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The 400th anniversary of the establishment of the City of New York
PAST EVENT
The NY 400th Quadricentennial Committee held a Picnic on Governors Island !
On September 14, 2024, a group of people gathered to commemorate the first landing and European settlement in New Netherland by a group of 30 French Huguenot families. This was our kick-off event and will be followed by several more over the course of the next three anniversary years.
ABOUT THE EVENT
In the year 1624 different nationalities including the Indigenous People and many European countries, lived and built a community together in this one place. On September 14th, we are commemorating how these diverse cultures became ‘one’ and created New Amsterdam, now known as New York City.
The Dutch West India Company brought 30 French Huguenot families to establish one of the earliest Dutch settlements in North America on Nutten (now Governors) Island. Within 40 years, New Amsterdam had become a vibrant community of thousands of people from various backgrounds, including the Lenape, Dutch, English, Welsh, Irish, Scots, Germans, French Huguenots, Sephardic Jews, Africans, and others.
Our events, the first one being this picnic, will commemorate this point in our history, which is rich with achievements, yet also marked by sorrow and sin. We want to honor all of their stories: their triumphs, struggles, sacrifices, oppressions, successes and the challenges of our shared history.
History of Nutten Island
The Dutch West India Company was a corporation that established trading settlements in North American regions claimed for Holland in 1609 by the English explorer Henry Hudson, who sailed for the Dutch. Their first ship, Nieu Nederlandt (New Netherland), set sail in 1624 with 30 families, most of whom were Flemish Walloons (French Huguenots), to establish settlements in the new world. The settlers were dispersed in four different locations; Burlington Island on the Delaware River, to the mouth of the Connecticut River, and to Fort Orange (Albany), where a Dutch fur trading post had previously been established in 1615.
Those who remained on Nutten Island relocated to Manhattan Island several months later. The captain of the New Netherland, Cornelis Jacobsz May, became the first Director of New Netherland.
Learn more about the journey of the ship, The New Netherland in the Encyclopedia of Early New York at the New Amsterdam History Center.
About the Flemish Walloons or Huguenots, the first families
The Flemish Walloons were Protestants who followed the teachings of John Calvin. Persecuted for not renouncing their faith to join the Catholic Church. The Flemish Walloons who had been living in Holland at the time, petitioned the Dutch West India Company to send them to New Netherland so they, like the English Puritans who settled in Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts a few years prior in 1620, could practice their religion in peace. In turn, they were to help establish a trading colony for the Dutch West India Company.
Learn more about them at the Huguenot Society of America.
References:
The New Netherland Institute on Cornelius Jacobsen Mey
The Dutch West India Company and Colonization
Ship Journey: 1624 from the New Amsterdam History Center
