Commercial report

The read of a description of New Netherland, this the first description of actual New York, then New Netherland of Adriaen van der Donck(1618-1655), the author describes the environment: “As we have heard, the Dutch discovered and took possession of this country in the year. In fertility, equable climate, opportunity for trade, seaports, watercourses, fisheries, weather, and wind, and whatever other commendable qualities one may care to mention, it is so similar to the Netherlands or, truth to say, generally superior to it, that for good reasons they named it New Netherland, that is, another and newfound Netherlands. Yet it is the first discovery that usually counts, and the similarity of climate or temperature mattered rather less to others. We observe that the French named their possessions in the same part of the New World Canada, or Nova Francia, solely because they took them first, for the climate or temperature is not like that of France at all. France tends to be warm rather than cold, and New France is so cold and wintry that snow commonly covers the country for four or five months on end, often four or five feet deep, so that keeping European cattle there comes very expensive. Even though the country extends no farther north than, its winter air is so thin, clear, and crisp that snow, which normally falls from late November or December, does not thaw again except through the force or the sun, usually in April. It seldom rains in winter, for the cold air is dry rather than humid, but if it does, the snow subsides somewhat and a hard crust forms on top, which makes for heavy going across country for man and beast, and it rarely melts and disappears all at once”. This is description of seasons and lands and other that is necessary to merchants and commerce; it isn’t evil, because it is necessary to float and seamen, and this description thereby has precise aims, but this town was discovered just by Giovanni da Verrazzano, in 1524, an Italian exploratory that in that year discovered the oriental coasts of north American continent and he  gone in to bay of New York; thereupon the words of van der Donck were wrong: “So New Netherland, having been first discovered by the Dutch, was thus named, also in view of that discovery.”; he certainly could not that Giovanni da Verrazzano has discovered this land, but Giovanni after mentioned didn’t give nothing description, thereby we can know today the land of Manhattan to this description.   

Alessandro Lusana