Reformed Deaconries As Providers Of Credit In Dutch Settlements, 1650–1700

Abstract

New York History Summer / Fall 2015© 2015 by The New York State Historical Association 301 Reformed Deaconries As Providers Of Credit In Dutch Settlements, 1650–1700 Harm Zwarts1 When Europeans began establishing themselves in America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they tried, with varying degrees of success, to recreate the institutions and culture that they already knew. The Spanish brought their grapes, olives, and sheep, their religious orders and ancient labor systems like encomienda. The English and French brought their own plants and animals and their own political and religious institutions , modeled as closely as possible on institutions in Europe. All of them found that the American frontier sometimes required adaptations that they originally had not foreseen and probably would not have chosen freely.2 The Dutch of New Netherland were no exception. Though their colony was quite diverse, with many Germans, Huguenots, and Scandinavians, ownership and political power allowed them to shape colonial laws and traditions more than anyone else under their jurisdiction.3 In an effort to correct decades of historical neglect and Anglocentric misinterpretation about a place that was, in fact, far more than the simple trading post of some accounts, New Netherland scholars have in more recent years emphasized the successful recreation of Dutch institutions on the Hudson River and the survival of Dutch ideas and values. With its political posts 1. This article is based on archival work done during my research visit to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2014. I wish to thank my host and supervisor, Dr. Thomas Max Safley, for his valuable guidance and support. I am also greatly indebted to the editors of this journal. Any faults in this article, however, are mine. 2. On the transplantation of culture, see, for example, David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (Oxford University Press, 1989); Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). On the difficulty and even impossibility of exact cultural recreation, see D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Alison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1999); Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concept and Contours (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2005), chap. 2. 3. Only about half of the population came from the Dutch Republic. See David Steven Cohen, “How Dutch Were the Dutch of New Netherland?” New York History 62, no. 1 (Jan. 1981): 43–60. 302 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY and offices, its public Reformed Church, its familiar architecture and holidays , by 1664 the colony was in many respects a reflection of the so-called fatherland. Even the appointment of the city council in the colonial capital occurred on the same day as the same event in Amsterdam. In his broad overview of New Netherland, Jaap Jacobs reviews these features and events and concludes that the colony was “more Netherlandish than New.”4 In her work on the settlement of Beverwijk, Janny Venema recognizes many of the same connections and similarities between colony and fatherland, but she focuses instead on adjustment and change—what she calls “[c]ulture in a situation of contact.”5 She shows how settlers confronted conditions they had never dealt with before, how the economy was centered around the fur trade and how they interacted with Native Americans. Other unique features of American life included Indian-style diplomacy, severe winters, inflation, increased social mobility, and the use of furs and beads as currency. With the Dutch Republic as their “frame of reference,” colonists had to innovate and find solutions to challenges related to the unfamiliar environment and new native neighbors.6 This article builds on Jaap Jacobs and Janny Venema in particular by extending her comparison between poor relief in New Netherland and the Dutch Republic, analyzing the financial accounts and poor funds of Reformed deaconries in Beverwijk, Midwout, New Amersfoort, Breukelen, New Utrecht, and Schenectady.7 Though limited in scope, the deaconry records allow us to study and understand the management of funds. Moreover, they give us an opportunity to...