Images: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Citation:
Journal of New Netherland . Written in the Years 1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645, and 1646. [New Amsterdam: publisher not identified, to 1647, 1641] Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667648/;.
Translation:
Title: Narrative of New Netherland Author: Various Editor: J. F. Jameson Release Date: October 14, 2009 [EBook #3161] Last Updated: January 15, 2013 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3161/3161-h/3161-h.htm#link2H_4_0005
"JOURNAL OF NEW NETHERLAND" 1647
Reference material and source.
"Journal of New Netherland, 1647." In J. Franklin Jameson,
ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original
Narratives of Early American History). NY: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1909.
INTRODUCTION
AN account of the great Indian war which so desolated the province of New Netherland, and of some other actions of Kieft's administration, written from his point of view or that of his supporters, must be regarded as an important piece of evidence. It is the more to be welcomed because on the whole our evidences for New Netherland history come mainly from opponents of the provincial administration and of the West India Company. The archives of the company disappeared almost completely many years ago, the bulk of them having apparently been sold as waste paper not many years before Brodhead went to Holland upon his memorable search. Of Kieft's papers, we may suppose that the greater part were lost when the Princess was shipwrecked on the Welsh coast in September, 1647, and the deposed director and all his possessions were lost.
The document which follows was found by Broadhead in the Royal Library of the Hague. It is still there and is designated No. 78 H 32. It has an outside cover forming a title-page, with ornamental lettering, but it is not the "book ornamented with water-color drawings" which Kieft is known to have sent home. A photograph of the first page, which the editor has procured, does nothing to show the authorship, for it is written in the hand of a professional scrivener. Mr. Van Laer, archivist of the State of New York, assures the editor that it is not the hand of Keift or that of Cornelis van Tienhoven, the provincial secretary.(1) But that it was either inspired by Kieft, or emanated from one of his supporters, is plain not only from its general tone but from its citations of documents. Of the documents to which its marginal notes refer, some of those that we can still trace are noted in the archives of the Netherlands as "from a copy-book of Director Kieft's." The rest, or the original copy-book, may have perished with him.
(1) Mr. J.H. Innes tells me that it resembles that of
Augustin Herrman.
The piece was first printed in 1851, in the Documentary History of the State of New York, IV. 1-17. It was printed for the second time in 1856, in Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, I. 179-188. For the present issue this early and imperfect translation has been revised with great care by Dr. Johannes de Hullu of the National Archives of the Netherlands, who has used for this purpose the original manuscript in the Royal Library.
Additional annotations by Dr. Vanessa Bezemer Sellers at NAHC.
