New Netherland Documents and the Dutch Textile Trade Project

Part II: Topics in the Digital Humanities: Projects, Methods, and Resources

This essay examines the Dutch Textile Trade Project’s use of the Dutch West India Company archives in the context of archival sources for the Dutch colony of New Netherland, which included parts of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut (1621 to 1664). While the digitization of the WIC’s New Netherland Papers has provided scholars with invaluable access to information about the former Dutch colony, it has also placed undue weight on this elite, semi-private collection of documents at the expense of other archival collections.

DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2023.15.1.7

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Carrie Anderson and Marsely Kehoe for their helpful comments on this essay.

Fig. 1 Unknown maker, Map of the Northeast Coast of America with a View of New Amsterdam, 1684, engraving and etching on paper, 47.2 x 55.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-2018-1179 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 2 Willem van de Velde the Younger, Ships at Anchor on the Coast, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 56.5 x 64 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-C-245 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 3 Jan Veenhuysen, View of the West India Company’s Warehouse in Amsterdam, 1664, etching and engraving on paper, 11.7 x 13.9 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-AO-25-67-1 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
  1. 1. The best overview of New Netherland remains Jaap Jacobs, The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth Century America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009). On the persistence of the Dutch after 1664, see Joyce Goodfriend, Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664–1730 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); and Joyce D. Goodfriend, Who Should Rule At Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017).

  2. 2. Carrie Anderson and Marsely Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market: A Digital Approach,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 15, no. 1 (Winter 2023), 10.5092/jhna.2023.15.1.

  3. 3. Anderson and Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market.”

  4. 4. Charles Gehring, Delaware Papers (Dutch Period): A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Regulation of Affairs on the South River of New Netherland, 1648–1664, New York Historical Manuscripts, Dutch (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981), 64–65.

  5. 5. See Anderson and Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market.”

  6. 6. Charles T. Gehring, ed. and trans., Curacao Papers, 1640–1665 (Albany, NY: New Netherland Research Center and the New Netherland Institute, 2011), 93,  https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/4013/5543/9329/CuracaoPapers.pdf. This is an edited and updated version of the published translation of the same records: Charles Gehring and J. A. Schiltkamp, eds., Curacao Papers, 1640–1665, New Netherland Documents 17 (Interlaken, NY: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1987).

  7. 7. These states are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania; see Charles Gehring, A Guide to Dutch Manuscripts Relating to New Netherland in United States Repositories (Albany, NY: New Netherland Institute, 2015), accessed March 6, 2023, https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/1014/3896/7203/A_Guide_to_Dutch_Manuscripts_Relating_to_New_Netherland_in_United_States_Repositories_2015_update.pdf. These figures as well those provided in the next sentence pertain only to the formal period of Dutch governance (1609–1664).

  8. 8. Gehring’s guide lists nineteen different repositories in New York state, some of which contain only a few documents, others with hundreds of pages of material. Gehring, Guide.

  9. 9. The Dutch West India Company’s archive in The Hague is itself much larger than the New Netherland documents in the United States, but most of these WIC documents deal with the Dutch in Brazil. For an overview of that collection, see “1.05.01.01 Inventaris van het archief van de Oude West-Indische Compagnie (Oude WIC), 1621–1674 (1711), Nationaal Archief, The Hague, accessed March 6, 2023, https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/1.05.01.01?query=owic&search-type=description. This collection is also fully digitized.

  10. 10. The whole collection of digitized documents may be accessed through the NYSA’s website: “Dutch Records: Dutch Records: Researching New York’s Dutch Heritage,” New York State Archives, Albany, accessed March 6, 2023, https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/collections/7781. The collection can be accessed, along with transcriptions and translations, at “Online Publications,” New Netherland Institute, accessed March 6, 2023, https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/research/online-publications.

  11. 11. Anderson and Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market.”

  12. 12. See, for example, the letters in the Alida and Robert Livingston Collection at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American in New York, which contains 355 letters over a total of 587 manuscript pages and covers the period from 1680 to 1727.

Anderson, Carrie, and Marsely Kehoe. “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market: A Digital Approach.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 15, no. 1 (Winter 2023),  https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2023.15.1.1.

Gehring, Charles T., trans. and ed. Curacao Papers, 1640–1665. Albany, NY: New Netherland Research Center and the New Netherland Institute, 2011).  https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/4013/5543/9329/CuracaoPapers.pdf.

———. Delaware Papers (Dutch Period): A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Regulation of Affairs on the South River of New Netherland, 1648–1664. New York Historical Manuscripts, Dutch. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1981.

———. A Guide to Dutch Manuscripts Relating to New Netherland in United States Repositories. Albany, NY: New Netherland Institute, 2015). https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/1014/3896/7203/A_Guide_to_Dutch_Manuscripts_Relating_to_New_Netherland_in_United_States_Repositories_2015_update.pdf.

Goodfriend, Joyce. Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664–1730. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

———.  Who Should Rule at Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017.

Jaap Jacobs. The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 1 Unknown maker, Map of the Northeast Coast of America with a View of New Amsterdam, 1684, engraving and etching on paper, 47.2 x 55.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-2018-1179 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 2 Willem van de Velde the Younger, Ships at Anchor on the Coast, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 56.5 x 64 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-C-245 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 3 Jan Veenhuysen, View of the West India Company’s Warehouse in Amsterdam, 1664, etching and engraving on paper, 11.7 x 13.9 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-AO-25-67-1 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]

Footnotes

  1. 1. The best overview of New Netherland remains Jaap Jacobs, The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth Century America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009). On the persistence of the Dutch after 1664, see Joyce Goodfriend, Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664–1730 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); and Joyce D. Goodfriend, Who Should Rule At Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017).

  2. 2. Carrie Anderson and Marsely Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market: A Digital Approach,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 15, no. 1 (Winter 2023), 10.5092/jhna.2023.15.1.

  3. 3. Anderson and Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market.”

  4. 4. Charles Gehring, Delaware Papers (Dutch Period): A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Regulation of Affairs on the South River of New Netherland, 1648–1664, New York Historical Manuscripts, Dutch (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981), 64–65.

  5. 5. See Anderson and Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market.”

  6. 6. Charles T. Gehring, ed. and trans., Curacao Papers, 1640–1665 (Albany, NY: New Netherland Research Center and the New Netherland Institute, 2011), 93,  https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/4013/5543/9329/CuracaoPapers.pdf. This is an edited and updated version of the published translation of the same records: Charles Gehring and J. A. Schiltkamp, eds., Curacao Papers, 1640–1665, New Netherland Documents 17 (Interlaken, NY: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1987).

  7. 7. These states are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania; see Charles Gehring, A Guide to Dutch Manuscripts Relating to New Netherland in United States Repositories (Albany, NY: New Netherland Institute, 2015), accessed March 6, 2023, https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/1014/3896/7203/A_Guide_to_Dutch_Manuscripts_Relating_to_New_Netherland_in_United_States_Repositories_2015_update.pdf. These figures as well those provided in the next sentence pertain only to the formal period of Dutch governance (1609–1664).

  8. 8. Gehring’s guide lists nineteen different repositories in New York state, some of which contain only a few documents, others with hundreds of pages of material. Gehring, Guide.

  9. 9. The Dutch West India Company’s archive in The Hague is itself much larger than the New Netherland documents in the United States, but most of these WIC documents deal with the Dutch in Brazil. For an overview of that collection, see “1.05.01.01 Inventaris van het archief van de Oude West-Indische Compagnie (Oude WIC), 1621–1674 (1711), Nationaal Archief, The Hague, accessed March 6, 2023, https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/1.05.01.01?query=owic&search-type=description. This collection is also fully digitized.

  10. 10. The whole collection of digitized documents may be accessed through the NYSA’s website: “Dutch Records: Dutch Records: Researching New York’s Dutch Heritage,” New York State Archives, Albany, accessed March 6, 2023, https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/collections/7781. The collection can be accessed, along with transcriptions and translations, at “Online Publications,” New Netherland Institute, accessed March 6, 2023, https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/research/online-publications.

  11. 11. Anderson and Kehoe, “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market.”

  12. 12. See, for example, the letters in the Alida and Robert Livingston Collection at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American in New York, which contains 355 letters over a total of 587 manuscript pages and covers the period from 1680 to 1727.

Bibliography

Anderson, Carrie, and Marsely Kehoe. “Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market: A Digital Approach.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 15, no. 1 (Winter 2023),  https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2023.15.1.1.

Gehring, Charles T., trans. and ed. Curacao Papers, 1640–1665. Albany, NY: New Netherland Research Center and the New Netherland Institute, 2011).  https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/4013/5543/9329/CuracaoPapers.pdf.

———. Delaware Papers (Dutch Period): A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Regulation of Affairs on the South River of New Netherland, 1648–1664. New York Historical Manuscripts, Dutch. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1981.

———. A Guide to Dutch Manuscripts Relating to New Netherland in United States Repositories. Albany, NY: New Netherland Institute, 2015). https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/files/1014/3896/7203/A_Guide_to_Dutch_Manuscripts_Relating_to_New_Netherland_in_United_States_Repositories_2015_update.pdf.

Goodfriend, Joyce. Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664–1730. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

———.  Who Should Rule at Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017.

Jaap Jacobs. The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.

Imprint

Review: Peer Review (Single Blind)
DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2023.15.1.7
License:
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation:
Deborah Hamer, "New Netherland Documents and the Dutch Textile Trade Project," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 15:1 (Winter 2023) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2023.15.1.7