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Bibliography

Primary sources

Arnoldus Montanus, Die unbeekante Neue Welt; oder, Beschreibung des Welt-teils Amerika, und des Sud-Landes: darinnen vom Uhrsprunge der Ameriker und Sudlander, und von den gedenckwurdigen Reysen der Europer darnach (Amsterdam: Jacob von Meurs, 1673)

Van der Donck’s Beshcryvinge van Nieuw Nederlant, 1656.

Van Groesen Michiel. The Representations of the Overseas World in the De Bry Collection of Voyages (1590-1634). Leiden/Boston 2008.

Secondary sources

Bauman, Guy and Walter A. Liedtke. Flemish. Painting in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Painting in the Public Collections in North America. Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 1992.

Blackburn, Roderic H., Ruth Piwonka. Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America, 1609-1776. Albany: Publishing Center for Cultural Resources for the Albany Institute of History and Art, 1988.

Regarding the authors: Roderic Blackburn has been engaged in research and writing on the history, architecture, and arts of New York State for over 30 years, whose writings include Dutch Colonial Homes in America, Great Houses of New England, Early New England Houses, and so forth. Besides writing and publishing books on architectural history, regional history and regional art and antiques, he is also engaged in selling period houses. Ruth Piwonka is an independent scholar, who has published two books on American art and architecture from the 17th to 19th centuries. Both Roderic H. Blackburn and Ruth Piwonka are from the Columbia County Historical Society. Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America, 1609-1776 is the second work of collaboration of the two authors Roderic Blackburn and Ruth Piwonka, whose first cooperative book, A Visible Heritage, Columbia County, New York: A History in Art and Architecture, came out in 1977 (Kinderhook, N.Y. : Columbia County Historical Society). This 318-page book, which originated in a major exhibit commemorating the tricentennial of the city of Albany, uncovers the range of Dutch colonial experience in America through some 350 objects: paintings, furniture, silver, gold, ceramics, textiles, prints, drawings, and architecture. The 322 black-and-white and 32 color-illustrated catalog entries are divided into five thematic sections: the role of commerce and religion in the founding of New Netherland, the development of an Anglo-Dutch elite, urban and rural architecture and life, the furnishings and functions of the home, and the domestic arts. Each section is accompanied by illustrations of artifacts as well as by numerous contemporary quotations of illuminate it. In the final section of Remembrance of Patria which focuses on the visual arts, Mary Black contributed an essay on painting, providing a wealth of new information on colonial New York art collecting, on the surviving portraits and scriptural paintings, and on the artists who produced them. By focusing on the three generations of painters of the Duyckinck family, she demonstrates that there was continuity in Dutch American art. In an essay on furniture, Joyce Volk and Roderic Blackburn focus on the kas, “the most important piece in the Dutch style to be made in New York and New Jersey” (p.257). Besides the artifacts made under the influence of Dutch culture, the catalogs also contains objects that appear to have no distinct Dutch features, such as an English side chair (no. 188) and a Philadelphia wedding dress (no. 238). The catalog is criticized for some historical and cultural inaccuracies in the text, as well as for its overemphasis on the Albany area, a limited inclusion of artifacts and analysis of the Dutch culture of western Long Island, of eastern New Jersey, and of the South River, or Delaware, communities, which would have been better if some discussion of the City of Amsterdam’s plans for the development of New Amstel on the Delaware had been included, or if the material culture of the Hudson valley with that of such other Dutch colonial possessions as Surinam, Brazil, and Capetown had been compared. With its wealth of information, Remembrance of Patria is an essential work for material culture scholars as well as a valuable source on both the early arts in New York and the Dutch contribution to the shaping of the American character.

Book reviews consulted

David WilliamVoorhees, review of Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America, 1609-1776, by Roderic H. Blackburn and Ruth Piwonka, Winterthur Portfolio 25, no. 1 (Spring, 1990): 70-72.

Online resources consulted

Columbia County Historical Society http://cchsny.org/

Pavilion Gallery - American Art & Antiques in New York's Hudson Valley http://rhbantiques.com/

History Cooperative http://www.historycooperative.org/

[Sicong Zhu] Burke, Thomas E. Mohawk Frontier: The Dutch Community in Schenectady, New York, 1661-1710. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.

Goodfriend, Joyce D. and Benjamin Schmidt and Annette Stott. Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008.

Goodfriend, Joyce D., Benjamin Schmidt and Annette Stott, eds. Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009. Boston: Brill, 2008. This text, an edited compilation of essays, takes a multidisciplinary approach to the elucidation of the Dutch presence in America, beginning with Henry Hudson’s 1609 voyage and continuing today in the lasting impact of the influx of Dutch immigrants. These essays address a broad range of topics, including art, architecture, religion, and identity, especially as it relates to the Dutch in the American Mid-west. Throughout these essays, however, the identification and definition of “Dutchness” remains a central theme. The twelve essays are divided into groups based on thematic similarities, the first of which is entitled “Colonial Dutch Influences” and focuses on Dutch art and architecture. The second set of essays is organized under the theme of “Nineteenth Century American Interpreters of Dutchness.” The two essays in this section are rooted in the study of literature and history, addressing concepts including folklore. Key themes in the third section of the compilation are migration and assimilation, addressing the idea of Dutch and American identity in the Mid-west. “Dutch Art and American Collectors,” the fourth group of essays, focuses mainly on the American perception of the Dutch and the display of this perception through private and public art collections. The fifth and final section explores the cultural influence of the Dutch on the development of modern America. William Frijhoff’s epilogue brings the compilation to a close with his “Dutchness In Fact and Fiction,” a look at Dutch identity, history, and culture. Throughout the text, it becomes clear that no one definition of Dutchness will suffice; the seemingly simple question “What is Dutchness?” continues as an area of inquiry for scholars. This text is especially useful to scholars interested in questions of identity and could serve as a model for those hoping to undertake a similar study focusing on a different region or cultural group.

Reviews available for consultation:

Gimber, Steven. Reviewing Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009, edited by Joyce D. Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt and Annette Stott. Canadian Journal of History 45, no. 3 (2010): 647-649.

Scott-Smith, Giles. Reviewing Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009, edited by Joyce D. Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt and Annette Stott. Journal of American Studies 43, no. 2 (2009): 1-2.

[Lauren M. Freese)]

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

Kenney, Alice P. "Neglected Heritage: Hudson River Valley Dutch Material Culture." Winterthur Portfolio 20, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 49-70.

Kenny takes a multi-disciplinary approach to exploring how Dutch culture was perpetuated throughout the Hudson River valley after the English took control of the New Netherlands in 1664. Although the assumption has been that cultural identity faded rapidly with the absence of Dutch sovereignty, Kenny notes that the art and architecture of successive generations illustrate a lasting heritage. By continuing to reside in their familial homesteads, Dutch patricians brought about enduring motifs and social customs. Washington Irving and Herman Melville drew on familiar source materials, such as Rip Van Winkle, for their stories based on Dutch folk tales. Traditional culture is also manifest in construction techniques of existing buildings and provides tangible evidence of consistent aesthetics. Silver, furniture, and other decorative arts underscore that customary Dutch methods were coherent well beyond the seventeenth century. [Nathan Popp]

Kisluk-Grosheide, Danielle O. “Dutch Tobacco Boxes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue: Metropolitan Museum Journal 23, 1988.

Larson, Erik with collaboration by Jane P. Davidson. Calvinistic Economy and 17^th Century Dutch Art. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999.

Liedtke, Walter. “The Study of Dutch Art in America.” Artibus at Historiae, 200. Vol. 21 (41).

Lucas, Henry S. Netherlanders in America: Dutch Immigration to the United States and Canada, 1789-1950. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1955.

Merwick, Donna. Shame and Sorrow: Dutch American Encounters in New Netherland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Merwick's text on the Dutch in the New Netherlands tries to describe and illuminate the failure of the Dutch "ethical" ideals that they claimed differentiated them from the English or Spanish settlers during the trade era, including their own unwillingness to enslave natives or seize their lands. The text starts with an introduction into this Dutch "ethical ideology," by writing about the established or potential trades in every potential colony; the Dutch searched for an island from which trade could go on unhindered. As Merwick explains, the Dutch did not want to establish settlements or colonies. However, they soon followed the precedent of their English neighbors, extorting locals for money, conducting raids, and culminating in the 1643 massacre of eighty Indians in Pavonia, violating rules the VOC had established for itself and jeopardizing their own moral code. [Arjun Amrik Singh Ahluwalia]

Rohrs, Kirsten. “Dutch Style in America” Colonial Homes, June, 1997, Vol.23 (3).

Rothschild, Nan A. Colonial Encounters in Native American Landscape: The Spanish and Dutch in North America. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2003.

This interdisciplinary comparative study draws on archaeological data, historical documentations, and contemporary discourse related to colonial theory in order to understand how and why two separate colonial encounters in North America that occurred during the seventeenth century developed as they did. More specifically, Nan A. Rothschild, an anthropologist and the Director of Museum Studies at Columbia University, examines Spanish missionaries and the Pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley (modern-day New Mexico) and Dutch fur traders and the Mohawks in the Hudson River Valley. In both cases, colonial encounters were tied to exploration and conquest; domination became a critical component to the “complex interconnections between societies and cultures” (2-3). Rothschild pays close attention to the material cultures that served as a kind of “record” of the changing nature of such colonial interconnections. However, this book is written from an anthropological perspective and, through a comprehensive study of religion, spatial landscapes and environmental conditions, and gender theory, seeks to analyze the complex and dynamic relationship between the colonizer and the colonized; a critical art historical interpretation of the material culture is beyond the scope of this project. [Amanda Strasik]

Review available for consultation: Fishman, Laura. “Review: Colonial Encounters in Native American Landscape: The Spanish and Dutch in North America by Nan A. Rothschild.” Journal of American Ethnic History , Vol. 25, No. 2/3, Immigration, Incorporation, Integration, and Transnationalism: Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives (Winter - Spring, 2006), 315-317.

Schmidt, Benjamin. Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination in Shaping the New World, 1570-1670. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Benjamin Schmidt’s Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670 seeks to redress the perceived oversight of scholars to address how the Dutch perception of the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries changed to both accommodate and shape Dutch colonialism. Schmidt opens his dicussion with Godefridus Udemans' Geestelyck roer van 't coopmans schip (The spiritual rudder of the merchant ship), which Schmidt sets up as a typical early Dutch account of the New World, in so far as he: 1) doubts the newness of the Americas, 2) refutes the Hapsburg territorial and civilizing claims, and 3) suggests that the Dutch and Amerindians shared a special kinship having both suffered under the Spanish yoke.1 Schmidt points out that while this account is typical of the general perception of America in the Netherlands, Udemans used the New World to suit “the purposes and polemics of the Republic.”2 Indeed, Spanish abuses and sympathy for the natives were used to justify the founding of the West India Company, which combined economic and Calvinistic imperatives with the mission to find native allies and drive out the Spanish. But in the 1630s, when the West India Company and other Dutch began trading in and colonizing the New World, they discovered that the Native Americans were hardly the co-religionist brethren constructed by the Dutch fantasy. Schmidt deliberately generalizes the Dutch perception of America in the period before colonization, matching the Dutch view of the New World built more on fantasy than fact. Schmidt points out the impact of the Dutch preconceptions, citing the oft-mentioned purchase of Manhattan Island for only 60 guilders as an a-historic misconception, as the Dutch paid far more than the English had paid for Jamestown or the Spanish for Hispaniola. Consistent with the Dutch accounts of the New World that saw the natives as potential allies, Schmidt describes how the Dutch settlers in New Netherlands were instructed to treat the Indians with "honesty, faithfulness, and sincerity in all contracts, dealings, and intercourse."3 However, the author is not blind to the significant differences, noting the different perceptions of New Netherlands (centered on modern-day New York) and New Holland (modern-day Northern Brazil). In the discussion of both colonies, there was a clear shift away from the original mission to save the natives, and toward conquest and empire-building. Yet, as Schmidt nicely summarizes, “If descriptions of Brazil could assume a classical, epic tone, those of the Hudson River Valley colony adapted a manner more accurately characterized as scriptural. Representations of the colony emphasized the generously blessed landscape and the natural bounty the earth would produce."4 Positive accounts like these were not produced for long, mainly owing to the demise of the Dutch colonial empire in the New World. The moral outcry against all things American picked up in the mid-17th century. Schmidt discusses an emblematic account by van Rensselaer, who never visited New Netherlands, but nonetheless constructed a list of transgressions that Schmidt labels "the seven deadly sins of colonial life," including "cupidity (in trade), gluttony (in drink), faithlessness (with the patroon), wantonness (with the natives), and so forth."5 Thus, the accounts of Van Rensselaer and Godefridus Udemans, while rhetorically divergent, both use a plastic conception of America that as Schmidt describes “enabled the Dutch to fashion a version of America that matched the rhetorical imperatives of the day: to produce a usable geography that addressed the evolving needs of the Republic."6

1 Schmidt, xvii.

1 Schmidt, xix.

1 Directive from governor Willem Verhulst, in Schmidt, 247

1 Schmidt, 259.

1 Schmidt, 276.

1 Schmdit, xix.

[Tyler E. Ostergaard]

----. “Mapping an Empire: Cartographic and Colonial Rivalry in Seventeenth-Century Dutch and English North America.” The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 3 (July 1997).

This article by historian Benjamin Schmidt concerns the rivalry between the English and the Dutch, focusing on the respective mapmaking of the Netherlands and England in seventeenth-century North America. He convincingly argues that the Dutch were far superior mapmakers to the English and that the Dutch used maps strategically in colonial diplomacy. In addition, Schmidt includes information concerning the opposing geographic nomenclatures used by the English and the Dutch. Although this article is written by a historian, he does briefly touch upon various iconographic elements in Dutch maps that were meant to symbolize dominance of the region. Schmidt laments the lack of attention given to Dutch maps of seventeenth-century North America. He includes Dutch maps by Adriaen Block, Willem Blaeu, Joannes Jansson, Nicolas Visscher, and Hugo Allard along with English maps by John Smith, Henry Brigges, John Speed, and John Seller. [Ashley Mason]

Shorto, Russell. Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

Slive, Seymour. “Collecting Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art in the United States: The Current Boom.” Bulletin Van Het Rijksmuseum 49, no. 1, Voordrachten gehouden tijdens het symposium “The Shifting Image of the Golden Age,” op 29 en 30 mei 2000 (2001).

Smit, Pamela and J.W. Smit. The Dutch in America, 1609-1970. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1972.

Stevens, John R. Dutch Vernacular Architecture in North America, 1640-1830. West Hurley, N.Y.: Society for the Preservation of Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture, 2005.

Stott, Annette. Holland Mania: The Unknown Dutch Period in American Art & Culture. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1998.

Trelease, Allen W. Indian Affairs in Colonial New York: The Seventeenth Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009.

Zandvliet, Kees. Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta Van Varick. New York: Bard Graduate Center, Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, 2009.

Zink, Clifford W. “Dutch Framed Houses in New York and New Jersey.” Winterthur Portfolio 22, no. 4 (Winter 1987).