Review
"The range of source materials used by Venema in this study is an illustration of scholarly methodology for extending our knowledge of the Dutch colonial period." ― The Weathercock
"Venema provides a good framework for those readers who are in need of a good overview of the relationship between the West India Company's affairs in Brazil and the Company's opposition against colonization of New Netherland." ― International Journal of Maritime History
"Designing a New World documents van Rensselaer's early life growing up in the Netherlands as well as his importance to the early development of the New World. Extensive citations combined with plentiful images throughout, including two color sections, serve to give the reader a clear understanding of life in and around Amsterdam in the first half of the seventeenth century." ― Hudson River Valley Review
"the first full-length study of van Rensselaer, sheds new light on Albany's progenitor Venema's scholarship has yielded a groundbreaking study of the first patroon and a blueprint of van Rensselaer's commercial machinations." ― Albany Times Union
From the Back Cover
During the early 1600s, as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was locked in a war with Spain that would last for eighty years, thousands of immigrants came to Amsterdam and greatly influenced the development of the Republic. Among them was Kiliaen van Rensselaer, a young man from a small eastern town on the war front. Young Kiliaen quickly became part of the culture of this rapidly developing city, where he was trained as a jeweler and merchant by wealthy relatives. He would work within this family network for the rest of his life, to great success. As one of the founding directors of the Dutch West India Company, he was instrumental in the establishment of the New Netherland colony on the East Coast of North America, becoming one of its first patroons. Although he never actually set foot in the New World, his patroonship, Rensselaerswyck, encompassed much of what is now New York State's Capital District and survived as a legal entity up until the 1840s. In this engrossing biography, Janny Venema examines the time in which Kiliaen van Rensselaer lived, his surroundings, the rapidly expanding city of Amsterdam, the great trading companies, the jewelry business, and the people in his network. Along the way, she explores his motivations and the powerful role he played in helping to establish a Dutch presence in the New World.
About the Author
Janny Venema is Assistant Director of the New Netherland Research Center, which is responsible for translating the official records of the Dutch colony and promoting awareness of the Dutch role in American history. She is the author of Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652–1664, also published by SUNY Press in cooperation with Uitgeverij Verloren.
