When the Dutch founded the city of New Amsterdam, at the tip of Manhattan Island, they brought three elements that would shape the city of New York: tolerance, trade, and water management. Four hundred years later, these issues are confounding the modern world.

Watch a conversation about the experiences of the Black communities who lived and worked in New Amsterdam in the 17th century—and who ultimately changed the city. Under Dutch colonial rule, enslaved Black people in Manhattan lived alongside free and “half-free” Black people who sometimes owned land and property and had legal rights.

Watch this conversation about the experiences of the Native American peoples who, in the 17th century, lived in the area that would become New York City. For centuries before European colonists landed in North America, Native Americans farmed, fished, and hunted on Mannahatta and traded with other people along the waterways.

The Dutch West India Company established colonies in these distant and distinct regions, yet their plans for them were surprisingly similar. Melissa Morris and Deborah Hamer will discuss how Dutch colonialism in the Guianas shaped expectations, attitudes, and activities in New Netherland

Marked by periods of regional cooling in the North Atlantic extending from the 16th to 18th centuries, the Little Ice Age presented challenges to Dutch colonists living in New Netherland. Research shows weather during the Little Ice Age was irregular with sometimes harsh winters, dry growing seasons, floods, and failed harvests. But there were also many years without a noteworthy climate event.

What did people in New Amsterdam eat? Africans, Native Americans, and a range of Europeans relied on many of the same ingredients but used them in different ways. Watch this conversation with culinary historian Lavada Nahon and writer Russell Shorto about the history of these foodways in New Amsterdam and the legacies they left behind.

After journalist Debra Bruno discovered that her Dutch ancestors were enslavers, she contacted the descendants of the people her family enslaved. Would connecting with the descendants bring anyone healing? She described the details of her journey for the Washington Post Magazine in 2020. Bruno joins writer Russell Shorto to talk about her archival research and record finding, what it meant to publish her family history, and how she’s turning it all into a book.

What happened to Dutch traders and leaders in New Netherland after they surrendered to the British in 1664? Dutch colonists were able to maintain regional power based on the relationships that they had built with Indigenous nations in the previous decades.

Slavery, race, community, and family were vital to the history and development of colonial New Amsterdam and New York. Examining familial and community networks of diverse women, especially enslaved women, reveals multiracial and dynamic connections among ordinary people who shaped the trajectory of the city’s history.

Four centuries ago, what had been a Lenape-speaking archipelago suddenly became New Amsterdam—a crossroads of Native American, European, and African cultures. Here, 18 languages were reported as being spoken within the first few decades, and the number is likely far greater.

Russell Shorto, curator of "New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam," and Deborah Hamer, Director of the New Netherland Institute, take a closer look at life in New Amsterdam through the Castello Plan.

Christian Koot, author of "A Biography of a Map in Motion: Augustine Herman’s Chesapeake "(2017), and Deborah Hamer discuss how maps were made, what was distinct about the Dutch tradition of mapping, and how maps were much more than neutral depictions of borders and terrain.

Ian Stewart, owner of New Netherland Timber Framing and Preservation, and Russell Shorto, director of the New Amsterdam Project, discuss Ian's 20+ year career working on historic buildings and heritage sites. From Dutch barns to 17th-century homes, discover how we are still preserving New Netherland's architecture all across the country—even in Texas!

Deborah Hamer, Director of the New Netherland Institute, and Josephine Bloodgood, Director of Curatorial and Preservation Affairs at HHS, explore some of the exciting discoveries made through digitization of the community’s earliest documents.

Scholar Jaap Jacobs, currently working on a Society of Daughters of Holland Dames funded translation project, joins Russell Shorto to talk about the work of translating these documents, new information yet to be uncovered, as well as Petrus Stuyvesant, who Jacobs is researching for his upcoming biography.

Deborah Hamer, Director of the New Netherland Institute, speaks with historian and historical translator Dirk Mouw on his research, the early congregations and religious life in New Amsterdam, and the continuing legacy of the church, now known as the Reformed Church in America.

NNI director Deborah Hamer talks to Tom Ruller, the former New York State Archivist, about the archives of New Netherland, how the State Archive has preserved these records, and what they have done and continue to do to make these records accessible to the public.

Deborah Hamer, the director of the New Netherland Institute in Albany, New York, talks to Sarah Mallory, the Annette and Oscar de la Renta Assistant Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library & Museum, about Mallory’s new edited volume, a collection of essays titled "Art Museums and the Legacies of the Dutch Atlantic Slave trade: Curating Histories, Envisioning Futures."

Russell Shorto, author and Director of the New Amsterdam Project, and Allyson Schettino, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, explore how we share New Amsterdam's legacy with the public through education, primary sources, and stories.

NNI director Deborah Hamer talks to Russell Shorto, director of the New Amsterdam Project at The New York Historical and senior scholar at the NNI, about his book "Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events Created New York and Shaped America."

Histories of the Revolutionary War usually focus on men, but women played an important part in the war, too. Join New Netherland Institute director Deborah Hamer as she talks to Dr. Anna Danziger Halperin, Director of the Center for Women's History at New York Historical, about the new exhibition Revolutionary Women (opening May 29) Learn more about what women did during the American Revolution and how New York's women coped with the British occupation.

In his new biography, Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found (Norton, 2026), Andrew Graham-Dixon offers a startling new perspective on one of history’s most beloved artists. Join Russell Shorto as he talks to Graham-Dixon about Vermeer's unique milieu and recounts the detective work that led him to unravel these mysterious paintings.

We often talk about New Netherland's records at the New York State Archives in Albany. But did you know that the New York State Library also has an extremely large collection of Dutch documents? Join New Netherland Institute Director Deborah Hamer as she talks to Lauren Moore, the New York State Librarian, and Elizabeth Jakubowski, Associate Librarian of NYS Library’s Special Collections.

Jacob Steendam was one of the first poets of Colonial America. Join Deborah Hamer as she talks to Dr. Danny Noorlander about Steendam's poetry, his experiences in Africa before he arrived in New Netherland, and how studying music, poetry, and sound can add to our knowledge of the Dutch Atlantic World.

Novelists have long found the Dutch Golden Age a setting and source of inspiration. Join Russell Shorto as he talks to Victoria Redel about her new novel I Am You. The book follows the intertwined lives of Maria van Oosterwijck, renowned today for her gorgeous still life paintings, and her servant, Gerta Pieters. Find out what drew Redel to the period and how she makes us see it in a new way.

In 1689, New York merchant Jacob Leisler led a rebellion against King James in New Amsterdam. Leisler’s remarkable, ill-fated administration, from 1689 to 1691, is central to understanding New York’s pre-Revolutionary political, economic, and cultural life. Join Russell Shorto as he chats with David William Voorhees, director of the Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History, about the rebellion, and how developments from that era are still felt today.

When the Dyckman Farmhouse was built in 1784, the area around it was farmland. Now, it sits at the bustling corner of Broadway and 204th Street in Inwood. Join Deborah Hamer as she talks to Melissa Kiewiet, the executive director of the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance about the history of the house, the new work being done to reveal more about the enslaved people who labored in the house, and how the house has become an important contemporary exhibition space.

Few names are as synonymous with the Hudson Valley as Washington Irving, but few know that he grew up steeped in Dutch history. Join Russell Shorto as he speaks with Dr. Elisabeth Paling Funk about her new book The Dutch World of Washington Irving.