Dutch sails are again gracing the riverfront of New York state's capital, arriving from the Netherlands to help Albany commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's exploration that led to the region's first European settlements.
A flotilla of more than a dozen sailing yachts arrived in Albany earlier this week to take part in Saturday's festival, the latest in a series of events celebrating the quadricentennial of Hudson's voyage up the river that would bear his name, a journey made 400 years ago this month.
The Dutch flotilla joins the Half Moon, a replica of the ship Hudson sailed for the Dutch during his exploration of the New World in 1609. Tours of the ship are planned as part of the festivities, along with live music, arts and crafts exhibits and cultural demonstrations of 17th-century Dutch and Native American life in the New World.
New York's yearlong salute to its Dutch roots is entering the home stretch, with events from Albany to Manhattan highlighting the lasting influences of a colonial power credited with laying the foundation for many of the freedoms Americans enjoy today.
Count author Russell Shorto among those who consider the recognition well-deserved and long overdue.
"It's bewildering, in one sense, that the Dutch history in the founding of New York gets such short shrift," said Shorto, author of "The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America."
"But in another it makes sense because the British took over and wrote the history," he said.
The New York-based writer mined the state's deep Dutch roots to dig up tidbits on the "pirates, prostitutes, and assorted scalawags" he says were instrumental in establishing the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam on the southern tip of Manhattan, where various nationalities, races and religions coexisted.
"It's just as legitimate to tell the beginnings of America from Lower Manhattan as it is from Boston," he said in a recent telephone interview.
Shorto, who was knighted by Crown Prince Willem Alexander of the Netherlands during the royal visit to New York earlier this month, narrates a self-guided walking tour of 17th century Dutch Manhattan. His 2004 book also figures prominently in a pair of current exhibits on New York's Dutch history: "1609" at the New York State Museum in Albany and "New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the World" at the South Street Seaport Museum in Manhattan.
Much of Shorto's research was conducted at the Albany museum, home to the New Netherland Institute, keeper of thousands of Dutch documents dating back to the colony's earliest days. The institute's director, Charles Gehring, has spent the past 35 years translating the collection into English.
The collection survived the 1911 fire in the library at the State Capitol that destroyed many of New York's colonial records. The Dutch papers include deeds, journals and government dealings, but also legal records and personal accounts that tell the story of daily life in colonial Dutch communities.
"That's the details, that's what fills it in: he stole my pig, he stole my wife, that sort of everyday hustle and bustle," Shorto said.
While Manhattan was the center of the Dutch colony, Albany holds its own special place in New York's history. Two decades after Hudson turned his ship around somewhere near present-day Albany, Dutch traders set up the first permanent settlement here to acquire beaver pelts from local tribes. Located just south of where the Mohawk River meets the Hudson, the Dutch outpost grew into North America's largest fur trading center in the 17th century.
"The Dutch know water and they know waterways," Shorto said. "The settlers realized that moving westward was what you wanted to do. This colony, via the Hudson River, was the way to do it."
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On the Net:
http://www.exploreny400.com
http://www.hudson400.com
