In the spring of 1613, a sailor named Jan Rodrigues arrived at the shore of the Hudson River from a Dutch trading ship, likely the Jonge Tobias. Identifying himself as a free individual, he became the earliest documented Black man in New Netherland. Jan Rodrigues is the subject of one of 25 new, peer-reviewed biographical sketches published by the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society in August, part of the NYG&B’s New Netherland Settlers initiative. [Read more…] about 25 New Netherland Biographies Published
Mohican
Ethnic Cleansing & Wartime Refugees in the Hudson Valley, 1754-1763
During the French and Indian War (1754-1763), many Mahican and Munsee-speaking people in the Hudson Valley felt themselves pressured to relocate to new areas both inside and outside of the Valley as the result of an ethnic cleansing project conducted by Sir William Johnson.
This created a refugee crisis that led to a varied of responses from both colonial officials and the Mohawks and other members of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Six Nations. [Read more…] about Ethnic Cleansing & Wartime Refugees in the Hudson Valley, 1754-1763
Unicorns & Six-Foot Lobsters: Adriaen van der Donck’s Confident Inaccuracies
Adriaen van der Donck (ca. 1618–1655) was a Dutch lawyer, landowner, and political activist in the colony of New Netherland.
He is best known as a champion of colonial self-governance and for writing the first comprehensive account of the region. [Read more…] about Unicorns & Six-Foot Lobsters: Adriaen van der Donck’s Confident Inaccuracies
Some Early History of Glens Falls
Human presence in the Adirondacks, including Warren County, dates back thousands of years. The rugged peaks, valleys, and lakes of the Adirondacks were the hunting grounds for several Native American people, notably the Mohicans, Mohawk, and the Abenaki.
The Haudenosaunee arrived in the region around 1,200 to 4,000 years ago. Both the Mohawk and Oneidas claimed the Adirondacks as part of their territory. [Read more…] about Some Early History of Glens Falls
The Road North: From Native Networks to the Champlain Canal
Where the Hoosic and Mohawk rivers meet the Hudson River was a major Indigenous crossroads. Three major native pathways came together there: 1) The Hoosic River offered the main route east to New England, over the Berkshires and into Massachusetts. 2) The Mohawk River guided the way west. 3) The east side of the Hudson Valley provided a pathway north to Lake Champlain and Canada.
These well-worn trails, on which colonists later built their roads, linked the waterways used by Indigenous hunters, traders, and families moving between settlements. Stone, minerals, and other natural material from as far west as Michigan have been found in this region, revealing a broad network of trade among Native people, long before Europeans arrived. [Read more…] about The Road North: From Native Networks to the Champlain Canal
Schenectady Church Recognizing Indigenous ‘Four Kings,’ Early Mohawk Members
The “Four Kings” were Native American leaders who traveled to London, England in 1710 during Queen Anne’s War as diplomats of the Mohawk Valley. They met with Queen Anne in London, where their portraits, the earliest surviving oil portraits of Native people painted from life, were painted by Dutch artist John Verelst by royal commission.
Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713) was the second in a series of colonial wars fought in North America involving Great Britain, France, and Spain. The four men, long misidentified as Mohawk leaders, were actually three Mohawks and one Mohican man. [Read more…] about Schenectady Church Recognizing Indigenous ‘Four Kings,’ Early Mohawk Members
The Schaghticoke Tree of Peace and Welfare
During the Beaver Wars the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), supplied by Dutch weapons, decimated the Mohican along the Hudson River. A Mohican effort to regain control of land taken from them by the Mohawk left their strength so severely depleted that they refused to join their eastern Algonquin speaking allies in fighting King Philip’s War (1675-1676) — a war that marked the last major effort by the Native Americans of New England to drive out the English settlers.
Following that bloody conflict, defeated Indigenous refugees fled west from New England along the Hoosic River into the Province of New York. Edmund Andros, Governor of the Province, saw this exodus as an opportunity to thwart the territorial ambitions of Massachusetts. [Read more…] about The Schaghticoke Tree of Peace and Welfare
Vanderhyden & Troy: A Dutch Community Becomes English
On January 5th, 1789, a group of colonial settlers living along the east side of the Hudson River north of Albany in an area known as Vanderhyden gathered at a local tavern. Their purpose? To select a new name for their old Dutch community – Troy.
From the Mohican lands were Troy grew, the Hudson River and Atlantic seaboard, the Hoosac River, Lake Champlain, the St. Lawrence River, the Mohawk River, the Great Lakes, and were all within reach – even in prehistoric times. [Read more…] about Vanderhyden & Troy: A Dutch Community Becomes English
Evert Wendell Account Books Reveal Life in 1695-1789
The New York Historical Society has digitized their Evert Wendell collection, including five account books in Dutch and English covering the period from 1695 to 1758 and one docket book (in English).
Evert Wendell (1681-1750) was a Dutch-descended Albany merchant, fur trader, and attorney, who conducted business with Native Americans in upstate New York and with colonists in Albany, Schenectady, New York City, and Boston. [Read more…] about Evert Wendell Account Books Reveal Life in 1695-1789
The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People
New York’s canal building boom and the urban explosion that it triggered dramatically accelerated the dispossession and disruption of traditional life ways of the region’s Native American inhabitants that had been initiated by the introduction of European trade, diseases, colonial wars, the American Revolution, and encroaching settlement by non-natives. [Read more…] about The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People
William Starna’s History of the Mahican
From Homeland to New Land: A History of the Mahican Indians, 1600-1830 (University of Nebraska Press, 2013), is by William A. Starna, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the State University of New York College at Oneonta.
This history of the Mahicans begins with the appearance of Europeans on the Hudson River in 1609 and ends with the removal of these Native peoples to Wisconsin in the 1830s. [Read more…] about William Starna’s History of the Mahican
The Stockbridge – Munsee Community in New York State
Most readers well be familiar with Oneida people occupying major parts of Oneida County in the colonial period and up to the present day having purchased much land back from locals in towns of Vernona and Vernon which were part of the original Oneida (Iroquois – Haudenosaunee) lands. [Read more…] about The Stockbridge – Munsee Community in New York State
The Hudson River Overslaugh & The Old Anchorage
Powerful Hudson River currents have always changed the river, leaving shifting sand bars, shoals and shallow areas and even islands in their wake.
One of the more notable places on the Hudson where the forces of nature have impacted the history of river transportation – and indeed New York history itself – was the Overslaugh – a particularly shallow area off Castleton‘s Papscanee Island. [Read more…] about The Hudson River Overslaugh & The Old Anchorage
DEC Relations with Indigenous Nations
November is Native American Heritage Month, a nationwide celebration of the contributions of Indigenous peoples and celebration of their heritage, traditions, culture, art, and history while acknowledging how society has impacted Indigenous peoples and culture. New York State was the first state to recognize “American Indian Day” in 1916, originally observed on the second Saturday in May. [Read more…] about DEC Relations with Indigenous Nations
A Cultural & Ecological Field Guide to Columbia County, NY
From the Hudson to the Taconics: An Ecological and Cultural Field Guide to Columbia County, New York (Black Dome Press, 2024) written by Anna Duhon, Gretchen Stevens, Claudia Knab-Vispo and Conrad Vispo with the support of The Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program and Hudsonia features 36 discreet natural habitats in the Hudson Valley’s Columbia County and is beautifully illustrated with over 750 full-color photographs, maps, graphs, tables, and charts. [Read more…] about A Cultural & Ecological Field Guide to Columbia County, NY
The Leland House in Mechanicville
An historic marker along the Waterford Road in Mechanicville, Saratoga County, NY, reads “Leland House: Raided by French and Indians in 1748, rebuilt in 1749, later the home of revolutionary patriot John Ten Broeck 1740-1822.”
The beautiful house that stands a short distance from the marker is indeed the one that was rebuilt 275 years ago. It was built from lumber cut right there on the farm, with bricks made from clay obtained from the soil thereon. [Read more…] about The Leland House in Mechanicville
Nieuw Dorp, Now & Then: Dutch History in Ulster County
Traveling from Washington D.C. to Milwaukee, Dutch journalist Bas Blokker makes a stop-over in Hurley, Ulster County, NY, and discovers its Dutch history. His curiosity is piqued and he dives into the past to find the nineteenth-century views of the Dutch colonizers very different from modern ones.
During the last five years, I always crossed the Susquehanna River just north of Baltimore when driving from my house in Washington DC to New York. Once on the bridge the same scene unfolded again and again in my mind’s eye: a sailing ship changing course from the Chesapeake Bay to enter the river’s mouth and drop anchor at what is now Havre de Grace or Garret Island. [Read more…] about Nieuw Dorp, Now & Then: Dutch History in Ulster County
The Land System of Colonial New York
What follows is a 1917 essay, “The Land System in Colonial New York” by Charles Worthen Spencer published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, (Vol. 16). At the time Spencer was Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada. It has been annotated by John Warren.
Adequate description, even in outline, of the land system of any community would comprise so much detail, both of governmental policy and practice and of the community’s reaction there-to, that in a paper of this compass only selected features may be referred to. It will be necessary, also, to confine the treatment mainly to the period between 1691 and the opening of the intercolonial war [the French and Indian War] in 1755. [Read more…] about The Land System of Colonial New York
New York Land Grants: Some History Until The American Revolution
Land policy in colonial times in what is now New York State favored nobility and prominent men with connections to the Crown. This involved several countries (The Netherlands, England, and France), several explorers, several early pioneers, and appointed officials who oversaw the disbursement of land by land grants or patents. [Read more…] about New York Land Grants: Some History Until The American Revolution
New Netherlanders’ Views of Indigenous People
By 1642, the number of inhabitants of Rensselaerwyck (spelled Rensselaerswijck in Dutch), at the time basically what is now Albany and Rensselaer Counties, had grown and Patroon Kiliaen Van Rensselaer willingly complied with a requirement of the Dutch West India Company to secure a clergyman for a Dutch Church to conduct services for the settlers. [Read more…] about New Netherlanders’ Views of Indigenous People