fautrever.com

I am not attempting to rewrite the entire history of the big and important state of New York, I’m sure it has all been done before. What I am going to recount are some of the basic points that interested me or caught my eye as I was doing my research. I am sure people with other interests would compile a completely different list than mine but that is what is so great about this world: diversity.

The land that later became New York was first sighted by Giovanni da Verrazzano (an Italian working for the French) in 1524. Verrazzano also was the first European to document his contact with the indigenous people of the area. The competing tribes of Algonquian and Iroquois shared the territory making a living as seasonal farmers and hunter-gatherers. In 1608 coastal New York was described by another Frenchman, Samuel de Champlain. As was customary at the time I am certain that he also claimed it all for France. The French may have already settled in upstate New York at the time but the prime coastal areas were free of Europeans when the Dutch arrived in 1609.

Henry Hudson was working for the Dutch East India Company, seeking a route to the coveted East, when he sailed up the Hudson River. Of course, Hudson did not find a navigable route, although he did make note of the prolific fur-bearing beavers in the region. Hudson’s story is a sad one. In 1610 he again tried to find a route across the continent, this time through Hudson Bay while working for the British. Stopped short by ice, Hudson and his crew overwintered up there. When the ice thawed Hudson was determined to continue his quest but his crew wanted to go home. A mutiny found Hudson, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in a boat with no provisions in Hudson Bay. While no one knows for sure what happened, we can all guess it wasn’t pretty.

While he failed at his mission, Hudson’s observations led to the Dutch establishment of New Amsterdam as a fur-trapping and trading center in 1614. By 1624 the area was so profitable that the Dutch made New Netherland (the whole area) an official royal province. Things were fairly stable in New Amsterdam, although the fur trade was in decline, until 1664. In 1663, a British duke bought a land grant that included Long Island. Being British and rather imperialistic at the time, he took possession of New Amsterdam by force the following Spring and renamed it New York. James, the Duke of York, later went on to become the King of England.

The Dutch and English had already fought one war over territory when control of the spice trade started a second one, the Second Anglo-Dutch War. When the treaty was signed that ended the second war, New York was to have reverted to Dutch control, but it remained in British control until 1673. The Dutch retook the area by force but not for long. In 1674 a new treaty (Treaty of Westminster) was signed, this time the Brits were allowed to keep New York. In exchange the Dutch kept control of Run Island in Indonesia. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, let me help you; at the time it was the only island that had Myristica fragrans trees.

The fruit of the Myristica tree is the source of two exotic spices, nutmeg and mace. It may not seem so valuable now but back then nutmeg was worth its weight in gold and worth killing for. The Dutch East India Company was the first multi-national company in the world, and because of its monopoly on the spice trade it was the richest private company in the world by 1669. Their violent search for spices wasn’t limited to nutmeg and mace; cinnamon and sugar were also highly prized.

Did you know that nutmeg, if taken in amounts over one teaspoon, is a mild hallucinogen? And that if you ingest more than that it can lead to “nutmeg poisoning”? Did you also know that you have probably never tasted real cinnamon? It is true—real cinnamon comes from the inner bark of the Cinnamomum verum tree which was native to Sri Lanka and southern India. The stuff we buy in the U.S. is actually the bark of Cassia (Cinnamomum aromaticum). I hate finding out stuff like that! Perhaps it’s a good thing, since large amounts of cinnamon—real cinnamon—are toxic.

Now we come to sugar. If you thought the history of nutmeg was violent (and it is) than the story of sugar ought to horrify you. People in the East have been refining the sugar out of sugarcane for thousands of years. People in the West only knew of honey which had some production and storage issues. Once the crystals were introduced to Europeans the demand was insatiable. Of course, it was an expensive luxury as it, too, was worth its weight in gold.

The Dutch did not have a monopoly on sugar since cuttings of sugarcane had already made it to other tropical parts of the world, but it was still profitable for them. Christopher Columbus brought the first sugarcane cuttings to the New World in 1492 from the Canary Islands. The climate of the Caribbean Islands was well suited to growing sugarcane and wealthy investors soon had the land cleared for plantations. The plantations were labor intensive endeavors and once the enslaved native populations were destroyed by disease and overwork, the owners looked for new workers. Europeans proved to be too susceptible to swamp diseases like malaria and typhoid so the owners began importing a new “workforce” from Africa. Hence the beginning of African slavery in the Americas. Not such a “sweet” story, eh?

I went off on that tangent to emphasize the importance of New York becoming British. Had the Dutch remained, perhaps the outcome of the French Indian War would have been different and therefore this country would be dramatically changed. Instead, New York was one of the original thirteen colonies and the eleventh to ratify the Constitution in 1788. There were many unhappy with the idea of America’s independence, namely members of the indigenous populations. Many of the Iroquois fought with the British, in hopes of expelling the land-grabbing rebels. Some groups chose the American side, like the Oneida. In 1794 President George Washington signed the Treaty of Canandaigua which gave the Iroquois Nation land from Pennsylvania to Canada. Although state of New York violated parts of the treaty, the state still gives the Nation Calico cloth every year as stipulated in the agreement.

It wasn’t much later that New York started an ambitious (and some thought foolish) project called the Erie Canal. Supported by the state’s governor, DeWitt Clinton, work began in 1817 to connect the Hudson River and Lake Erie. When finished, Clinton’s Folly created a navigable waterway from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. It was quite a sizable feat for the young Empire State yet the canal opened in 1825, just eight years after it started. The waterway got a lot of use, since it was far faster and cheaper than overland travel.

Most of the still-navigable canal is maintained by the state, and recreational boaters are its biggest users. As you may know, Lake Erie is in the northern part of the state on the border with Canada. The famous Niagara Falls, created as water flows from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario are located there.

In New York anything outside of New York City (which is practically the entire southern end of the state) is called Upstate. There is a huge difference between the two areas: NYC is one of the largest urban areas in the world whereas the farms in Upstate make the state the largest producer of cabbage in the country. Real estate in NYC is the most expensive in the world with a price of $1,589 per square foot; Upstate vineyards combine to produce the most wine in the country behind California. NYC is the megalopolis that earns New York the rank of third most populous state in the U.S. while Adirondack Park is the largest state park in the country.

NYC’s population is well over 8 million people, if you do the math it comes out to 26,000 people a square mile. The vast majority of these are immigrants with over 170 languages being spoken on NYC streets on any given day.

Truly a diverse and interesting state!