Shipwreck and Salvation - The Wreck of The Prince Maurice 1657

The New Amsterdam History Center special presentation:
On the night of March 13, 1657, as a Nor’easter raged, a Dutch ship, The Prince Maurice, slammed into the coast of Fire Island. Aboard were 129 souls – passengers, crew and Dutch West India Company soldiers.  Ashore were Indigenous people on their coastal night watch, listening to the ship crash against the shoal. 

Until now the story of this dramatic Long Island shipwreck and rescue has been known only to a handful of historians. But the rescue on an ice laden beach has been part of Indigenous oral history for 400 years.

Now, thanks to a generous grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, the New Amsterdam History Center’s groundbreaking Mapping Early New York has merged these written and oral histories of Long Island. Combining old fashioned research and new technology including AI, a new window on history has opened wide for children, their parents, historians, map nerds, and computer gamers.

Presenters
Toya Dubin, Mapping Early NY Project Director

Drew Shuptar-Rayvis, Algonkian Historical Consultant