Johnstown native Shorto curates museum exhibition on early New Amsterdam colony; shines light on shaping of NYC, U.S.

Mar. 25—Johnstown native Russell Shorto hopes an exhibition that he recently curated about New York City's early history leaves people with "a complicated sense of history in a good way," he said.

The "New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam" exhibition, on display through July 14 at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, provides a look at what life was like in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam that was founded 400 years ago, in 1624.

The colony only lasted until 1664, when the British took over and renamed the land "New York."

But the impact made by those settlers at that place and at that time still resonates in the city and throughout the United States today, said Shorto, a Cumberland, Maryland, resident who received the Order of Orange-Nassau, the Netherlands' equivalent of a knighthood.

"On the one hand, the Dutch brought pluralism and capitalism and this kind of mixed society, which is what America is now," said Shorto, author of the book "The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America."

"So those, most of us would say, are good things," he said. "On the other hand, they brought slavery and they helped to start this dispossession of Native Americans from their lands.

"So somehow you have to look at history and not just say, 'Oh, they're heroes, so we should put them up on a pedestal,' and also not just look at it and say, 'They did terrible things, so we should just throw it all in the trash can,' or something. You have to be able to look at all of that and say this is all where we came from."

The installation uses letters, documents, artwork and daily items, including jewelry and coins, to provide a glimpse into the colony.

It is centered on the Castello Plan, a painted map from around 1660 that depicted the settlement of 1,500 inhabitants with a windmill, gardens, docks and canals.

"Having the historic Castello Plan visit modern-day New York City from its home in Florence, Italy, gives New Yorkers the opportunity to experience the rich history of their hometown through the lens of those people who 400 years ago began this magnificent experiment in multi-cultural, big-city living, including the Indigenous, the African American, the Dutch and others, all of whom made up the vibrant and diverse tapestry that was New Amsterdam, and remains to this day as New York City," said Ahmed Dadou, consul general of the Netherlands in New York, in a written released statement.

Also featured is a November 1626 letter to the directors of the Dutch West India Co. that provides details about the "purchase" of Manhattan from Native Americans for 60 guilders, which was determined to be the equivalent of about $24 at one point in the 19th century.

However, the Indigenous people almost certainly did not recognize the transaction as a sale, but rather a land-use agreement.

It is paired with a statement from modern chiefs of the Ramapough-Munsee Lenape Nation and Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation, both from New Jersey, and the Munsee-Delaware Nation in Ontario, Canada, written to an unnamed ancestor.

In it, they ask: "Ancestor, who could have known that a Dutch colonizer's written words and 60 guilders would bring 400 years of devastation, disease, war, forced removal, oppression, murder, division, suicide, and generational trauma for your Lenape people?"

The chiefs then wrote that "we, your surviving Lenape families, have decided that letter does not define us. That letter does not remove our connection to the land and waters of Manahahtáanung."

"They have, I think, been more determined to tell their story lately in recent years than they have in the past," Shorto said, "and so it occurred to me I would like to involve them in some way."

Shorto said if he curated such an exhibit 10 or 15 years ago, it would have likely only focused on the European settlers, but that his historic view has expanded since then.

"What I wanted to do was to tell the story of the Dutch founding of this multi-ethnic society, but to also tell the Native American story because obviously these people were here first and they sort of, depending how you looked at it, they kind of pushed them aside," Shorto said. "And the African story, because (the Dutch) started slavery in New York, too.

"It's a small exhibit, but it tries to do all of that."