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Map of troops around Nieuw-Amsterdam

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Map of troops around Nieuw-Amsterdam

Aelmans, Pieter / de Veije, François Samuel

Title Leupe: Plan van het geweese fort Nassau en daarby gestaan hebbende Stad Nieuw Amsterdam. In de Col. De Berbice, waarop aangetoond wordt op wat wyze het Corps troepen, staande ten dienste van H.H. Mog. De H.H. St. Gen. Van Ver, Nederl., onder de ordres van den Col de Salve, by en omtrent het selve geleegerd is enz..

Shortly after the evacuation of Fort Nassau and Nieuw-Amsterdam on 8th March 1763 the little settlement was occupied by Cuffy’s slave army. The leader was not able to move into the fort though because upon their departure the Dutch had set it alight. He therefore opted to set up his headquarters in the Police Council building. Subsequently, when, in the early days of January 1764, Colonel De Salve’s corps made its advance, the rebels in their turn destroyed all the remaining buildings apart from the Lutheran Church and the preacher’s house. Upon arrival in the deserted camp De Salve ordered the construction of six temporary interconnected earthen ramparts with palisades in the southernmost and oldest part of former Nieuw-Amsterdam around a terrain situated between two small creeks. In anticipation of a new main fort, this would serve as a base for the garrison and the administration.

Those provisional defence works, generally again referred to as Fort Nassau, are centrally depicted at (B) on this large and extensively annotated site map of 1764 by Major François Samuel de Veije. Among the abundant objects described are the former ‘totally destroyed’ Fort Nassau (A), the Lutheran church that had been spared (D) and was being used as a hospital and the preacher’s house (E) that was serving as ‘Lodgings for the Colonel’. On the river, three of the ships that were being used to bring in the troops are depicted.

Three varieties of this map exist: see VEL1634A-C.

North is below.

Scale bar of 110 Rhineland Rods = [approximately 1 : 2,250].

Please contact Nationaal Archief for reuse and copyrights.

Sources and literature

Heijer, H. den, Grote Atlas van de West-Indische Compagnie = Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch West India Company, II, de nieuwe WIC 1674-1791 = the new WIC 1674-1791 (2012)

Bosman, Lex, Nieuw Amsterdam in Berbice (Guyana). De planning en bouw van een koloniale stad, 1764-1800 (1994)