American History Tellers - Dutch Manhattan - The Dutch Influence Today | 7

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

New York City was founded on the Dutch principles of tolerance and capitalism, both of which were new ideas at the time. But much of the city's early history was lost until the 1970s, when a renewed interest in the Dutch period led to the founding of the New Netherland Center. Here, thousands of previously untranslated records shed new light on this crucial moment in Gotham’s history. Our guest today is Greg Young, who co-hosts the Bowery Boys, a popular podcast about all things New York City history. Young visited the New Netherland Center, and he joins us to share what he found there and where Dutch influence can still be seen in New York today.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's August 22nd, 1664 at a town hall in New Amsterdam, a Dutch settlement on the southern tip of an island off America's New England coast. New Amsterdam is the seat of the colonial government for the Dutch colony known as New Netherland. The mayors of the colony are gathered at this town hall for an emergency meeting. These men, the Burgermeisters as they were called, are among the most powerful politicians in New Netherland, but not quite the most powerful. That distinction belongs to a natural-born Dutchman named Pieter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland. Stuyvesant is a Dutch hero. Decades

ago, he lost a leg to a Spanish cannonball in defense of his country. But today, it's not Spain that gives his people pause. It's four British warships surrounding the island. Stuyvesant sits in his chair at the head of the hall and listens to a barrage of demands from the frightened Burgermeisters. Governor Stuyvesant, on behalf of the people, we demand to see the summons from the British commander. If Colonel Nicholas has offered terms of surrender, the people of the colony have a right to know what they are. Stuyvesant is boiling with rage. Surrender is a word that is not in his vocabulary. Still, he maintains his composure

and offers a reasoned reply. Suppose I produce the British summons, gentlemen. Suppose I allow you to examine its contents. What then? Governor, if Colonel Nicholas' terms are favorable, as I said, the people have a right to know. as I said, the people have a right to know. Do the leaders of the people have a right to submit to British rule? Do we have the right to surrender this colony and her people to the tyrannical yoke of the crown? To whom do you owe your allegiance, gentlemen? To King Charles or to Holland? We owe our allegiance to the people of this colony, to their rights, to their own property and possessions.

The British crown seeks to deprive you of those rights. How can we know for certain when you refuse to show us the British terms? We are outnumbered, Governor. We cannot defeat them. I've defended this colony before, and I will defend her again. Governor Stuyvesant, no one here doubts your service to the colony, nor do we doubt that you would gladly lay down your life in her defense. Still, the people insist you produce the British terms. Stuyvesant grabs his wooden crutch and struggles to his feet.

The crowd falls silent as he hobbles to the front of the room. He sturdies himself, reaches into his coat pocket, and produces the British summons. This is what you desire? This is all we desire, Governor. Will you please let us examine it? New Netherland belongs to the Dutch, gentlemen. It always has and it always will. Stuyvesant grips the summons with both hands,

lifts the paper above his head and rips it to pieces. If Colonel Nicholas wants New Netherland, let him come ashore and take it. In the year 1664, the Dutch colony of New Netherland became a pawn in an ongoing naval war between Holland and England. The British King Charles II promised New Netherland to his brother James, the Duke of York. In May of 1664, James dispatched Colonel Richard Nicholas, along with four British frigates and hundreds of troops, to take the colony. After surrounding New Amsterdam, Nicholas offered Governor Stuyvesant terms of surrender,

promising him the Dutch settlers would not be harmed. Despite his best efforts to rally the Burgermeisters and convince them to make a stand, Stuyvesant was ultimately overruled. On August 27, 1664, the Dutch lowered the red, white, and blue flag of Holland, flying over Town Hall, and in its place, they raised a white flag of surrender. But in the negotiations that followed, the Dutch settlers got what they wanted from Britain. The Dutchmen were exempted from military service, the laws of the colony remained intact, and their public officers remained in power. Most importantly, the Dutch were granted to keep their personal possessions and property.

In exchange, the British took control of the entire New Netherland colony, including the New Amsterdam settlement on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. King Charles promptly gave the colony a new name in honor of his brother's dukedom, a name that is still used today, New York. With Audible, there's more to imagine when you listen. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, any genre you love. You can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. And Audible makes it easy to be inspired and

entertained as a part of your everyday routine without needing to set aside extra time. As an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their ever-growing catalog. Explore themes of friendship, loss, and hope with remarkably bright creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Find what piques your imagination. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger. Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers.

Our history, your story. New York City is one of the most diverse and dynamic metropolises on the planet, but it wouldn't have been possible without the Dutch. They were New York's first European settlers, and it was the men of the Dutch West India Company who laid the foundations for what Manhattan would one day become. The Dutch built their town on two novel concepts for the time, tolerance and capitalism. Its diversity was unlike any other colony in the New World, and its geography and free-market spirit made it a wildly successful center of trade. New ideas also took shape there. The city's first lawyer, Adrian van der Donk,

envisioned a new kind of government, one for the people and by the people. Much of the early Dutch history on Manhattan was largely forgotten until 1974, when the former governor in New York, Nelson Rockefeller, helped set up the New Netherland Project. Its aim was to translate thousands of pages of historical documents from the original Dutch, which, up until then, had largely been overlooked as part of an unimportant chapter in American history. From ledgers of beaver hides traded with a Lenape to official West India Company papers from Peter Stuyvesant's tenure, these documents are the inspiration and foundation of Russell Shorto's The Island

at the Center of the World, the book our series is based on. Our guest today is Greg Young. He co-hosts The Bowery Boys, a popular podcast that gets into the nitty-gritty of New York City's history. Young visited the New Netherland Institute, where these once-forgotten historical documents are now kept. He joins us today to share what he found and where Dutch influence can still be seen in New York today. Greg, welcome to American History Tellers. Hello. It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Now, this series has been interesting for many people because when we learn about early colonial history in America,

Dutch New Amsterdam is just not something we spend a lot of time on. Why do you believe history has forgotten this era for so long? Well, you know, I mean, immediately when the English took over for the Dutch, they had no interest in celebrating the Dutch at all. So you had like 100 years, at least in this local area, where they were trying to forget. And all of the colonies were English. So there was just this period of like, no, we would just pretend that that never happened, essentially. But that sentiment actually carried over to Americans long after the English were gone. After all, English was the principal language here. And it seemed unpleasant for some people to look back at a time when English wasn't being spoken here. I mean, you kind of see that also with our Native American

heritage. It just seems too foreign, right? It can't be America. The Dutch also represented what some considered unsavory ideas about how a society should be run, these ideas of multiculturalism, the idea of many different kinds of religious and different kinds of faith operating at the same time side by side. Even though many people in New Netherlands were greatly religious, many people in the 18th century of English heritage looked back at that and considered it kind of areligious, because they were of a specific Protestant faith, and that was firmly at the core of life in America in the 19th century. And then just as a practical matter, honestly, there just wasn't as much known about the Dutch years, Dutch New Amsterdam, for many, many, many generations, we just didn't have a lot of information. We had a lot of misinformation for reasons we can get into later.

It's only actually been in the past several decades that we actually truly know a lot more than we did. So that comes into play as well. Well, that's interesting. Why do we only know what we know now because of documents found in the last couple of decades? Yeah. So, there's this very interesting story that could itself just make just a whole podcast in itself, which is the journey of the records of New Amsterdam, which were essentially bandied about the state for generations. And finally, by the 19th century, people decided, well, you know what, let's actually look at these, let's try to study these. But in the 19th century, they really weren't equipped to either translate these, they were in terrible condition, and even by the 19th century, they really weren't equipped to either translate these. They were in terrible condition.

And even by the 19th century, the Dutch was a little bit outdated. So they just weren't properly explored in any meaningful way, which was really shocking, especially what we know about New Amsterdam today. And it really wasn't until the 1970s that the state made a real effort to go through these documents and to rescue this history. And today, in Albany, you have an organization called the New Netherlands Institute, which its sole purpose is to kind of maintain the New Netherlands history of this area. They have a wonderful place in the library there called the New Netherlands Research Center. And not only does it... It's really this collection of every single source relating to this period of history, but they're also going through and they're translating each of these documents. And there's thousands and thousands

of documents that remain untranslated. So all of this history that's just basically contained in this huge set of documents that no one has really seriously and accurately translated and explored until like the past 40 or 50 years. And only half of them, you say, have been translated. So what do you suppose the types of documents they are that have not been translated? And what might we learn? Well, that's, yeah, I mean, that's what's sort of interesting, because when you kind of hear what they are they are at first you're

like oh we don't need to translate all those do we because it's like city records there'll be weddings and births and deaths and permits you know something that's as simple as a the note from the burgarmeisters about property rights or pigs in the street or whatever essentially it's i think what's left mostly i there may be some still some extremely valuable documents in there but i think for the most part it's it's pretty much day-to-day documentation of life in new amsterdam in new netherland but that in itself is pretty remarkable because in the aggregate it's going to give you this complete picture of what life was like back then. And, you know, even something that seems as irrelevant to most of us as like a death certificate or something is not going to be

irrelevant to someone who's doing, say, their ancestry and they can trace themselves to that individual who lived in New Amsterdam. So all of a sudden, what that person got a permit for or whatever, or when they got married, is going to be incredibly important to that individual. And so that sort of helps us create a larger picture of the real story of America, of this region. Well, let's talk about this region. Let's start in Manhattan. Yeah. If I went to Manhattan today,

what buildings or streets could I see that trace back to Dutch colonial days? Well, so it's really incredible because there are no buildings. I mean, here's the thing with Manhattan is that it's like, it just churns through buildings so incredibly. It's why we needed a landmarks preservation organization in the 1960s is to really protect and preserve our history. But what you do have in Manhattan is you almost

have the ghosts or hints of Dutch New Amsterdam almost everywhere you look. And you can start with the largest, most famous street in Manhattan, which is Broadway. Now, that used to be... I mean, it started as a Native American trail when the first settlers of New Amsterdam came to the tip of Manhattan. They essentially used the pre-existing trails that were there. But then, as the town got more developed, the street actually became developed and broadened. They eventually called it Heerstraat, or the Gentleman's Street, or Breedweg, which was the Broadway, obviously. So even the main street, you can actually trace back its name to the Dutch period here. But there are so many neighborhoods

within Manhattan that hold on to their Dutch names, sometimes because they actually have a Dutch tradition, or they trace back to the New Amsterdam period, or it's like an individual with an old Dutch name. So you see that echoed all through Manhattan, of course. And you'll actually see this all up and down through New York, especially along the Hudson River Valley. There have been sort of callbacks to Dutch architecture that you'll find. I mean, Manhattan is, in particular,

such a crazy mix of different kinds of architectural styles, but especially downtown around the area of like Stone Street, you'll find a lot of buildings that are in this old Dutch kind of like uniquely roofed kind of blocky roof design that, you know, if you can kind of like squint a little bit, you can imagine what it would have been like to live in New Amsterdam. And there's also, of course, the word the Bowery, from which the neighborhood in your podcast takes its name.

So that's a Dutch word. Tell me about the Bowery. I would even say, yeah, that might be the most popularly known word, because it is sort of unusual. It traces to a Dutch word. Forgive my Dutch, it's Bowerij, Bowerij, something, I believe it's pronounced one of those two ways. It means farm road. So you then have to think, okay, the Bowery, which today, you know, it's been famously known for kind of counterculture. Today, it's lots of trendy hotels and restaurants are on the Bowery.

But for it to be farm road would have meant that it actually had to lead to farms. So it is a road that literally traces back to this Dutch period. And it was, in fact, was the road that led from New York, which was contained down in the lower tip of Manhattan, up to a region of farms. And of course, one of the company farms here of the Dutch West India Company were here on the Bowery. So that word sort of carries on, even though it is nowhere near any farms today. Of course. But it's not all roads and buildings. The people of Dutch colonial era made their mark as well, including, of course, Peter Stuyvesant. So tell me, does he have a legacy? Has he made a mark on Manhattan as well? Yeah. I mean, in our podcast, we have a kind of a

slogan or subhead that's basically, thank you, Peter Stuyvesant, thank you, Boss Tweed, thank you, Robert Moses, because there are these figures with somewhat checkered reputations that nonetheless help make the modern New York. And with the case of Peter Stuyvesant, what is incredibly fascinating about his story, which you just told, is that he came back to New York. He didn't, after he was essentially, after it switched over to English rule, he came back to live here. And he went to live on one of these company farms that he had purchased. And the Stuyvesants basically became the bedrock of New York culture and society. And the crazy thing is that they became one of the most wealthy families in New York precisely because of this farm. So the farm, for those who are

familiar with New York, it's from the Bowery basically all the way to the water on the east side and from like 5th Street to 20th Street, that is the area of today's East Village, or most of it. So there's thousands of developments on that. So they were able to sell off parcels of that land and make a vast fortune. Meanwhile, though, a lot of places within that even today are associated with the name Stuyvesant. For instance, I mean, at the center, and this is really one of the most incredible buildings in New York, is St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, which is there in the East Village on 2nd Avenue. The first chapel was actually built by Peter Stuyvesant while he was still alive in

1660. He was interred there when he died in 1672. And then a new chapel was built in 1799, and he's actually interred under there. So Peter Stuyvesant right now lives essentially in the East Village. He's kind of the godfather of the modern East Village. And what's amazing is not only do the Stuyvesants represent this sort of old New York, but in many ways, they kind of are connected to our culture today. Because right next to St. Mark's Church in the Bowery is a street called St. Mark's Place, which is named after it. And it was like the center of counterculture and art and music and punk music during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And even that church itself was a place for art and literature and dance in the 20th century. You had Sam Shepard's first plays were produced there. Patti Smith, one of her first performances were there.

So it's just incredible to think that the Stuyvesant legacy, which, you know, began here in Dutch New Amsterdam, kind of reaches its tendrils all through history. And it doesn't just mean Dutch heritage, but it can even like, it can even sometimes even mean the vibrant countercultures of New York today. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for people's murders. This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger.

And it turns out convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true-form listening. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorises Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that

not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities. From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast, The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker raided ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science, and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of The Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus and The Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Let's journey outside of Manhattan. It's not the only place the Dutch colonized. What is their legacy in other boroughs and areas around New York City? So I think you could even argue that you see the imprint of New Netherland and Dutch New Amsterdam perhaps even more strongly in the boroughs surrounding. I mean, for instance, the names themselves are from the dutch period for instance the bronx is named after the bronx river named for a dutch settler named jonas bronc then you have staten island which is named for the dutch parliament uh staten general or states island then finally, and most interestingly, actually, is Brooklyn. So the Dutch authorized six towns, six Dutch towns in the area of Long Island. And those

six Dutch towns, the names still exist in neighborhoods today. Neighborhoods like Gravesend, New Utrecht, Bushwick, Flatlands. But then Brooklyn or Broekelen was also one of these first Dutch towns. And it was just a very, very tiny, essentially it was situated around a dock or a ferry area. And it was mostly used for farmers to kind of like cross the water so they could get to New Amsterdam and trade their goods.

But it's just incredible to think that like Brooklyn traces itself from that tiny little development that was traces to the Dutch. One of my favorite Dutch words that people like people are speaking Dutch every time they say this thing, which I think is marvelous, is this body of water that separates the Bronx and Manhattan on the far north side. It's called Spytendivel. So Spytendivel Creek is what it's called. And it flows into the Hudson River on the west side. The Spytendivel, the name first came up in a document by Adrian Vanderdonk, actually. It made its first appearance here, although it was probably colloquially called this. And it means variously. There's a lot of theories what the name really means, but a lot of people meant in spite of the devil. And it's because this tiny little

body of water is very turbulent, is a very troubled body of water. And so, it's one of the more interesting ghosts of Dutch New Amsterdam that we still have in our city today. Well, it sounds like the ghosts of the Dutch are all over the town, Harlem and Yonkers. Yeah. So, there is an area in lower Manhattan today, which people walk by and don't kind of realize its significance. It's a tiny little street called Mill Lane, and it's a remnant of the very first Jewish district in the United States. I mean, here in New York also, but it's where the very first Jewish residents of New Amsterdam lived. Although the Dutch were generally very tolerant of these other faiths and other religious practices, we know that Peter Stuyvesant wasn't necessarily.

In fact, he didn't allow the first Jewish settlers to even build a synagogue. Their first synagogue, which would be built here on Mill Lane, would be called actually Mill Street Synagogue, wouldn't be built for decades later. But there's a cool, interesting connection to this first settlement that you can actually visit today, the Congregation Sherit Israel tracks its roots back to this first 23 Sephardi Jews who first arrived in New Amsterdam. Today, there's actually a cemetery called the First Sherit Israel Graveyard, which is a little north of where that city was.

So it's around today's Chinatown. This is a graveyard that dates back to 1683, but its predecessor was the very first Jewish cemetery in America. And this graveyard that's up here in Chinatown is the only 17th century structure that still exists in Manhattan. So it's amazing that it's this place that has this direct connection with this first Jewish community, which was on Mill Lane, of which a small portion still exists. I mean, it's kind of incredible when you think of New York as this ever-changing, ever-churning city that you can actually find the roots of this community still here in New York. But you mentioned earlier that in the hundred years of British rule, they often tried to forget it, but clearly they didn't, or perhaps the people didn't. Still, though, the British could have easily renamed these places, just wiped the map clean. Why didn't they? Why did they allow the Dutch system of, well,

just the Dutch culture to persist? Well, when the English took over, it wasn't like they took over and everything changed. It was the same people the next day. Being a remote colony back in the day, they didn't have actually too much power to change things immediately. They could change things gradually, and they certainly did. order to make it a peaceful community and for it to kind of remain stable is that they had to incorporate some of the Dutch traditions and customs. So, by the time that the English are firmly entrenched here in New York, by the late 17th century, it's not quite like every other English outpost, actually. There's a lot of Dutch flavor here. More importantly is a lot of the people who had money and who had wealth and who had power were Dutch. Like, they remained here. The Stuyvesants, for instance, they were here. They were really powerful. This is their heritage. They understand that they need to work with the English, and they need to be loyal to the English crown. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're

going to discard everything about themselves. So on one hand, it really is these older, richer families basically standing firm with a lot of these different things. And the crown doesn't want to alienate these rich families for reasons which we'll see in the next few decades here, because they don't want a rebellion to happen. But there's something else under the skin here, which I think is really fascinating. And that's talking about just the rich people. But in all these rural districts, and there were dozens of farms all over the place here, hundreds of farms that had people that were Dutch. And just because the English came through doesn't mean that they're going to all start talking English. In fact, what you had was,

in many cases, you had those kind of Dutch traditions living on in the rural areas, actually becoming New York's rural character was very Dutch in nature, even as the city, the growing city, the town of New York, was almost like a different culture entirely. So, you always had that dichotomy happening here. So, you always had, like, remembrances and reminders of the Dutch wherever you looked. So, it would have been very, very difficult and unwise of the English to completely scrub everything i mean in many cases a lot of these old dutch words were anglicized englishized for instance actually um greenwich village um which sounds like it's english is actually from a dutch word

but it was slightly changed when the English came over, because there is also an area of Greenwich. So what they did is they took things that, they basically changed words slightly. They didn't make it, it didn't behoove them to change things suddenly. And of course, there are the New York Knicks as well, and that itself is Dutch as well. Tell us about Washington Irving and how he made that name popular in New York Knicks as well. And that itself is Dutch as well. Tell us about Washington Irving and how he made that name popular in New York. Yeah, so we're all Knicks here, because Knickerbocker kind of means, well, it's really more of a 19th century term. And when you're talking 19th century, New York was only Manhattan. So it really means you're from

Manhattan. But it is funny that this was a term popularized by Washington Irving when he wrote a satirical fictional history of New York. Okay. So, it wasn't meant to be taken necessarily seriously, but it was really popular, so much so that the ideas behind the book came to actually represent the real New York. There was an actual Knickerbocker, actually, but Dietrich Knickerbocker in his book is a completely made-up person. What's really funny about the story is that the book was so successful that it inspired all these old New York families to... I mean, it's really kind of an early 19th century ancestry.com kind of thing, because it inspired all these families to harken back and look back at their Dutch ancestry with pride.

Although of course it's sort of being inspired by this thing that was phony. In fact, speaking of the Knicks, I mean, the colors are the original, you know, it's orange. We get that orange from our Dutch connection.

So most people are kind of wearing paraphernalia that is sort of Dutch New Amsterdam themed, but they don't even know it, actually. One population that we address only briefly, really, in our series was the population of slaves in New York that were brought there by the Dutch India Company. What was their fate in the hundred years after the Dutch turned over Manhattan to England? Now, yeah, I mean, one thing to keep in mind is we talk glowingly about the kind of multiculturalism of Dutch New Amsterdam, but slavery was introduced. I mean, there was slavery in New Amsterdam. In fact, it greatly increased under Peter Stuyvesant. But it was nothing compared to what would happen once the English came. And New York became the largest importer of slaves in the colonies. New York, by the late 18th century, was actually defined by

a society of whites on one side and a market of oppressed and African and Caribbean enslaved people on the other. I mean, it really looked completely different. And during the Dutch period, there was sort of, it was like half freedoms, which I think is kind of a weird term, but there were different aspects to slavery which did not exist in the English period. And as a result, life was worse. And there were also just so many more enslaved people in New York. There were just so many more people. I believe that almost 40% of the population of New York had enslaved people had during the Dutch period were stripped away during the English period. So it actually was, it got absolutely worse as we get into the 18th century. And essentially New York is defined and people kind of forget this. It gets sort of forgotten because, you know, New York did, like, the state, once it was the United States, when the state of New York abolished slavery in the 1820s,

sometimes this kind of, like, ugly aspect of New York kind of gets forgotten. But it's during this period of English rule that New York is, I think, almost essentially defined by slavery. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal.

There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of ten that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique,

lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm Tristan Redman and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. So I started digging into the murder in my wife's family, and I unearthed

family secrets nobody could have imagined. Ghost Story won Best Documentary Podcast at the 2024 Ambies and is a Best True Crime nominee at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Ghost Story is now the first ever Apple Podcast Series Essential. Each month, Apple Podcast editors spotlight one series that has captivated listeners with masterful storytelling, creative excellence, and a unique creative voice and vision. To recognize Ghost Story being chosen as the first series essential, Wondery has made it ad-free for a limited time only on Apple Podcasts. If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself. Let's talk a little bit about the American Revolution,

the end of the English period in Manhattan. New York, of course, was the nation's capital for many years after the revolution and played a large part during the war. Do you believe it was the Dutch ideals of capitalism, tolerance, and democracy that made New York a ground zero for the American Revolution. Yeah, I do, actually. I mean, I think that it was always hovering in the background for many people, and for others, it was perhaps more direct. You had 100 years here from 1664, when the English took over from the Dutch, until the first rumblings of rebellion in the 1760s, so that's about a hundred-year period. That's actually not that long when you think about... They didn't have a rapid cycle of media to change minds like we do today. And so, you had ideals that had been passed down from generation to generation and also happened to be locked within languages and traditions that are coming from these rural areas. I forgot to mention, actually, this fascinating idea that women are really largely responsible for keeping the Dutch

traditions alive because rural women did not often go to town where they needed to speak English. They could stay at home. They were the chief educators of the family. So they were teaching their children what they knew. And a lot of that was still Dutch traditions and even the Dutch language. So you have people learning all of these stories, learning of what Dutch Amsterdam used to be for generations because of this. So you have these families, both rich and poor. You have rural families. You also have those with Dutch heritages who are maybe of greater means passing from generation stories and ideals of what the era used to be. And just imagine hearing those stories, the stories of, oh, like a more representative democracy and a more multicultural place to live that was a little bit more tolerant of things. Imagine that that was a life that was lived on the exact spot you were living at a point when you were starting to feel great oppression from the crown and from the English. And so you might have started to think,

well, why can't we return to that? Why can't we retrace our roots back to a place when, Amsterdam, this had been the place of New Netherlands, which had a very reasonable system of democracy among its citizens. So for other colonies, I imagine that some of this must have been very new ideas. But for New Yorkers, the idea of multiculturalism and maybe a kind of a freer, more representative democracy, those had happened here. That had happened here. And you may have a grandparent or someone who could recall these types of stories. And I'm sure you might have been wondering, well, why couldn't we replicate this here? Why can't we return to those more fair and more acceptable systems of government? So I think it's always in the background.

And sometimes it is more direct because a lot of the early revolutionaries were directly inspired by some of the writings of those during this period. You mentioned the older Dutch women preserving the language, even. It's interesting to note that the Dutch language not only names the streets and buildings around New York, but it affects the accent. Tell us about that. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's funny because it's a more, I would say it's, the New York accent comes from a lot of different things because there's really no place in the United States that has had more language influences than New York. So, I mean, to really identify one particular source as being dominant would be wrong. But many who have studied the New York City accent, which is itself this marvelous thing that collects all of this history within it, you are able to identify a Dutch vowel, actually, depending on what area of New York. There's sort of variations on the accent. And that, I mean, it seems natural, because if you're thinking,

you know, in the 18th century, you still have people speaking Dutch. In the 19th century, not as many people speaking Dutch in rural areas, but they're all speaking English with very strong Dutch inflection. So, as they're getting kind of pulled into the metropolis, this is a sound that is influencing other people, especially, again, if it's women who are teaching their children, and this is the accent that they're hearing, this gets pulled into whatever accent that they will develop. It's also interesting to note that Dutch is really the first major, quote, foreign language. Today, we have so many different languages that are spoken in New York. But in the late 17th century, you would have mostly, it would have just been English or it would have been Dutch.

But because English was in charge of the colony by that point, it would have just been seen as other or whatever or looked down upon, especially with these rural connections. But in a way, that's kind of what kept it alive for so long boroughs, as an end result, you do get the New York City accent. And so there are traces of the old Dutch, even as people who are speaking today are kind of nodding indirectly to the old Dutch language. What do you think would have been lost in new york if henry hudson was sailing for the english and not the dutch yeah so if we had just automatically been an english colony like it had just uh there hadn't been any of this particular conflict well first of all all of our names for all of our places would be incredibly boring well they'd be less interesting uh perhaps they'd be easier to pronounce depending on where you're at um but i just think that this is what one of the most remarkable things about this area

is that a lot of people um like we could here in new york we can trace back like when you say the english i i usually i usually counter with like well no actually we can trace back, like, when you say the English, I usually counter with, like, well, no, actually, we can trace it back to, like, this Native American group and this Native American group, and then you can trace back to the Dutch. Like, it creates this sort of, like, a dimension of history that I think is really unique. And actually, we as Americans need to trace back, but we regionally, it's especially important here. I guess we'd have, I guess our sports teams would be named differently. We'd have different colors, but actually, there's so many different things, as you've said in past shows, there's so many different concepts, whether they be from Santa

Claus to Ollie Cooks to donuts or cookies. There's so many things that just we wouldn't have in the same way if we just didn't have that Dutch character. And I think it's just really important to lift up the example of Dutch New Amsterdam for as many things that were imperfect about that settlement. There are so many parts about it that are rather admirable. And, you know, it's also kind of extraordinary. It really kind of bonds the DNA of New York, if you ask me, because the Dutch came here and settled this as basically a place to make money, right? And not every place in the United States was founded for such a purpose. And today, I mean, there's like a million reasons to come to New York. But at the end of the day, we still have Wall Street. We still have all these industries. So to me, it just connects what my daily life,

what I do every day, it connects that with things that happened 400 years ago. And I think it just makes a richer experience. Well, let's let you give us a tour of the DNA of New York. What are some of your favorite Dutch spots in the city? Well, so I live in Brooklyn, and you will see Dutch names everywhere you look here in Brooklyn. You really can't walk more than a few blocks without seeing an old Dutch family name. I used to live on a street called Bergen Street, and Bergen seeing an old Dutch family name. I used to live on a street called Bergen Street. Bergen is an old Dutch name. One of my favorite neighborhoods actually is called Red Hook. It basically like a like a muddy like a red muddy and hook was like a point was a dutch word for point so um i mean today like

red hook is a very striking name uh but it traces back to this particular period. Again, people forget or kind of don't put it together that Harlem, one of New York City's most famous neighborhoods and a neighborhood with just looking at the 20th century has some of the richest history of almost any neighborhood in the United States. Harlem can trace all the way back to New Amsterdam also, because it was named for a town in the Netherlands. And it even predates Peter Stuyvesant, although I think it was a small community that then disbanded because of wars

with the Native Americans. But then Peter Stuyvesant re you know, re-infused that community and kind of rebuilt that community a little bit. So, you know, even the idea of Harlem, which was a place that has so much history to it already, to even trace it back, you know, to almost one of the oldest communities in the region, I think is extraordinary. And I guess finally, I'd like to say there is an infamous legendary body of water, or an area, I guess, of water in the East River, right where it kind of diverges into other bodies of water. And so as a result, it's quite churning, it's quite dangerous. In the 18th and 19th century, dozens of ships sank at this particular spot. It had a very awful reputation, and it did have this reputation back

in the Dutch period. And it's from the Dutch period that we get the name of this area, this body of water, the Hell Gate. So, I mean, it has like the scariest name possible, and it traces back to the Dutch. All right. And finally, you are the host of the Bowery Boys podcast. Here's your opportunity to tell us a little bit about what you do on that show. Yeah, so I and my co-host Tom Myers have been hosting the Bowery Boys New York City History Podcast for a long time, since 2007. And every episode, we just take some aspect of New York City history. That's like almost 400 know, almost 400 years of history. We have like, you know, we have a podcast on Henry Hudson, we have one on the Lenape, but you know, we also have one on Studio 54. We have one on St. Mark's and the Bowery,

you know, so we just, it's really, it's a grab bag of people, places, and things from this rich New York City history that we get to share in every episode. And we actually just recently did a two-part episode on Brooklyn Heights, which is the oldest neighborhood in Brooklyn. And actually, we got to revisit briefly that early history of Brooklyn. But you don't have to just live here, actually. I would say that about half of our listeners don't live in New York City. If you live here, it's cool to listen to because you can kind of take it with you and walk down the street and say, oh, they just talked about that thing. But New York City history, as you have demonstrated, and many times actually on your show, New York City history is American history. It's just one corner of that history. And I would say that most of the shows that we talk about, most of the subjects that we talk

about on the show, really pertain to America and world history at large, whether it be, you know, the story of Billie Holiday, whether it be political corruption from the 1870s with like Boss Tweed, even some of the like infrastructural shows that we have about New York, like we have a whole show on how New York gets its drinking water, how that developed. Although there's a local aspect to it, there's also this sort of larger story about American prosperity. And some of the troubles that America has experienced over the years are also reflected in New York as well. So anyway, so that's what we do. And during the holiday season, we also tell ghost stories once a year. So actually, our next episode is going to be taking some of those old New York legends and putting a historical framework around them and hopefully scaring a few people.

Well, I look forward to be frightened and informed by you. Greg, thank you so much for joining us. No, thank you. It's been my pleasure. Again, I love revisiting this era of history. So thank you very much. That was my conversation with Greg Young, a co-host of the Bowery Boys podcast. Find him and more history of New York at BoweryBoysHistory.com.

Next on American History Tellers. In 1911, one of the deadliest industrial disasters in American history happened in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire claimed the lives of 146 garment workers, most of whom were women and girls. The fire inspired a raft of labor reforms that changed the American workplace and flipped New York City politics on its head. The incident is also remembered as a marquee moment for the labor movement and is even cited by politicians to this day as an example of the importance of workplace safety. Join us as we explore what happened and the legacy the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory left behind. From Wondery, this is American History Tellers.

If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. This episode was produced by Lee Hernandez and Adriana Cargill. Jenny Lauer Beckman is our editor and producer. Executive producer is Marshall Louis, created by Hernan Lopez for Wondery.

Now streaming. Welcome to Buy It Now, the show where aspiring entrepreneurs get the opportunity of a lifetime. Now streaming. If the audience liked the product, it fits them in front of our panel of experts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Anderson, Tabitha Brown, Tony Hawk, Christian Siriano. These panelists are looking for entrepreneurs whose ideas best fit the criteria of the four Ps, pitch, product, popularity, and problem-solving ability. I'm gonna give you a yes. I wanna see it. If our panelists liked the product, it goes into the Amazon Buy It Now store.

You are the embodiment of what an American entrepreneur is. Oh, my God. Are we excited for this moment? Ah! I cannot believe it. Woo! Buy It Now. Stream free on Freeview and Prime Video.