08.
September
Tuesday, September 08, 2020
Autor(in): Julia Devlin
Speaker: Christian Baumann
Illustration: Tobias Kubald
Editor: Susi Weichselbaumer
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Once upon a time, the Netherlands ruled a global empire. The small country was a great colonial power. The Dutch had also settled on the east coast of North America. Looking for a settlement area, they came across a green island full of forests, hills and lakes a good 400 years ago. Fresh water gushed from springs. And flowers bloomed in the meadows. More than all of this, however, the wild animals were interesting, otters, beavers, wolves and bears, because their furs were in great demand in the trade.
People lived on the island, Indians from the Lenape tribe. They named the island Mannahatta, island of the many hills. Legend has it that the Dutch bought the island from them for a ridiculous price of 60 guilders. They built a settlement on the southern tip of the island and named it New Amsterdam. It became the center of the New Netherlands, a large area that stretched far north and south.
Nice to stay
New Amsterdam flourished under Governor Peter Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant was a puritanical, irascible despot with a wooden leg, not very popular, but very effective. He set up a police station consisting of nine policemen, banned drinking on Sundays, and established schools, hospitals and a post office. The population grew and New Amsterdam became an influential trading port. Above all, tobacco and furs were exported from there.
It’s doing well overseas
The lucrative business called Neider onto the scene, whereby for the other colonial powers it was not just about having tobacco and furs, but also staking claims on the globe. And so, in the late summer of 1664, the frigates of another empire with world power ambitions turned up off New Amsterdam:
The British fired straight away to emphasize their demand that this strategically located and prosperous settlement should better belong to the British crown. Peter Stuyvesant quickly capitulated. He wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed and destruction and he also knew that he had little support from the population. Many people resented the ban on drinking alcohol on Sundays. So the British took over New Amsterdam and immediately renamed it. On September 8, 1664, New Amsterdam became New York in honor of the Duke of York who had sponsored the warlike enterprise.
What would have been if…? A popular question, a mind game that usually leads nowhere, but stimulates the imagination. What if the settlement had stayed Dutch and continued to be called New Amsterdam? Would New Amsterdam ever have become a mythical metropolis, would it have become a “grote appel”? Would singers have intoned “het is aan jou, Nieuw Amsterdam, Nieuw Amsterdam” or “I’ve never been to New Amsterdam”, and authors written a “New Amsterdam Trilogy”? Could films called “Seks in de stad” be conceivable in New Amsterdam? The crisp doubling of “New York, New York” would certainly not have worked with “New Amsterdam, Nieuw Nederland”.
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