New Netherlands, Archival Deficiency, and Contesting New York History in the Antebellum U.S

Abstract

ABSTRACT In nineteenth-century New York, the collection, translation, and republication of documents related to colonial Dutch history was about more than antiquarianism or the ethno-centrism of Dutch-descended Americans. With the unprecedented support of the state of New York and U.S. ministers in Europe, the New York Historical Society (NYHS) orchestrated a much more ambitious project to reinscribe Dutch imperialism within a grander narrative of the state. This, they hoped, would situate New York at the centre of national history, and its archive as the nation’s most important historical record. In doing so, the stewards of the state’s archives and history worked to displace the burlesque rendition of New York’s past popularized by Washington Irving, in favor of a unified, progressive, celebratory narrative.