Intimate Networks and Children's Survival in New Netherland in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

This essay investigates the lives of children on their own in the Dutch colony before 1664. Literature on the early modern Netherlands has shown the importance of civic institutions in caring for children in need, and some such institutions developed in New Netherland. Children's experiences differed greatly, however, despite or because of civic action. Similarly, though realities such as race and status shaped the opportunities and threats children faced, children's varied outcomes indicate that these realities did not solely determine which children thrived. Investigating the lives of several black and white children in New Netherland reveals that social networks and intimate connections played a critical role in determining who suffered or survived. Thus, we should look to faceto face bonds and intimate connections to understand what determined a child's place within colonial hierarchies.

“Your sister growes rich by her great trade”: Catherine Nicks's Intimate Economy

“…51 Some children who lived away from their parents were welcomed into other intimate networks, which in turn allowed them to form their own intimacies. 52 However, in the case of Catherine's children, it appears that Dionesia was more than happy to let them go away from her immediate oversight instead of raising them alongside her own and her husband's business, which might have benefitted them more in the long run.…”