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December 26, 2009
No Dutch treat for NYC gay pioneer
Posted by: Chris
Knee-deep into an interesting article about the efforts of librarian Charles Gehring to rediscover New York City as New Amsterdam is this fascinating vignette about the anti-gay persecution, and ultimate death, of an important early Dutch leader in the area:
Mr. Gehring’s translation of the journal of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, a barber-surgeon and a likely ancestor of Humphrey Bogart, was turned into the graphic novel “Journey Into Mohawk Country,” by the artist George O’Connor. The journal chronicles van den Bogaert’s journey through the Mohawk Valley to Oneida, a pathbreaking trip in the winter of 1634.
Years later, van den Bogaert was made commander of Fort Orange, site of present-day Albany, but fled back into Indian country after his fellow colonists discovered he was gay. Van den Bogaert was pursued by the Dutch, captured and brought back, but he escaped when a sheet of floating ice damaged the fort. He drowned in the Hudson before he got very far.
That's a far cry from the famous tolerance toward homosexuality we associate with NYC, the Dutch and Old Amsterdam, albeit with some notable exceptions. Any takers for a van den Bogaert statue for the Village or Chelsea?
(Illustration of van den Bogaert is from "Journey into Mohawk Country" by George O'Connor)
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Comments
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Oh my God! I didn't know his first wife was disfigured! And he left her after that? After she waited for him for his four years as a POW? Dayum!
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I don't see how the U.S. Supreme Court overrules the D.C. Court of Appeals, the "state supreme court" of D.C., on a question of D.C. law, unless there is a federal issue involved. But given the unique (not in a good way) status of the District of Columbia in the U.S. legal system, it is possible.
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Oh my God! I didn't know his first wife was disfigured! And he left her after that? After she waited for him for his four years as a POW? Dayum!
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Oh my God! I didn't know his first wife was disfigured! And he left her after that? After she waited for him for his four years as a POW? Dayum!
The comments to this entry are closed.
Laura B on Feb 27, 2010 6:01:52 AM:
NYC is not "tolerant" with gay people unless you are a lesbian.
This is the biggest town of all that lives the biggest lies of them all.
NYC wants to claim to be a "melting pot". Are you fucking kidding me.
They have more separatism than people living in the apartheid with all of their light conversation of , "this is a polish neighborhood, and oh, this is a jewish neighborhood and "The african americans are doing wonderful things in harlem".
People secretly want to kill off gay people by not hiring them if they suspect that they are gay and removing them if they find out or someone leads homophobes on if they are gay. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, the Gay men and women are no different with their constant racial exclusion of black people. Sure, they may fuck one once in a while or all the time now that they have gotten fat and ugly and their dating pool has dried up but gay people are the most racist of all people when it comes to exclusion of black men working in their precious gay neighborhoods and black people in general.
I dont know where you get this BULLSHIT of the "now tolerable" gay neighborhood but you need to take your head out of your ass and WAKE UP BITCH!