The Legacy of Juan “Jan” Rodrigues
(Village Of Harlem, Elmendorf Reformed Church, Celebrate 350 Years)
By
Eric V. Tait, Jr., June 23, 2009
 They marked, surveyed, and staked it out. Once that was done they celebrated with a party. It was September of 1658, and the celebration was for the founding of a village called New Haarlem. The celebrants were the Dutch and their African labor force of enslaved and half-free Africans. Two years later, the First Reformed Dutch Church of New Haarlem was established. The Church and the new Village both received their official Charters (from the Netherlands) in that year 1660. Some three hundred and fifty years later the village of Harlem is experiencing another “renaissance” and the Church now known as the Elmendorf Reformed Church is still going strong. It’s now on a mission to reclaim, preserve and protect its own historic African Burial Ground which dates back to around 1680.
Historian Christopher Moore tells us that according to the Colonial documents, the new road to the new village was started in the spring of 1658, probably in late April or early May. The Africans leveled the forests and built that road from New Amsterdam at the southern end of Manhattan Island northeastward to an area that is now approximately where a 110th Street currently lies. Groundbreaking for the new settlement of New Haarlem took place on August 14th. After the new village had been staked out, the party celebration actually took place on September 10th.
Those original Africans were there from the early days because they were either members of the Dutch West India Company labor force or individually owned workers. So from the very beginning New Haarlem was, like most of New Netherlands, populated not just by the Dutch, but by the Africans as well. That bears repeating: the Africans or people of African descent lived, died and were buried in what is today’s Harlem some three hundred and fifty years ago.
The Africans were an integral part of the Dutch New Netherlands Colony. Prior to their arrival, New Amsterdam was essentially a failing, lack-luster afterthought in the Dutch Colonial holdings. It’s predominantly Dutch inhabitants clustered at the lower tip of the Manhattan islands in that tiny New Amsterdam enclave. They wanted to quickly get rich in the fur trade and return home to Holland. But since the fur trade was really dominated by the Dutch West India Company, the Settlers were mostly enduring frontier hardships with very little return on their Colonial “sweat equity.” The arrival of the Africans in the mid-1620s soon saw the growth of road-building, forest-clearing, lumbering, farming—in essence, a burgeoning, diverse economy built primarily on the backs of those Africans that author and historian Christopher Moore accurately refers to as “Colony Builders.”
But that African or multi-racial presence began even before there was a New Netherlands Colony. One might even say that without it, there might never have been a New Netherlands. What, or rather who was that early African presence? He was a free Black-Hispanic from Santo Domingo whom the Dutch list as “Jan” Rodrigues. He was hired by a Dutch Captain in 1613 to be the go-between—the interpreter and translator with the local Lenape Tribe of the Manahatta islands and the other Algonquin people in the Hudson Valley. He was so good at what he did Dutch Captains were actually squabbling over his services.
Because of this man’s linguistic and inter-personal skills as translator and negotiator, the Dutch were able to launch a successful fur trade with the Native Americans. Had there been no successful Dutch fur trade, there probably would not have been a New Netherlands Colony. No New Netherlands, no New Haarlem or New Amsterdam, and probably no New York. At least not as we know it today.
The story of this early Black-Hispanic whom his Dutch employers called "The Mulatto" needs to be widely known and celebrated. Rodrigues and the Africans—the Colony Builders-- who followed him and really made the New Netherlands Colony the thriving place that eventually became the hub of European Colonial expansion and economic development, have never received their due acknowledgement and recognition. Individuals like Simon Congo, Peter San Tome and his son Lucas Pieters, Big Manuel, Dorothy Angola, Little Manuel Minuit, Anthony Portugese and his daughter Susanna Anthony Roberts—enslaved Africans who labored successfully, earned freedom and produced free second generation children who became Barber Surgeons and property-owning entrepreneurs. They were the residents of an enclave known as Little Africa or the Land of the Blacks in a lower Manhattan area that eventually stretched from Prince Street northward to what is now Herald Square. They also built, inhabited, worshipped and were buried in the second Dutch Village of New Haarlem.
It is this little known history of that early New Netherlands Colony that makes celebrating Harlem’s 350th Anniversary so significant (“Harlem then, now and forever”). It allows us to revisit, celebrate and disseminate that rich, multi-cultural legacy that’s been too long hidden and unsung.
We expect these Anniversary Celebrations to help produce the educational and economic re-investment in the Harlem Community for its long-time residents. We expect to restore, preserve and officially recognize the Elmendorf Church African Burial Ground; we expect to gain a cultural historic district for Harlem that recognizes the cultural legacy of those original Africans and their descendants; and we would very much like to have a Bust of Juan “Jan” Rodrigues permanently enshrined in one of Harlem’s Riverfront Parks. That would be the perfect representation and recognition of the long Black-Hispanic presence in the Hudson Valley, and especially in Harlem. We hope the community and our elected officials will support these efforts and these goals.
Source: EV Tait, Jr.
VP, Harlem Preservation Foundation
evted@verizon.net
212.694.2218/19
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