Willem Kieft

The Expulsion of Deborah Moody

June 16, 2025 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

New England was a male-dominated Puritan society in which women could not vote, own property or hold a post in religious or governmental bodies. Men were inferior to God and women lesser than men. But the lived experience varied according to background and education.

Despite restrictions, some women did make themselves heard and challenged communal norms. Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643) and Deborah Moody (1586-1659) battled for the right to speak out. Demanding inclusive debate, they were accused of undermining the authority of the Colony’s patriarchal structure. [Read more…] about The Expulsion of Deborah Moody

‘Sodomy’ & Colonial America Crime and Punishment

October 21, 2024 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

The early conquest of overseas territories led to the application of European directives regulating life in the colonies.

Imposing rules on sexual behavior served as tools of social control and dominance. Prohibitions on “sodomy” entered legislation in New England and New Netherland with severe penalties attached. [Read more…] about ‘Sodomy’ & Colonial America Crime and Punishment

Nieuw Dorp, Now & Then: Dutch History in Ulster County

February 24, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

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

Kieft’s War: Mass Murder on Manhattan

July 20, 2022 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

In the evening of February 25th, 1643, soldiers and settlers of the colony of New Netherland massacred a large number of Native American men, women, and children belonging to Munsee nations on and around Manhattan. The victims were surprised in their sleep. They had assumed they were safe because they had recently sought shelter near New Amsterdam from Indigenous enemies. Dutch sources indicate that at least eighty and perhaps up to one hundred and twenty Munsees were murdered. [Read more…] about Kieft’s War: Mass Murder on Manhattan

Albany’s Anneke Jans Bogardus, Indecent Exposure, Trinity Church & The Bowery

December 12, 2021 by Peter Hess 21 Comments

By the mid-1800s, almost 200 years after her death, Anneke Jans Bogardus was one of Albany’s most famous people, having been the subject of many books, newspaper and magazine articles. The popular story was that Anneke was a daughter of William the Silent, who was later crowned King William I of the Netherlands.

Nineteenth-century rumor had it that, unbeknownst to Anneke, her father had left a large fortune to her and her sister and that her heirs should undertake legal action to claim it. Another rumor was that Anneke had owned a large portion of Manhattan Island worth billions that had been illegally deeded to Trinity Church and should be reclaimed. There was some truth to the story. [Read more…] about Albany’s Anneke Jans Bogardus, Indecent Exposure, Trinity Church & The Bowery

Kieft’s War Against Native People: A Primer

July 2, 2020 by Jordan Baker 5 Comments

The series of conflicts known as Kieft’s War (1643-1645) owe their origins to several factors.

Primary among these was the Dutch inability to understand the concepts of land use among native people. When the Dutch gave wampum, muskets, and other trade goods during land negotiations, they believed they were purchasing the land. Native people however, considered the Dutch to have, at best, leased the land. Convinced they had purchased the land in and around Manhattan, Dutch settlers drew ever closer to Native American villages. And, when Native Americans hunted on the ground the Dutch believed they had purchased, the New Netherlanders sought to punish the offenders. [Read more…] about Kieft’s War Against Native People: A Primer

No Country for Peter Stuyvesant: Loss Across Time

October 29, 2013 by James Blackburn Leave a Comment

The nation or country, what entity is of more importance to modern society? What about capitalistic economy, secularization, democracy, and progress as normative American values. All hold sway, for better or worse, on our perceptions of the world and our place within it. And it is from this vantage point in modernity that we look towards the actions of those who lived before us, reaching back through time to filter the past through the eyes of the present. This is history, and this is why the practice of history is an art and not a science. It is imperfect, an extension of the historian and the times in which they live.

But how then, asks Donna Merwick in Stuyvesant Bound: An Essay on Loss Across Time (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), can we better understand Peter Stuyvesant from our vantage point in the modern world, back to one that was premodern and existed between the post-Reformation and pre-Enlightenment periods. A world in which the United States of America cannot be predicted or imagined, though the history written about Colonial America often chooses a narrative that fits into a story of nationalistic genesis. [Read more…] about No Country for Peter Stuyvesant: Loss Across Time

Willem Kieft

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