Newcomers: The Story of Anthony and Grietje and the Founding of New York
Yale historian Alan Mikhail and author Russell Shorto explore the extraordinary story of a poor immigrant couple who arrived in Dutch New Amsterdam and changed the course of New York history.
Why we picked this
The story of New York as an immigrant city is usually told from the nineteenth century onward. Mikhail takes it back to the 1630s — to a pair of brawling, banished, improbably consequential Dutch newcomers whose descendants eventually included the Vanderbilts and a U.S. president.
Yale historian Alan Mikhail joins author and New Amsterdam historian Russell Shorto to discuss Newcomers, a book that traces the fortunes of Anthony and Grietje — a poor immigrant couple who arrived in Dutch New Amsterdam in the 1630s and, despite being banished to the wilds of Brooklyn after a series of brawls and court appearances, eventually became central to the founding families of New York City.
The story reaches further than its picaresque origins suggest. After Grietje’s death, Anthony returned to Manhattan and became one of the wealthiest men in seventeenth-century New York, patriarch of a family whose descendants stretched to the Vanderbilts and President Warren G. Harding. Mikhail’s account turns one immigrant family’s struggles into a lens on the deep roots of New York’s character — its tolerance of brawlers and strivers, its willingness to be remade.
Russell Shorto, whose own The Island at the Center of the World revived interest in Dutch New Amsterdam, serves as moderator. Shorto is also the curator of the NY Historical’s exhibition Old Masters, New Amsterdam and director of the New Amsterdam Project. Tickets are $35 ($25 for members).