Episode 4 - WAMPUM & WALLOONS: 1621-1625 Sarah Rapalje

In the wake of the assassination of Hendrick Christiaensen, the already wild frontier of Manhattan devolves into a frenzied melee, as the hornet's nest has been kicked.  And just as this experimental trading region starts digressing into a nebulous commercial haze, the twelve years of the Twelve Years Truce is expiring, making the timing just right for a certain Antwerp-born merchant operating in Amsterdam...and a Walloon faction living, working and worshiping in  Leiden. 

Flemish businessman Willem Usselinx's long-lobbied concept of a massive, heavily-funded company partnered with the States-General -- one with the authority to carry on international trade and simultaneously wage war, has been pulled off the shelf after many decades of his efforts, as the Dutch decide that peace simply doesn't pay.  But Usselinx's concept requires willing participants to risk the welfare of their families in this far off land of "savage beasts and savage men."    

Enter Jesse Deforest and his Walloons, along with nineteen-year old Joris Rapalje and his eighteen-year old bride, Catalina Trico and we shall witness the true pilgrims of Manhattan, whose lineage would go on to define large swaths of the very fabric of our United States of America.

Let us not forget this race of fierce and passionate people, who boldly settled this incredible ISLAND when no one else would.  Let us not forget the story of the Walloons. 

Episode guest: Professor Bertrand van Ruymbeke, PhD - University of Paris

Interviews with incredibly cool people who continue to shape this remarkable place. 

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