Legacy of the Dutch in America

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And you know what that means Vacation Whether you've been planning it for months or you're ready to pack a bag and go on a whim, having a place you can rely on makes every trip feel that much easier That's where B Western comes in From scenic road trips to spontaneous adventures abroad You'll find welcoming stays wherever you land So you can focus on making memories, not managing the details This summer get one thousand bonus points and a chance to win two hundred fifty thousand bonus points. So wherever you're headed, make the stay part of the trip. and make it count with this limited time offer Life's a trip Make the most of it at bestwestern. com No additional purchase necessary for swweeps. See bonus points, terms and conditions, and sweeps rules for details. And visit bestwestern d. com for complete terms and conditions Whoa! it is rush hour on Wall Street. Look at all these people. But watch out for that taxi. Ooh, and the bike. Okay, well, we're standing here at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway, here in the Financial District of New York, ground zero of US Capital Markets If you look right down the block there, that's the New York Stock Exchange. opens at nine thirty, closes at four In all these suits streaming past us in the morning will stream right back out at night But the wall, this street is so famously named for. Where's that, you ask Well, nowhere to be found, I'm afraid. It did once stand here, erected in sixteen fifty three Back in the days of Dutch colonialization. Now in name only, it is still a remnant of New Amsterdam Harlem Thatat an Island evidence of a former colony that stood strong for fifty years For a time protected by a wall built to fend off perceived dangers inland When in fact, the bigger threat the one that would usurp them came from the sea Back in twenty twenty three, I spoke to author Russell Shorto about New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony on Manhattan Island. Russell is the best selling author of the island at the center of the world and most recently, taking Manhattan, the extraordinary events that created New York and shaped America with us on this episode to talk about how New Amsterdam became New York Russell Shorto. Hello again. We spoke last in march twenty twenty two, episode forty seven discussing your first book on New York. You must have been in the midst of this the second one back then. Is there a third in store? Hey Don, Great to be with you again So this book that we're talking about taking Manhattan is The story of New York's birth, essentially, when it actually becomes New York, which is sixteen sixty four I've got ideas for a book that would be sort of the next step in I guess you would say an early New York trilogy, but I haven't I haven't committed to it I think you should. It's amazing how few New Yorkers even understand this story. And this has everything to do with this ongoing process of translation of these Dutch records, right? which is right in New York. Yeah, my earlier book, The Island at the Center of the World, I wrote that because I stumbled upon this translation effort that's been going on in Albany, New York at the State Library since nineteen seventy four, the twelve thousand pages of records about the Dutch colony of New Netherland and its capital New Amsterdam. It's such a big story and yet people know still know so very little about it and it's so Influential to what America became, the idea that this colony of New Netherland extended over five future states that it ceded pluralism and what we would now call capitalism that it contributed so much to what America became. So that was On the basis of that effort, the translator, Charles Gerring, he just retired last year after fifty one years. I wrote Island Center of the World based on that And then as the translation project got to the last few years in the life of the colony, just before the English come into the picture I realized well now in these late volumes, we can see This vibrant, energetic little city at the tip of Manhattan Island. as something very desirable that the English suddenly wanted. So then I was very interested in, okay, what's this interplay between these two European colonial powers that results in New York. interestnteresting, all of which we were about to talk about. The Dutch first arrived in sixteen oh nine in the person of Henry Hudson an English navigator hired by the Dutch West India Company, his mission to lead an exploration eventually of the river that will one day bear his name, the Hudson River. He was actually on a different mission, but he ends up there Permanent Dutch settlements come along in the years later into the sixteen twenties with Fort Orange in sixteen twenty four, what eventually becomes Albany And then of course, New Amsterdam in sixteen twenty five, which is right at the southern tip of Manhattan Island big was the colony of New Netherland at first, And how large does it eventually become, Russell? Well, how big, I mean, initially there were a couple dozen people. So it was very tiny. And they were mostly immigrants, that is immigrants to the Netherlands. mostly they were these poor people from Walonia, what is now part of Belgium who had arrived in Amsterdam, you know, and there immigrants, they're looking for work And the Dutch put out this notice. you know come and participate in this new colonizing effort and it was the so called golden age. So it was hard to get people to be colonists on a wilderness continent. So these are the people who managed to do it. There were very few of them at the start. and by the end probably about ten thousand people in the colony. Important note is that they mixed The Dutch had kind of the melting pot of Europe in the seventeenth century, which was really unusual. They had an official policy of religious toleration. and that was a time when across Europe in England and France, in Spain, intolerance was official policy. I mean, And it was common sense too. The idea was you It's a dangerous world and in order to survive, we have to all be on the same page. And religion in particular is very divisive So you had a state religion and all that. So in the Dutch provinces, they turned that on its head. They were se going people, they were used to dealing with different kinds of people. So they had this idea that allowing different people, different religions, different languages, to be together would actually be strong for society. and it proved to be the case. They built this incredible nation empire And all of that in one way or another, came along when they formed this colony. Yeah, I mean, it's something I've only understood in my adult life. you know, that this that what happened in the Netherlands back in Europe was so remarkable, kind of an outgrowth of the Rennaissance in a way, right? I mean, that idea of tolerance and bringing people in from all over It creates a whole another world in opposition to what is so taken for granted. even by us historically, as we talk about these times, this was all happening and it was a big deal in the Netherlands and it was being noticed by a lot of people elsewhere. comeome over to the Atlantic with those early settlements You mean the notion of tolerance toleration. Yeah. Yeah Well, it doesn't, it doesn't. because there was tolerance and intolerance in the home country. I mean people or people and the same went for the colony. So on the one hand You have famously, at one point there are recorded to be eighteen languages spoken. at a time when New Amsterdam probably only had about five hundred people. So as I like to say, New York was New York, even before it was New York. So that suggests, you know that this tolerance was indeed in play. On the other hand, you can't ignore the fact that they had slavery. I mean, how tolerant can you be if you are enslaving human beings and that they were dispossessing native people. So somehow when you put all this together, you have to, I mean, I often think that when you do history, you have to be able to put clashing ideas in your head and manage because that's what they did. and that's what people still do The story we tell, the story you tell in your books is really a fifty year process of rise and fall of the Dutch in North America. But they had every intention of going big, right? They weret They weren't here for any kind of temporary stay. the beginning. Yeah, I mean, that was part of the struggle, the internal struggle Throughout the life of the colony, they were trying to get the home country to support them. And people everyone who was a director of the colony was writing letters as were other people, saying Look, we've got this amazing thing going. We've got the ability the possibility of exploiting this continent. We're just sitting on one, you know, in the eastern edge of this continent, but it goes on and on and on and we can do great things The powers that be in the home country were mostly they were getting money, they were getting wealth from the East Indies, that is Asia and from different parts of and from Brazil, from the Caribbean And so that's where they were focused. Very rarely do people say, you know, let's do this because in one hundred years it's going to really be something. I mean, people are looking, you know, next year or maybe a couple years out And there was money coming from there. So you can't fault them for their lack of foresight, I think.ure. Well, and all of these colonial efforts by everyone was all about making money You know, this was and the Dutch especially because they had refined that process quite a bit. it would continue all the way to this day depended on securing power and acquiring land Previously, in our other episodes which I really encourage people to listen to, you debunked the story of the buying of Manhattan for twenty four dollars of trinkets. In truth, how did the Dutch get their lands from the Native people? I mean, by what process essentially? I guess the overall important fact to keep in mind is they were here to do business with the Native people they didn't come thinking, all right we're going to displace all them, push them out or exterminate them. The name of the game was the fur trade. The Europeans were not fur trappers, the native people were So the idea was they would trade with them for furs, tell them you what kind of furs mattered most to them in any given season and then they would ship them home. And this was most importantly beavers because Beavers, you have fur, but under that you have pelt and if you process the pelt, you get felt and felt is very thin but very warm. And this is, you know, an era without central heating. And so people lined their coats and their jackets with it, they made hats out of it. So it was a big deal, a big enterprise. and from the perspective of the native people, they were not, you know these passive,, we don't know what to do. We're being overwhelmed by these newcomers They were very savvy and they wanted something out of this trade. They valued European manufactured goods. So that was the exchange. And when you look at the whole History of the period Of course, you're drawn to these outbreaks of warfare that happen which you have to look at, but at the same time, the whole scope of the period It was a business relationship and I think most of the time worked for all parties. Yeah We're in the middle of the sixteen hundreds. At this point, England has a foothold itself up in New England, obviously, with the Separatists have moved there and set up Plymouth colony, which becomes Massachusetts Bay Colony. Down south in Jamestown, that was the earliest settlement for the English. That's going on as well. So in between, vice is not the right word for it, but they're being sort of pincered by these two English presidencies Your book concerns itself, your new book concerns itself with the transition of power in sixteen sixty four when England under Charles II, the restoration of the Royals in England after the Civil War, decides to invade New Amsterdam. We call it an invasion. It turns out to be quite a bit different They're essentially saying enough of these Dutch in North America. it's time to consolidate our control of the Eastern Seaboard, right? The Dutch and the English were, I often think of them as sibling rivals. They were a lot alike in certain ways But the Dutch were ahead of the English much of the time. So the English were envious of them and envious so the Dutch got the choice piece of the easastern seaboard that because New York Harbor, the Hudson River connects to the Mohawk River that goes all the way to the Great Lakes. The Dutch envisioned this you know, we can get access to the whole to the heart of the continent here. and belatedly the English in New England realize, oh gosh, you know, they have this good bit But the backstory to from the English side is, as you said, the English Civil War, going back to the early part of the sixteen hundreds, The Puritans start to rise. The Puritans are, in my estimation, a kind of religious cult. They're religious extremists And it comes to a head, literally when they behead the king, Charles I, when they decide that the monarchy, that the establishment is corrupt and it needs an overhaul and they're the ones to do it And you have two sides in the war. you've got the Puritans who want to purify. And then you've got the other side which historically are quote the rooyalists, which is, I think, a bit of a misnomer because it suggests they were all huge fans of the monarchy, which surely a lot of them were, but I think the more important thing is They were anti Puritans. These were like the masses of the population that didn't want the Puritans to come in and outlaw Christmas and dancing and close the theaters down But then the Puritans did come in, they beheaded the king, and they outlawed Christmas and dancing and theater. So you had this eight year period of Puritan rule. At the end of that, then, the sons of the king who had fled to exile on the continent Come back And they now want to establ they want to get things going. They want to establish we would call the British Empire, that this was the beginnings of the British Empire And they look across the Atlantic Ocean and they see, okay, we've got this great possibility there in America. But there are a couple of problems. One is the Dutch you know, damn the Dutch again are right there at the, you know, right where we would like to be. And the other problem they see is that, yes, there are all these English colonies in New England by and large, they were founded by The Puritan. Yeah, the very people who had beheaded their father, the people who they who still hated the monarchy, you know? So that was a very complicated situation that they faced and yet they wanted to have a go at it Right What happens in sixteen sixty four is called a bloodless transfer One of those rare moments in Western history when men don't massacre each other over territory But was' it such a peaceful matter really And how so? You can look at it from as the English versus the Dutch. The English are sending ships in. in fact, they send this little flotilla of warships packed to the Gilds with soldiers and weapons and gunpowder so they're ready to have a go at the Dutch You can also look at it though as within both the Dutch society and English society, there are there's a split As I said, during the English Civil War, it was the split between religious kind of a religious right wing and then everybody else and the monarchy represented. and when they came back into power, they represented relative tolerance, which is a little bit hard to unpack because American history used to we used to look at the Puritans in New England as the people who stood up for religious tolerance. The caveat though, is they wanted religious tolerance for themselves. That's why they left. And they settled in New England and they said, OK, this is the promised land and because we're succeeding, that means God favors us eventually over time that, you know, that that idea just becomes part of American inheritance. But The fact was once they were there, they were brutally intolerant of other other Protestant sects, even So you've got that split. on the Dutch side, you have something similar going on in the home country. You have this struggle between kind of a left wing and a right wing. the more left or progressive. and it's all over the question of predestination. like the idea that Everybody is born And God has sort of imprinted each soul, like, yes, you're going to go to heaven. No, you're not. you know. And then some people started to say, Well, maybe we shouldn't be so sure that we know God's mind. And maybe you know you can do good works and you can earn a place to heaven. And then the Orthodox said, no way, you can't, you know you can't do that So that caused this huge political split there as well So on the ground here we're New York Harbor. It's the late summer of sixteen sixty four. You've got the English and their ships pointing their cannons at the fort at the tip of Manhattan Island. You've got the Dutch in the fort pointing their cannons back. So this is very much in play in this interaction. So yes, it's English versus Dutch, but it's also this sort of right wing versus left wing views about not just religion, but society and how you progress and who has a right to participate and all that. And what they discover, and this is really the heart of the book and what I found most interesting as I got into it, in this two week period They're feeling each other out. and they are coming to understand you know, the English on their ships are thinking those Dutch in the fort kind of a lot like us. And the Dutch and the fort were saying the same thing. They knew perfectly well. that the English in those ships represented the monarchy, represented relative toleration. They represented a kind of globally minded view as opposed to the Puritans in New England who they'd been living next to for forty years and they knew perfectly well that they were Puritans they had their strictures. And at the same time, so should I should maybe talk a little bit about the two leaders. Yeah, this was a very uncertain time. We're talking about a very specific period of a matter of weeks in August of sixteen sixty four. And this is always sort of broad stroked. and what's interesting about this conversation is the details, I think, how this really works. It's a matter of tremendous uncertainty. They've just arrived, right? There wasn't some advanance guard saying, by the way, there's going to be a fleet or one or two ships are going to come in and point their cannons. They're just arriving as one did in those days and suddenly whoops the English are right there in the harbor So take me through the steps. There's a man named Richard Nichols who figures into this, right? Yeah. Richard Nichols is the leader of this English force that's coming to take the colony from the Dutch. For the twenty five years or whatever, I've been writing about this I knew Richard Nichols because he's the one that takes over from the Dutch and makes it New York most pretty much all histories of New York. Give him a sentence or two sentences. Nichols came and take took the colony Who was he? So that's what I had probably the most fun working on this book digging into the past of this person who is quite consequential and pretty much unknown. I mean, that's an exciting thing for a writer of history So I spent a lot of time at the Bodleyland Library at Oxford University and the UK National Archives and in his hometown. He's from this little town called Ampptill in Bedfordshire. The question in the back of my mind was The new king, Charles II and his brother, James, the Duke of York. theirir father had been beheaded, you had the Civil warar and they come back. Why did they pick this guy to do this and it wasn't just one mission, wasasn't just get that Dutch colony, It was also deal with the Puritans in New England, veryer complicated. So how do they pick him So it turns out that they're from that Nichols is from this little village in Bedfordshire Around the village was the Royal Hunting Preserve Going back to Henry VII, kings would come there, depending on some kings liked hunting more than others. At the time of Charles I, their father, he was a big hunter. So he would come all the time and he would bring his sons They stayed in the lodge of the keeper of the hunting grounds. Who was Richard Nichol's father? No, You start to see them coming, they knew each other as they as kids. They all grew up together And then when the Civil War breaks out Nichols goes with them. into exile He then becomes a spy on behalf of the royals. He's going back and forth across the English channel. He's part of this whole network of spies and try to trying to win power back from the Puritans So then they're back in power and who do they appoint? They point this guy? Who has been at their side in the Civil War, has been they've known since children And he everything we know about him, he was a great believer in moderation. He detested this, you know, Puritan intolerance. So he's there now in the harbor and he's sending messengers to Peter Stuyveson, the leader of the Dutch colony who's been in power for seventeen years Styison's sending messengers back. The English are anchored off the tip of Long Island in Graves and Bay And they're sending these messengers on boats through the narrows And they're feeling each other out. So Nichols comes to understand that he wants not just This This rock, this island of Manhattan He wants this remarkable little society that the Dutch have created there. They have created this and this goes back to the records that the last years of the records that got me into writing this book It's this burgeoning society where you have these traitors who have networks doing business with the Caribbean, with South America, with West Africa, with different parts of Europe. I mean really kind of tough nervey men who had built this up Uh, and they have this this tolerance, you know, there's people of different backgrounds and so on. So he doesn't get this Capitalism is doesn't the word won't even exist for a long time. He doesn't entirely get it, but he gets that it works and he wants it. And the only way to get that is to keep the people there happy because they are the kind of keepers of this secret sauce so he wants to appease them. From the Dutch side They know that he represents relative tolerance and that the as opposed to the Puritans in New England And they also know that they have been trying for years to get the Dutch government to support them so that they can grow And they have been failing because the Dutch government is focused on, oh, we're getting easy wealth from from Asia and elsewhere. So in this standoff, in this back and forth, and of course they're threatening each other. You read this and this is what the heart of the book is this b back and forth and you know is the reader, you know the outcome, you know, the English are going to take it. and it's going to become New York you know, when you get lost in these details, I' mean pleasantly lost. you know, in these we have all the little letters they wrote back and forth, these notes periodically they're saying, that's it. we're attacking tomorrow. And then you know, the other side backs down a little bit and they're just doing this parrying. ultimately, they come to recognize and this is, you know, this is negotiation in a, you know, you can do negotiation in the sense that it's u I win, you lose, but they they both came to recognize that there was a kind of win win for the people on the ground peopleople in the home country in the West Indian company would be furious when they got word of this that the whole colony had just been given over to the English, but what they came down to was People on the ground in the colony would keep everything. They're going to keep their homes, their trade networks, their businesses, all of that And it would be supported under a new English regime This episode is brought to you by Best Western Hotels and Resorts Summer is upon us. And you know what that means Vacation Whether you've been planning it for months or you're ready to pack a bag and go on a whim Having a place you can rely on makes every trip feel that much easier. That's where Best Western comes in. From scenic road trips to spontaneous adventures abroad, you'll find welcoming stays wherever you land. So you can focus on making memories, not managing the details This summer get one thousand bonus points and a chance to win two hundred fifty thousand bonus points So wherever you're headed, make the stay part of the trip and make it count with this limited time offer Life's a trip Make the most of it at bestwestern. com No additional purchase necessary for sweeps. See bonus points, terms and conditions, and sweeps rules for details. and visit bestwestern. com for complete terms and conditions Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Coliseseum? Find out on the ancient podcast from History Hit. Twice a week Join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago from the Babylonians to the Celts, to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were That's the ancients from History Hit hundred and fifty years ago. They were hunting us down to kill us and now They're hunting down immigrants to deport them This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment Listen to First America wherever you get your podcast. Folks should remember this colony is really about making money. So everybody that's there is very pragmatically focused on that. And that's why there are so few ations, right? They weren't building their kingdom here. This was really a practical enterprise. So when faced with this opponent, very formidable opponent They're figuring all of this out about how do this benefit in the end? How they going to continue this society, right? Is that's what's going. So yeah, but making money, I mean, They wanted to develop their society. Right, right. So they really wanted to put down root that that's what they were doing. They were putting by now by this time It's forty years into this enterprise. You have like the second and third generation. people are their little grandchildren running around, you know, it' it's a real society And their beef against the Dutch government was they weren't giving them the soldiers and what they needed to really support their lives which is why ultimately they make this sort of counterintuitive decision and it wasn't just Styveson, the whole town was involved in this. Everybody, I mean,'s if you go down to the financial district you can in your mind strip away all the skyscrapers. You know, you can see the harbor. You can see the boat come in. you could see everybody could see these messengers going into the fort. I mean, everybody was there So they made this counterintuitive decision that the way to strengthen their colony was to make this deal with the English, have them take it over on the promise that they would keep everything. And in fact, that's what happened. And those people in sixteen sixty four thoseose traiters, the members of that community became the dynasties of New York. I the Dutch and the English as well. and the others who were in there, there were people from different parts of Europe and elsewhere They became the dynastic familyil. So it did indeed work. Who is Petrra Styveson? Peter, we're calling the director general. He was not the first leader of the colony. We covered this in this other episode, but I want to review. He comes along from a military background, right? Styveson was the last of five directors and the most consequential, he was there for seventeen years He was a West India compomany employee. The confusion there has to do with the way the Dutch set up their government. It was kind of like the American Confederation before you had the Constitution, where they envisionedak almost independent states That's how the Dutch provinces were And they were called the United provinces just as the United States would be called the United States. And so you had a very weak central government and then they developed these two multinational corporations, the East India Company and the West India Company that sort of did the foreign diplomacy. They were the State Department And Steveson was an employee of the West India compomany But if you had ambitions as he did You became I mean they had they were a military force too. they were a naval power. So theyought they were fighting a war of independence against Spain for much of the period before this And Styveson then is in battle against Spain in the Caribbean. And there he loses his leg and gets gets a wooden leg. So he's really battle hardened. And then eventually comes into the position of running this colony. He was the son of a Fesian minister, very stern figure. and initially, in my earlier book, The Island at Center of the World that we talked about a few years ago, Stuyvescent is when he comes in, he faces this colony in turmoil and he tries to lay down the law. He refers to the people as his subject you know, he's going to, you know, I'm your ruler. And he very quickly gets this blowback from this, you know, his population are, as I said, these traders who do business in different parts of the world. I mean, they're really tough guys. and they're not going to just sit there and be, you know, told what they have to do So for a few years, it's chaos. And then he comes to realize the way this colony is going to succeed is if these traders succeed So he sort of reinvents his job description. and sees that he's a middleman between the directors of the colony who are in Europe who are never going to come here. and his own population And once he starts to do that, then He essentially, I think Striveson doesn't really get credit But he is the one that laid the foundation for this successful trading colony that then the English are interested in and so in a sense, he lays the foundation for New York. Exactly. I can feel you when you're writing this book or researching it the squirm that must have come upon you because you're really looking at this in a kind of macro cosmic way these two weeks kind of tell the story of so much that makes youique New York unique. I mean, it's not fair to say it's all tracked to that, but I mean, it has the seeds of all this pragmatic thinking that eventually lays in to become this very unique culture. and it sort of begins there in a way. You can at least tell the story from that perspective I just want to understand, does Nicols like demand surrender or is this kind of a friendly conversation? Are there there's articles of capitulation, right Of course, you know, when you're doing this kind of negotiation ultimately comes down to an accommodation Nichols comes right in and says, I demand your immediate surrender. off course because that's what you do. So during this two weeks, there are times when one side or the other are, you know, have said basically, that's it. We're fighting. We're not. But then each time they they back down just enough to because they'd really know That's not Nichols knew that leveling the place is not in his benefit. And you know, it's interesting to try to figure out when did he make that determination. surely he made that determination during this negotiation period, not, you know, before when he left, he left clearly with orders and soldiers and the equipment. So, you know, you're going to, you're going to bomb them and you're going gonna to take it over. But I think he changed his mind when he was on the ground because he realized this is too valuable. I want it as is. Boy, it really comes down to a romantic movie scene for me. You know, that sense of like two guys probably sitting over a bottle of claret or something saying, you know what? This could go one way or the other possibly have come down to that kind of subtlety? Well, you know, so much of history. we have this sense of inevitability. thingsings had to come this become this way because here we are. but Tim and time and time again, you know, the old theory about the notion of if a butterfly somewhere flaps its wings, then it changes the weather on the other side of the planet. I mean, that's how history really works. It does come down to, you know, if because you know, things just happen to fall this way. They made these decisions. but of course on both sides, they were prepared for for war. They were prepared and and it would have started a war. And in fact, it did start a war when the English took this colony that precipitated a war. And I should note that the Dutch assumed, many of the people in the colony assumed that when a couple of years later, they negotiated the end of this trade war, was really a trade war. They weren't bombing each other' cities at home. they would get it back, that it would become Dutch again. And this one guy quote him writing a letter at three years later when they negotiate and they decide you'll keep it. The English would keep it writing home and saying, Well, I guess now we're going to have to learn English.. Those articles of capitulation I mentioned state in them. We will protect you can have your property rights. the inheritance laws religious freedoms, all of those things are part of this negotiation. and that's part of that's what you're saying. Nichols had figured out, Gee, it's better to keep it intact than it is. I think comes down to we're going to make taxes immediately. You know, the businesses are already in place. All we're going to do is change what we're Dutch you know payments into English taxes, essentially. And that makes perfect sense Does this lead to a name change immediately? Does it become New York right away? And why? Yeah, it does. And you know, I found this letter in which Nichols is writing to James, the Duke of York. That was his patron. And this goes back to their childhood. thoseose two had been closest from then. And he writes to him and says, I name this place New York. So he's saying, I nameam this after you, the Duke of York. And he also in that same letter, he was actually in that letter complaining because this is after he takes over. Once he takes over, you know, if you happen to have an idea, a picture in your head of New York Harbor with Manhattan and Staten Island and New Jersey to the West and all of that region, he had this plan to develop it because it's this one complex system of land and waterways and And then the Duke of York, his patron sends this letter saying, there was this friend of mine who was very supportive during the Civil War I've decided to give him that western portion. And he was the governor of the island of Jersey, so we're going to call that New Jersey And Nichols is, you know completely discombobulated by this What are you talking about? This messes up my whole, you know, if you look at this this harbor and all the land, I mean, it all fits together. You can't just divide it like that. And, you know, footnote The port Authority of New York New Jersey has had the job now of trying to like stitch this together, you know, what the Duke of York split. Nichols wrote to him in this letter saying trying to, you know, he' he at one point he says, Look, why don't you give your friend Delaware? That's a nice place, but he wouldn't do it. And he says because he knows that James was not only the Duke of York and his other title was the Duke of Albany And he said, look, I was going to call that place the western side of the Hudson River, Albania after. interesting. And my little joke here is that there are a lot of New Yorkers who still think of New Jersey as Albania. But But you know it needless to say, it didn't work out that way. He did name the second city Albany after the Duke of Albany Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Coliseseum Find out on the ancient podcast from History Hit Twice a week Join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago Babylonians, to the Celts, to the Romans And visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were That's the ancients from History Hit one hundred and fifty years ago. They were hunting us down to kill us and now They're hunting down immigrants to deport them This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment Listen to F America wherever you get your podcasts you've mentioned and hinted that this takes a lot longer than we think because permanent English annexation of all of New Netherland comes a decade later I mean, first, the two nations have to fight a war because of the capitulation and that which they try to so assiduously avoid in New Amsterdam itself takes place on a worldwide basis. sixteen seventy three to seventy four, the third Anglo Dutch war in which the Dutch take over the colony again, briefly rename it as New Orange That doesn't last long, though, does it? Yeah, that I think some the historians of New Netherland disagree with me, but I think that was really almost an accident. In that war in the sixteen seventy two, seventy three, the Dutch were different provinces just as the American colonies were you know, you thought of yourself as a New Yorker or a Virginian, and you didn't really think of yourself as an American first U so that's how the Dutch provinces were in these wars. and In the middle of this war with England One of the Dutch provinces, Zeeland or Zealand They get it in their heads. whyy don't we send out some ships and see what damage we can do to England and maybe we can make some money and they are going the Caribbean and then they come up the East Coast And they see New York is basically u deffended And they just send their ships in and take it. So when this gets back to the Hague to the government there, the Dutch government, they're like, you did what? You know, this was not part of the plan here. So I think that was a little bit of a footnote to history. I because in sixteen seventy four, very briefly afterwards, the Treaty of Westminster formally cedes the colony to England permanently and there we go. So while we mark sixteen sixty four as the year of Dutch cappitulation, it really isn't until sixteen seventy four it becomes the right and truthful New York with a clean slate But the tricks on the English, as you say Because as far as New York's concerned, the Dutch don't go anywhere. and this is what you were referring to before. All these patroon ships, you know, which are really the way the land is divided primarily up the Hudson River Those become the dynasties. thoseose become the families that really rule. and you can play it right through to the Roosevelts. you know, all these Dutch names that are so American to us now were actually Dutch people who stayed and kept going on with their trade under the English rule. The city retains its commercial ethos. It becomes