Flatlands, Flatbush, and Gravesend settlements began in 1600 under the Dutch supervision. They all now make Southern Brooklyn, which is now highly controlled unlike before. From their inception, each settlement had a characteristic social pattern that prompted its eventual design and development. New York City’s expansion has withered most of the initial social patterns. The offcuts from the settlements serve as a reminder of the initial existence and proves that different settlement backgrounds could subsist in a markedly small region. The existence of the three towns reinforced the ultimate settlement of population in Manhattan.
It is important to note that the initial settlements in New York were haphazard. Most took on the prevailing topography and linked rural roads. The Dutch were not keen to import their cohesive settlement designs; they chose to live with the natives and in isolation from each other. Therefore, the progress of southern Brooklyn was slow. Flatbush and Flatlands were renamed afresh in 1167 when the Netherlands handed its colony to the British. Most of the settlers relied on agriculture as their economic mainstay; their farms were the most fertile and they supplied Manhattan with fresh cereals, fruits, and vegetables. The subsequent settler generations spoke Dutch even after English became the official language. The growth of towns in southern Brooklyn was largely attributable to the slave trade. The slaves provided labor to the farms and households. In Flatbush alone, it was estimated that in 1738, 58% of the population had slaves while 24% were slaves. Restrictions and fear of slaves grew until the abolishment in 1827.
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Flatlands was the earliest Dutch settlement of the New Netherland colony. It began in the 1630s, and Dutch West India Company controlled it. The company chose the area because of its productive land, accessibility, and trading linkages. The initial site was between the current Flatbush Avenue and Kings Highway. Homes were dispersed and lined up along the waterways.
Flatbush was different from Flatlands because it had a central formation. Peter Stuyvesant, an autocrat, sent from Netherlands to enforce order in the colony, is renowned to have organized the settlement for defense and security. In 1656, Stuyvesant implemented a new town plan, which displaced farmers from their lands and brought them into a central place. The farms were redistributed to from the backyards of their houses, which were in a line. Stuyvesant ensured that Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church was centrally located in the settlement to give it predominance and allocated it land for income generation. Erasmus Hall High School was the first school, and it remains an architectural masterpiece while the original church was flattened and rebuilt.
Gravesend was unlike the other southern towns. A huge percentage of the inhabitants were religious English settlers, Anabaptists, a sect that did not subscribe to infant baptism. It was established back when Brooklyn was a Dutch colony. A woman, Deborah Moody, established and planned it. The founder primarily wanted it to be an organized, distinct webbed town on the East Coast. It had centrally located compact homes that were detached from the farms. The town had four blocks occupied by 39 settlers who were allocated the surrounding lands.
New Amsterdam was a Dutch Settlement in the present-day New York. Established during the 17 th Century, it was under the leadership of Crijn Fredericksz with authorization from the Dutch West India Company. The English overran the city in 1664 and renamed it New York. Before the invasion, the city adopted the Castello plan, an elaborate design of the streets. The present day Wall Street had a wall that the Dutch had built as a fortress to dispel attacks from the Natives and English. The lower streets of Manhattan followed the terrain to facilitate defense and trade while the rest had a formal plan. Much of New York street plans have not changed much over the last 350 years.
