Anti-Dutch propaganda from this fighting remains with us today in the phrases "Dutch courage" and "Dutch treat." But the legacy of the Dutch Golden Age is deeply rooted in the present United States. The 1581 Dutch Act of Abjuration, which announced the split from Spain, was a model for our Declaration of Independence. As the republic threw off outside control and religious oppression, it offered relative tolerance to groups like the Puritans, who went on to help found New England. America's wide-open, on-the-make capitalism is a descendant of the Dutch trading empire, which prized thrift, industriousness, business savvy, and the bottom line while welcoming anyone with something to sell. These guiding principles were seeded here by the Dutch trading settlement of New Netherland. Its capital, New Amsterdam, took in such Dutch-named areas as Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx. Today, of course, we know it by the name it acquired after the British seized it from the Dutch in 1664: New York.
Read Greg's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.
Related:
Photos: Dutch Seascapes at Peabody Essex, Maritime after time, Slideshow: Sigg Collection at Peabody Essex Museum, More 
- Photos: Dutch Seascapes at Peabody Essex
Dutch Seascapes at Peabody Essex
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The Sigg collection of contemporary Chinese artwork on display at the Peabody Essex Museum
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"Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection" at Salem's Peabody Essex Museum opens with a pair of interesting choices.
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SurfLand at Peabody Essex Museum, photos by Joni Sternbach, now showing through October 4
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What's the difference between art photography and fashion photography? That's the question I kept wondering about at Joni Sternbach's "SurfLand" exhibition at Salem's Peabody Essex Museum.
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If you were going to recount the evolution of hippie guy fashion, you might say that what began with psychedelic ruffled shirts and corduroy pants in 1968 has in late middle age split into two streams: collarless white button-down shirts, usually buttoned right up to the neck and worn with a black vest, and Hawaiian shirts.
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Luisa Rabbia created a slow-moving video work that offers a kind of travelogue of her own journey through Isabella Stewart Gardner's historic scrapbooks.
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Painting, Visual Arts, Peabody Essex Museum, More
, Painting, Visual Arts, Peabody Essex Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, Jan Vermeer, Daniel Finamore, Bonaventura Peeters, National Maritime Museum, Abraham Storck, Less
