So apparently before New York State was NY State, it was Nova Belgica

28 comments
  1. Didn’t you know that New Yorkers aren’t real New Yorkers, they don’t have a culture. They are just Belgians. Felt cute, might invade later.

  2. There are actually some etymologic theory around the fact that the name Wall Street is linked to the first governor of Manhattan, Pierre Minuit, of walloon ascendency.

    Waal straat becoming wall street.

    Before being New York, it was new Amsterdam, hence Dutch being used there.

    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street

  3. I remember hearing that Manhattan belonged to Waloons and not the Dutch.
    I can believe that around that time Waloons protestant would have moved to America via the Netherlands and they mixed in with the Dutch.
    But it’s still unclear to me.

  4. I once read that it were people of Namen/Namur who first started to build settlements around the area what now is NYC. The Dutch just made it way bigger and stole the credit, as usual.

  5. The map is from about 1685. So Novi Belgii was a name the Dutch were using. So “The Low country” was still in Dutch control.

    Visscher, Nicolaes. Novi Belgii Novaeque Angliae: nec non partis Virginiae tabula multis in locis emendata. [Amsterdam?, 1685] Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/97683561/.

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