Ask the students to assume that they are living sometime between 1675 and 1725 in the upper
Hudson River Valley near the juncture of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers. Small
settlements have been established around Fort Orange (later to become the capital city of
New York, Albany), Fort SHANEKTADES (the Indian name for what would later
become the city of Schenectady--the home of the Edison Electric Company now known
as the General Electric Company), and a trading port on the eastern shore of the Hudson
opposite the point of the Mohawk's entry into the Hudson (a settlement that became
Lansingburgh, which later merged with the southern town of VanDerHeyden to become
Troy, the home of "Uncle Sam").
[Teacher's note: These cities and their environs represent the geographic areas in which
the Albany City School District, the Niskayuna School District, and Russell Sage College
are situated. Teachers may wish to use other areas of the original colonies for this
introductory activity.]
Each student is to imagine s/he is a person living in one of these settlements and that for
some reasons (any will do) wishes to establish connections with a member of a patroon
family just settling in the eastern section of what is now the town of Berlin in Rensselaer
County. Display a transparency of the topography of the total region which situates the
four settlements and the various rivers, including the Hoosick and Little Hoosick and
substantial creeks such as the Battenkill and Kinderhook. Point out the following in a
lecture:
- The Hudson rises with the tides north of Troy.
- The Cohoes falls just before the junction of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.
- The vast amount of timberland to the north, east, and west.
- The rich and fertile soil of the river plains and tidal marshes.
- The sharp rise of the land to the Brunswick Hills and Grafton Mountains east of
Troy.
- Abundant fauna.
- The granting of land and governance under the Dutch Patroon system.
- The beginning of a social structure that included farmers, trappers, woodsman,
carpenters, smiths, coopers, carpenters, merchants, teachers, clergy,
laborers, etc.
- The distance to New York, New Haven, and Boston -- the largest urban
settlements in the region, established at the mouths of the Hudson,
Connecticut, Thames, and Charles Rivers. Without asking them or telling
them specific information about the geographic, economic, political, and
social factors which shaped the region of the New Netherland/New York
colony, ask them to think about how things might have begun to take
shape at that time. As a summary, have students generate some
hypotheses about the society at that time.
This initiating activity is lengthy but should be well worth the time, because the remaining
activity uses an independent study approach to meeting the lesson's objective.