Janny Venema. Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652-1664. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2003. 527 pp. $31.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7914-6080-1; $86.50
(cloth), ISBN 978-0-7914-6079-5.
Reviewed by Mark Meuwese (Department of History, University of Winnipeg)
Published on H-Low-Countries (February, 2007)
A Social History of a New Netherland Community
rently its associate director. It is therefore not surprising
that Venema’s book on Beverwijck is based upon extensive research of Dutch archival collections in the state of
New York. Venema’s study of Beverwijck also connects
well with recent New Netherland studies since the author, who is of Dutch origin, received her Ph.D. in history
at a university in the Netherlands. The book under review is Venema’s dissertation which she defended at the
Free University in Amsterdam. Her dissertation advisor
at the Free University was the earlier mentioned Willem
Frijhoff. Clearly, Venema’s long and ongoing association
with the New Netherland Project and her training as a
professional historian in the Netherlands makes her expertly qualified to write a well-researched and appropriately contextualized study of Beverwijck.
The Dutch colony of New Netherland in seventeenthcentury North America has recently received renewed
attention from historians. The current proliferation of
New Netherland studies is characterized by two developments. One is the influential role of the New Netherland
Project. Based in the New York State Library in Albany,
New York, this organization has been active since the
1970s in translating, editing, and promoting awareness
of the Dutch archival records pertaining to New Netherland. Since the 1990s, every serious study of the Dutch
colony in North America has made effective use of the
publications and scholarly expertise of the New Netherland Project. The second recent development in the field
of New Netherland studies is the increasing role of Dutch
historians. Throughout most of the twentieth century,
the historiography of New Netherland was dominated by
American scholars. However, since the 1990s, Dutch historians and Dutch scholars based in North America have
been catching up by producing some of the most interesting works on New Netherland. Using Dutch primary and
secondary sources inaccessible to most American scholars, Dutch historians like Jaap Jacobs and Willem Frijhoff
have corrected many of the often biased interpretations
of New Netherland written by Anglo-American scholars.[1]
Like Jacobs and Frijhoff, Venema is interested in the
transfer of Dutch culture from the Old World to the New.
However, whereas Jacobs focused mostly on New Amsterdam and Frijhoff took a biographical approach, Venema uses the Beverwijck community as a case study to
analyze how Dutch culture persisted and changed on the
seventeenth-century North America frontier. Although
Venema does not provide a clear definition of the controversial term “frontier,” she describes the concept in her
introduction as a place where “European and native civilizations met, and where borders were fluid and changed
frequently” (p. 20). Additionally, Venema states, “The
central question, to which we will try to find an answer,
is how a culture brought by the Europeans, in the beginning phase of this settlement [Beverwijck], changed un-
Janny Venema’s detailed study of the Dutch community of Beverwijck (present-day Albany, New York) fits in
well with the two recent developments in New Netherland studies. First, Venema has been formally associated
with the New Netherland Project since 1985. She is cur1
H-Net Reviews
der influence of the physical environment and the native tutions transplanted from the Republic gave the town a
population” (p. 20).
decisively Dutch character. Important Dutch institutions
in Beverwijck included the burgher guard or civic militia,
Venema seeks to answer her central question by pro- the local court, and a system to care for orphans. Moreviding a comprehensive social history of Beverwijck from over, as a public institution, the Dutch Reformed church
its founding in 1652 until the English conquest of New in Beverwijck was not only responsible for administerNetherland in 1664. Following the introduction, she aning religious services to everyone in the community realyzes the Beverwijck community in six thematic chapgardless of membership in the Reformed church, but was
ters. In the first chapter Venema analyzes the complex also expected to provide education and charity to the resorigins of Beverwijck as well as the physical construction idents. Although Beverwijck strongly resembled a Dutch
of the town in the period under Dutch colonial rule. Bev- urban community, the North American frontier context
erwijck originated out of a conflict between the patroon- also gave the town a unique identity. Mohawk Iroquois,
ship, or privately run colony, of Rensselaerswijck and the
Algonquian-speaking Mahicans, and other Indians reguDutch West India Company (WIC) over the legal status
larly visited and stayed in Beverwijck to exchange goods
of the community of some two hundred Rensselaerswi- with European colonists or to discuss diplomatic relajck colonists living in the vicinity of the WIC Fort Orange tions with Dutch colonial officials.
on the west bank of the Upper Hudson River. In 1652,
Petrus Stuyvesant, the director general of New NetherThe remaining four chapters analyze in great deland, extended WIC jurisdiction over the Rensselaerswi- tail the various social groups of Beverwijck. While
jck settlers who lived near Fort Orange. Stuyvesant also chapter 3 discusses the transatlantic mercantile activiinstalled a local court of justice to maintain law and order ties and elite lifestyles of two prominent Beverwijck resin the newly incorporated village. The village was pre- idents, chapter 4 explains why some Beverwijck inhabsumably named Beverwijck or “Beaver district” because itants were able to prosper economically and socially.
of the significance of the fur trade to the community’s According to Venema, those colonists who had arrived
economy.
on the Upper Hudson Valley during the early years of
Dutch colonization obtained a close acquaintance with
In the second part of the first chapter, Venema
local natural resources and the local indigenous peoples
demonstrates that Beverwijck closely resembled urban
which gave them an advantage over colonists who arcommunities in the Dutch Republic. Some impor- rived later. Early Beverwijck residents had also often detant similarities between Beverwijck and seventeenth- veloped close family and business ties with each other
century Dutch towns were the prominent location of the in order to survive in the New World. Chapter 5 anaReformed church in the community and the presence of lyzes the artisans who made up the largest segment of the
a poorhouse. At the same time, Beverwijck contained
Beverwijck population. Venema finds that much work
several buildings that were unique to its North Ameriin Beverwijck was seasonally bound. For example, durcan location. Several sheds were built in the backyards ing the fur trade season in the summer, the number of
of houses to shelter Indians who visited Beverwijck dur- tavern keepers and gunsmiths increased as many Bevering the trading season in the spring and summer. More- wijck residents sought to sell liquor and firearms to Inover, when the fur trade declined and Dutch relations dian customers. In the final chapter Venema describes
with neighboring Indian peoples became tense in the
how the people of Beverwijck responded to the plight
late 1650s, Beverwijck officials ordered the building of
of impoverished residents. Like the system of poor rea wooden palisade to protect the town. Venema argues lief existing in the Republic, the Reformed church and
that this palisade created a stronger communal identity the magistrates of Beverwijck closely worked together to
among the Beverwijck residents.
raise public funds to prevent and alleviate poverty in the
Venema discusses in chapter 2 the ethnic background community. The frontier context of the Beverwijck poor
of the people inhabiting Beverwijck and the institutions relief system was reflected by the material aid given to
they created. As was typical of the Dutch overseas several Catholic Frenchmen who had escaped from their
colonies, a large percentage of the Beverwijck popula- Mohawk Iroquois captors.
tion consisted of Europeans who were born outside of the
Venema’s book has several important strengths.
Dutch Republic. Despite the ethnically mixed European First, the book persuasively shows in what ways Bevpopulation of Beverwijck, which included Dutch, Scan- erwijck was similar and different from Dutch towns in
dinavian, German, and English individuals, urban insti- the Republic. Moreover, because of Venema’s familiarity
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with the history and historiography of the seventeenthcentury Republic and its overseas empire, the book succeeds rather well in putting Beverwijck in a Dutch cultural context. Venema’s detailed descriptions and analyses of the economic, social, and cultural activities of
Beverwijck residents are especially valuable for historians of colonial North America who are often unfamiliar with seventeenth-century Dutch culture and history.
Furthermore, Venema’s comprehensive discussion of all
social groups inhabiting Beverwijck corrects Donna Merwick’s earlier study on Beverwijck and Albany, which
ignored the urban poor. Finally, Venema’s study is
based on a wealth of interdisciplinary primary and secondary sources, including maps, archeological reports,
and architectural reconstructions of Beverwijck houses
and buildings.[2]
quois nations grew increasingly irritated with the Dutch.
Finally, Venema could have more strongly situated
Beverwijck in a larger regional and longer chronological
context. Although Venema occasionally refers to Beverwijck relations with New England colonists and Frenchmen from Canada, she does not fully address to what
extent these intercolonial relations shaped the cultural
identity of Beverwijck. Venema also abruptly and artificially ends the history of Beverwijck with the English
conquest of 1664. As Donna Merwick has ably demonstrated, the English takeover of New Netherland had
sometimes dramatic repercussions on the lives of Beverwijck residents. By exploring the experiences of the
Beverwijck residents after 1664 Venema could have given
more insight into the ongoing process of persistence and
change of Dutch culture in colonial North America.[3]
Unfortunately, the book’s meticulous discussion of
the Beverwijck community often exhausts and overwhelms the reader. The author’s thesis and argument
could have been made much stronger and presented more
effectively if editors had more rigorously revised the
lengthy dissertation manuscript of almost four hundred
pages. Venema’s tendency to discuss every topic in great
detail makes the reading often dense and slow-going. For
example, most of page 58 is taken up by a detailed analysis of the possible location of one of the small creeks
nearby Beverwijck. Although perhaps interesting to Albany residents, antiquarian discussions like this make the
book less accessible to a larger audience.
Notwithstanding this criticism, Venema’s study of
Beverwijck is a strong addition to New Netherland studies and will remain the most authoritative study of a
Dutch community in seventeenth-century North America for considerable time.
Notes
[1]. For the New Netherland Project, see its website: www.nnp.org. For recent New Netherland studies
by Dutch scholars, see Jaap Jacobs, Een zegenrijk gewest:
Nieuw Nederland in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam:
Prometheus-Bert Bakker, 1999), in English, New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America
Moreover, despite Venema’s useful definition of the (Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers, 2004); Willem Fri“frontier” as a physical space where different cultures jhoff, Wegen van Evert Willemsz. Een Hollands weeskind
meet, Venema is much more interested in describing op zoek naar zichzelf, 1607-1647 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1995).
the colonists’ perspective than in the indigenous side of An English translation of this book is forthcoming from
the story. Throughout the book, Indians remain anony- Brill. See also the various essays in Joyce D. Goodmous and generic characters without their own motives friend, ed. Revisiting New Netherland: Perspectives on
and goals. For example, when discussing deteriorating Early Dutch America (Leiden and Boston: Brill PublishMohawk-Dutch relations in Beverwijck in the late 1650s, ers, 2005).
Venema does not fully explain why the Mohawks were so
[2]. Donna Merwick, Possessing Albany, 1630-1710:
upset with the Dutch. Paying more attention to the MoThe
Dutch and English Experiences (New York: Cambridge
hawk context could have informed readers that the MoUniversity
Press, 1990).
hawks and the other Iroquois nations were involved in
an increasingly desperate series of wars with French, Al[3]. Donna Merwick, Death of a Notary: Conquest and
gonquian, and Susquehannock enemies. After the Bever- Change in Colonial New York (Ithaca: Cornell University
wijck residents refused to give substantial military aid to Press, 1999).
their Iroquois neighbors, the Mohawks and the other IroIf there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:
https://networks.h-net.org/h-low-countries
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Citation: Mark Meuwese. Review of Venema, Janny, Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652-1664.
H-Low-Countries, H-Net Reviews. February, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12851
Copyright © 2007 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for
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