A Time to Celebrate

Last week my friend Peter Minuit called me up from America. "Wanna buy Manhattan back?" He wanted $25,- for it, since he only thought it fair he should retrieve what he himself had paid in the first place. He's doing this sort of thing all the time, but normally it's supposed to be a joke. Twenty-five dollars, eh? Let's see, that's about 18, 19 euros by today's markets... "No way, man!", I told him off.

Now, Wall Street is supposed to keep the enemy out. Or at least, the wall it's named after. But now Wall Street needs a cash injection. Many are outraged about the fast money people getting rescued by the tax money. When in actuality it's Chinese and Arab money that saves their sorry asses. That's some kind of funny. Don't want to know about it? Well, that's what you get when you don't want to be paying taxes.

Anyway, now's not a good time to buy Manhattan, when real estate taxes are about to go up and the city of New York has to cut it's spending by 20%. But mayor Bloomberg has assured our Foreign Secretary next year's festivities surrounding New York's 400 year anniversary won't suffer for it. And the state of New York already pledged $4 million to the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial. Four million dollars? Geez, maybe we should sponsor the whole darn thing from Holland.

For those of you that don't know, New York was originally called Nieuw Amsterdam. Brooklyn and Harlem are named after the Dutch towns of Breukelen and Haarlem. Dutchman Jonas Bronck named his nearby farm Bronckland, which is now known as The Bronx. And that's just for starters. If you want to look into the birth certificate of New York City, you'll have to come over here. So yes, we do take a certain pride in being one of your United States' three founding nations. But should we?

The main story

Here's my version. The Dutch never intended to colonize North America. When we first laid eyes on the new found land any sane Dutchman immediately realized we were way out of our league here. In fact, the Dutch never had any such pretensions of ruling the world. All of our travels just were an aim to make profit. So we sought out the most strategic location, which actually much resembled our own land. By taking in a major river delta area on the other side of the big pond, we tried for getting a majority control over all traffic to the new world.

This is a complicated story. It starts with an Englishman helming a ship under a Dutch flag, but owned by a privateer company, the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC). This naval company with it's own marine department was run by Dutchmen, but it's human resources came from all over Europe. The VOC was still looking for a shortcut to the far east. But it soon dawned on us that this was a completely new continent and a new company was established to deal with it, the West Indische Compagnie (WIC). (On an off note, the WIC was also the main contributor on part of the Dutch in international slave trade.)

So New York has actually more than one birthdate:

- 1609: when captain Henry Hudson sailed the ship De Halve Maen passed the island Manhattan and up the river which is now named after him;

- 1625: when Fort Amsterdam was raised, the first serious structure on Manhattan;

- 1653: when the community which had grown around the fort came to be known as Nieuw Amsterdam, was incorporated as a city into the Republic;

- 1664: when the English took over and renamed it New York;

Take your pick.

So we held this piece of land for about 40 years. That may not be long, but it was the years of conception. The Dutch as a relatively small people have always been forced to work with other peoples and keep an open mind to other cultures. Diplomacy and trade are our own self interests and we don't like fighting. So it was really a mishmash of all kinds of peoples which inhabited old New Amsterdam. It became some sort of open city, or rather an open area, a springboard from whence immigrants started spreading westwards. The most patriotic of Americans nowadays seem to not want to be reminded that at some point in time their heritage is that of immigrants.

When we gave up New Amsterdam, that seems to be a historical mistake in hindsight. Actually, the English took it by force, then we took it back in 1673, but we finally traded it as part of the peace settlement of 1674. The English and us were constantly competing and cooperating. In 1689 a Dutchman became king of England. What we got in return for New Amsterdam was central Guyana in South America, which is now known as Surinam. Hardly ever heard of in the rest of the world, this seems to be a sorry piece of land. But the fact is that when it became independent in 1975(!), it was a peaceful transition. And my guess is that today there are relatively more Surinam people who want the Dutch back, than Dutch people who want Surinam back. Even though this was once a land of slavery. But that's a whole other complicated story.

Today New York has become at the same time the most American city, as well as the most un-American. It all depends on one's perspective. Funny enough, the same goes for Amsterdam. Anyone living in Amsterdam, wouldn't want to live anywhere else (within The Netherlands), while everyone outside of Amsterdam would never want to live there. Amsterdam also has this competitor in Rotterdam, just like your East coast-West coast brawl. This is a blueprint for your nation. Every time an American stumbles upon this history, it seems they are completely taken by surprise. But when I look at the program of next year's NY400 celebrations, I'd say the Dutch have a starring role, even more prominent than the British. Well, you can also exaggerate.

Links included:

www.exploreny400.com: official website for next year's celebrations

www.5dutchdaysnyc.org: Dutch cultural festival in the 5 burroughs, November 12-16 2008

www.tolerancepark.org: Make a monument of Governor's Island

For the interested only: http://www.thecityfilm.com: a documentary about modern day immigrants in New York