New Amsterdam - Legacy

Legacy

The presentation of the legacy of the unique culture of 17th century New Amsterdam remains a concern of preservationists and educators. The National Park Service celebrated in 2009 the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage on behalf of the Dutch with the New Amsterdam Trail.

The Dutch-American historian and journalist Hendrik Willem van Loon wrote in 1933 a work of alternative history entitled "If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam" (in If, Or History Rewritten, edited by J. C. Squire, 1931, Simon and Schuster).

A similar theme, at greater length, was taken up by writer Elizabeth Bear, who published the New Amsterdam Series – detective stories taking place in an Alternative history where the city remained Dutch until the Napoleonic Wars and retained its name also afterwards.