Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Coming up on the show tomorrow, we have more New York City history, this time with a focus on the water. We'll speak with some of the folks from the South Street Seaport Museum about the new exhibit, Maritime City. We'll speak with the author of the book Mood Machine. It's about how Spotify has reshaped the way people listen to music, often in ways that disadvantage musicians. That's on tomorrow's show. Now, let's get this whole hour started with Manhattan in the 17th century.

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In the new book Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America, our next guest, Russell Shorto, argues that Manhattan was taken twice. It was taken from the indigenous people who lived here, and then it was taken from one European colony and assumed by another. As New Amsterdam became New York, Russell says that the colony maintained a distinctly Dutch character. That's part of what makes our city one of the most unique places on Earth. Enter England.

They had most of the Northeast on lock. What about the territory that the Dutch maintained much past the current boundaries of New York City? That's the focus of Russell's book. Russell gives a detailed account of the days in 1664 when Englishman Richard Nicolls faced off against Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland. Russell Shorto is the author of The Island at the Center of the World. He is also the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical Society. He's agreed to stay with us for the whole hour today.

In just a bit, we'll hear how the English convinced the Dutch to hand over New Amsterdam. First, we're going to set up the conditions that led to the conflict. We also want to tell you this, that Russell will be appearing at the New Canaan Library Sunday, March 9th, from 3 to 4 PM, and he'll be speaking at the South Street Seaport on Monday, March 10th, at 6:30 PM. Welcome to the studio.

Russell Shorto: Thank you, Alison. What a great setup.

Alison Stewart: What are some of the key questions that you wanted to answer by researching and writing this book?

Russell Shorto: I'm interested in history that we overlook because we think it's inevitable. Everybody knows that New York was once New Amsterdam. It was somehow controlled by the Dutch. Then, of course, the English took it over and named New York. That's like saying, of course, the Allies won World War II. What if they didn't? What's important in history is in those details. Even among historians, this event has been glided over. That very fact got me curious. What really got me into it, though, was as you mentioned, my earlier book, The Island at the Center of the World, was really about the Dutch colony.

That ends obviously with the takeover. I based that research on a translation project at the New York State Library in Albany, which has been going on since the 1970s. What got me into this book was that translation project has finally moved into the latter years of the life of the Dutch colony. As you get to that period, you see New Amsterdam at its full, at its height when it was this vibrant, multi ethnic place that was desirable to the English.

Seeing that made me hone in on, "What was that moment that--" I focus on storytelling. I focus on people in conflict. Here, you have the English and their ships pointing their cannons and then the Dutch in their fort at the tip of the island pointing their cannons. That's conflict.

Alison Stewart: The translations had that much different in them, these new translations you came upon?

Russell Shorto: It's not any one thing. It's an accumulation of information, of data, and this building picture of the city as it becomes-- It was like this little wild west post clinging to the southern tip of the island, basically the Financial District today. It had its very savvy traders, had contacts in the Caribbean, in South America, in Europe, in West Africa. The English found this, and they were bewildered by it. They couldn't figure it out.

Alison Stewart: The British Empire was powerful in 17th century, but the Dutch, they had a wide-ranging, wealthy empire, in part due to their shipbuilding. Why were the Dutch so far ahead of the English?

Russell Shorto: The Dutch and the English are really interesting in the course of the 17th century because I often think of them as sibling rivals. They had a lot in common. The Dutch were ahead. They were like the older sibling, and they were ahead. They had just gotten the jump on the English. They were always a seafaring people and therefore always more globally minded, which had something to do with Dutch tolerance, which--

You have to immediately qualify, the Dutch tolerance does not apply to enslaved Africans, and they enslaved many or to native people and so on, but it was a thing. It had to do with the fact that they had to learn other languages. With that comes some perspective on other ways of living.

Alison Stewart: The Dutch East India Trading Company, how does that factor in?

Russell Shorto: The Dutch East India Company is interested in the East Indies, which in the parlance of the day means Asia. They were looking for a short route to Asia. They hired an English navigator, Henry Hudson, in 1609.

Alison Stewart: Oh, boy, that guy. [laughs]

Russell Shorto: [chuckles] Yes, that guy. When he came to North America looking for, he thought there would be a channel that cut through the North American continent. He also thought the North American continent was about half the size that it is. According to his logic, instead of getting to Ohio, you'd actually get to the Sea of Japan, and the riches of Asia would be in front of you. That was his reason for being here. He's checking out Delaware Bay and the Delaware River. That's not it. Then he comes up to later New York Harbor and the river that's named after him and he thinks, "Aha, this is it," because the Hudson River is salty. It's an estuary.

He starts going up it, thinking it's going to cut westward. Instead, he realizes that he's getting to the root of the river, and he ends up turning around and going back. He claims all of this on behalf of the Dutch, who hired him.

Alison Stewart: What were the stated goals in founding a Dutch colony in Manhattan?

Russell Shorto: The initial goal was beavers, was animal pelts, and also tobacco. This is the age of exploration and colonization, and they're trying to exploit far-flung lands. They laid claim to the land. The Dutch were meticulous after their fashion in negotiating deeds with the native people for tracts of land. They negotiated hundreds of deeds for the whole area and trying to make a go of it.

There was the larger concern, the Dutch West India Company, which became the overseer of this colony. This is a story within the story. You've got all these freelance small-scale traders and investors who are working under the umbrella of the West India Company. That's where the life of the colony of New Netherland and the city of New Amsterdam is really infused.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with Russell Shorto, author of the new book Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America. It tells the story of how Manhattan was shifted from Dutch to English control. You write in the book very early on, "Today, we are coming to appreciate more keenly than ever before the injustice America has done to the native people. The taking of Manhattan Island by the Dutch in 1626 is the very emblem of that injustice.

It was not quite the first act of European dispossession, but it's certainly one of the more outrageous examples." I felt it was important to say that out loud. From your research, what was the Lenape understanding of the agreement with the Dutch regarding New Amsterdam?

Russell Shorto: Right. First of all, we assume it was the Lenape. We don't even know because we don't have the deed. What we have is a letter that when the first ship went back to Europe, a Dutch official wrote a letter to his bosses saying, "Our people have purchased the island from the native people." It was probably the Lenape because the territory of what's now New York City and into New Jersey was Lenape land. The Dutch knew perfectly well that the native people did not have a concept of real estate and transactions of land.

For the native people, the deal would have been something like an alliance, saying, "We will allow you to come and live here. We will continue to use the island, and in exchange, we'll support each other. If one of us is attacked, the other will help out." The Dutch knew that that's what they were involved in, but the Dutch wanted to have a deed, which was an official document in their terms, because they wanted to have something to show other Europeans, the English, for example, to be able to hold up and say, "No. We've got the title to this land."

Alison Stewart: You say that New Amsterdam was already a very pluralistic society before the English showed up. Our city is known for being full of immigration and multiculturalism. Why was New Amsterdam a welcoming place?

Russell Shorto: Welcoming is maybe a bit of a big word, but the Dutch tolerance was not celebrating diversity. It was more restrictive than that. As I said, it didn't apply to whole groups of people, but it was a real thing. It was a real thing in the Netherlands. The Dutch Republic was the melting pot of Europe. When that society founded a colony, especially the city of Amsterdam, was instrumental in creating New Amsterdam, a lot of those features just came along.

In the famous statistic is in 1643, someone reports 18 languages being spoken at a time when there were probably only about 500 people. As I'd like to say, New York was New York even before it was New York. That is probably underestimating it because it doesn't take into account the native languages. There were probably at least three different African languages being spoken. You're probably over 20, 25 languages.

Alison Stewart: What role did slavery play in New Amsterdam?

Russell Shorto: Slavery is a really interesting and complicated story in the colony. It's ad hoc, initially. The first enslaved Africans probably come in 1627, just a year into the life of the city, more or less by accident. The Dutch were at war with the Spanish and the Portuguese, and they captured a Portuguese ship in the Caribbean, and the captain had learned that the Dutch had the settlement in North America, so they brought them here. It was a couple dozen individuals.

They figured out, "What do we do with it?" The West India Company puts them to work. It was like that for most of the life of the colony. The first actual shipment of Africans from Africa to New Amsterdam arrives two weeks before the English do. When the English warships come in, there's this ship sitting there which had just offloaded all these people. You got to add that to the scene, this chaotic scene in lower Manhattan of this mixed community as it is trying to deal with, "We have to defend ourselves," and these people stumbling around figuring, "What in the world did we get ourselves into?"

Alison Stewart: There were English people living in the New Netherlands, though, yes?

Russell Shorto: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What was that relationship like?

Russell Shorto: That was a component. There were many different European nationalities, and a prominent one was English. In England, you have the Civil War going on for much of this time, and you have this polarization, you might say, of English society into the Puritans. That is what we would think of today as religious extremists and the royalists, who were essentially everyone else. A lot of people went to Puritan New England seeking religious freedom because that's what they promised.

In fact, they discovered that they wanted religious freedom for themselves, not for others. If you were of a somewhat different sect, they would persecute you, often violently. Many of these people, they go from England to New England, then from New England, the Dutch are waving this little tolerance flag saying, "Come here," because they need settlers.

There were whole communities of English in the colony who had to swear an oath to the Dutch government. Then, that comes into play in the story of the takeover.

In particular, Gravesend was a settlement founded by the Englishwoman, Lady Deborah Moody, and that's a predominantly English settlement. That's where Richard Nicolls, the commander who comes in for the English, bases himself when he's beginning negotiations with Stuyvesant.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about Peter Stuyvesant, the Director General of the New Netherlands. He was a sternman. That's how he was described in one article I read. By modern standards, he would be considered somewhat of a bad man. Somebody said he was an equal opportunity bigot. Yet his statues, they are everywhere in New York City, so he said that out loud. Had he been a successful leader in New Netherlands?

Russell Shorto: He's an interesting guy. I've changed my attitude about him since I wrote The Island at the Center of the World years ago, then I saw him in fairly stern black and white terms. I have come to appreciate largely through the work of a colleague of mine, Dennis Maika, who's writing what will be an important book on how he came with a-- He was a Calvinist minister son. He was this 'my way or the highway' kind of leader. He comes at a time of great turmoil, and he has to impose order.

He immediately lays down the law and gets this tremendous pushback. That saga is the subject really of The Island at the Center of the World. Over the next few years then, he gets his bearings. He gets his footing, and he realizes that he is an employee of the West India Company. The West India Company has ordered him to make this place work, but he's got all these freelance traders here who want to make a go of it. The only way to make a go of this place is for them to succeed.

He slowly realizes that he's not just employee of the West India Company. He's a middleman. He has to appease his bosses in Europe, and he has to work with these people and get them to come along. In doing so, he brings some of the features of Dutch capitalism. The Dutch pioneered capitalism at the same time. In that sense, he's actually quite a creative guy. Now, part of what he does along the way in 1659, 1660, is negotiate this first shipment of Africans.

His bosses ordered him to bring in a consignment of "Negroes" He does. Then, finally, there's 290 men, women, and children who come into the harbor just before the English do. Being a businessman means you're going to deal in whatever you deal in to make money. His story is a complicated one.

Alison Stewart: When did Stuyvesant start to realize there might be trouble here?

Russell Shorto: With the English?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Russell Shorto: It was hinted at throughout the life of the colony. At this period of time, it's the Dutch Golden Age, so called. Life was relatively good in the home country. In England, life was hell. You had this English civil war. They beheaded the king. You have droves of English people coming over to the colonies, mostly in New England, but also to Virginia and Maryland. Right in the middle, in the Eastern Seaboard, is this Dutch settlement, which, by the way, was all or parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, part of Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

They're surrounded by the English, and there's more and more English coming. Then, the English are doing things like they're crossing Long Island Sound from the mainland to Long Island. Now, Long Island was originally Dutch, but then as the English cross and then they move from the easternmost, from Montauk, they move in toward the city, he's feeling encroached from all sides.

Alison Stewart: All right, we've laid the groundwork. We're going to take a quick pledge break. Make sure to stick around because Russell Shorto will be back to break down what happened when the English showed up in Manhattan. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart, and we are back with Author Russell Shorto. We're talking about his new book, Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America. At the beginning of the hour, we set up what life was like in Dutch New York before the English arrived. Now, we're going to discuss how New Amsterdam was handed over to the English and became New York. During this period in history, how would you describe the relationship between the English and the Dutch?

Russell Shorto: They were rivals. Over the course of the century, they fought several trade wars. These were wars everywhere but in their home countries because they were grabbing pieces of continents in Africa and South America and in the Caribbean, and they would take them from each other. This was one. In fact, the English takeover of New Netherland was an event that precipitated the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

Alison Stewart: The King of England at this time was King Charles II, yes?

Russell Shorto: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Okay. He was restored to the throne after his father had been executed. What do we know about King Charles' personality that would help us understand why taking New Amsterdam would become a priority to him?

Russell Shorto: There were two brothers of the beheaded king, Charles and his younger brother James. They fled to the continent after their father was beheaded. They lived in exile there. Then, in 1660, they returned and returned to the throne. You had the older one, Charles becomes king, and his brother is the Duke of York. They worked together. If you read about that period and these royals, they're great playboys, and they lived large in that way, but at the same time, they were pretty serious about setting up what would become the British Empire.

They had this team of people who were looking at what was exploitable. They were looking across the Atlantic and seeing, "Wait a second, we've got these colonies in New England, and we've got these colonies in Virginia and Maryland, but the Dutch, our rivals, have that piece." They set up a council for foreign plantations, which, as it sounds, is this committee that's all about colonization. They also set up the Royal Society, which then, and you might say even now, was the premier society for the advancement of science.

They were, in one hand, moderate. They were relatively tolerant when it came to religion, unlike the Puritans, the other side. You have to put all of that into the mix when you figure who was behind the takeover of the Dutch colony.

Alison Stewart: Was there anything specifically about what we call Manhattan that signaled to them that they should take over this area?

Russell Shorto: As I said in the first segment, the translation project of the records in Albany, as you get into the 1660s, you start to feel the energy in Manhattan, in New Amsterdam. That's what they-- When we're looking at those records, we're starting to see it the way they saw it. The important thing here is the man they picked to lead this expedition, a man named Richard Nicolls, who has been forgotten by history, a fascinating figure. He understood. He started doing his homework in London before he ever left on this expedition.

He interviewed people who'd lived in the colony. He brought with him a couple of people, Englishmen who had worked for Stuyvesant. He didn't just want the island. The geography was special because this island sits in this harbor and the Hudson River and then, ultimately, the Hudson connects to the Mohawk River Valley, which goes all the way to the Great Lakes. They were thinking about the future in that regard, about exploiting the continent. It wasn't just the geography.

He understood that the Dutch had created something special with this combination of relative tolerance and capitalism. They didn't know what it was. This was something new and alien, but he wanted to keep it. When he comes there with his guns pointed, he's ready to lay waste because that's what he's been told to do, but he doesn't want to do it because he wants to keep those people because they have that secret sauce, and he wants to know the recipe.

Alison Stewart: Why wasn't New Amsterdam better defended?

Russell Shorto: From the Dutch side now, Peter Stuyvesant, not just him, but everyone in the community, the interesting thing about writing this story is it's this whole community of about 1500 people that are playing parts. Men, women, enslaved people, they're all chiming in, giving their voice to things. They had all known that for years, Stuyvesant and other leaders had been writing home, saying, "Look what promise we have. We have this colony. We can continue expanding westward, but you have to support us. You have to give us soldiers. You have to give us more settlers." Time and again, they were ignored. The Dutch were looking east to the wealth coming out of Asia. They were looking to Brazil, other places. They were frustrated. That sets up. On the one hand, you've got Nicolls and the English who don't want to destroy, and on the other hand, you've got the Dutch who are saying, "What recourse do we have? The home country isn't going to support us."

Alison Stewart: What does Peter Stuyvesant do when faced with these British troops?

Russell Shorto: As I said before, when I write history, I think of myself more as a storyteller than a writer of history. People often will say to me, "Oh, I learned so much from your book." They mean it as a compliment, but it annoys me because I don't just think of myself as amassing facts. I want to tell a story. What I'd really like to hear people say is, "Oh, I got completely lost in the-- I didn't know what time it was," that thing.

Here, you have this complicated situation brewing several times over this two-week period, the late summer of 1664. At one point, Nicolls orders his ships to make a run past the fort at the tip of the island with their guns pointed, and he's egging them to fire, but they hold back. Instead, they send messengers on small boats back and forth from his ships to the fort. They're feeling each other out. They come to realize that they have a lot in common, that these Englishmen Stuyvesant knows are very different from the English in New England with this Puritanical cult.

They are much more. They're pragmatic. They're moderate. They're relatively tolerant. When they start to talk, what it ultimately comes to is the so-called Articles of Surrender, which, if it was really Articles of Surrender, it would have these onerous, "You must not do this. You will give up your arms," and so on. None of that language is in there. What's in there is very much like a bill of rights.

It says, "You will all keep your homes. You'll keep your ships. You'll keep your businesses. By all means, keep your business contacts in other parts of the world." It's inviting them. It's saying, "We want you to continue and to do well. If you succeed, then this new entity is going to succeed."

Alison Stewart: You don't think the English ever really wanted to go to war?

Russell Shorto: I think his command was to go to war, and his ships were loaded to the gills, but Richard Nicolls, and this is what's interesting about him, he's thousands of miles away. He can't text home or anything. It's just up to him how to deal with this. He decides, "I'm going to do something different. I'm going to make a deal with them. I'm going to make all these promises to them because I want them to stay. I don't want to have to start over with a burnt-out landscape."

That, in my argument, is what sets up New York on its trajectory. It remains "Dutch" in its important features. It remains this capitalistic, multi ethnic place. The big change is, it's going to be under new ownership. Richard Nicolls, there's this letter in which he almost, by the way, writes to the Duke of York and says, "Oh, and I named this place New York after you, after your title." He did so much that set up the terms of what New York became, established all those features in terms of its makeup. New Amsterdam had been this little cluster of streets at the Financial District. He said, "No. From now on, New York will be the whole island of Manhattan." He readjusted the terms of it.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to ask about those terms. What were the priorities of the Dutch? What were the priorities of the English once they come to this agreement?

Russell Shorto: I think the priorities largely overlapped. The Dutch wanted to keep their homes and their businesses. You have to distinguish between-- When I say the Dutch and I'm talking about the people here, first of all, they weren't all Dutch. Maybe half of them were Dutch, but they were all sorts of other nationalities. These were people-- We're 40 years into the life of this colony. You're into the third generation, in some cases, of people living here who've built up life. That life extends to everybody in town.

Some visitor said, "Everybody here is a trader." Everybody in town would put money down onto voyages. They'd send a shipload to Brazil, bring back sugar or whatever. Everybody was a trader. Everybody was involved in this activity. The deal that they hashed out was good for them. The English wanted it to be good for them because then it would ultimately good for the English. Who it wasn't good for was the Dutch government and the Dutch West India Company.

That's why once this was all over, Peter Stuyvesant was recalled and put on trial basically for giving up this thing that he was supposed to defend.

Alison Stewart: The transfer from the Dutch to the English or this melding, what did this mean for the indigenous people in the surrounding area and the enslaved people?

Russell Shorto: The enslaved people, as I said before, slavery was getting ramped up at this time. It never truly got underway under the Dutch, although they set it up. Then under the English, it would actually-- We are slowly coming to be aware that New York was a quite prominent slave holding and a slave market. That starts in this period, but it really takes off under the Dutch. For the native people, the Dutch began the process of dispossessing native people.

It was like, "We're going to buy this piece of land." Then, initially, we think, "Yes, you can stay around." Then they get pushed out. You'll see accounts where the same village of Lenape, they sign one deal and then they move and then they signed another deal and then they moved further westward and they're being pushed further and further. It sets up the whole process, you might say. Not to lay too much on the people and the Europeans in New York, but basically, the whole process of the dispossession of native people across the continent begins here.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with Russell Shorto, author of the new book Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America. It tells the story of how Manhattan was shifted from Dutch to English control. Russell will be speaking at the South Street Seaport on Monday, March 10th, at 6:30. I believe he will be in New Canyon, Connecticut, on Sunday, March 9th, from 3 to 4 PM. It was funny. As I was looking in the book, I realized today is an important today. Today, in 1664, the Second Anglo-Dutch War started. March 4th, right, I think it was?

Russell Shorto: Oh, okay. I don't have that in my head. Good for you, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Did the surrender of New Amsterdam contribute to the causes of that war?

Russell Shorto: The surrender of New Amsterdam was probably the main event that touched off the war. They were at peace at the time, and the English took over. That was in August and September that they took over. Then, in March, the war began. Then everyone thought that at the end of-- Because the way these things worked, they were these trade wars. They would bash away at each other for a few years, and then the negotiators would sit down, and they would give things back.

That didn't happen this time. There's a Latin term which I'm forgetting, but it basically means, "Keep everything as it is." That's what they ended up doing. The Dutch people in the colony were surprised. They wrote letters saying, "I guess now I'm going to have to learn English." They were holding out until the Dutch took it back.

Alison Stewart: Tell us about the Treaty of B-R-E-D-A.

Russell Shorto: The Treaty of Breda. That's a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. It's hundreds of negotiators because these were very complicated. Some people will say to me, "Oh, I've heard that the Dutch swapped New Amsterdam for Suriname in South America or for this little island called Pulau Run in the East Indies." Neither of those was the case. It wasn't a one-for-one deal. You had columns of properties on both sides that one had won from the other. The treaty basically said, "We're keeping everything as it is."

Alison Stewart: When you think about New York today, what still seems Dutch about New York City?

Russell Shorto: I think a lot of New York seems Dutch. It's not just me. I wrote a book about the history of the city of Amsterdam. I lived there for seven years. A lot of Dutch people in New York and New Yorkers in Amsterdam feel like there's a certain businesslike brusqueness that both cities have in common. They're practical places. Obviously, they're both places with enormous diversity and numbers of languages and religions. I don't know if this is true, but I've heard that there is some aspect of New York accent that goes back. People have said to me, Long Island, that is a remnant of-- I'm not signing off on that, but I've heard it.

Alison Stewart: It's so much fun when you go to Amsterdam and go to Haarlem and Portland.

Russell Shorto: I should ask you, does it feel like-

Alison Stewart: It's really funny because you're walking around and also on the rivers, it looks like the upper west side. The buildings, they're beautiful. The turrets, they're gorgeous. It just reminds you of like, "I think I've been here before."

Russell Shorto: Yes, there's a lot of features. Just overall, what I'm most interested in is tracking ideas and how they spread. I think I'm partly interested in that because it's impossible. You can't follow an idea. It's like following an atom or something. It's still worthwhile because it's ultimately trying to figure out how we got here and who we are. That's what this is about. As I say in the book, New York had two parents, one Dutch and one English. It has features of both of them. Until relatively recently, that Dutch part of its background was buried. It wasn't as apparent. I think it becomes more apparent as you tease it.

Alison Stewart: What do you wish people understood more about this period of Manhattan's history?

Russell Shorto: Here's one thing that relates to where we are at this moment in our history. Here were these two rivals who were ready to go at one another, and they stopped, and they started talking. They realized that there was an overlap, that there was something that they had in common, and that out of that, you could build something new, something bigger than either of them could do on their own. I think that thinking has been forgotten. I think that's an important lesson.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America. Author Russell Shorto will discuss his new book at the New Canaan Library, 151 Main Steet, Sunday, March 9th from 3 to 4 PM, and he will be at the South Street Seaport museum on Monday, March 10th at 6:30.

Russell Shorto: Alison, I'll also be at the Explorers Club on Thursday.

Alison Stewart: All right. You're busy. You got a book out. It's a really good book. Thank you so much for making the time today.

Russell Shorto: Thanks so much, Alison.