Hello and welcome to a history of the United States.

Episode 41, The Last Days of New Netherland.

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PayPal subscription button. Last time out, we wrapped up the brief history of New Sweden and then got back to New

Netherlands. Only this time covering the actual narrative rather than a brief overview.

The biggest issue New Netherlands faced in the late 1620s and 1630s was attracting migrants.

It was far less appealing a destination than, for example, New Holland on the north-eastern coast of Brazil.

The Dutch West India Company, while it admittedly was preoccupied with New Holland, did make some efforts to rectify the situation.

It introduced patroonships, whereby a person would be given a grant of land to rule in a feudal manner if they brought over 50 people.

But the only patroonship to have any success

was that founded by Keline van Renzelar. Renzelawak.

This failed to attract individual settlers, and because of trading restrictions, had not proved popular with potential investors

who saw New Netherland as high risk and low profit. The initial population of New

Netherlands in 1628 was around 270. This had risen to 300 by 1630, but by 1640, it was still only at 500. It was troublingly small.

During this decade, the colony suffered with economic stagnation. There was an official audit in 1644, which discovered that while New

Netherlands produced around 50,000 to 70,000 guilders each year, it had cost the company 550,000

guilders. In order to operate, the company needed a million guilders, and it was not going to find that

wealth on the Hudson. The state's general pushed to the company to reform its methods of

attracting settlers. This is where we left things. We now begin with the result of all this pushing,

...