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41 " a colorful collection of losers and scalawags, inconsequential and meandering, waiting around for the winds of fate to blow them off the map. "
― Russell Shorto , The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
42 " The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was a product of Amsterdam’s vigorous Jewish community. To this day, Amsterdammers’ proud slang term for their city is Mokum, the centuries-old Jewish name for it. (For that matter, Amsterdam slang for “see you later” is the Yiddishism de mazzel.) "
43 " The region was the scene of vivid, hot, bloody warfare between the decaying Spanish empire and its breakaway rival. Sugar, salt, dyewood, tobacco, horses, copper—the ways to exploit the Caribbean and coastal South America were intoxicating in their variety, and while the Dutch were eager to capitalize on the weakness of Spain’s grip on the region, the Spanish were unwilling to give up such a stream of wealth easily. Besides opening a new window onto the birth of Manhattan, the massive trove of Dutch documents being translated by Dr. Charles Gehring in the New York State Library contains hundreds of pages detailing Stuyvesant’s time in the Caribbean and opens other windows onto the unrelentingly grim business of wringing profits out of slaves, Indians, and the land, while simultaneously battling other European colonizers. "