The untold story of how America was shaped by the founding by the Dutch of what we today know as Manhattan. The book The Island at the Center of the World is a perfect example of how the founding of Manhattan started America. The story is broken up into three parts; “A Certain Island Named Manathans”, “Clash of Willis”, and “The Inheritance”. Each part goes into detail of the founding of what started America and the people who contributed the most to the beautiful country we call America. I feel the book is a great way to fully understand the way America began. Russel Shorto provides evidence that proves that Manhattan is what started America.
Russel Shorto describes in his book how America was originally created and the people who helped
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shape this country that don’t get the credit they deserve. The book is split into three parts in order to give a better understanding of how many things went into America becoming what it is today. Part one begins in the summer of 1608 with the talk of Henry Hudson’s ships destination. “Since we know his destination and have some notion of the whereabouts of his house, it is possible to trace a likely route that Henry Hudson, ships directors of the Muscovy Company, funders of voyages of exploration and discovery.” (Shorto,13) The book continues by saying how Henry Hudson’s decisions rerouted the flow of history and shaped the Dutch colony. After a journey through the season of summer Henry Hudson ended up in Amsterdam in the autumn of 1608. “The Dutch were growing in might right alongside the English, and would peak sooner, giving the world Rembrandt, Vermeer, the microscope, the tulip, the stock exchange, and the modern notion of home as a private, intimate place.” (25) The Dutch then go on a journey to the East Indies island which is more than a year’s journey. Spring has come and Hudson is assigned a new crew and is given a new ship and with this he is told he needs to find a northeastern route. Hudson had to make a choice on whether he should follow the notes from George Weymouth’s journal which said there was a northwest passage and stated the exact path he should take or John Smiths notes which said the passage was southwest through the North American continent.
He chose to take Smiths path and ended up in Jamestown Virginia however he did not feel welcomed in Jamestown. Before Hudson froze to death a truce that was to last for twelve years was made between the Spain and the Dutch republic and had finally come to an end in the year 1621. Shorto continues the story by mentioning James I the reason Jamestown was named that, Peter Minuit who was the person to purchase Manhattan Island, Dr. Charles Gehring of the New Netherland Project and many more people. The purchase of the Manhattan Island is a topic that continues on in the first part. “So, the Manhattan purchase was roughly in line with other prices paid to Indians, and while it was considerably less, on a per-acre basis, than what the Dutch paid each other for land, it was in the same ballpark.” (57) With the purchase of Manhattan, we are able to get new information than we had before and we also ended a court case in 1663 that regarded the Dutch town Arnhem. As part 1 comes to and end we are introduced to Charles I the king of England the person who despised the Dutch. Charles was forced to be allies with the Dutch and soon began to see them …show more content…
as a threat and turned on them. An attack on the Dutch happened under the rule of King Charles I over the Dutch’s claim of the Manhattan Island. The first part ends saying that the world wasn’t quite ready for the Manhattan Islands and that it would be best if the people and history forgot that it even existed. If it weren’t for the many things mentioned in part one of the book America wouldn’t be what it is today. Shorto shows the many different things and people that helped to shape the country we live in and I feel that’s what makes the book so good. The book gives us new information that we may or may not have known about the shaping of America. The story doesn’t end there though we continue to learn more about the other things that became known as what shaped our country.
Part two begins in September 1638 in Holland in a town called Leiden. The University of Leiden was created and one very important person to attend this school was Adriaen van der Donck in the year 1638. “He would play a decisive role in the creation of a great city and a new society.” (94) Adriaen was a young man with family who had stature in Breda which was in the hands of Spanish occupiers at the time. The Spanish started to gain more territory after the death of William the Silent, the hero of the Dutch revolt. This is when the Trojan horse filled with Dutch soldiers entered Breda and slid past the Spanish soldiers. The result of this was the recapturing of the town and the mission was called the turfschip van Breda which the man behind it all happened to be Adriaen van Bergen who was van der Doncks grandfather. Years later when van der Donck arrived at Leiden about one-third of the population was filled with refugees from religious persecution and also from wars. “In a century marked by religious war, Brownists, Baptists, Walloons, Huguenots, Fifth Monarchy Men, and Ashkenazic Jews came here, as well as to other cities in the Dutch Republic, to live and worship. A lot happened during the span of Van der Doncks life one of the main things being that the Dutch being the first to decorate their homes with maps. Also, the Dutch were the first
ones to invent the idea of having and upstairs and downstairs house, the upstairs for the use of private space and the downstairs for a more public area. Van der Donck wanted to go into overseas trade and found the perfect opportunity when he learned of a New World colony-in-the-making that needed help. Shorto then introduces Killiaen van Rensselaer who enlarged his colony in the eleven years since its founding. This colony was considered a semi-independent meaning that Van Rensselaer had to provide his own law and his own order. In May 1641 Van der Donck boarded the Den Eyckenboom and headed to the New World where Rensselaer agreed to employ him. “Dutch global expansion during its century of empire was built around not settlement colonies but outposts, which explains why, even though the empire extended as far afield as India, Taiwan, and Java, the Dutch language is not spread around the globe the way English is.” (113) This caused a major problem because New Netherland was refusing to remain a trading post. Also at this the West India Company was buying lands along the South River from Indian tribes. Shorto then introduces William Kieft a general of New-Netherland and Peter Minuit who was now a utopian. Kieft is the person came up with the idea “to ask the Indians to pay taxes for the service rendered.” (118) This was one of the worst things that could happen and Kieft was told by the council that he should not do this at all. Shorto goes on to describe the ups and downs that happened while Kieft was alive. For the next fourteen years Van der Donck will be reintroduced and creates a breadth of writing about the need for a proper government. Van der Donck is a product from the seventeenth century and is considered one the first genuine Americans. The choice that Van Rensselaer had made a long time ago regarding Van der Donck was now coming to haunt him. Adriaen Van der Donck began to make important decisions without asking Van Rensselaer first one of the decisions being that the colony needed a brickyard. With this being said a letter was sent to other officials regarding Van der Donck stating how he was being defiant toward Van Rensselaer. After this happened Van der Donck realized that he should go southward instead. By the time, we got to the year 1644 Manhattan was reaching new levels. The population Kieft wanted to tax have now lost their homes and family members because of the Indian War caused by no one other than Kieft. The land that was declared for the Dutch by Henry Hudson has turned into the one he would have never wanted it to become. We are now introduced the one-legged man whose name is Peter Stuyvesant who would not die without a fight. He was able to manage his life with just a peg leg and he managed to do great things. In Scotland 1637, a chain of events started because of a woman named Jenny Geddes. The one event that came from this was the English Civil War which was actually a religious war. “…this is why American historians and leaders, down to Ronald Reagan and his “shinning city on a hill”, have sung the country’s Puritan beginnings.” (157) This is one of the things that shaped the American personality. The Puritans now have the chance to carry out their campaign against the king because they now had a power base. Kieft came up with a list of interrogatories for the many men that were involved in the events that happened during the Indian war. The Princess wreck was one of the biggest events that happened in New Amsterdam leaving the people shocked. The people assumed it was God punishing Kieft for his unjust actions and choices he made. The new leader who will replace Kieft is Stuyvesant who would turn his attention to important matters. The story then takes a jump to the year 1647 where Cornelis Melyn finds a fellow prisoner, Jochem Kuyter. When Princess wrecked only 21 of 107 passengers survived two of which happen to be Kuyter and also Melyn. Later on, in that year Manhattan was declared “…vital to Virginias economic survival’ (195) We now get to the point in time where we see where Manhattan has been portrayed as a commercial center after the English takeover when it was actually in the 1640s where it began to rise to become the place for shipping. Van der Donck has now decided to craft on the Manhattan and took the lead instead of Kieft. “As an illustration of how Van der Donck’s undertaking meshed with other events, shortly before the delegates had set sail from Manhattan, news of the beheading of King Charles reached the colony.” (219) Early mapmaking would soon show up everywhere because of North America. The Curacao Papers is one of the many things that show what the Dutch did on Manhattan Island and how even then we had global networks. “The government was on the side of the colonists, Stuyvesant had been recalled, and Van der Donck, an ocean away from Manhattan, was laying out a new administration.” (232) Stuyvesant has been in Manhattan for three years and was able to get the New England governors to settle boundaries. In Manhattan, there were traders who were the first Europeans to establish themselves but couldn’t because the population of the Dutch colony was too small to cover the region. “This new government would definitely establish Manhattan Island as the free-trading hub of the Atlantic.” (244) At this time Van der Donck was trying to convince the government that he should be allowed back into Manhattan and he won. This was the end to part 2 and the story continues when Shorto discusses The Inheritance. This part gave us a better look and meaning on how Manhattan shaped America and what it contributed to America.
In Roderick R. Nash’s essay “Island civilization: A vision for human occupancy of earth in the fourth millenium” he quotes “Of course a change like this one [Island civilization] involves compromises with human freedom.” Nashs plan for the future is to make self-sustaining “islands” of civilization. These civilizations would be clusters of the population, and quite similar to cities. His plan also relies on advanced technology that would not harm the Earth and that the “islands” remain isolated from each other. All food production, manufacturing, sanitation, and other services would take place directly within the civilization. This would mean that we as humans would lose many rights that we have had for hundreds of years such as human freedom. I do not believe that with all of the people obsessed with their rights that anything like island civilization will happen anytime soon.
Jamestown was the first successful settlement established by England. It was first built in 1607 and lasted until about 1614. On the first ship, 100 male settlers set off for a new settlement in the New World. Life there at times was hard for various reasons. They did, however, become 7 7 trading partners with the Indians. 80% of Jamestown’s more than 500 settlers that had arrived had been dead by 1611. The reason for this is because of sickness and disease, lack of resources, and where they chose to build their settlement.
Jamestown: Jamestown was an English settlement in America, located in Virginia and named after King James I. The first group of men to arrive were dispatched to Jamestown by the Virginia Company of London. The men of Jamestown experienced several problems, such as lack of gold, inadequate food and water, disease, and an inability to dominate the native population. This term is significant because Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in America, laying the foundation for the eventual colonization of the rest of
A man named Robert Laughlin once said, "The Earth is very old and has suffered grievously: volcanic explosions, floods, meteor impacts, mountain formation and yet all manner of other abuses greater than anything people could inflict. Yet, the Earth is still here. It's a survivor." Laughlin clearly believes in this quote that the Earth can take care of itself. The Earth has been through worse disasters than just pollution, and extinction of species and plants. Roderick Nash, an environmentalist and activist, says otherwise.
The Jamestown Project discusses the monumental landmark, the colony of Jamestown, was in Atlantic History. The story of Jamestown is told in a much more authentic, elaborate style than our textbooks has presented. As Kupperman points out, Jamestown was not only important to United State’s history but also to British history. From the motivations to the lasting effects, she gives an accurate account of all components involved in Jamestown. Also, there is a chapter devoted to the Native American experience, which shows a non-Western view of events. The book is written in a format that is easily read but also compacted with information. More importantly she puts Jamestown in its right place in United State’s and British history, as the foundation of colonial United States and the British Empire.
The Chesapeake region of the colonies included Virginia, Maryland, the New Jerseys (both East and West) and Pennsylvania. In 1607, Jamestown, the first English colony in the New World (that is, the first to thrive and prosper), was founded by a group of 104 settlers to a peninsula along the James River. These settlers hoped to find gold, silver, a northwest passage to Asia, a cure for syphilis, or any other valuables they might take back to Europe and make a profit. Lead by Captain John Smith, who "outmaneuvered other members of the colony's ruling and took ruthlessly took charge" (Liberty Equality Power, p. 57), a few lucky members of the original voyage survived. These survivors turned to the local Powhatan Indians, who taught them the process of corn- and tobacco-growing. These staple-crops flourished throughout all five of these colonies.
Henretta, James A., Rebecca Edwards, and Robert Self. America: A Concise History.( Boston: Bedford, St. Martin's, 2006),
The English had two main colonies in the new world, Jamestown and Plymouth. The first colony was Jamestown, established in Virginia in 1607. Jamestown was settled by Captain John Smith, and was named after King James I. Tobacco was the main export of Jamestown, and became the basis of the Jamestown economy, sending more than 50,000 lbs of the plan back to Europe by 1618 (textbook 46). Jamestown had a very rocky start, many colonists dying in the first few years of the settlement, and the settlers had many problems with natives. Shortly after the arrival of English colonists the Natives attacked them, and were finally forced back by a canon from the English. A very uneasy truce was finally settled between the natives, called the Powhatans, and the English (textbook 44-5). Economic growth and expanding their territories were the main priorities of the English in the Jamestown colonies.
America was born and survived, its rough road into a nation, through a series of events, or moments in history. The founding brother’s book is about a few important figures during and after the American Revolution. These important figures consisted of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, John Adams, George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. Each of these men, contributed to the building of America in one way or another. The book breaks these contributions into a few short stories, to help understand what these important figures did.
Tindall, George, and David Shi. America: A Narrative History. Ed. 9, Vol. 1. New York: WW. Norton & Company, 2013. 185,193. Print.
McKeown’s book significantly traces the enforcement of the bio-power on the national border control system against the background of the expansion of capitalist global order, and thus further debunks that the seemingly neutral face of modern international migration is a discursive and institutional mask for coloniality. His arguments keep reminding me of previous insights on our modern world by thinkers like Foucault, Walter Mignolo, and Lisa Lowe, who all stay vigilant to the progressive and emancipatory vision from the enlightenment, or, the western modernity, by revealing its dialectic relevance to its opposite, the suppression and alienation of humanity from disciplinary regimentation of social life to colonial bloodshed and enslavement.
Henretta, James A., and David Brody. America: A Concise History. Vol. 1. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
Tindall, George B., and David E. Shi. America: A Narrative History. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2007.
Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrenders New Amsterdam, the capital of New Netherland, to an English naval squadron under Colonel Richard Nicolls. Stuyvesant had hoped to resist the English, but he was an unpopular ruler, and his Dutch subjects refused to rally around him. Following its capture, New Amsterdam’s name was changed to New York, in honor of the Duke of York, who organized the mission.The colony of New Netherland was established by the Dutch West India Company in 1624.To legitimize Dutch claims to New Amsterdam, Dutch governor Peter Minuit formally purchased Manhattan from the local tribe from which it derives it name in 1626. According to legend, the Manhattans–Indians of Algonquian linguistic stock–agreed to give up the island
... An American History of the World. 4th ed. of the book. W.W. Norton, 2012, 671. 2.)