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Adriaen VAN DER DONCK

Male 1620 - 1655  (35 years)


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  • Name Adriaen VAN DER DONCK 
    Birth 1620  Breda, North Brabant, Netherlands Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Death 1655  New Netherland [now NY] Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • (1) http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit02/authors-6.html:

      Adriaen Van der Donck (1620-1655)

      Adriaen Van der Donck began his professional life studying law at the University of Leyden in the Netherlands. Then, in 1641, he changed the course of his career by accepting a commission to travel to the Dutch commercial colony in America (present-day New York) to administer the estate of the wealthy patron Kiliaen Van Rennselaer. Van der Donck's assignment--to stifle the fur trade and instead promote agricultural settlement in Van Rennselaer's land in the Hudson Valley--soon brought him into conflict with the Dutch colonists, who were more interested in lucrative fur trapping and hunting than in farming. Uncomfortable with the climate of "great strife, uproar, quarreling . . . [and] mutual discord," as he put it, Van der Donck decided to leave Van Rennselaer's employment in 1646 and strike out on his own. After negotiating with the governor of New Netherland, William Kieft, he received a grant from the Dutch West India Company to purchase an estate just north of Manhattan. There, at the junction of the Hudson and Nepperhan Rivers, Van der Donck built one of the first saw mills in North America. His success and his status as an educated gentleman prompted settlers in the region to refer to him as "Jonk Herr" ("young gentleman," or "young nobleman"). Eventually, the name evolved into "Yonkers," now the name of a city north of Manhattan.

      Van der Donck once again found himself at the center of political controversy when he clashed with the new governor of the colony, Pietr Stuyvesant, who arrived in New Netherland in 1647. Van der Donck wrote a lengthy formal complaint against the governor, entitled Remonstrance of New Netherland, and sailed back to the Netherlands to personally deliver it to government authorities in 1649. While residing in Europe, Van der Donck completed another work, the Description of New Netherland. This detailed account of the native inhabitants, plants, animals, and other natural resources of the colony was a promotional tract, meant to encourage immigration from the Netherlands and to defend Dutch imperial claims against rival European powers such as the French, Swedish, and English. Van der Donck returned to his adopted land in 1653 and died on his estate two years later.

      (2) http://www.alexanderstreet2.com/EENALive/bios/A7230BIO.html:

      Adriaen Van der Donck originated in Breda in North Brabant Providence, Netherlands. He was educated at the University of Leiden, and practiced law in Holland until he was selected to serve as sheriff in the patroon of Rensselaerwyck in New Netherlands (New York). He was not long in this position, arriving in the colony in 1641, and leaving five years later. He obtained a land grant from the West India company in 1646, and returned to the colony, where he erected a sawmill near the junction of the Nepperhan and Hudson rivers, to benefit from the water power of the Nepperhan. Van der Donck was known as De Jonkheer (young gentleman), a popular title for young landowners of the day, and his land was known as De Jonkheer's land, which eventually evolved into the present day name of Yonkers. Throughout the years, Van der Donck purchased several tracts of land from the neighboring Indians, which expanded his property considerably. He married Mary Douthay on October 23, 1645.

      Around the year 1649, a controversy arose between the government of the colony and several of the colonists, among whom Van der Donck was an outspoken leader. The governor at the time, Peter Stuyvesant, had formed a council of nine men, Van der Donck being one of them. It was soon discovered that the governor and the council could not work together, and as the leading complainant, Van der Donck was arrested in 1649. Administrative authority from the Netherlands soon reversed this act, and the nine members of the council drew up a grievance entitled Vertoogh van Nieuw Nederlandt, Weghens de Ghelegenheydt, Vruchtbaerhyedt, en Soberen Staet Desselfs; In s'Graven Hage, 1650 (An Exposition of the New Netherlands, in Respect to the Situation, Fertility, and Wretched Condition of the Country; at the Hague, 1650). This was believed to have been primarily authored by Van der Donck (who had been expelled from the council by Stuyvesant), and served as a general remonstrance against the powers exercised by the West India Company, with which the interests of Stuyvesant were heavily aligned. Van der Donck traveled to the Netherlands with two companions in 1650 in order to present the grievance to the States General, and remained there until 1653. The attempt to check the authority of the West India Company proved mostly fruitless--the main result being a decrease in the status of himself and of the other participants when they returned to the colony; while few concessions were made on the part of Stuyvesant's government. When, in 1653, he applied to the leaders of the West India Company for leave to practice law in the area, he was denied on the basis that "as there was no other lawyer in the colony, there would be no one to oppose him." In addition to this, his position as "Westchester's first historian" was made more difficult due to the fact that he was allowed only limited access to the records of the colony. He was able to compose his Description of New Netherlands in spite of this; the second edition of this work appearing in 1656 (it is unclear when the first edition was printed).

      Van der Donck's interests also lay in land ownership rights and boundaries between the Dutch and the English, as well as trade and currency issues. He wrote several papers on these subjects before he died in 1655.

      (3) http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/nnship57.shtml:

      DEN EYCKENBOOM

      Sailed from Amsterdam May 17, 1641 arrived New Amsterdam 20 Aug. 1641

      Adriaen van der Donck from Breda [VRB]
    Person ID I8986  Frost, Gilchrist and Related Families
    Last Modified 26 Mar 2024 

    Family Mary DOUGHTY,   b. Abt 1628, Gloucestershire, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Marriage 22 Oct 1645  Reformed Dutch Church, New Amsterdam, New Netherland [now New York City, New York County, NY] Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F4331  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 26 Mar 2024