Sinterklass und Zwarte Piete, Netherlands and New Amsterdam

My main character, Benjamin Waite, and his friend Stephen Jennings, traveled hundreds of miles on their quest to find their captured wives and children and ransom them back from their Algonquian captors.

As they must travel through the colony of New York, only recently taken by the British from the Netherlands, they spend several nights in Albany.

The following scene didn’t “make the cut” into the novel, as it doesn’t advance the plot or the characters’ development or heighten the tension, and scenes should do at least one of those.

But it’s a lot of fun and based on a lot of research, so here it is for you, and may you have a wonderful Christmas or Hanukkah and a Happy New Year!

CUT SCENE FROM HATFIELD 1677

By Laura C. Rader 2023

December 5 and 6, 1677

Albany

The never-ending snowstorm extended its stay, so we extended ours through Sinterklaas. As Hendrick had said, his two younger sisters were full of excitement, and two of his older sisters were expected to visit that evening with their husbands and children. 

 We were the only boarders at the inn, and I realized we were becoming part of the family when Dorothy Douw handed us a list of items, took three guilders from her purse, and bade us go to the bakers for Sinterklaas sweets. The baker had a long Dutch name ending in Van Den Uythoff. His store was crowded with other customers, but we inhaled the scents of ginger, anise, and cinnamon while we waited in line. Glancing at the list Vrouw Dorothy had given us, we were to purchase pepernoten koekjes, banketletter pastries shaped like alphabet letters, and speculaas koekjes. 

We reached the front of the line, and I handed the baker my list. He carefully packed each of the letter-shaped pastries into individual boxes and wrapped the pepernoten koekjes and the windmill-shaped speculaas into another big box lined with waxed paper. We thanked the baker and went on our way back to the tavern. 

“I wonder if there’s a pastry with an “S” or a “J” in there for me?”  Stephen asked, laughing.

“I didn’t see which letters he packed. I hear only nice boys and girls get gifts from Sinterklaas,” I replied, laughing.  Stephen shrugged. 

Six pairs of wooden shoes were lined up carefully by the front stoop of the Douw home, two pairs of larger klompen, and four little ones. The softening snowfall was all that filled them for now. We entered to the sounds of small children playing and handed our precious parcels to Vrouw Dorothy.

“Bedankt, Mister Waite, kom und meet my family,” she said, placing the boxes in a tall cupboard and closing the doors.

She introduced us to her two older daughters, Anna and Greetje, their husbands, Hans and Jonas, and four golden-haired children. The younger girls Enjeltje and Elsje, 18-year-old Catrina, 14-year-old Hendrick, and our host, Heer Douw, filled the keeping room with love and laughter. Two pots bubbled on the fire, and Catrina tended a frying pan. 

“What are we having for dinner?” Stephen asked.

Vrouw Dorothy smiled.

“Today is for the children, so what they like; Snert, Hachee, and pancakes.”

Stephen smiled but looked puzzled, so Hendrick laughed and explained.

“Snert is pea soup with carrots and sausages. Hachee is a stew. Mam makes it with duck, pumpkin, cloves, and laurel leaves. Pancakes— you know what those are?”  he asked.

“Yes, pancakes, I know!  Thank you!” Stephen said.

Out on the street came the ringing of bells, and the children jumped up and ran to the front windows. Heer Douw opened the upper half of the door, and Enjeltje and Elsje pressed against the bottom half, while mothers and fathers held their little ones up to look. Stephen and I took our place at the window.

Through the snowfall came a man on a white horse. He wore a tall bishop’s hat and a red cape and held a gold staff in one hand. Beside him walked a figure that appeared to be a chimney sweep, dressed in black and carrying a switch and a big sack.

“Het is Sinterklaas!”  “Sinterklaas en Zwarte Piet!”  the children screamed.

I smiled. It was hard not to catch the wee ones’ excitement. This was surely both a papist and a pagan custom, but at that moment, I didn’t care. At that moment, I only felt love for childhood, for that brief time of wonder and innocence. At that moment, I deeply missed my girls.

“My Mama was Catholic. Before she married. She told us of Christmas and Saint Nicholas,” Stephen said. There was a wistfulness in his voice. 

Sinterklaas waved his staff and nodded at those standing on stoops and in doorways, while Zwarte Piet rattled his chains and feinted with his switch. As they approached, Zwarte Piet crept quickly up to the doors and filled the waiting wooden shoes with treats from his sack. 

“Who are they, really?”  I whispered to Hendrick.

“This year, our miller is Sinterklaas, and the blacksmith Zwarte Piet. The horse belongs to Heer Philipse Pieterse Schuyler. He is one of the founders, quite wealthy.”  

“Lovely horse,” I said, missing Scout.

Zwarte Piet stepped towards the door, waving his switch, and the children drew back. The little ones hid their faces in their mothers’ bosoms, and even Enjeltje and Elsje gasped. The sooty-faced man laughed and placed candies in each shoe, then handed Vrouw Dorothy a half-peck basket filled with oranges.

“Do the townspeople chip in for the candy and fruit?”  I asked.

“Ja, each gives what they can. The candy we make in Albany, but the sugar for it and the oranges come from Barbados.”

Once Zwarte Piet left, Enjeltje opened the door, and the children picked up their shoes and brought them inside to examine their treasures. Heer Douw poured two bottles of red Spanish wine into a kettle and added orange rind, slices, juice, cinnamon sticks, and cloves. Vrouw Dorothy took the other pots off the fire and set them on the hearth, then heated milk for the children’s cocoa. Hans and Jonas set up two trestles, and a second board was laid next to the table. The women opened the tops to the boxes of pastry letters we’d bought and set one at each place. We all searched for our initials to find our seats at the table. 

Stephen and I found an “S” and a “B” for our names, seated kitty-corner from each other at the table, and so compelled to bravely use our limited Dutch. The women served the soup and stew onto blue and white glazed Delft china plates and piled pancakes and applesauce in the center of the table for all to help themselves. 

Heer Douw poured the mulled wine, Vrouw Dorothy, the hot cocoa, and we drank to the health of family and guests. The bakery boxes were passed around. We sucked on the hard pepernoten, small spiced cookies flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, anise seed, and finely minced citron, and we nibbled on the Banketletter initials of flaky pastry filled with almond paste. I found the windmill-shaped gingerbread speculas too pretty to eat. 

The language of food and smiles made me feel very much at home. I slept well that night, of which I was glad, for the next morning dawned with not a cloud in the sky. Stephen and I bade our Dutch friends Vaarwell and headed northeast once more to seek the Mohawks’ help.