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Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 66,135. The name "Schenectady" is derived from a Mohawk word ''skahnéhtati'' meaning "beyond the pines". The city was founded on the south side of the Mohawk River by Dutch colonists in the 17th century, many from the Albany area. They were prohibited from the fur trade by the Albany monopoly, which kept its control after the English takeover in 1664. Residents of the new village developed farms on strip plots along the river. Connected to the west via the Mohawk River and Erie Canal, the city developed rapidly in the 19th century as part of the Mohawk Valley trade, manufacturing and transportation corridor. By 1824 more people worked in manufacturing than agriculture or trade, and the city had a cotton mill, processing cotton from the Deep South. Numerous mills in New York had such ties with the South. Through the 19th century, nationally influential companies and industries developed in Schenectady, including General Electric and American Locomotive Company (ALCO), which were powers into the mid-20th century. The city was part of emerging technologies, with GE collaborating in the production of nuclear-powered submarines and, in the 21st century, working on other forms of renewable energy. The city is in eastern New York, near the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers. It is in the same metropolitan area as the state capital, Albany, which is about southeast.〔("Mileage Map" ), NY Department of Transportation〕 In December 2014, the state announced that the city was one of three sites selected for development of off-reservation casino gambling, under terms of a 2013 state constitutional amendment. The project will redevelop an ALCO brownfield site in the city along the waterfront, with hotel, housing and a marina in addition to the casino.〔(Rick Karlin, Kenneth C. Crowe II and Paul Nelson, "Fortune smiles on Schenectady casino proposal" ), ''Times Union,'' 18 December 2014, accessed 18 December 2014〕 ==History== When first encountered by Europeans, the Mohawk Valley was the territory of the Mohawk nation, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, or ''Haudenosaunee.'' They had occupied territory in the region since at least 1100 AD. Starting in the early 1600s the Mohawk moved their settlements closer to the river and by 1629, they had also taken over territories on the west bank of the Hudson River that were formerly held by the Algonquian-speaking Mahican people.〔(Burke Jr, T. E., & Starna, W. A. (1991). ''Mohawk Frontier: The Dutch Community of Schenectady, New York, 1661-1710'' ), SUNY Press. p. 26〕 In the 1640s, the Mohawk had three major villages, all on the south side of the Mohawk River. The easternmost one was Ossernenon, located about 9 miles west of present-day Auriesville, New York. When Dutch settlers developed Fort Orange (present-day Albany, NY) in the Hudson Valley beginning in 1614, the Mohawk called their settlement ''skahnéhtati,'' meaning "beyond the pines," referring to a large area of pine barrens that lay between the Mohawk settlements and the Hudson River. About 3200 acres of this unique ecosystem are now protected as the Albany Pine Bush. Eventually, this word entered the lexicon of the Dutch settlers. The settlers in Fort Orange used ''skahnéhtati'' to refer to the new village at the Mohawk flats (see below), which became known as Schenectady (with a variety of spellings).〔Lorna Czarnota. 2008. ''Native American & Pioneer Sites of Upstate New York: Westward Trails from Albany to Buffalo.'' The History Press, p. 23〕 In 1661 Arent van Curler, a Dutch immigrant bought a big piece of land on the south side of the Mohawk River. Other colonists were given grants of land by the colonial government in this portion of the flat fertile river valley, as part of New Netherland. The settlers recognized that these bottomlands had been cultivated for maize by the Mohawk for centuries.〔 Curler took the largest piece of land; the remainder was divided into 50-acre plots for the other first fourteen proprietors. As most early colonists were from the Fort Orange area, they may have anticipated working as fur traders, but the Beverwijck (later Albany) traders kept a monopoly of legal control. The settlers here turned to farming. Their 50-acre lots were unique for the colony, "laid out in strips along the Mohawk River", with the narrow edges fronting the river, as in French colonial style.〔 They relied on rearing livestock and wheat.〔(Robert V. Wells, "Review: 'Mohawk Frontier: The Dutch Community of Schenectady, New York, 1661-1710' by Thomas E. Burke, Jr." ), ''The William and Mary Quarterly,'' Vol. 50, No. 1, Law and Society in Early America (Jan., 1993), pp. 214-216〕 The proprietors and their descendants controlled all the land of the town for generations,〔(Prof. John Pearson, "Chap 6: Division of Lands" ), ''A History of the Schenectady Patent in the Dutch and English Times'' (1883), Schenectady Digital History Archive〕〔 essentially acting as government until after the Revolutionary War, when representative government was established. From the early days of interaction, early Dutch traders in the valley had unions with Mohawk women, if not always official marriages. Their children were raised within the Mohawk community, which had a matrilineal kinship system, considering children born into the mother's clan. Even within Mohawk society, biological fathers played minor roles. Some mixed-race descendants, such as Jacques Cornelissen Van Slyck and his sister Hilletie van Olinda, who were of Dutch, French and Mohawk ancestry, became interpreters and intermarried with Dutch colonists. They also gained land in the Schenectady settlement.〔Burke Jr, T. E., & Starna, W. A. (1991). ''Mohawk Frontier: The Dutch Community of Schenectady, New York, 1661-1710.'' SUNY Press, p. 93〕 They were among the few ''métis'' who seemed to move from Mohawk to Dutch society, as they were described as "former Indians", although they did not always have an easy time of it.〔(Midtrød, Tom Arne. "The Flemish Bastard and the Former Indians: Métis and Identity in Seventeenth-Century New York" ), ''The American Indian Quarterly,'' Volume 34 (Winter 2010): 86. Project Muse〕 In 1661 Jacques inherited what became known as Van Slyck's Island from his brother Marten, who had been given it by the Mohawk. Van Slyck family descendants retained ownership through the 19th century.〔(George Rogers Howells and John Munsell, ''History of the County of Schenectady, 1662-1886,'' New York: W.W. Munsell & Co., 1886, pp. 14-15 )〕 Because of labor shortages in the colony, some Dutch settlers brought African slaves to the region. In Schenectady, they used them as farm laborers. The English also imported slaves and continued with agriculture in the river valley. Traders in Albany kept control of the fur trade after the takeover by the English. In 1664 the English seized the Dutch New Netherland colony and renamed it New York. They confirmed the monopoly on the fur trade by Albany, and issued orders to prohibit Schenectady from the trade through 1670 and later.〔Burke (1991), ''Mohawk Frontier'', p. 116〕 Settlers purchased additional land from the Mohawk in 1670 and 1672. (Jacques and Hilletie Van Slyck each received portions of land in the Mohawk 1672 deed for Schenectady.)〔Burke (1991), ''Mohawk Frontier'', p. 183〕 Twenty years later (1684) Governor Thomas Dongan granted letters patent for Schenectady to five additional trustees. On February 8, 1690, during King William's War, French forces and their Indian allies, mostly Ojibwe and Algonquin warriors, attacked Schenectady by surprise, leaving 62 dead, 11 of them African slaves.〔(Jonathan Pearson, Chap. 9, "Burning of Schenectady" ), ''History of the Schenectady Patent in the Dutch and English Times'', 1883, pp. 244-270〕 American history notes it as the Schenectady massacre. A total of 27 persons were taken captive, including five African slaves; the raiders took their captives overland about 200 miles to Montreal and its associated Mohawk mission village of Kahnawake.〔 Typically the younger captives were adopted by Mohawk families to replace people who had died.〔John Demos, '' The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America'', ISBN 978-0679759614〕 Through the early 18th century in the raiding between Quebec and the northern British colonies, some captives were ransomed by their communities. Colonial governments got involved only for high-ranking officers or other officials.〔 In 1748, during King George's War, the French and Indians attacked Schenectady again, killing 70 residents. In 1765, Schenectady was incorporated as a borough. During the American Revolutionary War the local militia unit, the 2nd Albany County Militia Regiment, fought in the Battle of Saratoga and against Loyalist troops. Most of the warfare in the Mohawk Valley occurred farther west on the frontier in the areas of German Palatine settlement west of Little Falls. Because of their close business and other relationships with the British, some settlers from the city were Loyalists and moved to Canada in the late stages of the Revolution. The Crown granted them land in what became known as Upper Canada and later Ontario. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Schenectady, New York」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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