 |
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
| |
Rodenburg (New Haven) |
|||||||||
As Adriaen Block sailed up Long Island Sound in 1614, he was struck by the appearance on the mainland of two jutting hills-really massive rocks-guarding an excellent harbor. When he made his map of the region, he named this area Rodenbergh, or Red Hills, after these natural landmarks. The river that empied into the harbor he also named the Rodenbergh. While a scattering of Dutch traders frequented the area in subsequent years, English settlers came in much greater numbers: in 1638, Puritan minister John Davenport led 500 English pioneers into the harbor to establish a town. By 1639, the situation was clear, and the Dutch explorer David de Vries vividly outlined it in his journal on a visit to the area:
The English chose to call their settlement Quinnipiac, then, in 1640, changed the name to New Haven, after a town in East Sussex. New Haven rapidly developed into a colony in its own right, alongside the New England colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut. In a report to the Netherlands in 1650, the Dutch colonists in New Netherland complained that because the West India Company had failed to send settlers, this rich country, which lay within the Dutch claim, was rapidly falling to the English:
But while the English advance was inexorable, recent evidence
suggests a more extensive Dutch presence in the Connecticut area
than was previously thought. A 1630s English map (detail, below)
shows a Dutch settlement called Roduins (Red Dunes) just east of
the mouth of the Housatonic River; a recent archaeological dig on
the site revealed the outlines of a Dutch fort as well as extensive
material remains.
|
||||||||||
