The Republic Of New Netherland

WI the Dutch had been able to hold their American posessions (in particular New Amsterdam) and American colonization and exploration became a predominantly Dutch affair?
 
WI the Dutch had been able to hold their American posessions (in particular New Amsterdam) and American colonization and exploration became a predominantly Dutch affair?

IMO this is actually doable. But it requires New Netherlands being based on tobacco, and not the fur trade. But since you can grow tobacco as far north as Connecticut OTL...
 
Hm, I think you'd need more PODs than just saving New Netherland to make American colonization predominantly Dutch- even without New York, you have the English fairly well established in Virginia and New England.
 
Make the Netherlands and England (or was it taken in the 18th century? I think 17th...) friendly.
New Netherlands going to England was just a side show for the main contest between the two nations. If they were on good terms no one would care about it being nex to the English colonies.
Getting that to happen though is of course as per usual a challenge that dwarves the intended WI.
 
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I don't think the Dutch could have held onto anything,even if they did..the British would eventually take it..because they took everything else.
 
On one hand, the Dutch colonial track record is not that great. Look up the cultivation system and the Dutch management of what would become Indonesia to see what that entails (actually, it all depends on your definition of success: the Dutch are good if that means working colonies for profit. They're bad if that means building workable societies in lands they control.) Also, see the story of their colonial involvement in Taiwan to see where they fell short of the mark there. Where they had colonies that more involved settlement rather than coopting the labor of natives, they weren't that energetic--see the Cape Colony for instance.

Does all this mean it's impossible? No, just that whatever point of departure you use needs to impart some better colonizing skills to them. And the story of the Dutch after William of Orange is rather sad anyway.

For the story of how the Dutch lost New Amsterdam, got it back (I think), and lost it again, look up the Anglo-Dutch wars on wikipedia.

It is a fun topic. On my way to work every morning in lower Manhattan I see the Dutch street names, which make fun fodder for a what-if.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I don't think the Dutch could have held onto anything,even if they did..the British would eventually take it..because they took everything else.

Likely but if they kept the area for a century or just for a few decades more, you would likely see a large area of the East Coast still speaking Dutch (likely both New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania). Even in OTL locale Dutch dialect survived in areas in the former New Netherland to the early 20th century, beside the descendants of the Dutch settlers had enourmous influence on USA history.
 
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