Native American and Dutch Colonial Trade in the Hudson Valley

In 2009, Hudson River Valley communities will observe the 400^th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s trip up the river that would later bear his name.

As part of the city of Kingston’s effort to plan for the event, the Kingston Public Library sponsored a talk on the Native American, and later the Dutch, trading routes that connected the city’s Rondout with Connecticut, New York City and Albany.

Presentations were made by New Netherland Nautical’s Richard Manack, who operates educational programs on his Golden Re’al, 1903 Dutch sailing barge often seen around the Rondout Creek, and Lucianne Lavin, PhD, Director of Research and Collections at the Institute for American Indian Studies, a small museum and research center in Washington, Connecticut.

The two speakers shared with a small gathering their common interest in the community life and trade relations of the Native American Indians prior to the arrival of the Dutch, and how the Dutch came to participate in these trading networks, which placed Kingston, one of the three major Dutch settlements, at the crossroads of Native American, New York and U.S. history, Manack said.

Dutch records at the New York State Library in Albany as well as records kept by Moravian missionaries on Native American birth dates, kinship networks and other information have helped researchers develop a better understand of how the Native American and Dutch communities were intertwined through trade.

New York’s Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission will work with Hudson River towns to plan a series of celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the journeys made by Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain and the 200th anniversary of Robert Fulton's steamship voyage on the Hudson River.

Planning is still in the very early stages, but the Henry Hudson 400 Foundation will host a regatta of Dutch vessels from the Netherlands to the New York Harbor, and possibly further north. The anniversary events will take place between July and October 2009.