History 231 Reading Guide
The Mid-Atlantic Colonies in the Seventeenth Century: New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania as the “Motley Middle”
- Donna Merwick, “Dutch Townsmen and Land Use: A Spatial Perspective on Seventeenth-Century New York,” WMQ 3rd ser. 37.1 (1980): 53-78. JSTOR
Questions:
In her study of Albany, New York, Merwick notes that, in contrast to many of the early New England “towns” which actually were rural villages, the Dutch of Albany intended to create a town—“a spatially compact domestic and occupational locale” (53).
- By what means and methods, for what purpose, and with what vision did Kiliaen van Rensselaer (and his heirs) establish his patroonship on the Hudson in 1629? How did the village around the fort develop?
- What kind of communal institutions and organization did Peter Stuyvesant envision when he established Albany and the fur-trading center of Beverswijk in 1652 under the Dutch West India company? How did Dutch expectations about landownership and community shape the continuing evolution of the town?
- How did the town change in the years after it came under English rule? In what ways did it become more English? In what ways did it continue to reflect its Dutch roots?
