View of New Amsterdam (New York)

Title on object: De stadt Nieuw Amsterdam gelegen op het Eylandt Manhattans in Nieuw Nederlant.

We see New Amsterdam from the south. At the bottom left is a legend. The brown elevation in the landscape on the left is the fort (a). Within it are the prison (h), the church (b), and, just behind the latter, the governor's house (g). A flagpole (i) stands on one of the bastions, with the note that the flag was raised when ships approached the harbour. On the other bastion, a pillory is depicted (f). The windmill (k) would have been right behind the fort, if we are to go by the Castello Plan. Three company warehouses are shown in the centre of the image. The large building on the right is the town inn (d). Because of the dilapidated depiction of the city (e.g. the fort is in disrepair and the windmill is missing two sails), this view of New Amsterdam has sometimes been identified as the drawing attributed to Augustijn Heermans, which Adriaan van der Donck presented to the States General during his visit to the Netherlands in 1649 to reinforce his Remonstrantie, calling attention to the bad state state of New Amsterdam. However, no documentary evidence corroborrates this identification, and e.g. historian Jaap Jacobs sees several problems with it. It is at least as plausible that this drawing, rather than a political statement for the States-General, is the work of an anonymous amateur artist.