Russell Shorto: Taking Manhattan

It's August 1664, and the blue-gray waters of Manhattan’s harbor glisten in the late summer sun. A wind stirs, and the lookout cries, while the citizens of New Amsterdam rush to the waterfront, where white sails are appearing on the horizon. The hulls of four ships come into view, flying the British colors. Commander Richard Nicolls has come to take New Amsterdam from the Dutch, be it by diplomacy or force. Waiting behind the settlement’s barricades, Governor Peter Stuyvesant and his West-India Company soldiers have banded together with the colony’s citizens. What happens next shapes the course of history. From Russell Shorto, author of 'Amsterdam' and 'The Island at the Center of the World' comes his latest book, 'Taking Manhattan'. Tracing the events from the ‘purchase’ of Manhattan by the Dutch West-India Company to the fated takeover by the British, Shorto paints a picture of a diverse, innovative and hardy city forging its own path. The fledgling settlement represented something new: a multiethnic capitalist society pioneered by the Dutch, then swept up into the power structure of the British empire. The conversation was moderated by Andrew Makkinga. The program also featured a storytelling performance by Elyzabeth Gorman, about one of New Amsterdam’s prominent female residents from August 1664. Recorded at de Rode Hoed, Amsterdam on April 3rd, 2025.