Evan Haefeli - New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty

To recast this piece of colonial American history I have had to adopt a larger scope than I initially had imagined. First drawn to the topic during the late 1990s, I found myself embarking on a long trans-Atlantic endeavor, drawing on scholarship, archives, and people in both Europe and America, whose assistance it is my pleasure here to acknowledge. Most of all I must thank John Murrin, who invited me to come to Princeton University and encouraged me to follow my instincts on what was important in American history, even if they led me over the Atlantic to Europe and back in time to the Middle Ages. John first alerted me to the wonders of the seventeenth-century middle colonies, imparting a scholarly fascination for a time and place that I have yet to shake. His kindness, humor, knowledge, dedication, and enthusiasm for history remain a constant inspiration. Peter Lake's engaging seminars on Tudor-Stuart ecclesiastical politics provided me with the key to the mysteries of the middle colonies and emboldened me to go where I had not dreamed. Scholars with whom I worked in one capacity or anotherTheodore K. Rabb, Kenneth Mills, Natalie Zemon Davisand other colleagues made early modern history fascinating. For someone trying to understand and explain colonial America it was a godsend.

If one is going to seriously study New Netherland, a crucial requirement is a familiarity with Dutch language, culture, and history, something rather difficult to acquire in the United States these days, even at leading research universities. Fortunately, there was at least one Dutch person in Princeton, Helene van Rossum, willing to teach me Dutch and, through her friends and family, introduce me to Dutch society, for which I am forever grateful. After that, I was able gradually to build up my knowledge of all things Dutch, even as I began teaching at Tufts University, where my colleagues supported my wide-ranging interests with gracious generosity. My growing involvement in colonial Dutch studies would have been impossible without the New Netherland Project (now the New Netherland Institute) based at the New York State Library and Archives in Albany. Its importance for Americans interested in not just New Netherland but the seventeenth-century Dutch world cannot be underestimated. Charles Gehring has been on a longstanding quest to make Dutch history and sources accessible to non-Dutch-speaking Americans through a steady flow of published translations that are an invaluable source of information and analysis. Janny Venema has ably joined Charlie in his efforts, and added her own scholarship to what is now a dynamic and diverse field of study. Joyce Goodfriend pioneered research on Dutch colonial New York and has been a consistent supporter of all work in the field ever since, including my own. David Voorhees has been an invaluable guide and fellow researcher, raising questions and illuminating sources. Through the friendly but scholarly series of Rensselaerswyck seminars on early Dutch American history begun years ago by Charlie, a real community of scholars and nonscholars has emerged, all of whom are in no small way indebted to the work of the Project (now the Institute). I am grateful for all the interest they have shown in my work. I do not think I would have been able to write this book without the foundation they have laid for Dutch American studies.

In 2005 I had the good fortune of finding a post at Columbia University, one of the few places in America where I could expand my approach to the early modern Dutch world with ready institutional and collegial backing. The libraries and staff at Columbia University are outstanding. If they did not have something I needed on Dutch history (and they have a surprising amount), they quickly obtained it for me. The Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch language union) in connection with the Queen Wilhelmina Visiting Professorship at Columbia University has proven a tremendous resource. With the able guidance of Martha Howell heading a committee of colleagues, and the enthusiastic participation of a growing body of interested graduate students, I have enjoyed invaluable opportunities to organize and participate in conferences, workshops, and talks on Dutch language, culture, and history that enhanced my appreciation of all three. Wijnie de Groot, Columbia's exemplary teacher of Dutch language and culture, has been an invaluable guide to seventeenth-century Dutch language and paleography. The university supported me for a year of leave in 20082009 that made it possible for me to mature as a historian of the Dutch. Without that opportunity I would not have dared write this book.

My colleagues in the Columbia history department have proven a vital source of support and intellectual exchange. Special thanks must go to my chair, Mark Mazower, who held his hand over my head in the crucial final stage of the writing process. Adam Kosto readily assisted with a last-minute Latin translation. Christopher Brown and Matthew Jones deserve outstanding recognition for their sharp reading of a monstrous manuscript at a difficult time in the semester. Peter Walker gave the subsequent version the appreciative reading of a sharp graduate student, which gave me hope that it had something worthwhile after all. Over the past two years Leslie Ribovich has been an outstanding research assistant, an irreplaceable editor, and my ideal undergraduate reader. No one else has worked as hard on this manuscript as she.