In South America, the Dutch managed to conquer part of Portuguese Brazil and in North America the Dutch settled the area along the Hudson River. This chapter discusses the establishment and the demise of these two colonies in the context of fierce imperial competition and difficult exchanges with the indigenous populations. In both cases, tensions with the administrators in the Dutch Republic were unavoidable. The regional interests of the cosmopolitan court of the Orange prince Johan Maurits in New Holland (Brazil) and a true settlement colony in New Netherland (later New York) clashed with the commercial objectives of the West India Company.

This chapter examines the evocation of New Amsterdam within contemporary novels of New York. You would think that, considering its humble, yet extraordinary beginnings as New Amsterdam, New York’s earliest history as a multicultural, multilingual Dutch settlement might have generated its own literature. However, this origin point is largely absent within American literary history. By assessing how New York’s Dutch origins have been featured in contemporary literature, this chapter examines Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, Teju Cole’s Open City and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. These novels are examined for how New Amsterdam is set as the scene for New York’s present and its future.