This new edition and original translation of a tract by Dutch settler and lawyer van der Donck makes more widely accessible a document crucial for understanding the history of Dutch colonization in North America. . . . This document is an important primary source for students and researchers in colonial Dutch history, the settlement of New York and North America more generally, and the understanding of Indian cultures in the Northeast. —J. Mercantini, Choice
This edition of A Description of New Netherland provides the first complete and accurate English-language translation of an essential first-hand account of the lives and world of Dutch colonists and northeastern Native communities in the seventeenth century. Adriaen van der Donck, a graduate of Leiden University in the 1640s, became the law enforcement officer for the Dutch patroonship of Rensselaerswijck, located along the upper Hudson River. His position enabled him to interact extensively with Dutch colonists and the local Algonquians and Iroquoians. An astute observer, detailed recorder, and accessible writer, Van der Donck was ideally situated to write about his experiences and the natural and cultural worlds around him.
Van der Donck’s Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant was first published in 1655 and then expanded in 1656. An inaccurate and abbreviated English translation appeared in 1841 and was reprinted in 1968. This new volume features an accurate, polished translation by Diederik Willem Goedhuys and includes all the material from the original 1655 and 1656 editions.
The result is an indispensable first-hand account with enduring value to historians, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists.
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803232839
Number of pages: 204
Dimensions: 216 x 140 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
“If you’ve been waiting for centuries for a full translation of Adriaen van der Donck’s 1655 work A Description of New Netherland, your wait is over. In this work, edited by Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, one of the colony’s most astute observers ruminates on flora and fauna (his six-foot-long lobster sounds like the subject of a proverbial fish story), including meditations on “the amazing ways” of beavers and sightings of beached whales near Albany. . . . [Van der Donck] paints a generally positive picture of American Indians. His informative book is surprisingly accessible.”—Sam Roberts, New York Times.
"With this new edition, translator Diederik Goedhuys and editors Charles Gehring and William Starna look to elevate Van der Donck's Description to its rightful place in the canon of early American historical texts. . . . This lively translation is a much-needed teachable primary source for studying both New Netherland and its Indian neighbors."—Andrew Lipman, New York History
"This new edition and original translation of a tract by Dutch settler and lawyer van der Donck makes more widely accessible a document crucial for understanding the history of Dutch colonization in North America. . . . This document is an important primary source for students and researchers in colonial Dutch history, the settlement of New York and North America more generally, and the understanding of Indian cultures in the Northeast."—J. Mercantini, CHOICE
"Long underutilized, this edition will place A Description of New Netherland alongside Thomas Harriot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, John Smith's A Description of New England, and William Wood's New England's Prospect as essential primary-source narratives of the early days of the New World."—Wendy Lewis Castro, Southwest Journal of Cultures
"The sources on this geographical area in the Dutch period are sparse, so that the addition of this superb translation of van der Donck is of high importance to scholars."—Barbara Alice Mann, Anthropos
