ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first like to thank my family for doing the unseen work that went into making this book a reality. To my husband, Bill, for thousands of hours of editing, hundreds of freezer meals, emotional support and inspiration, thank you feels too small. To my son, Billy, who was a boundless supplier of hugs and laughter, I love you and you can read this book when you are older. My parents have loved and supported me through every twist and turn in my life calling and remain my biggest fans; they are the first people I call after every loss and victory. My brother and sister-in-law have traveled hundreds of miles across California to support my presentations and video conferenced into every speaking engagement since. Endless thanks to my late grandparents, who retold our stories of escape and slavery, mingled with their own experiences as sharecroppers and entrepreneurs in a segregated society, and inspired my interest in the past. My husband’s parents—Mom and Dad Maskiell—have offered me the incredible Hudson Valley vista from which to try to imagine a colonial world and have supported and encouraged me for years. Your help and support are so appreciated. I love you all so much.

I feel so fortunate to have found a community of generous people willing to read and critique my writing but also give of themselves to offer so much more. I would like to thank my advisor, Mary Beth Norton, for her tireless support from the very beginning of this endeavor. She helped this idea grow and take shape, advocating for me along the way. I would also like to thank several other scholars who were involved in the earliest versions of this manuscript. Without their help, this book would have never gotten off the ground. Valinda Littlefield, Dan Littlefield, Woody Holton, Andrew Berns, Robert Travers, Duane Corpis, Jeroen Dewulf, Anne Marie Plane, and Chrissy Hosea, thank you for your help and review.

I have been so fortunate to have been a member of several different writers’ groups throughout this process to nurture and grow my project. My writers’ groups have been an absolute support for me throughout every step of this very long road. Mari Crabtree, Maeve Kane, and Jacqueline Reynoso have been with me ever since our days together in grad school, reading the earliest drafts of my work, offering an incredible amount of scholarly help, and perhaps most importantly, friendship and moral support. Andrea Mosterman, Deborah Hamer, Erin Kramer, and Suze Zijlstra have been my weekly sources of support during these last several years as my manuscript has evolved into its final form, providing equal parts insight, camaraderie, and encouragement. Special thanks also to my OI Atlantic History Writer’s Group members for your astute questions and ideas.

Several scholars generously gave of their time to read my manuscript and to offer wonderful insights. Thank you, Susanah Shaw Romney, for spending countless days and nights reading through draft after draft of my manuscript, reading through my various translations, and helping me decode seventeenth-century handwriting. You are an inspiration, and helped center and support me through rocky waters. Marjoleine Kars and Dienke Hondius have provided their expertise and valuable perspectives that have greatly strengthened this book. Thank you each for your time and support! I have been encouraged and inspired by the research and friendship of scholars devoted to uncovering the Dutch past in American life. I would also like to thank my colleague at the University of South Carolina, Saskia Coenen Snyder, who gave me wonderful advice and insights on translating as well as another pair of eyes on these thorny documents. Jaap Jacobs has offered invaluable research, translation, and scholarly help for this project, providing detailed edits and insights drawn from decades studying the Stuyvesants and the Dutch colonial period. Thank you, Jaap, for all of your help!

My editorial team at Cornell University Press has provided a home for this book and I would like to thank Michael McGandy and Karen Laun, whose tireless help, patience, and support have been invaluable. The places that work in my current version are owing to the deep and thoughtful work done by the peer reviewers, which brought this project into clearer focus into my own mind. Their insights, critiques, and suggestions have allowed me to tighten and deepen my project. I owe them an extreme debt of gratitude.

Scholars, including Marisa Fuentes, Karwan Fatah-Black, Jared Hardesty, Wim Klooster, Dennis Maika, Russell Shorto, Ramona LaRoche, Tony Bly, and Katherine Kerrison, have generously read portions of my book, provided very valuable feedback and formal comment, joined me during conferences, and over dinner conversations helped refine my work. Thank you for your help, wisdom, and support.

My students have inspired me every step of the way and I am humbled by their curiosity, intellectualism and kindness. Riley Sutherland, John P. Wilson, and Hannah Bauer have helped extend my research, scrub my writing, and provide three extra sets of eyes during the long process of bringing this story to life.

I owe special thanks to the participants of the various conferences, seminars, and workshops I have been privileged enough to join, each of whom provided valuable feedback and insights that have helped me refine this study. I would like to thank the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World seminar for their comments on portions of an early version of this piece, especially Mari Crabtree, Simon Lewis, and Anne Bennet. Thanks also to Jaap Jacobs and the ministerial and outreach teams of St. Mark’s-on-the-Bowery for including me in a series of conversations to examine and explore the impact of slavery on the history of the bowery and the broader world of the Stuyvesants. I would also like to thank the North Carolina Triangle Early American History Seminar (TEAHS), Durham, and the University of South Carolina History Center, Columbia, who gave me the opportunity to showcase and workshop my research at various stages of development.

I extend my deep gratitude and appreciation to the various archivists and librarians who have helped me access materials along the way, at the Stadsarchief in Amsterdam; the National Archives at The Hague; the National Archives in Curaçao; the Clermont State Historic Site in Germantown, New York; the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York; and the New York State Archives in Albany, New York. I would also like to give special thanks to the Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the New York Historical Society in New York, and the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, each of which provided me with fellowship funding to support extended research at their archives.

Many thanks to the circulation and support staff at the Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina, who supported me through more book requests than I thought possible before beginning this book. I would also like to thank my various public history sources and publishers, including Emily Costello and team at The Conversation for helping me get several of my stories out there. Thanks, to Paul Gunther at the Gracie Mansion Conservancy who, in partnership with the Consulate General of the Netherlands, gave me the opportunity and forum to bring some of these stories to life for the sites’ visitors.