Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Recorded March 14, 2024.
Join Russell Shorto, director of the New Amsterdam Project and curator of "New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam," as he provides unique insights on the special installation.
In commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Dutch founding of a colony that would give rise to New York, this special installation is organized around the Castello Plan, a map depicting New Amsterdam around the peak of its settlement circa 1660. While modest in size, the map provides a remarkably rare glimpse of everyday life in New Amsterdam, revealing a complex colony of about 1,500 people at the southern tip of the island of Mannahatta.
The installation unpacks the Plan, highlighting the remarkable global reach of the tiny settlement, its dense mix of ethnicities and languages, the Dutch ideas of tolerance that undergirded it, and the dark legacies of slavery and of the dispossession of Native Americans that it relied upon. Through documents and objects, and a 3D model, the installation explores how settlers, Indigenous people, and enslaved Africans experienced the world illustrated in the Castello Plan.
Russell Shorto is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New-York Historical Society. He is the author of seven books, including the national bestseller The Island at the Center of the World.
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For more about the New-York Historical Society, visit our website: nyhistory.org
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#newyorkhistoricalsociety #history
Recorded March 14, 2024.
Join Russell Shorto, director of the New Amsterdam Project and curator of "New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam," as he provides unique insights on the special installation.
In commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Dutch founding of a colony that would give rise to New York, this special installation is organized around the Castello Plan, a map depicting New Amsterdam around the peak of its settlement circa 1660. While modest in size, the map provides a remarkably rare glimpse of everyday life in New Amsterdam, revealing a complex colony of about 1,500 people at the southern tip of the island of Mannahatta.
The installation unpacks the Plan, highlighting the remarkable global reach of the tiny settlement, its dense mix of ethnicities and languages, the Dutch ideas of tolerance that undergirded it, and the dark legacies of slavery and of the dispossession of Native Americans that it relied upon. Through documents and objects, and a 3D model, the installation explores how settlers, Indigenous people, and enslaved Africans experienced the world illustrated in the Castello Plan.
Russell Shorto is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New-York Historical Society. He is the author of seven books, including the national bestseller The Island at the Center of the World.
***
For more about the New-York Historical Society, visit our website: nyhistory.org
***
Subscribe to our channel: youtube.com/c/nyhistory?sub_confirmation=1
Check out our full video catalog: youtube.com/c/nyhistory
Instagram: instagram.com/nyhistory
Facebook: facebook.com/nyhistory
Twitter: twitter.com/NYHistory
#newyorkhistoricalsociety #history

![World War II // The Citizenship Project [E06]
Those who take the U.S. Citizenship Test must understand the reasons behind the United States’ involvement in World War II, why the U.S. was initially neutral, and what happened as a result of Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
The New-York Historical Society Citizenship Project offers free civics test preparation classes for green card holders. Learn more at https://www.nyhistory.org/citizenship-project
***
For more about the New-York Historical Society, visit our website: https://www.nyhistory.org/
***
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/nyhistory?sub_confirmation=1
Check out our full video catalog: https://www.youtube.com/c/nyhistory
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nyhistory/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nyhistory/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NYHistory
#newyorkhistoricalsociety #history World War II // The Citizenship Project [E06]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_Qj5dI8mx5g/mqdefault.jpg)








