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Patroons and Plowmen, Pietism and Politics: Dutch Settlers in the Hudson Valley in the 17th and 18th Centuries

September 11, 2:00 PM

Firth Fabend presents a brief overview of the Dutch people who settled in the Hudson Valley in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She illustrates her talk with eighty slides, in forty pairs for purposes of comparison. She asks, Who were these Dutch people who replanted themselves in the Hudson Valley when it was a wolf-infested wilderness? Why did they come to America? What did they do when they got here? And why is their cultural influence still felt in the area today? She examines the importance of the fur trade, the importation of slavery, the patroon system of land tenure vs. the English manorial system, farming practices, family structure, domestic architecture and house furnishings, the religious culture, the winsome beauty of the land, and the schism in the Dutch Reformed Church that paralleled the divisions between Patriots and Tories in the War of Revolution.

Van Wyck Homestead Museum

For further information about this event, please contact:

Roy Jorgensen
Phone: (845) 897-4348

http://www.fishkillhistoricalsociety.org

This lecture is a part of the Speakers in the Humanities program.