gen. Op archivistisch terrein heeft het New Netherland Project thans plannen
om te komen tot een Nederlandse tegenhanger van de Amerikaanse gids voor
bronnen met betrekking tot Nieuw-Nederland, zodat bijna anderhalve eeuw
na de archiefreizen van Brodhead een modern overzicht van de archivalia met
betrekking tot Nieuw-Nederland in de Nederlandse archiefbewaarplaatsen in
het zicht komt.
Noten
1 De auteur bereidt een dissertatie voor over de
landbouw in Nieuw-Nederland en verbleef
daartoe diverse malen voor onderzoek in Alba
ny en New York. Hij dankt Charles Gehring,
directeur van het New Netherland Project, en
Roger Witzman, medewerker van de New York
State archives, voor hun medewerking.
2 Een summier maar verhelderend overzicht
geeft Charles Th. Gehring in 'Dutch manu
scripts relating to New Netherland in U.S. repo
sitories', Bulletin knob 83(1983)136-141.
3 a. p. kenney Stubborn for liberty. The Dutch in
New York (Syracuse, New York, 1975) 236.
4 Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New
York. Een boeiend beeld van het culturele en
literaire klimaat en de rol van de etnische Ne
derlanders in New York in de dagen van Irving
geeft Van Wyck Brooks in The World of Was
hington Irving (New York, Londen, 1945). De
etnische tegenstellingen tussen Nederlanders en
Engelsen komen onder meer aan de orde in
p.u. bonomi, A factious people. Politics and
society in colonial New York (New York,
1971) 18-28, 48-55.
5 Ontleend aan het hoofdstuk 'Mr. Clinton co
mes to town' in: cecil r.roseberry, A history
of the New York State Library (Albany, 1970).
6 harry f. jackson, Scholar in the wilderness,
Francis Adrian van der Kemp (Syracuse, New
York, 1963) 36.
7 C.K. WINNE JR. Arnold J. F. Van Laer (1869-
1955). An appreciation,' in: New York Histori
cal manuscripts Dutch i, xi.
8 Koninklijke Bibliotheek, collectie handschrif
ten, nr. 128 fd 21, Brief van Brodhead aan de
bibliothecaris J.W. Holtrop, gedrukte bijlage
'Report of J. Romeyn Brodhead, Esq., Den
Haag, 25-10-1841'.
9 ch.t. gehring 'Introduction' in: New York
Historical Manuscripts Dutch v, xi.
10 e. b. O'callaghan, Calendar of historical ma
nuscripts in the office of the Secretary of Sta
te, Albany, New York (Albany, 1865).
11 Lang na O'Callaghans dood in 1897 in zeven
delen uitgegeven door zijn opvolger B.Fernow
als The Records of New Amsterdam.
12 peterr.christoph, 'Translators of Dutch re
cords evaluated', De Halve Maen 49 (april
1974, no 1) 9-10.
13 Documents Relating to the Colonial History of
the State of New York, vols. 12-14 (Albany,
1877-1883).
14 a. j.f. van laer, ed., Van Rensselaer Bowier
manuscriptsAlbany, 1908.
15 peter r.christoph, 'Introduction' in: a.j.f.
van laer ed., New York Historical manu
scripts Dutch i (Baltimore, 1971) xiii.
16 Zie voor een verslag van de brand ook a. eek
hof, 'De brand in het kapitool te Albany
(n.y.). Een ramp voor de historische weten
schap', Nederlandsch Archievenblad (1910-
1911) 254-259.
17 a. j.f. van laer ed., Documents Relating to
New Netherland, 1624-1626. San Marino,
1924.
18 142 van de New York State Education Law,
van kracht geworden 25 juni 1971.
19 Charles Theodore gehring, 'The Dutch Lan
guage in Colonial New York. An investigation
of a language in decline and its relationship to
social change.' (ongepubliceerde dissertatie, In
diana University, 1973).
20 ch.th. gehring, ed., New York Historical Ma
nuscripts Dutch Vols, gg, hh II. Land Pa
pers, Baltimore, 1980.
21 ch.th.gehring, A guide to Dutch manuscripts
relating to New Netherland, University of the
State of New York, Albany, 1978.
22 Zie onder meer j. w.schulte nordholt, 'Ne
derlanders in Nieuw Nederland, de oorlog van
Kieft' (met bijlage: 'Journael van Nieu-
Nederlandt' bmhg 80 (1966) 38-94; e. van den
boogaart, 'De Nederlandse expansie in het
Atlantisch gebied' in: Algemene Geschiedenis
der Nederlanden, vii (Haarlem, 1980) 245-254;
s. hart, The prehistory of the New Netherland
Company: records of the first Dutch voyages
to the Hudson, Amsterdam, 1959 en p.c.em
mer 'De slavenhandel van en naar Nieuw-
Nederland', in Economisch- en sociaal
historisch jaarboek 35 (1972) 94-147.
152
Dutch records in the state of New York and the history of their translation
and publication
In this article, the author focuses on the remarkable history of the records
of the colony of New Netherland (1624-1674), presently deposited in the New
York State archives in Albany. The first effort to translate the whole body
of Dutch records of the central administration of New Netherland dates back
to the first half of the last century. F. A. van der Kemp, who was famous in
both the Old and New World for his radical political views, and who emigra
ted to America in the wake of the conservative political reaction after 1787,
was in 1817 the first to set himself to the enormous task of transcribing and
translating the many thousands of folios with seventeenth-century Dutch
handwriting. Unfortunately, both his eye-sight and his command of English
left much to be desired. The translation project was financed by the New York
State government and when its initiator, governor DeWitt Clinton, had to lea
ve office after a political defeat in 1823, the project stranded and the manu
scripts were put on the shelves, unfinished.
New interest in the Dutch history of New York was engendered during the
presidency of Martin Van Buren, who was himself of New York Dutch de
scent. Around 1840, John Romeyn Brodhead made his famous travels to Eng
land and the Netherlands, in search of archival sources pertaining to New Ne
therland. Both these sources discovered in Europe and many of the records
in Albany were translated and published on behalf of the state of New York
by O'Callaghan and Fernow. Some of these translations were very poor and
to be re-edited by Arnold J.F. Van Laer, the son of a Dutch professor and
since 1904 official archivist of New York state. O'Callaghan, Fernow and Van
Laer were responsible for the greater part of the voluminous series of printed
sources that have been a tremendous help to all historians of early Dutch New
York eversince.
After Van Laer took his leave as an archivist shortly before the second World
War a period of decline in the interest in the history of the colony and its sour
ces set in. The publication in 1974 of four volumes of records translated by
Van Laer, never gone to press during his lifetime, was the start for a remarka
ble upsurge in historical interest for the colony. Many new editions were pre
pared by the New Netherland Project, a translation project founded by the
New York State Library in 1974. The project is presently led by dr. Charles
Gehring, who earned a Ph.D. on a dissertation on the decline of the Dutch
language in New York in the eighteenth century. The projects supporting or
ganization, the Friends of the New Netherland Project, sponsors many activi
ties in the field of Dutch colonial history.
153
