Suggested Discussion Questions
for Anneke Jans in the New World
- Anneke Jans lives in a patriarchal society, and yet she enjoys considerable autonomy. How do she and other women in the novel advance their own interests?
- What roles do Welanie and Kitpul play in the novel?
- Seventeenth-century Manhattan witnessed a mixing of races, ethnicities, languages, and religions that still characterizes New York City today. How would you characterize the relationship between the colonists and the Indigenous population? What about the relationship between European and African newcomers?
- Why do you suppose families in New Netherland tended to have so many children? How did they cope with all those kids?
- Why are family connections so important to seventeenth-century colonists?
- What role does religion play in their lives?
- Why, in your opinion, did seventeenth-century Europeans emigrate?
- What do you admire about Anneke? Are there times when you question her judgment? How, under similar circumstances, would you have behaved differently?
- In what ways do you identify with other characters in the book?
- What problems do you see emerging in the seventeenth-century colony that trouble us still today?
