History of New Netherland: Difference between revisions

This page describes the history of [[New Netherland]] in greater detail.

 

[[File:Voyages of Henry Hudson.png|alt=|thumb|305x305px|Voyages of Henry Hudson to North America]]

The Dutch West India Company hired Henry Hudson to seek a passage to Asia in 1611. Hudson sailed to the northeast to find this passage but instead found the coasts of present-day New England and New Netherland.

As a response to Kieft's war, the Board of Nine, led by colonist and lawyer [[Adriaen van der Donck]], penned a complaint to the Dutch Republic against the unresponsiveness of the Dutch WIC to the colonists' rights and requests. This document was called the Remonstrance of New Netherland and had condemned the WIC for mismanagement and demanded full rights for the colonists as citizens of the Netherlands.

 

[[File:Adriaen van der Donck NGA.jpg|alt=|left|thumb|230x230px|Adriaen van der Donck]]

The Dutch WIC responded to the complaints by appointing Peter Stuyvesant as the Director-General. During this time, land ownership regulations were loosened and liberalized, and the province experienced exponential growth. However, multiple complaints were still made against the WIC’s control and governance over the province.

 

This had led [[Adriaen van der Donck]] to return to the Dutch Republic once again and seek redress. After years of political and legal wrangling, the Dutch Republic finally came down against the Dutch WIC and decided to grant New Netherland a new municipal charter in 1652, giving them a popularly elected government to govern internal affairs. Van der Donck became the colony's first leader. This charter also barred the Dutch WIC from internal affairs and governance. The former Director General Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the Governor-General in Dutch Formosa.

During the early years of New Netherland, the English colonists in the northeast have started settling on Dutch claimed territory. Numerous English settlements have been built on the west side of the Fresh River (Connecticut River), which was originally claimed by the Dutch. Having been defenseless, the few Dutch colonists in those areas were forced to abandon their settlements. Van der Donck asserted the claims of the Dutch. Additionally, by advise of his right-hand man Paulus van der Grist, Van der Donck established the ''NNL-Kommando'' system in 1659 (with the approval of the Dutch States-General). The NNL-Kommando system was a paramilitary reserve system created for the defense of the Dutch claimed areas in case of skirmishes and for settlement defense in general. The system also provided the colonists with training in weaponry and defense.

Prince Maurice's War was the colonial American theatre of a larger conflict in Europe known as the [[Great Silesian War]]. It was one of the largest colonial wars in North America, where the colonies of Britain, Spain, and the Dutch Republic were pitted against those of France and their native allies.

 

[[File:Eleazar Hendrycksz.jpg|alt=|thumb|226x226px|Eleazar Henrÿcksz, last Director-General of Colonial New Netherland.]]

The 1700s in New Netherland were defined by border conflicts between the patroons, and tension between the patroon militias and the NNL-Kommando trying to cont

#Use this new tax to buy off the militia from the patroons and increase the budget for the NNL-Kommando. So they become less powerful.

 

 

As part of the revolutionary campaign in the Low Countries, the French Republic invaded the Dutch Republic, and replaced it with a client state, the Batavian Republic. The Dutch stadtholder, Prince of Orange, who had fled to England, initially refused to recognize the Batavian Republic, and ordered all Dutch colonial governors to surrender to and temporarily accept British authority instead for safekeeping. As the news got to the New Netherland, many were demoralized and discouraged by the orders. It had demoralized both the private patroon militias and the NNL-Kommandos as well. Two loosely-knit factions emerged from this conflict:

*'''Loyalists''': supporters of the Dutch republic and Dutch colonial interests, who denounced the surrender orders as treacherous

 

This move by the Director and the council left the patroons and loyalist common-folk disillusioned. The NNL-Kommando denounced the decision of Eleazar Henrÿcksz and the Colonial Assembly.

A new faction had emerged: the Particularists, composed of patroons, NNL-Kommandos, and common-folk who did not want to surrender to Great Britain, and a bunch of previously non-radical folk who were now disdainful of the government. Although this was a loosely knit faction, many patroons and commonfolk have identified themselves to be particularists.

 

But despite the protests, Director Eleazar Henryckszoon announced the colony’s surrender. He put New Netherland at the British disposal on November 1795 on paper. However, the particularists were outraged at the hasty decision-making and the lack of public involvement in the decision.

The Dutch Colonial Force had suffered massive defection and desertion by their troops, due to the demoralizing surrender to the British. Some particularists, however, saw this as an opportunity to remove the Orangists from power. In 1796, Claes van der Beeke, a wealthy patroon who controlled a large militia, planned a coup d’etat in Spring 1796, using a combined force of his militia and NNL-Kommando defectors. This army was called the Vrÿheydsleger (lit. Freedom Army, although this did not imply independence, rather freedom from British occupation). Claes’ son, Marÿn van der Beeke, led this army and marched to New Amsterdam to seize control of the city.

 

[[File:AutumnWar.png|alt=|left|thumb|348x348px|New Netherland Independence]]

 

A month after the coup, New England diplomat Alexander Upperton delivered an ultimatum from the British to the provisionary colonial government of New Netherland. Claes van der Beeke was to surrender to the British within the next month or New Netherland would face grave consequences from Great Britain. During this period, Voskes would not follow through, and ordered the hasty construction of defenses near the New England border.

 

The war continued on until 1798 (two years). The war resulted in a stalemate. Former director Eleazar Henryckszoon was exiled to Great Britain. Great Britain was forced to withdraw from the Autumn war due to the outbreak of the War of the Second Coalition back in Europe.

 

After the successful independence of New Netherland in 1796, the new government started to claim lands owned by the Iroquois. Before their independence, New Netherland was already allowed by the Iroquois to build settlements inside their land, in exchange for a quarterly land due. However, with New Netherland's independence, the Iroquois confederacy was wary if the new government would continue to pay their dues. A few years later, the new government claimed a vast portion of Iroquois land as part of New Netherland, but promised that they would still pay the dues that the government owes them. Despite the promise, some nations inside the confederacy (most notably the Seneca and the Cayuga) protested the claims, pointing the violation of their sovereignty. The Grand Council of the confederacy convened multiple times with the agenda of how to resolve the conflicting claims. The Cayuga and Seneca advocated that they move south, away from New Netherland, as a means to preserve their sovereignty, while the others voted to retain in their traditional homeland. After the second stadtholder of independent New Netherland, Isaac Kuyter, enacted the [[Northwestern Borders and Assimilation Act of 1816]], and the confederacy's Grand Council unable to come to a conclusion, the Seneca and Cayuga led a migration down south and became protectorates of the Dutch, thus ending the confederacy.

 

 

=== The First Stadtholders ===

Theodorus de Gelüs-Clérisseau fled north to Schenecktadie and urged support from their neighboring countries in against the revolts. However, he was eventually arrested in the same month, along with some of the members of the Patroon Council implicated in the Van Moock Customs Scandal three years earlier.

 

[[File:Bartelmeeus van Haerst First Raedspensionaris.png|thumb|235x235px|Mees van Haerst, first raedspensionaris of NNL]]

After a new constitution was ratified in June 1903, a special election was held in July. Bertelmeus "Mees" van Haerst was sworn in as the first raedspensionaris of New Netherland, the highest executive government position in the new republic. The new government is a unitary parliamentary republic, composed of the executive (led by the raedspensionaris), legislative (a bicameral States-General), and judicial branches. Mees van Haerst's party, the NNL Unity Party (Amerikaens: NNL Înheydtspartÿ), dominated the seats within the States-General. The NNL Unity Party was a coalition party composed of representatives from the different socio-economic sectors of New Netherland.

* [[Dutch-Mexican War]]

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