Image courtesy: Wikipedia Commons, public domain
Title: Korte historiael, ende journaels aenteyckeninge van verscheyden voyagiens in de vier deelen des wereldts-ronde, als Europa, Africa, Asia, ende Amerika gedaen (Hoorn: Symon Cornelisz, 1655), or Voyages from Holland to America, A.D. 1632 to 1644.
Author: David Pietersz. de Vries (La Rochelle, 1593- Hoorn, 1655).
Description: This impressive print by Cornelis Visscher celebrates the long life and accomplishments of David Pietersz. de Vries, honorable citizen of the city of Hoorn. De Vries was an intrepid seafarer and early explorer of North America. His travel journals provide much information about the plants and people he encountered. Part of a group of colonists who planted the short-lived Swanendael (Zwaanendael) Colony in Lewes, Delaware (1629-32), De Vries also established a settlement on Staten Island (1639) and Pavonia (Vriessendael, 1640). In 1636, he built a blockhouse at Signal Hill on Staten Island, the first signal house erected by European settlers in North America. De Vries acted as a mediatory between Native Americans and New Netherland Director-General Willem Kieft. Embittered about the treatment of the Indigenous people, De Vries left America for good after the Pavonia massacre in 1643. A statue of De Vries by Philip Martiny, c. 1895, adorns the exterior of the NYC Department of Records & Information Services at 31 Chambers Street, New York.