250TH ANNIVERSARY
Adriaen Van der Donck
Beschryvinge van Nieuvv-Nederland
(1656)
In "de goude eeuv" or the golden century of Dutch mercantile glory, the valuable virgin lands of New Netherland were home to thousands of Dutch subjects.
The young Adriaen Van der Donck, who had arrived in New Amsterdam in 1641, was the only lawyer in the colony. He soon became one of its most important political figures. As leader of the Board of Nine, he led the fight against the management of the unpopular Dutch West India Company and agitated to have Peter Stuyvesant recalled to the Netherlands for arbitrary taxation and political favoritism. He returned to Holland in 1649 to bring his protest about the corruption of the Dutch West India Company to the States General, the legislative body in the Netherlands. Many crucial reforms were enacted from this cause célèbre that helped save the colony.
During a four-year exile in Holland, Van der Donck wrote A Description of New Netherland, a paen to the America he loved. Van der Donck describes the woodlands, the animals and the wilden or Indians with whom he had spent many days in the Catskill mountains.
Only two copies exist of A Description of New Netherland in New York City.
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