Naming New York
It’s 400 years since the Dutch founded the Big Apple
By Massimo Benvegnù
Henry Hudson was an English sailor who fell in love with Amsterdam. He spent six months in the Dutch capital before embarking on the trip that would put him on the map, quite literally.
It was on 4 April 1609 that Hudson set out on a voyage to discover a shortcut to Asia. The journey was underwritten by one of the first multinational companies, the Dutch East India Company.
Rather than uncovering some fabled nautical passage, Hudson instead helped to establish a Dutch colony on the East Coast of America, called New Amsterdam. While the old colonial outpost is now better known as New York City, the city’s river still bears Hudson’s surname, a testament to Henry’s achievements.
“The boldness, the epic determination of men such as Hudson beggars the imagination today,” says Russell Shorto, the American author of The Island at the Center of the World, a book on the Dutch origins of New York City.
The 400th anniversary of Hudson’s trip is being celebrated this year on both sides of the Atlantic with lectures, events, exhibitions and publications.
And the Dutch, famously clever businessmen, still complain of their mistake of trading New York for Suriname. But although they stayed for only 50 years, the Amsterdam influence on the city by what we now call the Hudson river is still pretty evident today.
