Hendricks Award
Dr. Andrew A. Hendricks
Dr. Andrew A. Hendricks descended from the Colonial Dutch. A native of Orange, New Jersey, his fourth-grade assignment on the Dutch in North America grew into a lifelong fascination. Seeing American textbooks neglect the Dutch role, he resolved to “make the Dutch influence come to life.” He helped fund, build and design a full-scale replica of de Halve Maen, the ship Henry Hudson sailed to America in 1609 for the Dutch East India Company. For over two decades, de Halve Maen has sailed the eastern seaboard crewed by Dutch and American students, receiving visitors, participating in maritime festivals and appearing in movies and documentaries. To encourage scholarly research he endowed the annual Hendricks Award granted by the New Netherland institute. For his efforts, H.M. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands appointed Dr. Hendricks a Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau in 2009.
DEADLINES FOR 2027 APPLICATIONS
Nominations for the 2027 Hendricks Award are due January 15, 2027
The Annual Hendricks Award is given to the best book or book-length manuscript relating to any aspect of New Netherland and the Dutch colonial experience in North America up to 1776 and its legacy. The award carries a prize of $5,000, as well as a framed print of Len Tantillo’s painting Fort Orange and the Patroon’s House. The prize-winner, chosen by a five-member panel of scholars, is selected in May or June. The award is given at a ceremony in conjunction with our Annual Conference held in September or October. Reasonable travel expenses will be reimbursed.
Two categories of submissions will be considered in alternate years:
(1) recently completed dissertations and unpublished book-length manuscripts, and (2) recently-published books. If there is no suitable winner in the designated category in any particular year, submissions from the alternate category will be considered. In addition, submissions from the previous year will be reconsidered for the Award.
Entries must be based on research completed or published within two years prior to submission. Manuscripts may deal with any aspect of the Dutch colonial experience, as defined above. Biographies of individuals whose careers illuminate aspects of the history of New Netherland and its aftermath are eligible, as are manuscripts dealing with literature and the arts, provided that the methodology is historical. Co-authored books are eligible, but edited collections of articles are not, nor are works of fiction or works of article length. An entry may be a self-nomination, an outside nomination, or in response to invitations to submit from Hendricks Award readers.
Submissions will be judged on three criteria: their contribution to the scholarly understanding of New Netherland and the Dutch colonial experience in North America and/or the legacy of that experience, the quality of the research, and the quality of the writing.
Six copies of a published book or six clear, readable photocopies of the manuscript must be submitted on or before January 15, with a letter of intent to enter. Copies cannot be returned. Alternatively, manuscript submissions may be in PDF format.
Send PDF submissions to nni@newnetherlandinstitute.org or to let us know that your materials are in the mail. You will receive a reply confirming the receipt of your mailed materials.
Designated categories:
2025: Recently published books
2026: Recently-completed dissertations and unpublished book-length manuscripts
2027: Recently published books
2028: Recently-completed dissertations and unpublished book-length manuscripts
2029: Recently published books
2030: Recently-completed dissertations and unpublished book-length manuscripts
Address entries to:
The Annual Hendricks Award Committee
New Netherland Institute
P.O. Box 2536, Empire State Plaza
Albany, NY 12220-0536
Annual Hendricks Award Winners
2025 Michael Douma, The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York: A Cultural, Economic, and Demographic History, 1700-1827 (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
2024: Esther Baakman, “Atlantic Advices. The Atlantic World in the Dutch Periodical Press, ca 1635-1795” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Leiden University, 2023)
2023: Nicole Saffold Maskiell, Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry (Cornell University Press, 2022)
2022: Timo Wouter McGregor “Properties of Empire: Mobility and Vernacular Politics in the Dutch Atlantic World, 1648-1688” (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 2020)
2021: D. L.Noorlander, Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World, (Cornell University Press, 2019)
2020: Andrea C. Mosterman, “Spaces of Enslavement and Resistance in Dutch New York” (working manuscript title). Published as Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York (Cornell University Press, 2021)
2019: Joyce D. Goodfriend, Who Should Rule at Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City (Cornell University Press, 2017).
2018: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (Cornell University Press, 2016).
2017: Kenneth Shefsiek, Set in Stone: Creating and Commemorating a Hudson Valley Culture (SUNY Press, 2017).
2016: Deborah Hamer, “Creating an Orderly Society: The Regulation of Marriage and Sex in the Dutch Atlantic World, 1621-1674” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 2014).
2015: Donna Merwick, Stuyvesant Bound: An Essay on Loss Across Time (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).
2014: Jeroen Dewulf, “The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: African-American Performance Culture and the Master-Slave Relationship in Dutch-American Society from New Amsterdam to New York.” Published as The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch Owned Slaves (University of Mississippi Press, 2016).
2013: Susanah Shaw Romney,”Intimate Networks: Personal Relationships and Atlantic Ties in New Netherland, 1609 -1664.” Published as New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2014).
2012: 2) Evan Haefeli, New Netherland and the Dutch Origin of American Religious Liberty (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).
2012: 1) Danny Norlander, “Serving God and Mammon: The Reformed Church and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World, 1621 – 1674,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 2011).
2011: Janny Venema, Kiliaen van Rensselaer (1586-1643): Designing a New World (Hilversum: Verloren, 2010).
2010: Honorable Mention was awarded to Deborah L. Krohn, Marybeth De Filippis, and Peter Miller, eds. Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
2010: Dirk Mouw, “Moederkerk and Vaderland: Religion and Ethnic Identity in the Middle Colonies, 1690-1772” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 2009).
2009: James Bradley, Before Albany: An Archeology of Native-Dutch Relations in the Capital Region, 1600-1664 (Albany: New York State Museum Bulletin 509, 2007).
2008: W. Th. M. Frijhoff, Fulfilling God’s Mission: The Two Worlds of Dominie Everardus Bogardus, 1607-1647, Myra Heerspink Scholz, trans. (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
2007: 2) Kees Jan Waterman, To Do Justice to Him and Myself’: Evert Wendel’s Account Book of the Fur Trade with Indians in Albany, New York, 1695-1726 (American Philosophical Society, 2008).
2007: 1) Jeroen van den Hurk, “Imagining New Netherland: Origins and Survival of Netherlandic Architecture in Old New York, 1614-1776” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, 2006).
2006: No recipient
2005 Mark Meuwese, “For the Peace and Well-Being of the Country: Intercultural Mediators and Indian-Dutch Relations in New Netherland and Dutch Brazil (1600-1664),” (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Notre Dame, 2005). Published as Brothers in Arms, Partners in Trade: Dutch-Indigenous Alliances in the Atlantic World, 1595-1674 (Brill, 2011
2004: Simon Middleton, Privilege and Profits: Tradesmen in Colonial New York, 1624-1750 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)
2003: Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: the Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570- 1670 (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
2002: No recipient
2001: Adriana Van Zwieten, “A Little Land to Sow Some Seeds” (Ph. D. dissertation, Temple University, Philadelphia, 2001).
2000: Cynthia Van Zandt, “Negotiating Settlement: Colonialism, Cultural Exchange and Conflict in Early Colonial Atlantic North America, 1580-1660” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Connecticut, 2000). Published as Brothers Among Nations: The Pursuit of Intercultural Alliances in Early America, 1580-1660 (Oxford, 2008).
1999: J. A. Jacobs, “Een zegenrijk gewest. Nieuw-Nederland in de zeventiende eeuw” (Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University, 1999). An abridged, English version was published as The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeeth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 2009).
1998: Paul A. Otto, “New Netherland Frontier: Europeans and Native Americans along the Lower Hudson River, 1524-1664” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1994). Published as The Dutch-Munsee Encounter in America: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Hudson Valley (Berghahn Books, 2006).
1997: Dennis C. Sullivan, “The Punishment of Crime in Colonial New York: The Dutch Experience in Albany during the Seventeenth Century” (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Albany, 1995). Published as The Punishment of Crimes in Colonial New York: The Dutch Experience in Albany During the Seventeenth Century (Peter Lang, 1998).
1996: Dennis J. Maika, “Commerce and Community: Manhattan Merchants in the Seventeenth Century” (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1995).
1995: Eric Nooter, “Between Heaven and Earth: Church and Society in Pre-Revolutionary Flatbush, Long Island” (Ph.D. dissertation, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1995).
1994: Martha Dickinson Shattuck, “A Civil Society: Court and Community in Beverwijck, New Netherland, 1652-1664” (Ph. D. dissertation, Boston University, 1993).
1993: David S. Cohen, The Dutch-American Farm (New York University Press, 1992).
1992: David E. Narrett, Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City (Cornell University Press, 1992).
1991: Joyce Goodfriend, Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730 (Princeton University Press, 1992).
1990: David William Voorhees, “‘In Behalf of the true Protestants religion’: The Glorious Revolution in New York” (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1988).
1989: Firth H. Fabend, A Dutch Family in the Middle Colonies, 1660-1800 (Rutgers University Press, 1991).
1988: Thomas E. Burke, Jr., “The Extremest Part of All: The Dutch Community of Schenectady, New York, 1661-1710 (Ph.D. dissertation State University of New York at Albany, 1984). Published as Mohawk Frontier: The Dutch Community of Schenectady, New York, 1661-1710 (Cornell University Press, 1992).
1987: Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York (Cornell University Press, 1986).
