Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
1.9 ADRIAEN VAN DER DONCK
(1618–1655)
Adriaen van der Donck was born in
Breda, Netherlands. His maternal grandfather,
Adrian van Bergen took part in the
Eighty Years’ War against Spain and helped
capture the city of Breda in 1590. Starting in
1638, van der Donck attended the University
of Leiden, where he studied law, earning a
degree in both civil and canon law.
Van der Donck’s interest in the New
World led him to obtain a post as schout,
a sheri and prosecutor, from Kiliaen van
Rensselaer, who owned territory near what
is now Albany. He later worked for the
Dutch West India Company. As a reward
for negotiating peace with American Indian
tribes, the Dutch West India Company gifted
van der Donck land north of what is now
the island of Manhattan. There, he became
known as the Gentleman, or Jonker in
Dutch, from which the modern day Yonkers derives.
Image 1.12 | Presumed Portrait of
Adriaen van der Donck
Artist | Unknown
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | Public Domain
He worked as administrator to Peter Stuyvesant and was appointed to the
Council of Nine, New Amsterdam’s governing body. His petitioning for democratic
reform in the colony won him the ire of Peter Stuyvesant, who briey jailed van der
Donck. Van der Donck returned to the Netherlands, where he continued to petition
the Dutch government for democratic reform. He also wrote A Description of New
Netherland, the Country. He returned to America in 1653 and lived on his estate
until his death in 1655.
1.9.1 From A Description of New Netherland, the Country
Where and by whom New-Netherlands was rst discovered.
This country was rst found and discovered in the year of our Lord 1609; when,
at the cost of the incorporated East India Company, a ship named the Half-Moon
was tted out to discover a westerly passage to the kingdom of China. This ship
was commanded by Hendrick Hudson, as captain and supercargo, who was an
Englishman by birth, and had resided many years in Holland, during which he
had been in the employment of the East India Company. This ship sailed from
the Canary Islands, steering a course north by west; and, after sailing twenty days
with good speed, land was discovered, which, by their calculation, lay 320 degrees
by west. On approaching the land, and observing the coast and shore convenient,
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