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Article published In:
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 34:1 (2019) ► pp.49–82

Iberian linguistic elements among the black population in New Netherland (1614–1664)

| University of California, Berkeley, USA

Since the slave population in New Netherland (1614–1664) was small compared to that of other Dutch Atlantic colonies such as Curaçao, Dutch Brazil, and Suriname, it has traditionally received little attention by scholars, including creolists. It is, therefore, not well known that traces of Iberian languages can be found among the black population of seventeenth-century Manhattan. While the paucity of sources does not allow us to make any decisive claims with regard to the importance of Spanish and Portuguese for the colony’s black community, this article attempts to reconstruct the language use of this population group on the basis of an analysis of historical sources from New Netherland in a broader Atlantic context.

Keywords: Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Papiamentu, Kikongo, Kimbundu, Angola, Kongo, Brazil, Curaçao
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Slavery in New Netherland
  • 3.Origins of blacks in New Netherland
  • 4.Language use by blacks in New Netherland
  • 5.Iberian linguistic elements in New Netherland
  • 6.The Portuguese language in Central Africa
  • 7.The Portuguese language in Northeastern Brazil
  • 8.The Dutch language in New Netherland
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00028.dew
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