For decades, the Dutch occupied a peculiar place in the historiography of the Atlantic world. Scholars of Dutch imperial history often considered the Atlantic secondary to Asia, where the voc dominated and extracted the wealth of the Dutch Republic. Scholars of Atlantic history, meanwhile, viewed the Dutch as a second-rate or even third-rate power, compared to the larger competitors of Spain, France, and Great Britain.

Thankfully, that era is now over. In the past twenty years, and especially in the last decade, historians of the Dutch Atlantic have demonstrated how the Dutch significantly shaped the Atlantic world and vice versa. Wim Klooster’s The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (2016) stands out, as does Danny Noorlander’s Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World (2019). We also should not overlook Michiel van Groesen’s Amsterdam’s Atlantic: Print Culture and the Making of Dutch Brazil (2017), nor Deborah Hamer’s dissertation Creating an Orderly Society: The Regulation of Marriage and Sex in the Dutch Atlantic World, 1621-1674 (2014), among many others.

Andrea Mosterman’s Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York fits very nicely in this illustrious lineup of works that have transformed how we view the Dutch in the Atlantic world. In her book, Mosterman tasks herself with uncovering the power relationship between the enslaved and the Dutch as they engaged each other in New York from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century. Mosterman analyzes this relationship through spaces, the theoretical concept that is most closely associated with Michel Foucault. This theory understands physical space as shaping history because the organization of space is a choice, most often made by those in power. In Mosterman’s case, these spaces include the organization of slave quarters, Dutch colonial homes, and the patrolling of spaces to prevent the enslaved from escaping. Using this analytical framework, Spaces of Enslavement seeks to demonstrate that the Dutch practice of slavery in New York was not (comparatively) benign, which is how it has been mythologized. For instance, Mosterman recounts a particularly brutal case in which an enslaved man was punished for attacking others by having his hand cut off, his legs and arms broken, and subsequently hanged as an example to others. These kinds of stories are reminiscent of the violent slave regimes in the rest of North America, as well as the Caribbean and South America.

In the goal to transform the way we view the Dutch in the Atlantic World and other goals, Mosterman succeeds handily. The most impressive part of the book is its chronological breadth. Mosterman’s concept of ‘Dutch New York’ spans two centuries beyond just the New Netherland colonial period. Her history of New Netherland is confined to the first few chapters only, which was a pleasant surprise. Going beyond just New Netherland allows Mosterman to discuss the continuity of both slavery and ‘Dutchness’ in New York after the English takeover and American independence in an innovative way. Rarely do early American scholars recognize how the legacy of Dutch imperialism continued to shape New York in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Mosterman devotes several of her chapters to this later history, and her recognition that the effects of Dutch imperialism lingered in North America is a significant win for the field, helping to further our understanding of the Dutch legacy in the Atlantic world. A great example of how Mosterman demonstrates these enduring effects of Dutch imperialism is her chapter on the Dutch Reformed Church where Black congregants were discriminated against well into the nineteenth century.

Another fantastic part of this book is that it is based on extensive archival research. Mosterman’s argument sits on a mountain of evidence from a multitude of archives. Her archival research took her from upstate New York to the Netherlands, and even to New Jersey, a bold move that some New Yorkers may not forgive. In any case, the sources themselves range from personal correspondence to church archives and architectural resources. Mosterman gives the impression that no page was left unturned in the many archives she visited. The archival depth in Spaces of Enslavement shows how Mosterman can tell the stories of the enslaved in a thoughtful and thought-provoking manner. In this way, her book tells a relatable and bottom-up history of the enslaved in Dutch New York – their daily lives, their attempts to escape, and their ability to find hope, even in the struggles of bondage – without losing track of the main narrative that slavery in Dutch New York was just as brutal as it was in other places in the Atlantic world. Mosterman’s writing on the daily life of the enslaved becomes especially evident in her research on the houses of Dutch families and the spaces in which their enslaved laborers lived. Mosterman even shares pictures she took herself of the houses that still exist, demonstrating simultaneously the cramped quarters of the enslaved and her dedication to her research by physically visiting the spaces about which she writes.

Spaces of Enslavement also shines in its approach to geography and its placement of Dutch New York in the larger Atlantic. Mosterman does not just see slavery in Dutch New York as a product of the Atlantic world, but she also skillfully compares it to other places in the Atlantic world, such as the Caribbean and South America. For instance, Mosterman recognizes that slavery in New York was very different from the American South, involving little to no plantation labor and often in smaller numbers. Nevertheless, Mosterman demonstrates that the institution of slavery was not somehow more humane in New York than in other places, as has previously been argued. This comparative element of the book only serves to strengthen her analysis of Dutch New York as distinctive from but simultaneously similar to other spaces of enslavement in the Atlantic world.

Mosterman’s Spaces of Enslavement is an exciting monograph that provides great analytical depth and chronological breadth based on solid research in the archives. Mosterman wrote a thought-provoking, well-written, and above all new interpretation of the history of enslavement in Dutch New York that the historiography can no longer do without.