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In February 1660, supercargo Laurens de Sille sailed from New Amsterdam (Manhattan) to Curaçao aboard the galliot Nieuwer Amstel. Tasked with maintaining a record of the cargo, De Sille kept a journal of the four-month journey to Curaçao and back. While keeping a journal was common practice on Dutch ships, few survive from the seventeenth century. De Sille’s journal offers a unique insight into mid-seventeenth-century shipping activities at Curaçao, as his account captures day-to-day proceedings during a period for which there are only sparse extant sources on the island’s history. More importantly, De Sille’s chronicle of his two-month stay on the island depicts Curaçao as it emerged as a hub for the Dutch transatlantic slave trade.

This article explores the political dimensions of the power struggle that engulfed the Dutch colony of New Netherland in the 1640s and 1650s. The existing interpretations employ Native American, social, religious, moral and personal perspectives, but leave many questions. This article argues that the composition of the groups involved in the struggle changed over its course and sets it within a Dutch political context. It highlights the political affiliations of the chief protagonists and argues that the outcome was shaped by political developments in the Dutch Republic rather than in New Netherland. By focusing on the role of the New Netherland patroons and their network, this article nuances the standard view of the incorporation of New Amsterdam as a victory for that city’s mercantile elite.

The Tawagonshi document suggests that an official treaty was conducted between the Dutch and Native Americans in 1613. Yet a close look at the background of Dutch-Native interaction in the Hudson and Delaware Valleys during the 1610s throws doubt on the historical veracity of the document. Prior to 1621, Dutch traders did not have any need for an official treaty with local Indian groups on behalf of the authorities in the Dutch Republic, nor were they authorized to engage in such treaty-making. Thus any agreement cannot be construed to be a treaty between sovereign nations. Yet there is reason to believe that Dutch traders and local native people entered into some form of negotiation. The Dutch building of Fort Nassau on native lands and the military collaboration of which the Kleyntjen affair is evidence suggest as much.

Commanders of Dutch East India ships in the eighteenth century, by Jaap R. Bruijn, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2011, xiii + 336 pp., illus., maps, $130.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-84383-622-3 Usually,...

The patroonships in New Netherland have been much criticized by historians. Ever since Edmund B. O’Callaghan, the first historian to devote attention to the Dutch colony, in 1846 asserted that the patroonship system “transplanted to the free soil of America the feudal tenure and feudal burdens of continental Europe”, the label of feudalism has stuck to the patroonships. Patroonships were available to major shareholders of the West India Company, if they declared their intention to set up within four years a settlement of at least fifty people over fifteen years of age. Patroons were allowed to select their own site, with a number of restrictions. The failure of the patroonship system in New Netherland was not simply the result of the inability of colonial authorities to avoid conflict, though it must be admitted that the actions of rash individuals offered little help. Keywords: America; Dutch colony; feudalism; Netherland; patroonship system; West India Company

International audience; Edited by Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Université Paris Diderot and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, Université Paris 8 – Vincennes St Denis and Institut Universitaire de FranceIn The Atlantic World of Anthony Benezet (1713-1784): From French Reformation to North American Quaker Antislavery Activism, Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke offer the first scholarly study fully examining Anthony Benezet, inspirator of 18th-century antislavery activism, as an Atlantic figure. Contributions cover his Huguenot heritage and later influence on the French antislavery movement (which had never been explored as thoroughly before) as well as his Quaker faith and connections with the Quaker community in the British Atlantic world (in the North American colonies as well as in Britain). Beyond the Quaker community, his preoccupation with Africa is highlighted, and further research is also encouraged reconciling Benezet studies with those on black rebels and founders in the Atlantic world.

International audience; Anthony Benezet was the prime source for antislavery arguments in the British campaign against the slave trade in the 1780s and 1790s. Historians used to assume his influential works had been translated into French and were also influential there. However there is no evidence that his works were indeed translated into French. In point of fact, his name became known in French antislavery circles thanks to his participation in the Quaker campaign against slave-ownership in Pennsylvania which was praised in the works of Raynal, Crèvecoeur and Brissot. His antislavery actions made him famous but his antislavery works did not circulate broadly in France apparently, leading the Société des Amis des Noirs to start a translation of his most famous pamphlet, which was never completed.