Catalina Trico (1605-1689) and her husband Joris Jansen Rapelye (1604-1662), Walloons, from Wallonia in today’s Belgium, were among the first group of settlers in New Amsterdam in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, arriving on the Eendracht (Unity) in 1624.

Catalina was not born in Paris, but rather in Pris, short for Priches, Hainault, in what was then called the Spanish Netherlands which later became part of Belgium.    Namur, where she lived, is today in northern France, near Valenciennes, where her husband was born. Pris became translated as Paris over the years, and this is a classic example of the constant need to update scholarship. 

Catalyntie and her husband were Walloons, French-speaking Protestants in the Calvinistic tradition.

The ship deposited them and their shipmates in Fort Orange, present-day Albany, where they stayed for two years until Pieter Minuit, serving as governor of the little colony, decided that for their safety from the Indians, and for the better management of their farming practices, all should be resettled on Manhattan Island, where a fort was soon to be built.

The couple prospered.  Some twenty years later, Joris purchased 335 acres in Wallabout Bay in Brooklyn, where the Brooklyn Navy Yard stands today. A son-in-law bought an extensive adjoining property.

Together Catalina and Joris had eleven children. Their daughter Sara (1625-c.1686) has been described as the “first European Christian female child born in New Netherland,” although this is considered “unlikely” by some, as there had been births before hers, in 1624.

See Ship Journeys - 1624 - Unity for detailed account.