How Dutch Culture Created the Richest Man in America (Vanderbilt)

The Dutch colony of New Netherland left a lasting impact on the United States. When the British took over the colony, its residents didn't leave and its culture wasn't lost. And eventually, this area became part of a new nation. I've talked a bit about this in past videos. Well in this video, I'm going to talk about one specific example as to how. This video is about Cornelius Vanderbilt. From the mid-19th century until his death in 1877, he was the richest man in America. Had he been able to sell all of his assets at market value at the moment of his death, one out of every $20 in circulation would have belonged to Vanderbilt. And through his rail and shipping ventures, he made significant contributions to the changing of America's geography during this period. Vanderbilt had unique traits that allowed him to become so wealthy, including an intense desire for competition. And I don't mean to downplay them. But everyone is a product of both nature and nurture. If we look at the nurture side of we'll see that Dutch culture was a huge part of what made Cornelius Vanderbilt Cornelius Vanderbilt, even though Staten Island, where Cornelius was born, hadn't belonged to the Dutch for 130 years at the time of his birth. These great-great-grandchildren of the Netherlands held tight to the old Dutch customs, decade after decade. As late as 1836, a diarist wrote, referring to the New York area population, it is difficult to turn the Dutch population from their old established ways. I've talked in past videos about how the Dutch influenced all of New Netherland's residents, even though the colony was far from being 100% ethnically Dutch, and how the colony has continued to influence American citizens even into the modern era. However, Dutch influence on Cornelius Vanderbilt was even stronger than the average citizen of the region, because he actually was of Dutch ancestry, and from a lineage that hadn't lost touch with their roots. Cornelius Vanderbilt's great-great-great grandfather, Jan Eertsen Vanderbilt, was a Dutch farmer from the village of De Bilt in Utrecht, Netherlands, which is where the last name Vanderbilt came from. This ancestor immigrated to New Amsterdam as an indentured servant in 1650. Most of the original Dutch settlers in New Netherlands, including Jan Eertsen Vanderbilt, came to farm. They spread out across all sides of the New York Bay and the Hudson River, from Staten Island to Albany. In 1715, long after the English had taken over New Netherlands, one of Jan's descendants crossed from what was once New Amsterdam, but by then New York City, to Staten Island. This is where the vast majority of the succeeding generations of Vanderbilts would call home, unmoved by the major events of the next decades, the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the birth of a new nation. This is where Cornelius Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794, to his father, also named Cornelius Vanderbilt, and his mother, Phoebe Hand. The couple met in Port Richmond, a heavily Dutch village, where she had been working as a servant in the home of a minister, but Phoebe actually came from an old English family in New Jersey. This sort of intermarriage was quite common in the area. The Dutch had fallen to less than half the population of New York as early as 1720. By the time the younger Cornelius Vanderbilt was born, the Dutch were less of a minority and more of an interbred strand among Though Phoebe came from an English family, she may have been more characteristically Dutch than her half-Dutch husband. Like the wife of Dutch tradition, she was extremely independent. See, compared to British custom, Dutch law granted a substantial amount of autonomy to women, and this fact was reflected in the culture of the former colonies. Strong and assertive Dutch wives were commonplace in New York City. Dutch women even conducted business in One 19th century writer declared that Phoebe was not only the family oracle, she was the oracle of the neighborhood, whose advice was sought in all sorts of dilemmas, and whose judgment had weight. Phoebe and her husband were both farmers, but Cornelius the father also owned and operated a boat that ferried cargo between Staten Island and Manhattan. This brings to light another characteristic associated with the Dutch. Unlike most English farms in New York and New England, the Dutch farmed for profit. This difference was clear in the 17th and 18th centuries, but even into the 1800s, many English-speaking people continued to engage in subsistence farming. Phoebe would send her produce, sewing, and whatever else she made to town in her husband's boat. Any profits she made, she would store in her tall grandfather clock. According to tale, her husband once mortgaged the farm to finance a venture which failed. When Phoebe was told of the failure, she went to the clock and came back with the entire amount. Court records show that she occasionally lent money at commercial rates of interest, and once foreclosed on a widow's mortgage, the widow being her own daughter. It appears that Phoebe and her husband were always on the lookout for somewhere they could invest their money, though Phoebe may have been the more successful of the two. Historian and author T.J. Stiles stated in his book The First Tycoon, ambition and inventiveness, practicality and toughness, the mixture of virtues that emerged from the marriage of these two people lifted them out of poverty in which they had begun their lives together. This is the household the young Cornelius Vanderbilt grew up in. A household with a passion for making money, in an already increasingly commercial conscious world, in a region where upper mobility was possible. Attributes first introduced to what would become the United States by the Dutch through the West India Company more than a century before. By age 11, Cornelius was already working for his father, ferrying people and goods back and forth from Staten Island and Manhattan. By 15, Cornelius was ready to start his own business. The teenage Cornelius learned of a peri-yogurt for sale at Port Richmond and agreed to purchase it for $100. Phoebe told her son she would give him the money if he cleared, plowed, and sowed an eight-acre lot that belonged to the family. According to one 19th century biographer, the plot was so hard, rough, and stony that it had never been plowed. And Cornelius had to complete the job by his 16th birthday, on May 27th. They agreed to the terms on May 1st, so he had little time to spare. He recruited his friends to help by promising them a summer of fun at the harbor, filled with fishing, sailing, and excursions to Manhattan. After completion, his mother inspected the plot, then went to her clock and drew out the $100. The 15-year-old Cornelius rushed down to Port Richmond to buy the boat, knowing that he would not use the boat for fun, as he had promised his friends, but for profit. This was the beginning of Cornelius Vanderbilt's transportation empire, and he managed to build it without any debt. This was something Cornelius probably learned from his mother, but again, is a characteristic more common with the Dutch. I've read online that the Dutch are still opposed to personal debt today. Maybe some of my viewers can confirm this for me. One New York diarist in 1786 wrote, The low Dutch are a quiet, frugal people, possess considerable property, and are afraid to run into debt without being fond of law or offices of government. Vanderbilt rarely flaunted his money or his wealth, preferring to reinvest his profits and use it to win in business, and because of this, he was never fully accepted by the wealthy class. Again, I can't speak from first-hand experience, but this also appears to be a common trait amongst the Dutch today. However, many of his descendants did not have the same preferences when it came to how they spent money. Since its founding, a common characteristic among New Yorkers, and one that Vanderbilt also surely possessed, is directness. This again was likely inherited from the Dutch. Many actually consider this directness to be rude, but at least one New York visitor of Vanderbilt's time apparently found the directness refreshing. The people of Philadelphia are stiff in their manners, and not so hospitable as those of New York. It's reasonable to believe all of these cultural characteristics, directness, market orientation, an aversion to debt, and a preference for business over material goods, which were likely to have been picked up from Cornelius's parents, both of whom were themselves products of the remnants of New Netherland, allowed Cornelius Vanderbilt to become so wealthy. It's unsurprising that America's first tycoon would come from this region. It's been nearly 150 years since Vanderbilt's death, and though his son, William Henry Vanderbilt, actually increased the wealth his father had built, it quickly depleted with the following generations. Today, the Vanderbilt fortune is pretty much gone, though there are still some tangible remaining products of it, such as Vanderbilt University, which was named in his honor because he provided the funds to start it, Grand Central Terminal, the successor to Vanderbilt's Grand Central Depot, and dozens of homes built by his descendants. The largest of these homes is the Biltmore Estate. Located in western North Carolina, this mansion was built by Cornelius Vanderbilt's grandson, George Washington Vanderbilt II, and is the largest private home in the United States. And in the gardens of the Biltmore Estate lies a symbol of the family's Dutch roots, over 50,000 tulips. Before I end this video, big thanks to raremaps.com. Most of the maps of New York Harbor in this video were made available by them. You can actually purchase many of the maps in this video on their website. These are authentic antique maps, not reprints. Also, if you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend a book brought up earlier in the video called The First Tycoon by T.J. Stiles. A lot of the information in this video came from it. I'll leave links to both in the description below. If you enjoyed this video, please hit the like button and subscribe for more geography videos. Thank you for watching.