Editor’s Corner

THIS ISSUE OF de Halve Maen is being produced ontheone-hundredthanniversaryofthepublication ofthemagazine’sfirstissue.ThatinauguralOctober 1922 de Halve Maen wasafour-pagenewsletterprintedon dark orange paper. Over the succeeding century the newsletter underwent numerous changes to become the journal it is today In 1990 the Rev Howard Hageman passed the torchof de Halve Maen’srichlegacyontome.Itwasandis adauntingresponsibility,butunderthegenerousguidance of de Halve Maen Editorial Committee Chairs James E. Quackenbush and Peter Van Dyke and copyeditor Rudy VanVeghtenIcontinuedtorefinethemagazineasavehicle for disseminating the Dutch colonial period inAmerica.

Throughout my years as editor, I have published several articles devoted to this magazine’s history, most notably with the Winter 2001 issue, and reprinted articles from previous issues. In the first article in this issue, I look at the year de Halve Maen was inaugurated and at the men who created it. In doing so, I found that the motivations forcreatingaSocietyjournalin1922werenotfardifferent from the challenges that face the Society today Cultural change and financial upheaval colored the Holland Society’s milieu.What particularly impresses me, though, was thevisionanddeterminationofthosemenwhoestablished this journal,ArthurVan Brunt,Tunis Bergen, and Frederic Keator They saw the role of the Holland Society of New York as much more important than just another fixture on the Manhattan social scene.

In this current issue’s second article, Rudy VanVeghten explores the rapidly evolving events in Albany during the summerandfallof1689inthewakeofEngland’sGlorious Revolution. This article is the second of a series that first appeared in the Summer 2021 de Halve Maen In the first installment,VanVeghtenpresentedtheformationofthesocalledAlbany Convention as an outgrowth of that community’s concerns over attacks from French Canada and their Indian allies. This segment examines how the Convention nowcompeted with NewYork City’s rebel government for control of the provincial New York frontier

According to VanVeghten, currents of displeasure had long simmered along New York’s seventeenth-century northern frontier settlements in politics, religion, and the local trade-based economy. “More powerful than these smoldering grumbles,” he writes, “was the glue of mutual fear that Canadian French and Indians were plottingAlbany’sdestruction—afearthatbondedeveryonetogetherina common cause until the summer of 1689.” Jacob Leisler’s takeover of the provincial government in New York City in June 1689 caused Albany “to divert precious physical and emotional resources away from the Canadian threat to focusmoreontheescalatingrebelliondowninNewYork.”

Leisler’s efforts to extend his authority outside of New York City into the other counties of the province created resistance from Albany leaders. Fresh reports of Indian attacks and attempts by Onnagongue [Kennebec] Indians to enlist Iroquois support in a general war against colonial rule in late July 1689 created “simultaneous concern over Indian threats and possible Catholic sympathizers in their midst.”

What makes VanVeghten’s essay interesting is that he brings Anglo-Indian political alignments to the forefront of his discussion. Iroquoian and Algonquian nations are presented as active actors in events. Iroquois support for ongoing colonial military measures against attacks by Canadian-backedAlgonquian tribes in New England such astheOnnagonguecausedNewEnglandtoseekreinforcement of their alliance with the Iroquois at the September 1689 conference in Albany. Although Iroquois leaders openlydeclinedtodeclare waronallEasternIndians,they did generally promise to continue following the Covenant Chain treaty with the New England colonies. With French andIndianattacksincreasinginNewEngland,VanVeghten suggeststhattheLeisler administration thwartedAlbanian andNewEnglandeffortsataunifiedpolicywiththeIndian nations.WhenLeisler’sgovernment sentatroopofmilitia totakeovertheAlbanygovernment,mattersescalatedclose to armed conflict. In the end, VanVeghten shows us it was Mohawk Indians who defused the threatened hostilities betweenAlbanians and New Yorkers.

VanVeghten reveals current cultural shifts in historical thinking that demand recognition of the neglected contribution of groups once marginalized by the standard Eurocentricnarrative.Seventeenth-centurystruggleswere not only over trade but over larger transitions that were taking place in New Netherland and colonial New York as numerous peoples and cultures collided. In 1922 and 2022, cultural shifts caused by technology and massive immigration were transforming the world of the Holland Society of New York.

The Dutch have an expression, De tijd vliegt snel, gebruik hem wel (Time flies quickly, use it wisely). In order to survive, the Holland Society has learned to successfully adapt and transform while holding true to its mission “To collectandpreserveinformationrespectingtheearlyhistory and settlement of the City and State of New York by the Dutch,andtodiscover,collectandpreserveallstillexisting documents, etc., relating to their genealogy and history.”

David William Voorhees Editor