The Flag of NYC
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Posted on 07/14/2008 3:49:35 AM PDT by Pharmboy
For decades, the proud seal of New York City, with its depiction of a sailor and a Manhattan Indian, of beavers and flour barrels and the sails of a windmill, has celebrated 1625 as the year the city was founded.
There’s just one problem: Most historians say the year has hardly any historical significance.
The first settlers arrived in what would become part of New York City on a Dutch ship as early as 1623; some say 1624. The Dutch “purchased” Manhattan in 1626. The first charter was granted in 1653.
And the most notable event of 1625? Dutch settlers moved their cattle to Lower Manhattan from Governors Island.
“It is simply wrong,” Michael Miscione, the Manhattan borough historian, said of 1625 as the city’s birth date. “The first founding settlers of New York City landed here in 1624.”
snip...
Nobody complained much about the date until 1974, when Paul O’Dwyer, the Irish-born and Anglophobic president of the City Council, figured that the 700th anniversary of the founding of Amsterdam in the Netherlands was as good a time as any to strip the British of the distinction of having founded the city and bestow it instead on the Dutch.
snip...
But some scholars apparently persuaded Mr. O’Dwyer that if the pretext was to honor the Dutch contribution, 1624 might be difficult to justify. The first settlers who arrived in 1624 in the Dutch West India Company ship Nieuw Amsterdam were mostly Walloons from Belgium, who had sought asylum in the Netherlands from religious persecution during the Spanish Inquisition. (A 1623 provincial seal refers in Latin to “New Belgium.”) Also, many moved on to Albany.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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New York City flag... 
Okay...and now what about the sailor, Indian, flour barrels, and windmill?
Wow. That is just sick and twisted.
1927
Thanks for the correction. Dumb mistake on my part...I should know better!
Will they also rename the city back to its original, New Amsterdam?
FWIW ...use of Gregorian v Julian calendars makes for some confusion
An important note about dates during the Dutch colonial period: it is common to see dates listed as March 11/21, 1712, for example. This is due to the Dutch adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the date it was enacted by Pope Gregory XIII. This act added days to the calendar to correct for centuries of “drift” and to realign the vernal equinox with the 25th day of March, in addition to making 1 January the official first day of the year. The British, meanwhile, continued to follow the Julian calendar until 1752, noting March 25 as the first day of each year. After September 2 of that year, the split notation of dates ceased to be necessary.
Only if Istanbul goes back to Constantinople:
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way
bttt
Funny thing about buying the island from the Indians. Those Indians didn’t own the land to start with.
They were just passing through at the right time.
(according to Mayflower by Philbrick anyway)
New Amsterdam (and the entire colony of New Netherland) was captured by the English, and became part of a large swath of territory King Charles II granted to his brother the Duke of York (the later King James II of England and King James VII of Scotland). That's when the city and colony began to be called New York.
Eboracum is the Latin name for York, England, so on the seal New York is referred to as Novum Eboracum.
York is where Constantine was proclaimed emperor in 306, to tie things back to Istanbul...
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Thanks Pharmboy. It would make most sense, IMHO, to observe the anniversary of the founding of New York, and have a separate observation for the founding of New Amsterdam. :') Of course, I have roots in all three (English, Dutch, and Irish, and then some). No ping, just adding. |
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Nicely done...
My 9th great grandmother Adrienne Cuvellier Vigne son was the first European child born in New Amsterdam (New York)
in early 1620s
My 9th great grandparents lived near the present Wall and Pearl Sts. in NY
Have many 9th great who came to New Amsterdam in 1620s
Dutch, Flemish Walloons and French Huguenots
Nice...I love New Amsterdam history. Any artifacts from the old days make into your family after all these years?
No artifacts but researching the various families is just great for loving history.
The history of early New York is so varied and interesting.
Have read letters on line from a Dutch Rev. late 1600s trying to explain what he sees and the people in New Amsterdam. Interesting reading his take on all this.
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