Introduction

The Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History is a unique research and study center focusing on the dynamic but under-examined British colonial period in New York and New Jersey. The Institute’s collections address a wide range of disciplines: history, geography, archeology, ethnohistory, economics, political science, demography, art history, and others. The Institute’s library and archives contain extensive genealogical records, original manuscripts, rare books, prints, maps, microfilms, scholarly journals and monographs, and photographic and digital materials that cover the full extent of the former Dutch colony of New Netherland under British rule.

Between 1664 and 1773, New Netherland’s diverse population fused under the British into a vibrant cosmopolitan society with ties throughout the Atlantic World. The Institute is named for Jacob Leisler (1640−1691), a New York City merchant, who in the wake of Britain’s 1688 Glorious Revolution emerged as the leader of a rebellion in New York against King James II’s government. Leisler’s tumultuous 1689−1691 New York administration shaped the region’s political, economic, and cultural life up to the outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain in the 1760s. In addition, rapid change transformed the Hudson River and Mohawk valleys, Long Island, and New Jersey: French, German, and British immigrants, enslaved Africans, and others enriched the culture; population expansion created new tensions and mythologies; and the European Enlightenment and contrasting religious movements remade ideologies. On the eve of the American Revolution a dynamic new society had emerged that continues to resonate in the twenty-first century.

This exhibition presents a sample of the materials available at the Jacob Leisler Institute, as well as introduces the Institute’s public engagement through our Leisler Lecture series in partnership with the Hudson Area Library, internship program, New York Heritage Website, Ruth Piwonka student scholarship, and numerous publications.

“It cannot but one day sadly reflect that a people professing Christianity so eminently beyond others, should so basely degenerate beneath the very heathens when God hath wrought so miraculous a work, that not onely calls on, but astonishes all the protestant world; such professions should be settled on the Lees & say that the Lord nether doth good nor evill, but trust to your wicked crafts and inventions, through pride and presumption despise the deliverance, but when you are searched with candles, it will be known who are guilt of this accursed thing, & your nakedness will be uncovered”

- Jacob Leisler to Robert Treat

September 30, 1690