Talk: New Amsterdam

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It has occurred to me that some of the history I've included up to 1625 properly belongs under the New Netherland entry, since it is about the colony as a whole, rather that the New Amsterdam settlement. Because of this, I'm going to shift some of the recently added material over there and rewrite the opening of the history section to focus more specifically on New Amsterdam.Decumanus 04:27, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

In edit history I said "OIC should be WIC". s/OIC/VOC/ so: "VOC should be WIC" Kim Bruning 10:54, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Splitting up articles too much results in artificial problems, in my experience. Duplicated information-- even *gasp* some duplicated text-- seems just fine to me. As a New Yorker Magazine editor kept saying, Tell the story! Wetman 15:05, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's probably just my ignorance, but I had thought that the ONLY acceptable form, even in English, was Nieuw Amsterdam? - Node

• It also seems to me that this page has some POV in the form of something like "The Dutch weren't really using the land"; if that is factual, I don't know, but it seems more POV to me. (what colony WAS started with the aim of spreading a culture? I thought all colonies started as business ventures...)

• • New Amsterdam is certainly the common form. As far as the land thing goes, the Dutch colonies were completely different than, say, the English colonies. The English were specifically interested in plantation and large-scale cultivation for its own sake. The Dutch cultivated land basically to supply food to the trading posts. Additional settlers were considered a nuisance more than anything else. The Spanish are an example a colonialism that attempted to spread its culture, specifically its religion, among the native peoples. More broadly, the Dutch weren't nearly as interested in other European powers in "claiming" land as being an overseas extension of their empire (at least in North America: I don't know about elsewhere). The Dutch colonies were for-profit enterprises, and they were not interested in broad sweeping claims like that English and Spanish made in particular, only in what could support their trading operation. If something was unprofitable, it was abandoned, arguably more readily than by other European powers. True, the other powers' colonies were intended for financial gain too, but they were also part of national ego extensions in a way that probably didn't apply near as much to States General's colonies. The Virginia Company was a join stock operaton, but also an imperial venture of the English Crown, with all that entailed, and thus their was more at stake in sustaining it than simply making a guilder. This difference, in my opinion, is probably because of the political structure of the States General, which was very different than the other European powers at the time (which were essentially absolute monarchies still). At least this is my impression. I'm not a historian, but I've read widely on this era of the history of New York, since I find it fascinating. The best source on this point about Dutch land usage is probably Mike Wallace (historian)'s book Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, which is quite exhaustive on this topic. -- Decumanus | Talk 23:44, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

One of the big differences between English and Dutch colonization in this regard was the way the English properietors issued patents on land for settlement (basically subleasing, in a way) and encouraging further settlement and cultivation of their land by third parties, partly to grow and expand the colony's population. The West Indian Company operations were specifically against this. Settlement was intended to be kept to the barest minimum. -- Decumanus | Talk 23:58, 14 May 2004 (UTC)