#93 The Purchase of Manhattan and Other Dutch Treats
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2022
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New Netherland gets off to a rocky start, with uncommonly poor leadership. Fortunately, a very capable leader, Peter Minuit, steps forward after a catastrophic attack on the Dutch at Fort Orange by the Mohawk. Minuit would consolidate most of the settlers at New Amsterdam, and buy Manhattan from the Leni Lenape Indians on the island. Notwithstanding its representation in American lore, we fearlessly consider whether that deal was, in fact, a great bargain for the Dutch, or actually at fair market value!
See Jack’s interview on The RSnake Show on Youtube.
Twitter: @TheHistoryOfTh2
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Selected references for this episode
Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
Jaap Jacobs, The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America
Eric Yanis, The Other States of America History Podcast
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast episode 93. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on October 24th, 2022, in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:19.9 | On the small chance that you do not know already, we are telling the |
| 0:23.4 | history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism. |
| 0:30.4 | Before we get to the history fun, you might or might not be delighted to hear that I subjected |
| 0:36.5 | myself to a long interview on the Arsnake show, |
| 0:39.9 | Robert Hansen's podcast right here in Austin. You can hear me roll on about all sorts of stuff, |
| 0:45.8 | mostly the history we have covered so far, for more than two hours, and even watch on YouTube. |
| 0:52.0 | On the small chance you haven't already heard enough of me on such |
| 0:55.1 | subjects, I'll put a link in the show notes and put up a separate blog post. It was actually a lot of |
| 1:00.3 | fun. And you might check out other episodes of the Arsenic show, spelled R-S-N-A-K-E, although |
| 1:09.3 | pronounced more like arsenic, I guess, at least to my ear. |
| 1:13.6 | Robert's a world-renowned cybersecurity expert who's gotten to know a lot of interesting people over the years. |
| 1:19.9 | Many of his shows have been with leaders in technology, so his interview of me is a bit of a departure for his usual audience, |
| 1:26.0 | but perhaps they will enjoy it as much |
| 1:27.9 | as you guys, and I certainly had a lot of fun. Thank you, Robert. Two other short items. The first is |
| 1:34.6 | that I'm slowly continuing my project of re-recording the earliest episodes of the podcast, |
| 1:40.8 | most of which don't sound so good. I re-recorded and published episode one, The Americans Before Columbus Part 1, over the weekend |
| 1:48.8 | just passed. |
| 1:50.6 | If you want to listen to it, you can just go back to the episode in your podcast app or on |
| 1:55.2 | the website. |
| 1:56.3 | If you re-download it, the version you hear will be the new one. |
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