The Dutch traders of the Hudson whose tolerant, commercial republic planted the seeds of New York's cosmopolitan soul.
New Netherland — the Dutch colonial province established by the West India Company along the Hudson River valley and the shores of the Delaware and Connecticut rivers between the founding of Fort Nassau in 1614 and the final English takeover of 1674, a sixty-year colonial enterprise whose commercial character, religious tolerance, and ethnic diversity made it the most cosmopolitan and pluralistic society in the colonial Americas, the settlement of New Amsterdam on the southern tip of Manhattan Island becoming by the 1650s a trading port of remarkable diversity where eighteen languages were reportedly spoken in its streets and where Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Jewish, Quaker, and Catholic communities coexisted in a pragmatic tolerance rooted not in idealism but in the Dutch merchant republic's practical understanding that commerce flourishes where conscience is free. The New Netherland world — whose patroon system of large Hudson Valley land grants created the aristocratic landholding families whose Dutch names, Van Rensselaer, Van Cortlandt, Stuyvesant, and Roosevelt, echoed through New York's social and political life for centuries after the English conquest, whose West India Company's willingness to settle Sephardic Jewish refugees from Brazil in 1654 established the first Jewish community in North America and set the precedent for American Jewish life, whose Director-General Peter Stuyvesant's reluctant acceptance of the principle that the Company's commercial interests required religious tolerance established a pragmatic pluralism that became New York's defining civic value, and whose Dutch architectural, culinary, and linguistic legacy survives in the brownstones, the cookies, the coleslaw, and the place names of a city that remains the most Nieuw Amsterdam of all American metropolises — gave the United States its most enduring model of cosmopolitan commercial democracy. This interactive sweatshirt connects you to that pluralist legacy with a QR code linking to the full story.
HERITAG is a purpose-driven brand that celebrates cultural diversity and awareness. Wear and share your social identity and cultural heritage with a unique collection of interactive sweatshirts that carry historical flags of America. Create interactive, informative and fun moments by inviting people to scan the visible QR code and learn about the proud history of America.
Making products on demand instead of in bulk also helps reduce overproduction, and this quality sweatshirt is made especially for you as soon as you place an order.
Few more things to know about this product: • Sturdy and warm sweatshirt bound to keep you warm in the colder months • 50% cotton, 50% polyester • Pre-shrunk • Classic fit • 1x1 athletic rib knit collar with spandex • Air-jet spun yarn with a soft feel • Double-needle stitched collar, shoulders, armholes, cuffs, and hem
