not a story of friendly relations throughout. The confrontation with an unfamiliar other creates wariness and suspicion and often leads to violent outbursts ...

Len Tantillo’s New Work on the Connecticut River and Fort Good Hope

An unvieling ceremony of Len Tantillo’s work on the Connecticut River an Fort Good Hope will be held at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, Connecticut on Thursday, October 12, 2023, Old Lyme Country Club. 40 McCurdy Road, Old Lyme, Connecticut.

One of the First Colonists, Catalina Trico Pieter Schaghen writes in his letter to the States General with news from New Netherland in 1626: “our people there are doing well and living in peace.

In1625 an “animal fleet"was sent to the colony in a convoy of three vessels. About were103 head of stallions and mares, bulls and cows, sheep and pigs.

The Schaghen Letter – The Land Agreement between the Native Americans and the Dutch Settlers

This famous letter stating that the settlers were able to successfully grow crops and had negotiated a peaceful relations with principally the Indians, but also the English, who were rivals with the Dutch for control of territory in North America.

Peter Rose explores the food, drink and celebrations of the Hudson Valley Dutch in this comprehensive look at its importance and influence in early American life. Recipes are included.

To understand the origins of early New York, we must understand the culture that it created from the 17th-century Dutch colonization.

Kiliaen van Rensselaer (1586-1643): Designing a New World

Read about how Kiliaen van Rensselaer, one of the founding directors of the Dutch West India Company, helped establish the New Netherland colony.

The 19th portrait of Dutch Admiral by Dutch Golden Age master Jan Lievens was found hung above the mantel of a home in a small Massachusetts town...

Read this fascinating interview with Dr. Chelsea Teale and Dr. Dagomar Degroot on "The Little Ice Age" in the Dutch North Atlantic.

A treasure trove of letters that were intercepted at sea by the British have been stored in the British National Archived until now.

Sara Cedar Miller discusses what Central Park was like in the early days of New Amsterdam and how 800 acres of sprawling green acres in the middle of one of the world’s densest cities, became an urban masterpiece.

The Dutch artist who inspired Vermeer has a lot to teach Americans living in lockdown today

Explorers, Fortunes and Love Letters: A Window on New Netherland

Drawing on the latest research, leading scholars shed new light on the culture, society, and legacy of the New Netherland colony.

Alida Livingston's letters to her politician husband Robert is one of the most significant collections of women’s writing in 17th-century North America.

The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America

In a landmark work of history, Russell Shorto presents astonishing information on the founding of our nation and reveals in riveting detail the crucial role of the Dutch in making America what it is today.

Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

In the beginning, North America was Indian country but the Indians yielded to the westward rush of European settlers. Or so the story usually goes.

A Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast

Andrew Lipman’s tells the untold story of how the ocean became a “frontier” between colonists and Indians.

The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America

Jaap Jacobs offers distinctive examples of the economic colonization of New Amsterdam compared to that of the English colonies in North America.

A Dutch Family in the Middle Colonies: 1660-1800

Firth Fabend looks at how her ancestors, middle-class farmers, dealt with the changes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Exploring Historic Dutch New York: New York City * Hudson Valley * New Jersey * Delaware

This comprehensive guide to touring important sites of New York's Dutch history serves as an engrossing cultural and historical reference.

This edition provides the first complete and accurate English-language translation of an essential first-hand account of the lives and world of Dutch colonists and northeastern Native communities in the seventeenth century.

The 400-year anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson River provides a vantage point for understanding how the Dutch have influenced lower Manhattan.

The Diary of Asser Levy: First Jewish Citizen of New York Hardcover

Through the eyes of Asser Levy in 1654, we see what it was like for the first group of refugee Jews, fleeing persecution when they arrived in America from Brazil.

Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America

Hudson's 1609 voyage to America ignited a fierce competition to lay claim to this uncharted continent, teeming with untapped natural resources.

Three strong-minded Dutch-American women, related to each other by marriage, deal with the privations of life in a wilderness community.

Manuel de Gerrit de Reus was among the first enslaved people brought to New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company.

Four Hundred Years in America: Seventeenth Century Immigrant Ancestors Paperback

Four Hundred Years in America is the story of the first immigrant settlers in New Netherland, the seventeenth century Dutch colony in North America.

John Romeyn Brodhead’s Hunt for History #5

Over the centuries, numerous American visitors to the Netherlands produced travel accounts, filled with their fresh insights.

The Tale of the White Horse: The First Slave Trading Voyage to New Netherland #6

American historian Dennis Maika outlines how family and business connections shaped the development of a slave-trading center in Manhattan.

When John Adams arrived in the Dutch Republic as the American envoy, he was accompanied by his two sons. They were both expected to attend school so as to further their education, but ...

On the First Dutch Translation of the U.S. Constitution #8

There are a few topics that guarantee a historian an audience. Write a decent biography of Abraham Lincoln or James Madison, for example, and you are bound to have readers.

A Blauvelt Descendant: Researching Family History Paperback

Why does the Blauvelt family in America claim their ancestor was a Dutch colonist named Gerrit Hendricksen?

Sweet Prospects and a Bitter Experience: The Adventures of Gerrit Boon and Jan Lincklaen #9

The Holland Land Company is known for its role in settling the western part of upstate New York

The work that historians do influences their lives, especially if they spend a considerable time in a foreign land

Pella, Iowa was the destination for hundreds of Dutch families after the Afscheiding (Secession) of 1834 split the Dutch Reformed Church.

Sojourner Truth: Enslaved Woman of a Dutch-New York Family #12

On 31 March 1817 the New York legislature decided that enslavement within its borders had to come to an end. Final emancipation would occur on 4 July 1827.

Jane Addams and Aletta Jacobs at the Women’s Congress in The Hague #13

Social activism and the struggle for women’s suffrage in the early twentieth century brought together women from countries around the world

Rising from the Ashes: The Afterlife of a Phoenix #14

During a late evening walk, journalist Joske Meerdink decided to turn right and go across the local graveyard. It led to an unexpected find.

Edward Winslow: Anglo-Dutch-American Pilgrim #15

The early history of the Dutch in America is not confined to the Hudson River and the surrounding areas...

A Dutch Prince, His American Jeep, and Two Female Passengers #16

During the Second World War, the English secret service did not trust the German-born Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, son-in-law of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.

Lady Liberty as Muse: An Inspired Dutch Writer and Her Love for the United States of America #17

New Amsterdam. Vice versa, Annejet van der Zijl, a Dutch author, found her muse in the United States, as she relates her Dutch American story.

“Breaking Free from a Girls’ Boarding School”? American Mass Culture and the Roaring Twenties in the Netherlands #18

During the 1920s, the Netherlands excelled in dullness, but Kees Wouters shows how the cobwebs of pillarized society were blown away by a new musical wind from the West.

Learning of new opportunities in New Amsterdam, Asser Levy left Amsterdam and arrived in Manhattan on 22 August 1654, one of the very first Jews to do so. New Amsterdam was not a wholly welcoming place to Jews,

Fellow Founding Fathers: Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp and Thomas Jefferson #19

The Dutch Republic was the 1st country to acknowledge the independence of the United States in 1782 and they sent an official delegation set sail to Philadelphia.

Sailing across the Atlantic Ocean was an exciting adventure of a poor sixteen-year old boy from Turnhout, a small commercial town in what was then known as the Spanish Netherlands.

Brothers Among Nations: The Pursuit of Intercultural Alliances in Early America, 1580-1660

During the first eighty years of permanent European colonization, webs of alliances shaped North America from northern New England to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and entangled all peoples in one form or another.

“For Two Years, or Perhaps Forever”; Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley and the Artists’ Colony in Rijsoord #20

Stories handed down through the generations have a powerful impact. Alexandra van Dongen was always fascinated by the life of her American great-grandmother, an artist who eventually settled in the Netherlands.

Margrietje Cosyns thrived and survived three husbands and was a driving force in the building of young New Amsterdam.

A Sabre for Eisenhower: Forging Transatlantic Bonds for the Twentieth Century #21

Using a royal gift as a starting point, Jorrit Steehouder shows how ties between the United States and the Netherlands were forged through rituals and symbols, as well as through personal friendships.

The Dutch Republic through Bostonian Eyes #22

In the early 18th century, two young travelers, one from Boston and the other from Albany, visited the Dutch Republic, documenting their journeys. Despite similarities, their perspectives diverged significantly.

Hurley and its History: Historical Views Changing over Time #23

Travelling from Washington D.C. to Milwaukee, Dutch journalist Bas Blokker makes a stop-over in Hurley, N.Y., and discovers its Dutch history.

Sight, Sound, Touch, and Taste: Africans Sensing the Dutch in New Netherland #24

In early New Netherland and New Amsterdam, Lavada Nahon, a historical interpreter and culinary historian, vividly portrays the sensory world of enslaved individuals amidst scarce historical sources.

Recollections and Reconnections: War History as Family History #25

In early New Netherland and New Amsterdam, Lavada Nahon, a historical interpreter and culinary historian, vividly portrays the sensory world of enslaved individuals amidst scarce historical sources.

When did it all begin? When was New York Founded? #26

New York's founding and appropriate commemoration dates are explored. Jaap Jacobs reviews historical celebrations of Dutch-American friendship as the blog series concludes, questioning when and how to celebrate New York.

An Interview with colonist, Catalina Trico

An “Interview” with One of the First Colonists, Catalina Trico in New Amsterdam in 1664 on live in the colony.

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The following stories and articles have been contributed by historians and scholars who specialize in early New Amsterdam and Dutch history. We hope that they will help you best understand and experience how the early inhabitants of New Amsterdam built the city of New York.

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