400 years ago, a group of emigrants from what is now the Netherlands settled on the southern tip of the island of Manhattan, in North America. They intended to settle there and founded New Amsterdam. In 1664, the English took possession of the settlement, which grew into New York City. For the Lenape people, the original inhabitants, colonization meant the loss of their lands and almost their disappearance because today only about 20,000 descendants remain. Now they are asking for an apology and compensation from the Dutch Government, supported by an exhibition at the Amsterdam Museum that illustrates a colonial period less highlighted than that of Suriname (South America), the Caribbean or Indonesia.
He Amsterdam Museum and the Museum of the City of New York, together with representatives of the chiefs of the four Lenape Nations, have joined forces to organize the exhibition, which bears the original name of Manhattan in its title: Manahahtáanung or New Amsterdam? The indigenous history behind New York. Through objects, clothing, historical documents and testimonial videos, the voice of a community is recovered “that returns 400 years later to engage in dialogue because with colonization we lost connection with our land and our culture and language suffered,” explains Brent Stonefish. , spiritual leader of the Delaware Nation, one of the four Lenape.
Stonefish has traveled to the Netherlands in search of an official apology and a form of reparation, and notes that “compensation can translate into support for language conservation and social development.” The other three branches of his people are the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation, the Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation, and the Munsee-Delaware Nation. The effects of that process continue to this day and have generated, among other problems, poverty and lack of self-esteem. The four Lenape nations are federally recognized by the United States Government.
The exhibition is, in a way, the inverse model of cultural diplomacy used by countries to promote themselves abroad. The Lenape emphasize that they have resisted and that the museum channel makes it easier to talk about the past. The difference, and also the difficulty of this exercise, lies in the fact that there are two unequal protagonists. On the one hand, the Dutch State, and on the other, four nations that consider themselves sovereign but lack representation in international institutions that endorses it. “Let’s go step by step. The Netherlands’ apologies should be translated into actions. “In being able to heal a community for the injustices suffered by our ancestors.”
The Lenape lived on the Atlantic coast, northeast of what is now the United States. The men fished and hunted and the women dedicated themselves to agriculture. Their dome-shaped houses were covered with tree bark and they also built large wooden structures. In 1609, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) commissioned English explorer and navigator Henry Hudson to search for a possible northeastern passage to Asia. He had already tried to find that route on two previous occasions at the request of English merchants, so he embarked on the ship Half Moon, of which there is a replica in the sample. When he had to abandon the voyage due to storms, he changed course even though he had agreed with Amsterdam that he would return in case of trouble. He looked for another passage, this time from the northwest, and what he ended up finding was the river, bay and strait that bear his name today. He also explored the coast of New Jersey and anchored off Manhattan Island. He also mapped the Arctic region, facilitating the polar expeditions of the 18th and 19th centuries.
In 1624, Dutch settlers, called by the Lenape “the people of salt” because they emerged from the ocean, landed under another Dutch firm: the West India Company (WIC). They had to inhabit the colony. They were about thirty Protestant families from France and what is now Belgium, persecuted for their Calvinist religious beliefs. Over time, the settlers included other Europeans, as well as enslaved or indentured people. A year later, Fort Amsterdam was built near the island of Manhattan, later converted into the city of New Amsterdam.
In the National Archives of the Netherlands there is a letter, dated November 5, 1626 by Pieter Schaghen, which reported the purchase of the island of Manhattan from the natives. “Dutch merchants bought it for 60 florins,” the note reads. At the current exchange rate it would be about 24 dollars, according to archive sources, and there arose the legend that Manhattan was purchased at that price. The Lenape were unaware of the land trade, and what for a European meant possessing land, for the indigenous community must have been nothing more than the granting of a temporary use permit. They did not renounce living in their ancestral territory, but they were forcibly removed from their home.
“They massacred us. Thinking that our ancestors sold our land for trinkets like this is a way of saying that they were primitive, uncivilized and unintelligent. Recognize that it was a mistake [por parte de Países Bajos] It would allow our ancestors to rest,” says Stonefish. He also says that if there had been a clear sales agreement a wampum. It is a string of beads that represents a treaty. Two ribbons have been placed in one of the display cases with the intention of completing it as a symbol of a new understanding.
A wall was built around New Amsterdam to keep out the natives and also the English. Over time, the wall became Wall Street, and Manahahtáanung in Manhattan. Part of the Lenape trade path (Wickquasgeck) became Brede weg (wide street, in Dutch) and later Broadway, in English, according to the National Museum of the American Indian, belonging to the Smithsonian Institution.
The colonial situation took a turn in March 1664 when King Charles II of England gave the lands to his brother, the Duke of York, at a time when peace reigned between the two countries. Yes, they had been at war before and they would fight again later. When several English ships arrived in the port of New Amsterdam that same year, Peter Stuyvesant, the colony’s director general, surrendered and handed it over. In 1667, and by virtue of the Treaty of Breda, the Dutch renounced it in exchange for Suriname, which was in English hands. From then on, New Amsterdam was renamed New York.
The Museum of the City of New York will present a follow-up exhibition in 2025. According to Monxo López, one of its curators, “there was a cultural aspect and a political aspect because the Lenape told us that they were seeking to establish diplomatic relations with the Netherlands.” Although some of the Lenape never left New York, the museum recorded this only two years ago.
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