author
Isaack de Rasieres
b. 1595
A Dutch colonial official and merchant, he left behind one of the liveliest early descriptions of New Netherland and Plymouth Colony. His surviving letters offer a rare outsider’s view of North America in the 1620s.
1 Audiobook
Three Visitors to Early Plymouth Letters about the Pilgrim settlement in New England during its first seven years
by Emmanuel Altham, John Pory, Isaack de Rasieres
About the author
Born in Middelburg in 1595, Isaack de Rasieres worked for the Dutch West India Company and sailed to New Netherland in 1626. He served as secretary in the young colony at Manhattan and was closely involved in its early trading and administration.
He is best remembered for the detailed letter he wrote to Samuel Blommaert about New Netherland and a visit to Plymouth. That account has become an important historical source because it describes daily life, trade, settlement, and relations among Dutch and English colonists in the late 1620s.
Some parts of his later life are less certain, but his writings remain valuable because they preserve a direct, observant picture of a formative moment in colonial American history.