Charles T. Gehring – författare

This new edition and original translation of a tract by Dutch settler and lawyer van der Donck makes more widely accessible a document crucial for understanding the history of Dutch colonization in North America. . . . This document is an important primary source for students and researchers in colonial Dutch history, the settlement of New York and North America more generally, and the understanding of Indian cultures in the Northeast. -J. Mercantini, Choice This edition of A Description of New Netherland 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. Adriaen van der Donck, a graduate of Leiden University in the 1640s, became the law enforcement officer for the Dutch patroonship of Rensselaerswijck, located along the upper Hudson River. His position enabled him to interact extensively with Dutch colonists and the local Algonquians and Iroquoians. An astute observer, detailed recorder, and accessible writer, Van der Donck was ideally situated to write about his experiences and the natural and cultural worlds around him.Van der Donck’s Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant was first published in 1655 and then expanded in 1656. An inaccurate and abbreviated English translation appeared in 1841 and was reprinted in 1968. This new volume features an accurate, polished translation by Diederik Willem Goedhuys and includes all the material from the original 1655 and 1656 editions.The result is an indispensable first-hand account with enduring value to historians, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists.

For centuries the history of the Mohawk Valley has been shaped by the complex relationships among the valley's native inhabitants, the Mohawk Indians, and its colonists, starting with the Dutch. In Mohawk Country collects for the first time the principal documentary narratives that reveal the full scope of this Mohawk-settler interaction. Some of the sources have never before been translated into English, and several have not been previously published. Of those works that had been published, nearly all are out of print.The Mohawk location near Albany, New York put them at the center of transactions between the Iroquois and European colonists. (The Mohawk were one of the constituent nations within the League of the Iroquois.) These narratives-written by Dutch merchants, French Jesuit missionaries, English soldiers, romantic European travelers, and other literate observers-provide often biased but always fascinating accounts of the Mohawk and their valley. The reader is treated to over two centuries of history, starting with the arrival of the Dutch in the early seventeenth century to the planning of the Erie Canal in the early nineteenth century.These records bring to life the rapid changes experienced by both the Mohawk and their European neighbors. Wars, catastrophic epidemics, and the diplomacy of nearly two centuries are all well represented in this volume. Fascinating cultural differences are also unearthed: the French, for example, dealt with the Mohawk much differently than the Dutch or the English. Just as importantly, these writings reveal—from the unique perspectives of the observer—the Mohawk's struggle to retain their culture in the midst of evolvingpolitical, social, and physical environments.

This volume of New Netherland documents makes critical material available from a period of time when the Dutch played a major role in building the New World. Included are a historical introduction and annotations.

This volume is a collection Petrus Stuyvesant's correspondence from 1647 to 1653, the first six years of his tenure as director general of New Netherland. These letters show how the young Stuyvesant handled major problems in his administration and confronted the challenges laid before him.