>> the famous discoverer of this area for the dutch was of course looking for the northwest passage for the east india company to find a way to get to asia said the hudson which went pretty for but didn't go all the way to the pacific then discovered people had very nice for. other merchants in amsterdam or interest in the fur missile the call when he began as basically a fur trading post and then with a small base of farmers as part of what became the dutch west india company's empire in the atlantic ocean and it's an empire that included a couple small islands in the caribbean for a little while included big parts of brazil and some posts

and africa as well as the base in north america. >> so a commercial reason for coming over. >> was a commercial reason, yes. but was tied up in the broad goals of the dutch imperialism which at times to attacked and take territory away from the spanish empire and then the portuguese as well. peter stuyvesant himself, the famous governor new medellin began his career fighting for the dutch in brazil and then he went to the caribbean dutch island and only then did he come up. so his career shows the connections between all these places even though none of the land wasn't on the frontier it was a part of this imperial effort. >> was he a religious man?

did he care about religion? >> many people involved in pretty much everybody at the half year level many people for the autumn cavari much about religion. even though it was a trading company, and then it would have this military objective the dutch were still fighting for independence from the spanish, the spanish was an empire and have a claim to sovereignty over the dutch but it was a famous roman catholic power many of the dutch were protestant and all the major funders of the dutch west india company were established for calvinist seemed pretty strict, and he was certainly part of that. >> so where is the religious liberty part of this? what he are we missing here?

>> i undertook the study because i was a graduate student. i wanted to get out of the story of american religious diversity. it struck me as a student and something very interesting and important about america that we have so many different religions and yet we have never had one single official state religion like you have in england or france or spain, and it seemed there was an aspect of the fact is what makes american society very different from the european society where you did have those established churches. in the case of american religious freedom one of the origin point people refer to prove this toleration comes from is the dutch colony of the new netherlands, not stuyvesant himself, but other people in the colony, the directors, the dutch

system which even though it had an official church, it never forced people to conform to a certain religion in the way that the english church for example debt which is what caused the puritans to go to new england. so it by looking at what the dutch did come and this is what i've been led to believe by such scholarship that existed, i would see the beginning of a distinctly american way of handling religious diversity, more tolerant, loose easy-going attitude, and i didn't find anything like that at all. i found little connection between what the dutch did and what colonial americans and u.s. americans do afterwards. so it's slightly misleading title perhaps and that is the

answer post is that there is very little connection between dutch tolerance and american religious liberty. >> when it comes to the dutch, did they write rules about religion? >> yes, and the fundamental part of the dutch constitution, the union that sort of brought the different dutch provinces together and was basically their constitution until the 17 nineties as long as the dutch republic existed provided for liberty of conscience and for data that coercion of religious belief, so right from the beginning you couldn't do in the dutch republic what was considered normal and all the other kingdoms of europe which is to force people to conform to the national church which was of course in that country considered the true correct form

of religion. the dutch rejected that from the very beginning. however, they did also have an official church recall that the public church. and this i learned was the key to understanding what was distinctive about the dutch because they did not force everybody to be long to the official religion of the state which was the dutch reformed church. however, and the dutch society there's a difference between what the dutch allow you to see in public versus what is possible in private. and in public there was only one church that could be visible and only one church could be associated with of the state's with the higher levels of office with all sorts of privileges even though it was subordinate to the state of was only the one church the dutch reformed church was the public church so even

though they couldn't force people to be dutch reformed, if he wanted to get ahead in society the chances are you might join this church. >> how was new netherland viewed by the rest of the colonies or the rest of the current at that time united states? >> what's interesting is the netherlands what i found in the end is very significant about the new netherland for american history is that it was a slightly different story that sits in between the famous new england story of the puritans and the southern story of virginia and maryland and the chesapeake colonies, and in all of those places with the important that i'm very minor exception you had a belief in a

single church and enforcement of a single religion. maryland was a bit of an exception also because it had a catholic ruling class over a largely protestant group, but the majority within virginia, within new england be launched to one single church and people who would not or could not fit in with that system would have to flee and some would go to maryland. a few went to roel island, but a number of people from new england can to netherland where they found a much more congenial and much more prosperous place to be then ryland. >> professor would you teaching at columbia? >> i teach courses on colonial american history, the revolution, native american history also jury important for the early american experience and the american experience as a

whole. also american religious history. >> how do you research 300-year-old religious history? >> with this book where did you start? >> welcome you start with research other people have done, very reliant on scholarships that have come before us and that provides a useful guide. in the end you just go back to the original sources and in the case of new netherland we are lucky in that various organization called the new netherland institute which has for several decades now collected and transcribe an organized many of the crucial sources relevant to the new netherland history. for my book what was important is getting out of the dutch context of the new netherland story, i had to go back to the

netherlands and archives in amsterdam which has also religious archives relevant to the hague which is the official archives, and then also old books and other scraps of evidence and bits of documents and then in england archive. on the one hand it's not like modern u.s. history. you don't have now is of sources to go through. but all the other hand you have to find things and piece together bits of evidence from small scraps of paper which i find challenging and rewarding. >> what is the take a leave people read this book what you want them to remember and learn? >> clich esters two things if i

may. first is that there is the dutch contribution. i'm not trying to disown that but it's somewhat more indirect than what we are used to thinking of. it's very significant that the dutch were here and they were doing what they were doing and that because they didn't force conformity, you could have people like some quakers and baptists and even choose would become important later on in new york history living here. they didn't chase them out or force them to cover. at the same time, they did not allow them to express their religion in any publicly visible way. and that's the other thing that i would like people to appreciate is just how the system worked and what was different from the english system and that half of the dutch retained control of this

area we would have had some religious diversity but new amsterdam would probably have dewolf into something quite like amsterdam. instead, it would have been a much more calvinist reformed protestant part of the world that would have fit in much more of greater new england than the very distinct diverse new york that we now have come and that is actually the real take away and an unsolicited plug for my second book which is religious toleration after the new york takeover from the dutch which i realized in my research is not the dutch period but the english takeover is the crucial part of the story. and with the english do when they take over the dutch colony and how they manage religious diversity and how that is different from the dutch. but the important role was that

they were here and they were here for most of the 17th century so that the english people that take over new york are a very different sort of thing push -- coming from a very different religious social political environment and the people that settled in new england or in virginia and that really makes a difference in the history of new york and the middle colonies, the mid-atlantic, and without that, new jersey, new york, pennsylvania, delaware, all of that would have been impossible. we would have something that looked like the greater connecticut or virginia. so the fact that the dutch were here made the difference. >> we've been talking withlñ columbia university professor evin haefeli new netherland and the dutch origin of american religious liberty. this is book tv on c-span2 at columbia university.

>> booktv of c-span2 we want to introduce you to two independent bookstore owners. medish kaplan is the owner of books and books in the walls florida and some other locations and is also the founder of the miami book fair international which booktv covers every year and we also want to introduce you to betsy. she runs a bookstore called the king's english in salt lake city utah. welcome to book tv. >> thank you very much. >> what is it like in 2012 to be an independent bookstore owner? what are the main challenges? >> it's exciting finding the place in the market has been tricky. we are fully aware that we need to be in that market and we are doing everything we can but

still more shells are a quite a bit and they're selling very well and dedicated readers are buying them all the time. >> when it comes to the ebook cow have the e books affected? did you see a drop-off when they first came in? >> they have a web site and tell both books and e-books. over time it might generate more still than the monopoly on one has created. but really, the books are selling very much indeed. >> do you have a regular

customer base? who comes to your story? >> we have always had a regular customer base. a kind of literary we love the fiction. so we have always had this loyal customer but the last year starting in the 90's we have been trying to educate people by the value and we've got a real community support across the city in that campaign and it's happening all over the country. i think it is a strong national movement now to the local community. >> tell us briefly where it's located and how big it is etc. >> they had more shelf space for the neighborhood come a walkable neighborhood, the great restaurants around us come and really our impetus right now is our neighborhood business

district so we fit into the sort of model coming and we just have a very loyal following that maybe we wouldn't have so we felt very good about our location. 35-years-old, so 45 years ago this september. i just feel like we couldn't have been more wonderful location and i couldn't have had a more wonderful career than the one i had. >> we have stories listed, but i think they are wonderful but there isn't just one americas charming you go from room to room and there is a bookseller to put that aside and be a browser which is what i love to

do but carrying on your conversation i think the other reason why people are beginning to understand why independence matters is because so many have been in the community for so long part of the mission of the independent bookstore is to get back to the community when we if authors come to the store they go to the schools and a bookstore can get involved in doing something and it takes generations and the community in general and that goes beyond the commerce support of the job is to get the customers to understand value isn't always measured by the dollars you save the heuvel you can be measured in other ways. if you support an independent

bookshop and maybe you're not getting it at a 50% discount online you are getting other things for that 50%. you're getting the authors to come in. you're getting this case is you can come and spend your time, so i think the message is beginning to get through with of the demise of borders. there was a wake-up call for a lot of people who read and said look if a big chain like that can go under the in my neighborhood bookstore might go under as well. >> what about with the publishers? do they treat independent bookstores the same as they would wal-mart, kosko, barnes and noble? >> they treated differently but the publishers of late are beginning to understand how important we are.

in a way we are the marketing arm of the internet because we are good at marketing. we collectively across the country and all of our communities have such incredible puerto rico for the books we love what we create the buzz. a new book comes that nobody has heard of. i think we are in a kind of -- people that create the buzz when the sales go elsewhere but they continue to give up the sales that we deserved. >> this isn't something all of us should for gup to either. odierno been involved in and have made a distinct plan to link a lot of us independent

bookstores to get this to the customers can understand when you look in an independent store and see the collections for the india downed bestsellers' list the come from people that are very careful readers, people who are very much involved in the process of hand selling books as well. >> you also gone into the publishing world yourself haven't you? >> i did. in miami we published two books. one was called -- -- of the very dark unusual christmas story and you will be able to get it again this coming christmas. the other is a marvelous limited edition of the wonderful book about henry flagler and the burning of the real way to keen west called lost tree to paradise. >> do you have more books you want to publish?

>> i'm trying in to figure out that model and i have things i've been talking to people there may be some coming in the future. >> have you enter that world? >> enter it by writing the books but not publishing. one of the things i love about mitchell is he is all over the place doing everything looking at every angle to try to find places and do things that make us stand out. a very creative. >> do think there's a difference between selling books and self florida and salt lake city with the kind of books to sell? >> good literary books tend to be similar in many ways but the of the best art collection, photography collection probably in the country. we don't have that kind of clientele to support that kind of affection. but we have an extraordinary children's section because we are a very family-oriented.

but that said we are an interesting city because we have the kind of life have the population is mormon and half is not a mormon. we try to bridge the gap between the two but it's still kind of a live in cities in some ways and that makes selling -- >> it does make a difference, the mormon population in utah? >> absolutely. >> there was a good on mitt romney i think of the "boston globe" put out the real mitt romney. is that if you carry? >> yes. >> did it sell? >> when i say we are the ruben city, although a lot of the obvious people shot at our store politically we are probably a little more liberal than that. so it's sort of puts itself up. we body in terms of customer expectations what we know they are going to buy dubious dewitt

sort of sports our inventory. we've really carried our inventory. we know what we are going to sell, we know who our customers are and by accordingly. >> miami is a world unto itself. it's a very different place. what we saw there might not sell in many other cities. we have taken -- we have a particular sensibility when you walk into our stores. miami is so diverse in so many ways that we do carry probably a wider selection of, you know, all different kinds all across the spectrum of every sort and maybe a little less targeted. all of that is something that is unique. miami is a city that is interested in design.

the we've looks in latin america is also interesting so we find ourselves in those kind of books as well as literary and everything else. >> mengin de you see more buckson bookstores being open in the future? >> it's kind of interesting. we have three stores leone in the south florida area but then we created these partnerships there are other locations we have stores which we don't own that we are helping facilitate independent locally owned, so the cayman islands, the airport and then a story in new zealand but we are naturally looking to is a community, there's key west believe it or not, we were looking at an opening there and it may be like we have in these

other places that don't have independent stores right now. >> de you see that potential and first of all, how is business? are you staying on the open. could you see expansion? >> i do a lot of radio who refuse and so i can take it online. we reach out in ways that are not physical. it's a pbs kiddie a station that reaches out on satellite across the country so once they get up and running i could see that being a way of expanding. i also feel absolutely solid in our community. this year's 11, 12% and that is against the argument of the economy. as i said it's sitting bigger all the time. so i believe we are solid.

they are the ones the internet is affecting the most by what's happening. >> how much business is done on the web site books? do people come to the website to purchase the ebook? >> absolutely the ebook sandbox both. >> we are selling some online. it's growing naturally. but i think that what she is saying is true is we've had to take stock of we are, what direction we are going and try to find our own special needs that are comfortable for what we do. book publishing. i started a company called buchtel company. we are trying to do what we can

like she has a radio program, we try to do what we can but it's all book based about the story, about the narrative and i think that is when you find those of us that have had 35 years our store having its 35th anniversary this year. we wouldn't do it unless we were passion that. there are easier less stressful ways to earn a living. [laughter] than the independent bookselling world. >> will either of you be stalking inning of the upcoming amazon published titles? >> we probably will but we are small we don't have to take everything. >> actually what we are doing is the customers are asking for them for. we want people to find them other places and a bronze and

noble might not carry any of them either. >> leche cap gun owners of books and books store. what are you currently reading? >> i just finished a marvelous book called heading out to a wonderful and it's a marvelous book in west virginia that takes decouple bush's next week and then there's a marvelous book right on my desk by deborah dean who was the author gulf [inaudible] and she has her book coming out. there is a very rich list coming out this summer. >> in question bookstore in salt lake what are you reading on your summer reading list? >> of the one i mentioned coming out in august is a wonderful model and