Calvinists and Indians in the Northeastern Woodlands
In Calvinists & Indians in the Northeastern Woodlands, I present Native Americans and New Netherlanders hunting, eating, drinking, smoking, and fighting with each other, sharing their faith while traveling in canoes, and sleeping in each other’s bedrooms. Such details emerge in documents written by New Netherlanders like Megapolensis. Author of the most accurate account of the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawks) by a Dutch Reformed minister, Megapolensis provides a window into the influence and limits of the Dutch Reformation upon the dynamic, multifaceted relationships that developed in the early modern Northeastern Woodlands.
Megapolensis came of age when Dutch Reformed theologians looked to the Bible to incorporate Indians into a Reformed worldview. In so doing, they characterized Indians as “blind Gentiles.” This characterization ultimately informed the instructions given to those heading to New Netherland, raised expectations among the clergy and lay chaplains who served in the colony, and prefigured the reciprocal, intimate relationships that developed between Indians and New Netherlanders.
Dutch Immigrant Stories
In the predawn light of November 29, 1864, a band of Heévâhetaneo'o (Southern Cheyenne) and Nawathi'neha (Southern Arapaho) peoples awoke to the sound of hooves pounding towards their tipis, which were pitched along the Pun'oiohe (Big Sandy Creek) in southeastern Colorado Territory. Over the course of the next eight hours, around 675 volunteer Union soldiers butchered between 150 and 270 people, most of whom were women and children. Thirteen years later around 150 freezing, hungry Notameohmésêhese (Northern Cheyenne) people—who, having surrendered, had been placed under the authority and protection of the U.S. Army—escaped from Fort Robinson in northwestern Nebraska. Four companies from the Third U.S. Cavalry hunted down, cornered, and killed 18 men and boys, four women, and two children in a dry creek bed on January 22, 1879.
The traumatic impact of these massacres and the way in which they were whitewashed and then receded from White memory stand out. It is time to tell the stories swept under the historical rug. Published as a chapter in Dutch Immigrant Stories (Van Raalte Press, 2022), I recount the story of two Dutch Americans who were instrumental in the annihilation and removal of Heévâhetaneo'o, Nawathi'neha, and Notameohmésêhese from their ancestral homelands in an essay entitled "Instruments of Murder: Major Edward Wynkoop and Captain David Wessels, Jr..”
Dutch and Indigenous Communities in Seventeenth-Century Northeastern North America
After urging the members of the States-General to give New Netherlanders a greater voice in governing the colony of New Netherland, the lawyer and councilor Adriaen van der Donck prepared to return to New Amsterdam in spring 1652. However, the outbreak of a naval war with England in May prevented his immediate return. With time on his hands, Van der Donck decided to continue promoting New Netherland in the Dutch Republic by writing a detailed description of the colony. When he sat down and put quill to paper, he decided to also address the questions of potential colonists, including why Europeans had come to “this beautiful land” in the first place. The answer, according to Van der Donck, was the beaver.
The beaver had, in fact, initially been the centerpiece of Indian–Dutch relations. Henry Hudson’s report of plentiful furs and friendly Indians along the upper part of the North (Hudson) River sparked widespread interest because beaver felt hats were the rage in northern Europe. As European settlers became a more permanent feature of life in the Northeast Woodlands between 1624 and 1640, Native Americans and New Netherlanders came into increasing contact with one another. Using the original Dutch-language records of the government of New Netherland, I evaluate the nature of the relationships that developed between the Indigenous and European peoples living in the Northeast Woodlands as a result of those contacts in an essay entitled “Declarations of Interdependence: The Nature of Dutch–Native Relations in New Netherland, 1624–1664,” which appeared as a chapter in Dutch and Indigenous Communities in 17th Century Northeastern North America: What Archaeology, History, and Indigenous Oral Traditions Teach Us About Their Intercultural Relationships (SUNY Press, 2021).
Dutch Reformed Education: Immigrant Legacies in North America
In “Members Only: The Founding of Erasmus Hall Academy,” which was published in Dutch Reformed Education (Van Raalte Press, 2020), I explore the ways in which ideologies of race shaped ideas of membership in Dutch Reformed circles in New York in the late eighteenth-century. In 1786 Senator John Vanderbilt and Reverend John Henry Livingston—whose descendants include Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, William Livingston, a signer of the United States Constitution, and Philip Livingston, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence—founded a private school in the village of Flatbush located in Kings County, which has been coterminous with Brooklyn since 1896. Kings County was a predominately Dutch agricultural county with the highest concentration of enslaved Africans in the colonial North. Indeed, enslaved Black labor was central to the day-to-day survival and economic life of these Dutch Americans.
The Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church donated land for the school building while the wealthiest and most powerful citizens of New York—including Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Peter Lefferts, and Robert Livingston—made financial contributions. Erasmus Hall Academy was the first secondary school granted a charter by the twenty-one members of the Board of Regents—almost half of whom were prominent Dutch Americans—appointed to provide oversight to the colleges and academies incorporated in the State of New York. In the end I demonstrate that the academy founded, funded, and built by members of the Dutch Reformed community living in and around the community of Flatbush was constructed to prepare the sons of prominent Euro-American families to ultimately assume positions of authority in institutions meant to preserve and protect their own power, privilege, status, and wealth.
More publications
Review of Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World, by D. L. Noorlander, Church History, vol. 90, no. 3 (September 2021): 691-693.
“Native and Colonial Go-Betweens,” The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia (June 2015).
Review of Transatlantic Pieties: Dutch Clergy in Colonial America, edited by Leon van den Broeke, Hans Krabbendam, and Dirk Mouw, Journal of Presbyterian History, vol. 93, no. 1(Spring/Summer 2015): 36-37.
Co-authored with James Palmitessa, “The Successes and Challenges of Teaching World History in the Twenty-First Century: Two Case Studies from Western Michigan,” World History Connected, vol. 3, no. 1 (October 2005).
[Steve] did a good job of keeping the debates on focus, interjecting a few times when presenters simply repeated event history and stopped making an argument, and asking participants at the end to choose three factors in favor of their arguments. Once the presentations ended, I was surprised that 80 % of the students raised their hand for a question or comment. In addition to participating in a debate, each student must present a short-written essay outlining their argument, which is due the day of their presentations. [Steve] was comfortable and articulate in the class, did a wonderful job leading the discussion, and was adept at using computer and DVD player equipment without losing a minute of time. The debates seemed to me to be an innovative way to foster active learning.
Dr. James Palmitessa, Associate Professor of History
It was a solid presentation of the subject and, while Steve related what he was saying to the themes of the textbook, it was clear that he was offering his interpretation and dealing with the topic in a way that was not covered in the book. During his presentation Steve consulted, but did not read, his lecture notes and encouraged, and got, questions from students. He has an easy rapport with the students, and they clearly feel comfortable asking even unprompted questions. Still, he was firmly in command of the room. His enthusiasm for the subject at hand was evident and students were quite attentive and diligent in their notetaking. They were assisted in that endeavor, and in comprehension in general, by Steve’s use of PowerPoint to show maps and photos of the region in question and an outline of key points of his lecture.
Dr. José António Brandão, Professor of History
“Dr. Staggs has been an advocate for underrepresented populations within Higher Education. In his role as Assistant Director of Academic Services he was tasked with mentoring and coaching faculty. [He] worked to problem solve and develop strategies for success in the classroom for faculty. Dr. Staggs has proven abilities in the areas of curriculum development, assessment, evaluation, and community outreach. [He] is an intelligent, sincere, and hard-working individual. I have found him to be a skilled planner, creative problem solver, and a leader who wants the best for those who are connected to him. [He] has the ability to perform his assigned duties under limited supervision. He shows great judgement when dealing with sensitive or high-pressure situations. Dr. Staggs demonstrates the ability to adapt to interruptions in his daily work. [He] is a passionate advocate for student success and thriving. Dr. Staggs would be a tremendous asset to any organization and has my highest recommendation.”
Dr. Nygil Likely, Vice President of Student Affairs at Lake Michigan College
Speaking Request / Contact
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