James 2

[Sherwood, Harrison]

>From: 	bdm at storz.com
>
>Henry notes, among other things, 
>
>On this day (Teus, Sept. 9):
> In 1664, the settlement of New Amsterdam was seized from Dutch
> governor Peter Stuyvesant by the English under Colonel Richard
> Nicholls without a shot being fired. It was later renamed New York
> after James, Duke of York, the future King James II.  
>
>Was this the Catholic James, whose ouster lead to the formation
>of the Jacobites of whom we've read so much, recently?  If so,
>it would make New York a sort of sister city to James's Town on
>St. Helena.  This might merit some consideration when we get
>to some of the New York passages later in the group read.

And this would also be the same Peter Stuyvesant who built Fort Casmir
in 1651 and founded the town of New Amstel (now New Castle, the center
of the circular section of the Delaware/Pennsylvania border that gave
Mason & Dixon such a thrilling surveying experience). In 1655 Stuyvesant
led an expedition against the Swedish settlement of Fort Christina (the
present-day Wilmington, Delaware) on Delaware Bay, taking them with
little resistance. The Biterrrrr _Bit_!

Stuyvesant would seem to be something of a pivot-point, here, no? Took
Delaware from the Swedes, had New Amsterdam taken from him by the Brits?

A reasonably concise history of Delaware can be found at: 

http://www.state.de.us/facts/history/delhist.htm

And here's an abstract of the history of Dutch New York, 1609-64, culled
from the syllabus of the course taught at the University of San Diego.
The whole thing can be found at
http://ac.acusd.edu/history/classes/civ/newyork.html. (Ain't the
Internet _something_?):

II. Dutch culture 1609-1664[snip]
 
       New Netherland Co. 1614              f. Fort Nassau trade post
          Treaty with Iroquois       Dutch West India Co. 1621
   Fort Nassau (Fort Orange)              30 Walloon families 1624
       Verhulst buys 22000 acres for $24       New Sweden Co. joins
Dutch Co.              Minuit builds Fort Christina 1638
Johan Printz challenges Dutch 1643 
[snip]

       Peter Stuyvesant 1647-64              law and order, regulated
society              Court of Justice, Dutch Reformed Church
 Broadway, Wall St.              "half-freedom" for slaves
tavern laws, Rattle Watch              defeats Prinz, builds Fort
Casimir       Anglo-Dutch Wars over trade              1654 fleet seizes
Jamaica              1664 grants by Charles II              New Jersey
to Berkeley, Carteret              New York to brother James
Richard Nicolls seizes New Amsterdam

Harrison 

P.S. While poking about on the Web for information re. Peter Stuyvesant,
I stumbled across a site dedicated to a book, (seemingly
vanity-published--no publisher in sight, anyway) called _The Fourth
Turning_, (http://www.fourthturning.com) which seems to revive the good
old inevitable-cycles theory of history (Giambattista Vico, enter and
sign in, please). Looked like a frightful frother to me, complete with a
blurb from _Wired_ (so you _know_ it's been comprehensively critically
reviewed!) and positive word-of-mouth goosing from luminaries such as
Newt Gingrich and Richard Lamm.

Very impressively designed web site, book made me want to take a shower.

Anybody read this? Am I jumping to narsty and unjust conclusions? Or is
this the next _Megatrends_?