“Manhattan was sold for $24” worth of “trinkets” or “glass beads” by Native Americans to the Dutch. It is something taught to most American schoolchildren by age eight. That was true in 1911, in 1949 and in 2009. The $24 is never adjusted for inflation. Even in 1855 it was $24:
The story comes from historian Edmund O’Callaghan in 1855:
The island of Manhattan, estimated then to contain 22,000 acres of land, was therefore purchased from the Indians, who received for that splendid tract the trifling sum of 60 guilders, or 24 dollars.
O’Callaghan, in turn, got it from a letter written in 1626 by Pieter Schaghen, the Dutch colony’s representative in Amsterdam. Just months after the sale he wrote:
They have purchased the Island Manhattes from the savages for the value of 60 guilders; it is 11,000 morgens in size.
The $24 came from converting 60 guilders – at the 1855 rate!
A guilder was equal to about two crowns or 60 grams of silver. At 2014 silver prices, 60 guilders (120 crowns) comes to $2,300. But that does not take into account the cost of living.
Prices in the early 1600s:
- 100 guilders: a Dutch soldier’s yearly pay
- 52 guilders: 100 acres (40 hectares) of land on Long Island sold between whites in 1638.
- 2 guilders: a beaver skin
In 2014, basic pay for an active-duty American soldier is about $20,000. That would make 60 guilders about $12,000 in today’s terms. Beaver skins would put it at about $9,000.
That land deal in Long Island would value Manhattan not at 60 guilders but 11,000 guilders (about $2 million in current money).
But it probably was not a straight land deal like that: in 1630, Staten Island, twice the size of Manhattan, was also sold for 60 guilders of trade goods.
Was Manhattan sold for “trinkets”, for “glass beads”? From the Staten Island deal we know what those “glass beads” and “trinkets” probably were:
- The “glass beads” were wampum, shell beads on a string, a form of Eastern Woodlands money. Calling it “glass beads” is like calling American money “pieces of paper”.
- The “trinkets” were mostly useful Dutch technology, especially stuff made of metal: kettles, axes, hoes and drilling awls.
But it still was not worth hundreds of people giving up their land. Why sell your land to buy a hoe?
What is going on?
James Loewen says the Dutch probably bought Manhattan from the Canarsies, who did not live there but somewhere across the river in a land now known as Canarsie, Brooklyn. The Canarsies were probably interested in Dutch protection from their enemies, while the Dutch probably wanted to legitimize a claim ahead of the British. The 60 guilders thing was just to seal the deal.
The Weekquaesgeeks, whose land it was, were hardly pleased. They fought the Dutch off and on. Thus the wall of Wall Street. In the 1640s, during Kieft’s War, the Dutch destroyed the Weekquaesgeeks as a people and drove them out of Manhattan. Few if any Americans are taught about that.
Loewen calls the $24 story an example of cultural racism:
Soft-pedaling the invasion intrinsically entails making fools of Native Americans today. At the very least, how could Natives lose their continent to such nice folks?
– Abagond, 2014.
Sources: “Teaching What Really Happened” (2010) by James Loewen, “The Island at the Center of the World” (2004) by Russell Shorto, newnetherlandinstitute.org (2013), Wikipedia (2014).
See also:
- The lies you were taught about Native Americans
- The three pillars of American white supremacy
- The Delaware – the Indians native to that region
- crowns
- Money in Shakespeare’s time
- purchasing power parity
[…] "“Manhattan was sold for $24″ worth of “trinkets” or “glass beads” by Native Americans to the Dutch. It is something taught to most American schoolchildren by age eight. That was true in 1911, in 1949 and in 2009. The $24 is never adjusted for inflation." […]
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[…] See on abagond.wordpress.com […]
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Excellent ,I mean excellent historical analysis , yet another reason why this is my favorite blog,everytime I have my doubts abagond will do a post like this that makes me deeply regret my doubts and make me glad I checked back…
I love it…
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Reblogged this on Mbeti's Blog and commented:
Another excellent post from my favorite blogger ,-)
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Weak-ass geeks?
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The stories about ‘natives’ are almost always derogatory. It follows from the fact that most were killed off or mistreated by white settlers. If your culture presented the people that were eradicated as good people what would that make you? A narrative has to be created in which they deserved their fate. Similarly, the theory of evolution/naural selection actually came out of ideas by Malthus (IIRC) that the poor deserve poverty and should be allowed to die off. Darwin took those ideas and applied them to the natural world. I believe that the ideas that gain traction within a culture are those that fit the cultural personality and supports the actions of that personality on the world scene. The incarnation of Christianity as a state religion served its purpose at the time since the conversion mandate suited imperial expansion and the export-only message of brotherhood (which many other cultures actually took seriously) would serve to disarm victims in the face of white hypocrisy. However, once world empire was achieved, an ideology of the ‘survival of the fittest’ that lionizes those who prevail over others by any means became more appropriate. There was no longer as pressing a need to trick intended victims with a message of brotherhood but a more important need to ensure that conquered peoples accept the new status quo and citizens of the empire appreciate the deservedness of their position. The depictions of ‘natives’ serve a similar function. Whites claim they were either foolish, lazy or savage and were therefore treated appropriately. Some surviving descendants of those people, facing constant bombardment from such propaganda, may even be thankful for what happened.
The solution of the problem of how to live on the same planet with whites in peace and justice still eludes us. I present the ‘hole in the soul’ argument in various ways but from the collective behavior it is clear that white culture has an need to devour and appropriate in order to continue. There was relative peace in Europe when they were engaged in the project of colonizing the world yet after having done so the Great War broke out. Lacking any new source of external nourishment autophagy ensued. Whites like to suggest the character flaws of other people but seldom reflect on the white psyche. On the one hand, they have a need to partake of what other people have yet they fear that actual contact with those people on an equal level will result in the disappearance of whites. This results in the apparently contradictory behavior: whites hate ‘non-whites’ yet always seem to end up in places where they’re surrounded by them. They are pulled in both ways; they cannot isolate themselves and yet they cannot assimilate for fear of losing whiteness. For them, the ‘perfect solution’ is to create an empire which automatically extracts the resources and labour from the world while keeping the people separate from whites. So we get Slavery, Colonialization, IMF-debt servitude, Apartheid, Jim Crow, and subtler forms all under the umbrella of white supremacy racism. Unfortunately, it’s far from a perfect solution for everyone else and not as good as it looks for whites. There is still the problem of how to manage their inward-turning aggression in the absence of ‘new frontiers’ for conquest. I think that the economic system that has developed post-WWII (easy credit via the printing presses) has gone a long way towards deferring another global conflagration through the illusion of endless economic growth. Once that system starts to unravel, WATCH OUT! imo
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@Abagond,
Based on the content of this post, you might need to revise your post about the Delaware
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@Origin,
Yes, that explains to me why, except for the Japanese-American internment experience which was difficult to cover up, US history books have totally omitted the genocide, ethnic cleansing and other atrocities that whites perpetrated against Asian Americans prior to the establishment of the Model Minority stereotype in 1966, particularly 1870s-1940s.
They cannot totally erase the idea that there were Native Americans in the USA before Europeans, so they have to portray them, as you say, “foolish, lazy or savage and were therefore treated appropriately” to explain what happened. For Asians, just treat them as perpetual foreigners so that they have no history in the USA period – no need to explain anything.
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I like Loewen’s idea stated in the introduction of the referenced source book – that perhaps US history should start with the west coast, ie,
– the first settlers to North America came from the Pacific, and gradually settled East and South
– European settlement of the West Coast predated English settlement in the East.
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[…] "“Manhattan was sold for $24″ worth of “trinkets” or “glass beads” by Native Americans to the Dutch. It is something taught to most American schoolchildren by age eight. That was true in 1911, in 1949 and in 2009. The $24 is never adjusted for inflation." […]
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[…] See on abagond.wordpress.com […]
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@ Jefe
Right, I need to update the post on the Delaware. Thanks.
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Perhaps the Native Americans appear foolish because of the pre-supposition that they had no understanding of private property rights, and had no concept of the value of material goods. Isn’t that the common mis-conception?
I suppose it’s convenient to paint them as thought they were like chldren, and the event as if it was like taking candy from a baby.
But a different understanding of property rights is not the same as no understanding at all. Property rights were not only commonplace throughout North America’s indigenous peoples at this time, but it was a part of their cultures that was essential to the efficient management of resources.*
What may have been “sold” was not the the land outright and forever — that was the European understanding: I paid for it now I possess it in full.
Land ownership is crucial to colonisation.
Instead, in the eyes of the Native Americans, the Europeans may have actually bought user-rights or hunting-rights, which INCLUDED the continuing user- and hunting-rights of the Native peoples who lived there or passed through.
In a way then, this $24** was like “a membership fee” that granted a newcomer joint-ownership, and the right to use, communal land in a Collective.
(** $24, although at the time the transatction was supposed to have taken place, the dollar hadn’t been invented.)
* http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/property-rights-among-native-americans
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Native Americans normally don’t have the concept of “selling land” the way that Europeans would think of it. That would be like selling air. Definitely think it was more of the user rights or communal rights thing.
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There’s a lot of conflicting information on this topic by different historians. Hard to tell what’s the true account where this topic is concerned. Nevertheless it’s an interesting topic.
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Yup, I knew that. Another example of White colonizers taking land away from Native Americans.
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[…] 1630, the Dutch purchased Staten Island, also for 60 guilders value. A copy of the deed explained that the supplies offered to local chiefs […]
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[…] 1630, the Dutch purchased Staten Island, also for 60 guilders value. A copy of the deed explained that the supplies offered to local chiefs […]
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I love NYC and history of this town.”…1630, the Dutch purchased Staten Island, also for 60 guilders value. A copy of the deed explained that the supplies offered to local chiefs …”
jurek urban jr
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This price is used in economy classes in Brazil to show that the Dutch payed too much: apply that Money using the interest rates brazilian banks charge their clients, and 400 years later it turns into a googol dollars
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[…] if it is your box of beads, why not trade it for Manhattan? This is the problem I’m seeing with the logic above. Is it […]
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