The credit for golf in its modern form is generally given to the Scots, but they certainly did not invent it from scratch.
When Kiliaen van Rensselaer purchased the land for his patroonship on the upper Hudson in 1631, Fort Orange--the Dutch West India Company's permanent trading post in the region--was seven years old.
In August 1664, the WIC ship Gideon arrived in New Amsterdam with 290 enslaved Africans, doubling the colony’s enslaved population. Though the voyage was momentous, almost nothing is known about those forced aboard or the ordeal they endured to reach the city.
The credit for golf in its modern form is generally given to the Scots, but they certainly did not invent it from scratch.
In 1684 Schenectady, constable and enslaver Jacob Sanders sued Frenchman Matthys Boffie for threatening to poison and kill Pey, an enslaved woman. Boffie claimed a relationship and children with her, offered to buy her, was refused, and allegedly threatened murder-suicide.
The credit for golf in its modern form is generally given to the Scots, but they certainly did not invent it from scratch.
Have you ever wondered about the name of the New Netherland Institute’s newsletter, or its curious spelling? Read on…
In recent years, the enslavement of Indigenous people by Europeans across the Americas has received renewed attention from scholars. However, when it comes to the Dutch colonies, only in studies of the Guiana region does Dutch Indigenous slavery appear as a significant factor.
In October 1657 a meeting of specially-appointed commissioners was held in New Amsterdam, likely in the City Hall. The commissioners were appointed by Director-General Peter Stuyvesant to hear a complaint by a Spanish merchant against Stuyvesant and the council of New Netherland.
