The Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands’ national museum in Amsterdam, put the Schaghen Letter, documenting the purchase of Manhattan from the American Indians, on display Friday. The display also includes the first map of Manhattan, dated 1614.
The exhibit commemorates the 400th anniversary of the departure of Henry Hudson in April 1609 on the expedition that would lead to colonization of the New York area.
The Schaghen letter is a 1626 report by Dutch bureaucrat Pieter Schaghen, who interviewed a ship captain returning from the colony for government records. The captain told Schaghen colonists had purchased an island called “Manna Hatta” for 60 guilders worth of goods; including knives, chisels, pots, kettles, and blankets as well as shells” and other trinkets. Sixty guilders were equal to about a year’s pay for a Dutch soldier.
Read more about the exhibition at the Rijksmueuem website.
Read more about the exhibition in the April 3, 2009 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.
