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- New Netherlanders were residents of New Netherland, the seventeenth-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America, centered on the Hudson River and New York Bay, and in the Delaware Valley. The population of New Netherland was not all ethnically Dutch, but had a variety of ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, including: other European ethnic groups (Germans, Scandinavians, French, Scots, English, Irish, Italians, and Croats); indigenous Amerindian tribes such as Algonquians and Iroquoians; Sephardic Jews (Jews of Spanish and Portuguese backgrounds) both from the Netherlands itself and the then recently lost colony of Dutch Brazil; and West Africans, the last mostly having been brought as slaves. Though the colony officially existed only between 1609 and 1674, the descendants of the original settlers played a prominent role in colonial America. New Netherland culture characterized the region (today's Capital District, Hudson Valley, New York City, western Long Island, northern New Jersey and the Delaware Valley) for two centuries. The concepts of civil liberties and pluralism introduced in the province would later become a mainstay of American political and social life. Their descendants are the Knickerbocker Dutch. (en)
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