Excerpt from Term Paper:

...... The author continually proves his thesis throughout the work. He shows the origins of the New Amsterdam project, its highlights, and its eventual disappearance as more English settlers took over North America. It is interesting that the colony actually encouraged many religions to settle there, and then began religious persecution in 1654, when Stuyvesant barred twenty-four Jews from buying land or settling in New Amsterdam (Shorto 275). At a time when the English were actively settling the New World to enjoy religious freedom, Manhattan was banning it, and this may be one of the many things that led to the eventual downfall of the settlement
I do not feel the author had any outstanding biases or messages he was attempting to convey in the book. He clearly has a passion for history and historic details, and he passes that passion along in the book. The author's point is to show the development of a nation through one European settlement and its metamorphosis, and he does that quite well. He shows that the Dutch still have influence in American culture, even though we might not recognize it, and he shows that it truly takes many cultures to blend together to

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