Amsterdam
Today we took a short train ride from Utrecht to Amsterdam. And let me just say "Damn!" What a city.
We enjoyed "An Irreverent Amsterdam" walking tour as well as a boat tour of the city's intricate canals, Dutch pancakes, a pass through the red light district (without stopping), and other wandering. In both tours, what stood out was the influence of this city on the early years of the United States, and especially New York.
While the English established permanent settlements in what is now the U.S. several years before the Dutch first arrived, it was the Dutch who dominated the New York and New Jersey areas. Did you know...
New York City was originally named New Amsterdam. When the English seized control of the Dutch colony in 1664, the name was changed to New York, to honor the Duke of York (who later became King James II). The way things are going lately, don't be surprised if another renaming comes soon, to "New America."
The word "Yankee" started out as a derogatory term coined by the English to insult the Dutch in New Amsterdam / New York. It's believed to be either a combination of the Dutch names Jan (John) and Kees (a nickname for Cornelius), or Jan plus the surname Kaas (Cheese, indicating a cheese maker or seller). Whether it started as Jan-Kees or Jan-Kaas, and end result--Yankee--stuck.
Capitalism as we know it was invented in Amsterdam, all the way back in the 1590s. A small group of entrepreneurs raised capital from dozens of investors to send three ships around the southern tip of Africa in pursuit of the lucrative Asian spice trade. Together with innovations in ship building, a coalition of spice traders formed the Dutch East India Company (also known as "VOC") in 1602. VOC the first company to issue stock to passive investors. At its peak, VOC was worth more than the most valuable companies in the world today.
Now that you know that, it shouldn't be a surprise to learn that Wall Street has a Dutch origin too. During the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 1650s, Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam built a wooden wall, nearly a half-mile long, to help defend against British pirates. After the British took control, traders lined up along the wall to offer their goods for sale. Although the wall itself was dismantled nearly 50 years later, the name stuck, and traders of corporate stocks replaced the merchandise traders.
The name Brooklyn comes from the Dutch town of Breukelen, a short train ride from Utrecht. We'll be there tomorrow en route to something special.
In 1581, the Dutch Act of Abjuration deposed Spain's Philip II as the ruler of the Habsburg Netherlands. The Act renounced Philip as a tyrant, no longer worthy of status as a monarch--essentially the Dutch declaration of independence from Spain. The U.S. Declaration of Independence borrows heavily from the Act of Abjuration, with its emphasis on people over princes, the necessity of rulers having the consent of the governed, the assertion that a king forfeits his right to rule when he breaks laws and ignores civic appeals, and the structure involving a preamble, an indictment listing specific grievances, and a final declaration revoking all loyalty and allegiance to the crown.
By the numbers:
165 individual canals in Amsterdam, totaling over 60 miles
19,816 steps today
7,900,000,000,000 USD– the equivalent market capitalization of the Dutch East India Company at its peak
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