A field guide, sailing west
Most Americans couldn't find the Netherlands on a map. But New York, Wall Street, and even Santa Claus all trace back to it. Here's how.
Before we set sail — some context
Around 1650, the Dutch Republic had fewer people than greater Houston has today. For about a century, that tiny, soggy strip of land controlled the seas, ran the world's trade, and decided the price of money for half the planet. A small population punching wildly above its weight isn't an unfamiliar shape. Here's the Dutch Golden Age laid next to the United States, now.
The small country that used to run the world just showed up to play in the country running it now.
Port of call 1 — 1625
In 1625, the Dutch West India Company planted a trading post on the southern tip of Manhattan and called it New Amsterdam. The Dutch ran it for 40 years — laying out the street grid, the canals, the harbor — before the English took it without a fight in 1664 and renamed it after the Duke of York.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic history of New York — starting with the Dutch who built it. If you want to understand how a small trading post became the greatest city on earth, this is the book.
Find on Bookshop.org →A vivid, accessible account of how Dutch explorers and settlers first arrived on Manhattan — who they were, why they came, and what they found. A perfect starting point for the whole story.
Find on Bookshop.org →Port of call 2 — 1653 → today
The Dutch built a defensive wall along the colony's northern edge in 1653 — today's Wall Street follows that exact line. There's a deeper link too: the Dutch invented the modern stock exchange in Amsterdam in 1602, trading shares of the VOC. New York's exchange grew out of that same idea, two centuries and an ocean later.
The history of the Dutch colony that built the wall — and the trading system behind it. Meticulous research on how Dutch commercial ideas, including the world's first stock exchange, crossed the Atlantic.
Find on Bookshop.org →Port of call 3 — still on the map
Dutch settlers named their farms and villages, and a few centuries of American pronunciation did the rest. Breukelen became Brooklyn, Haarlem became Harlem, "de Bouwerij" (the farm) became the Bowery, and Conyne Eylandt (Rabbit Island) became Coney Island. Even Staten Island keeps its Dutch name outright — named for the Staten-Generaal, the Dutch parliament.
The history of the Dutch colony that gave New York its street names and neighborhoods — meticulous research, written accessibly by one of the leading Dutch-American historians.
Find on Bookshop.org →Port of call 4 — two U.S. presidents
Both Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt descended from Claes Maartenszen van Rosenvelt, a Dutch settler who arrived in New Amsterdam around 1648. "Rosenvelt" — later "Roosevelt" — translates to "field of roses." Martin Van Buren, the eighth U.S. president, grew up speaking Dutch at home.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning biography tracing TR's path from a Dutch-descended New York family to the presidency. The definitive account of one of America's most fascinating characters.
Find on Bookshop.org →Port of call 5 — every December
Dutch settlers brought their Sinterklaas tradition — a bishop in red robes who arrives by boat each December with gifts — to New Amsterdam. Washington Irving, a New Yorker fascinated by the city's Dutch roots, helped fold that figure into early American writing about a jolly gift-giver. The robes shortened, the mitre became a cap, and Santa Claus took shape.
How Christmas and Santa Claus were reinvented in 19th-century New York, built directly on Dutch Sinterklaas traditions. Shows exactly how the bishop's mitre became Santa's red cap.
Find on Bookshop.org →Port of call 6 — words you use today
Dutch traders and settlers left their fingerprints all over everyday English — especially words for food, shipping, and getting around. The list runs long: cookie, boss, coleslaw, cruise, skipper, dock, sleigh, even "Yankee" itself likely traces back to a Dutch nickname.
No passport required
Three small American towns were built or shaped by Dutch settlers and never let go of it — real windmills, real tulip festivals, real Dutch bakeries. Tap a card to visit their official sites.
Home to De Zwaan, the oldest authentic working Dutch windmill in the US — built in the Netherlands in 1761 and shipped to Michigan in 1964. Every May, the Tulip Time festival fills the city with millions of tulips and wooden-shoe dancing.
Visit holland.org →At 124 feet 6 inches, this is the tallest working grain windmill in the United States — built by a Dutch craftsman, shipped over, and reassembled in 2002. Pella's Tulip Time festival has run since 1935, with 300,000+ tulips and Dutch-letter pastries from century-old bakeries.
Visit visitpella.com →Washington State's largest Dutch settlement, started by families recruited straight from Holland, Michigan in 1895. A 72-foot windmill anchors a Dutch-themed downtown built around its own little canal, and every May, Holland Days brings klompen dancers and fresh stroopwafels to the street.
Visit lynden.org →