Category Dutch History
Tracking the 66 Fulbrighters who Studied History in the Netherlands
The Fulbright program preserves a list of all previous recipients of its grant, and this data is searchable on its website here. So, I selected for all Americans who received Fulbright grants to study history in the Netherlands during their doctoral program of study. I did not include persons whose grants were awarded specifically for […]
No, there is no “s” at the end of “New Netherland”
by Michael J. Douma Like many nineteenth-century New Yorkers of Dutch-descent, the historical scholar John Romeyn Brodhead was bothered by the poor treatment the Dutch had received in the written histories of colonial America. In these histories, there was one “vulgar error” in particular that drew his ire. This was, he said, the “absurd use […]
Presentation for the Holland (Michigan) Museum
My presentation on “The Legend of the Black Dutchman”
My article on Dutch-speaking runaway slaves in Geschiedenis Magazine
The full article in Dutch is here.
Dutch Letters of Marque and the Arrival of the First Enslaved Africans in Virginia
A recording from a webinar I moderated for the Netherlands American Foundation, with Leendert van der Valk and Vincent Tucker. https://vimeo.com/536451450
An Almanac from Dutch New York
The year was 1759 and the English had just defeated the French on the plains of Abraham in the major battle of the French and Indian War. By the end of the year, an enterprising printer in New York City, James Parker, continued a tradition of publishing an almanac in Dutch for the New York […]
Dutch Bibles and Beaver Hats in 18th century NY Wills
From the takeover of New Netherland in 1664, through to the 1820s, New York collected inventories of the material possessions of the deceased. The records, now available for free on Ancestry.com, (search for “Estate Inventories and Accounts, 16661-822”) are far from complete, but might be useful to historians and genealogists. I’ve been using them, for […]
Book Review: Karin Sitalsing, Boeroes: Een Familiegeschiedens van Witte Surinamers (2016)
In 1845, a group of some 384 poor Dutch men and women arrived in Suriname. By year’s end, half of them had died, probably from typhus and tropical diseases. In the next few years, the survivors were joined by more migrants from Overijssel and Groningen. Now, 7 to 9 generations later, there have been an […]
Michael J Douma 