American Heritage Partners

The Forgotten Colony: the 400th Anniversary of the Founding of New Netherland, America’s First “Melting Pot”
2024-01-18 00:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Forgotten Colony: the 400th Anniversary of the Founding of New Netherland, America’s First “Melting Pot”
Today, many Americans consider New York—New York City in particular– to be a “melting pot,” where different ethnicities and cultures have come together to form a vibrant, diverse community, a center of international commerce and finance, and a welcoming place for immigrants from all the nations of the world. It all started 400 years ago, when a sailing ship carrying a small group of Dutch settlers arrived in North America, traveled up what came to be known as the Hudson River, and established a trading post at today’s Albany New York, following quickly by the settlement of the place they called New Amsterdam, renamed forty years later “New York.” Led by the Dutch West India Company (the “WGC”), over the next two decades thousands of immigrants settled in the region of today’s New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, forming the Dutch Colony of “New Netherland.”
Americans today celebrate the nation’s founding colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, but somehow we’ve forgotten the massively important colony of New Netherland. On January 18, American Heritage Partners hosted a special luncheon featuring guest speaker, Deborah Hamer, the Director of the New Netherland Institute (“NNI”), who shared with us the story of New Netherland. Headquartered in Albany New York, NNI has been engaged over the last few decades in extensive preservation efforts of early Dutch records on a colossal scale. Ms. Hamer provided an overview of the history of New Netherland and shared with us the details of NNI’s efforts to preserve, digitize and translate the extant records of the WGC and other surviving Dutch records related to the history of New Netherland. The large collection of records NNI has already made public has provided critical new information about how the Dutch colony operated, how its people lived their day-to-day lives, how colonial leaders dealt with the indigenous peoples, and how those leaders helped foster the “melting pot” we know of today.
This special event was held at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, Nevada.

Children of the Light: The History and Genealogy of Quakerism in Early America
2023-09-08 00:00
President Jay Dickey gave a Zoom lecture to members and guests of the “Genealogy Lab” of the Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada. The TMCC Genealogy Lab hosts weekly Zoom presentations by experts on a wide range of subject matters related to American history and genealogy. Jay’s talk was entitled “Children of the Light: The History and Genealogy of Quakerism in Early America.”

The Salem Witch Trials
2023-08-25 11:00 - 15:00
AHP hosted a special luncheon featuring guest speaker Rachel Christ-Doane, Director of Education of the Salem Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Rachel is a frequent author and lecturer on the Salem witch trials and spook to us about one of the most tragic events in Colonial America in the late 17th century.

American Experiences
2023-04-22 00:00
AHP hosted a luncheon event in Sacramento California attended by members of the public from various communities in Northern California. The event featured guest speaker Professor Caroline Winterer, Chair of the History Department at Stanford University. Professor Winterer’s talk was entitled “American Experiences: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason.”

Zoom lecture by Andrew Cotten
2023-04-02 17:00 - 18:00
AHP hosted a Zoom lecture by Andrew Cotten, an expert on the history of the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, which served as the main meeting place of the leaders of the American rebellion against Great Britain in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

April 2023

November 2021 (Fortune)
2021-11-01 00:00
Jay Dickey gave a presentation to the Nevada Mayflower Society entitled “The 400th Anniversary of the Fortune: The Forgotten Tale of the Second Ship to Arrive at Plymouth.”

January 2021 (Wingfield)
2021-02-01 00:00
Jay Dickey gave a Zoom lecture entitled “Edward Maria Wingfield: The Forgotten Leader of Jamestowne.” February 2021: AHP’s Jay Dickey delivered a talk entitled “Before He Was a Traitor: Benedict Arnold and the Siege of Quebec.”

January 2021 (King Phillip)
2021-01-01 00:00
AHP’s Jay Dickey delivered a Zoom talk entitled “King Philip’s War: An American Tragedy.”

December 2020
2020-12-01 00:00
AHP’s Jay Dickey delivered a talk entitled “The Jamestowne Story.”

February 2020
2020-02-01 00:00
AHP’s Jay Dickey gave a Zoom lecture entitled “America’s Dutch Heritage: The Story of New Netherland.”
