Cover not available
Part of
Introducing New Hypertexts on Interpreting (Studies): A tribute to Franz Pöchhacker
Edited by Cornelia Zwischenberger, Karin Reithofer and Sylvi Rennert
[Benjamins Translation Library 160] 2023
► pp. 126–146

Women as interpreters in colonial New Netherland

A microhistorical study of Sara Kierstede

| University of Vienna , Austria
| University of Vienna , Austria
This contribution presents a case study of Sara Kierstede (aka Roelof, Van Borsum, Stouthoff), a Dutch-speaking New Netherland settler and 17th-century interpreter who was proficient in Dutch and Native American languages and served as interpreter in a male-dominated colonial environment in settings that today would be labeled as public service interpreting (PSI) or, in some instances, diplomatic interpreting. Following a microhistorical approach, rooted in Translator Studies, we discuss the agency and positioning of Kierstede as one of the few female interpreters in a multilingual colonial contact zone. We use different historical and secondary sources and reinterpret them from a translatological perspective to explore Kierstede’s interactions and relations with other stakeholders as linguistic go-between and official provincial interpreter in Dutch colonial encounters and her role as an influential woman and cultural mediator in the self-contained network of relationships that characterised Dutch colonial society in New Amsterdam.
Keywords: translation history, colonial interpreting, Dutch colonial history, microhistory, translator biography, female agency, Sara Kierstede
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Colonial interpreting
  • Microhistory and translator biographies
  • Sara Kierstede
    • Sara Kierstede’s language biography
    • Sara Kierstede’s social network and status
    • Sara Kierstede’s agency and recognition as an interpreter
    • Sara Kierstede’s role as “health knowledge broker”
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.160.07kol
References (75)
References
Adamo, Sergia. 2006. “Microhistory of Translation.” In Charting the Future of Translation History, ed. by Georges L. Bastin, and Paul F. Bandia, 81–100. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Agrifoglio, Marjorie. 2004. “Au-delà de la médiation linguistique. Le rôle de l’interprète dans les négociations des traités conclus avec les Autochtones du Canada (1850–1923).” TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction 17 (2): 143–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005. “Una mirada al pasado: aportes de la historia al estudio de la interpretación.” Meta 50 (4). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alonso Araguás, Icíar. 2005. “Intérpretes de Indias. La mediación lingüística y cultural en los viajes de exploración y conquista: Antillas, Caribe y Golfo de México (1492–1540).” PhD diss., Universidad de Salamanca.
Baigorri-Jalón, Jesús. 2015. “History.” In Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker, 183–186. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Buccini, Anthony F. 2000. “Swannekens Ende Wilden: Linguistic Attitudes and Communication Strategies among the Dutch and Indians in New Netherland.” In The Low Countries and the New World(s), ed. by Anneke Prins, Bettina Brandt, Timothy Stevens, and Thomas F. Shannon, 11–28. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew. 2009. “The Name and Nature of Translator Studies.” HERMES – Journal of Language and Communication in Business 42: 13–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delisle, Jean. 1977. “Les pionniers de l’interprétation au Canada.” Meta 22 (1): 5–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015. “Canada.” In Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker, 40–45. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2019. Interprètes au pays du castor. Laval: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eberharter, Markus. 2021. “Translator Biographies as a Contribution to Translator Studies. Case Studies from Nineteenth-Century Galicia.” In Literary Translator Studies, ed. by Klaus Kaindl, Waltraud Kolb, and Daniela Schlager, 74–88. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evjen, John Oluv. 1916. Scandinavian Immigrants in New York, 1630–1674. Minneapolis: K.C. Holter.Google Scholar
Fausz, Frederick J. 1987. “Middlemen in Peace and War: Virginia’s Earliest Indian Interpreters, 1608–1632.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 95 (1): 41–64.Google Scholar
Feister, Lois M. 1973. “Linguistic Communication between the Dutch and Indians in New Netherland.” Ethnohistory 20 (1): 25–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernández-Ocampo, Anxo, and Michaela Wolf (eds). 2014. Framing the Interpreter. Towards a Visual Perspective. London/New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernow, Berthold (ed). 1897. The Records of New Amsterdam from 1653 to 1674 Anno Domini. Vol. 4. Translated by Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan. New York: Knickerbocker Press.Google Scholar
(ed). 1907. Minutes of the Orphanmasters Court of New Amsterdam 1655–1663. Vol. 2. Translated by Berthold Fernow. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Frijhoff, Willem. 2007. Fulfilling God’s Mission. The Two Worlds of Dominie Everardus Bogardus, 1607–1647. Translated by Myra Heerspink Scholz. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “Emblematic Myths: Anneke’s Fortune, Bogardus’s Farewell and Kieft’s Son.” In Myth in History, History in Myth, ed. by Laura Cruz, and Willem Frijhoff, 117–146. New York: Brill.Google Scholar
. 2014. “Jans, Anneke (1604/1605–1663).” In Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]
. 2017. “Multilingualism in the Dutch Golden Age. An Exploration.” In Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe 16th–19th Centuries, ed. by Willem Frijhoff, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène Sanchez-Summerer, 95–168. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frohne, Andrea E. 2015. The African Burial Ground in New York City: Memory, Spirituality, and Space. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Carlo. 1976/1980. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
. 1993. “Microhistory: Two or Three Things that I Know About It.” Critical Inquiry 20 (1): 10–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grossman, Joel W. 2011. “Archaeological Indices of Environmental Change and Colonial Ethnobotany in 17th Century Dutch New Amsterdam.” In Environmental History of the Hudson River: Human Uses that Changed the Ecology, Ecology that Changes the Human Uses, ed. by Robert E. Henshaw, 77–122. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Grumet, Robert Steven. 1980. “Sunksquaws, Shamans, and Tradeswomen: Middle Atlantic Coastal Algonkian Women during the 17th and 18th Centuries.” In Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. by Mona Etienne, and Eleanor Leacock, 43–62. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Hagedorn, Nancy L. 1988. “‘A Friend to Go between Them’: The Interpreter as Cultural Broker during Anglo-Iroquois Councils, 1740–70.” Ethnohistory 35 (1): 60–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995. “Brokers of Understanding: Interpreters as Agents of Cultural Exchange in Colonial New York.” New York History 76: 379–408.Google Scholar
Heijns, Audrey. 2019. “Interpreting Practices in a Colonial Context. Interpreters of Chinese in the Dutch East Indies.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 14 (3): 372–391. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hondius, Dinke, Nancy Jouwe, Dineke Stam, and Jennifer Tosch. 2017. Dutch New York Histories. Connecting African, Native American and Slavery Heritage. Volendam: LM Publishers.Google Scholar
Janowitz, Meta F. 2013. “Sara Roelofse, Matron of New Amsterdam.” In Tales of Gotham, Historical Archaeology, Ethnohistory and Microhistory of New York City, ed. by Meta F. Janowitz, and Diane Dallal, 65–88. New York et al.: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karttunen, Frances. 2015a. „Malinche.“ In Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker, 242–244. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2015b. “Sacajawea.” In Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker, 365–367. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kawashima, Yasuhide. 1989. “Forest Diplomats: The Role of Interpreters in Indian-White Relations on the Early American Frontier.” American Indian Quarterly 13 (1): 1–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kolb, Waltraud, and Franz Pöchhacker. 2008. “Interpreting in Asylum Appeal Hearings: Roles and Norms Revisited.” In Interpreting in Legal Settings, ed. by Sandra Hale, and Debra Russell, 26–50. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Langford, Rachael. 2014. “Framing and Masking: Photographing the Interpreter in/of Colonial Conflict.” In Framing the Interpreter. Towards a Visual Perspective, ed. by Anxo Fernández-Ocampo, and Michaela Wolf, 39–50. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lawrance, Benjamin L., Emily Lynn Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts (eds). 2006. Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks. African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Levi, Giovanni. 1991. “On Microhistory.” In New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. by Peter Burke, 93–113. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Magnússon, Sigurður Gylfi. n.d. “What Is Microhistory?” History News Network. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]. DOI logo
Magnússon, Sigurður Gylfi, and István M. Szijártó. 2013. What Is Microhistory? Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Makarska, Renata. 2014. “Die Rückkehr des Übersetzers. Zum Nutzen einer Übersetzerbiographie.” In Übersetzer als Entdecker. Ihr Leben und Werk als Gegenstand translationswissenschaftlicher und literaturgeschichtlicher Forschung, ed. by Andreas Kelletat, and Aleksey Tashinskiy, 51–61. Berlin: Frank & Timme.Google Scholar
Meuwese, Marcus P. 2003. “‘For the Peace and Well-being of the Country’: Intercultural Mediators and Dutch-Indian Relations in New Netherland and Dutch Brazil, 1600–1664.” PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
Montoya, Maria, Laura A. Belmonte, Carl J. Guarneri, Steven Hackel, and Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor. 2018. Global Americans: A History of the United States. Boston et al.: Cengage Learning.Google Scholar
Munday, Jeremy. 2014. “Using Primary Sources to Produce a Microhistory of Translation and Translators: Theoretical and Methodological Concerns.” The Translator 20 (1): 64–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nelson, William (ed). 1899. Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey, XXI, Calendar of Records in the Office of the Secretary of State, 1664–1703. Paterson, NJ: The Press and Publishing Company.Google Scholar
New Netherland Council. n.d. New Netherland Council Dutch Colonial Council Minutes. New York State Archives. Digital Collection. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]
New Netherland Institute. n.d. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]
New-York Historical Society. n.d. “Translating for the Dutch and Lenni-Lenape.” Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]
New York Probate Records. 1629–1971. Film Nr. 005512800. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]
O’Callaghan, Edmund Bailey (ed). 1865. The Register of New Netherland: 1626 to 1674. Albany, NY: J. Munsell.Google Scholar
(ed). 1881. Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New-York; Procured in Holland, England, and France. Vol. 13. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons and Co.Google Scholar
(ed). 1883. Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New-York; Procured in Holland, England, and France. Vol. 14. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons and Co.Google Scholar
Pöchhacker, Franz. 2000. Dolmetschen. Konzeptuelle Grundlagen und deskriptive Untersuchungen. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
. 2006. “‘Going Social?’ On Pathways and Paradigms in Interpreting Studies.” In Sociocultural Aspects of Translating and Interpreting, ed. by Anthony Pym, Miriam Shlesinger, and Zuzana Jettmarová, 215–232. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015. “Evolution of Interpreting Research.” In The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, ed. by Holly Mikkelson, and Renée Jourdenais, 62–76. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2016. Introducing Interpreting Studies. 2nd edition. London/New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pym, Anthony. 2009. “Humanizing Translation History.“ HERMES – Journal of Language and Communication in Business 42: 23–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. “Trust-based Translation History. Guideline Questions and an Illustration.” Chronotopos 2 (1&2): 146–160.Google Scholar
Richter, Julia. 2020. Translationshistoriographie. Perspektiven & Methoden. Wien: New Academic Press.Google Scholar
Riker, David M. 1983. “Surgeon Hans Kierstede of New Amsterdam.” De Halve Maen 57 (3): 11–13, 24.Google Scholar
Risseeuw, Pieter Johannes. 1958. Anneke Jans. Een roman uit de jaren toen New York nog Nieuw Amsterdam was. Kampen: Kok.Google Scholar
Romney, Susanah Shaw. 2014. New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Santoyo Mediavilla, Julio-César. 2006. “Blank Spaces in the History of Translation.” In Charting the Future of Translation History, ed. by Georges L. Bastin, and Paul F. Bandia, 11–43. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shorto, Russell. 2005. The Island in the Center of the World. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Sinner, Carsten. 2020. “Oral History in Translation and Interpreting Studies.” Chronotopos 2 (1&2): 63–144.Google Scholar
Stokes, Isaac Newton Phelps. 1922. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909. Vol. 4. New York: Dodd.Google Scholar
Van Borsum Patent. n.d. Patent of Cornelis, husband of Sara van Borsum, for her services as Indian interpreter, a lot on Manhattan Island. New York State Archives. Digital Collection. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]
Van Groesen, Michiel. 2014. “Roelofs, Sara (1627–1693).” In Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]
Van Laer, Arnold J. F. 1974. New York Historical Manuscripts. Translated and annotated by Arnold J. F. van Laer, vol. 2 (“Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1642–1647”). Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing.Google Scholar
Van Rensselaer, Mrs. John King. 1898. The goede vrouw of Mana-ha-ta at home and in society, 1609–1760. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Vaughan, Alden T. 2002. “Sir Walter Ralegh’s Indian Interpreters, 1584–1618.” The William and Mary Quarterly 59 (2): 341–376. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Venema, Janny. 2003. Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652–1664. Hilversum: Verloren and Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Voorhees, David William. 2001. “First Families.” Seaport 36 (1): 14–19.Google Scholar
Wakabayashi, Judy. 2018. “Microhistory.” In A History of Modern Translation Knowledge, ed. by Lieven D’Hulst, and Yves Gambier, 251–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Women History Blog. n.d. “Blandina Kiersted Bayard.” History of American Women. Colonial Women. Accessed December 6, 2022. [URL]