Pinkster Festival 239characterized by West African–style music, dance, and
pageantry, featuring an African “king” who presided over
the revelry. Th e emergence of the Pinkster celebration as a
predominantly African American festival in character at-
tests to the ability of enslaved Africans to syncretize various
West African cultural forms with those of Europeans—in
this case the culture of the Dutch colonists—to invent tradi-
tion under the oppressive strictures of slavery.
In 1609, the Dutch sent English sea captain Henry
Hudson to explore North America in search of the North-
west Passage. Hudson explored Delaware Bay and the river
that would later bear his name. He made contact with the
Mohawk branch of the Iroquois Nation and with their
help established a lucrative fur trade. Th e trade facilitated
the immigration of Dutch men and eventually the found-
ing of a colony under the control of the Dutch West India
Company.
Th e Dutch West India Company, however, did not
relegate its activities to fur trading. As early as 1596, the
Dutch participated in the trading and enslaving of Africans.
Yet it was not until the Dutch owned several colonies in
the Americas (i.e., the Netherland Antilles, Virgin Islands,
Tobago, Suriname, Guyana, and parts of Brazil and Chile)
that slave trading represented a signifi cant portion of the
Dutch Atlantic economy. All of these colonies required a
constant labor source to maximize profi ts for the settlers,
company, and Dutch empire—namely slaves. New Nether-
land (New Amsterdam) did not exempt itself from traffi ck-
ing in the slave trade and utilizing slave labor in Albany
(Fort Orange), the Hudson Valley, Long Island, East New
Jersey, and Manhattan (New York City). Th e importation
of enslaved Africans directly from Africa, as well as from
South America and the Caribbean, altered the cultural map
of Dutch North America—most evidently in public cele-
brations such as Pinkster.
When the Dutch lost control of their mainland North
American colony to the British in 1664, slavery had already
taken root in New England and the Middle Colonies. Al-
though now populated with predominantly British settlers,
Dutch families and Africans continued to observe Pinkster
in the region. In the mid-18th century, the African-born
population in New York increased signifi cantly, coinciding
with their participation in Pinkster. As dramatized by the
writer James Fenimore Cooper in his novels Spy (1823) and
Satanstoe (1845), African Americans dominated “pinkster
frolics” in New York by the early 19th century.the best live jazz recordings ever made. Although Parker
was still generating his musical genius in recordings and
performances such as that at Massey Hall, he was in poor
health, and in 1955, Parker died from a bleeding ulcer and
pneumonia, complications no doubt related to hard liv-
ing. According to musicians and jazz critics alike, Charlie
Parker is considered to be one of only a few true innova-
tors in jazz and the key player and guiding force in the
bebop revolution of jazz music. Parker’s music is required
learning for any aspiring jazz musician, and his role as a
tragic hero is a lesson for anyone interested in the history
of jazz.
See also: Bebop; Black Folk Culture; Jazz
Sean EliasBibliography
Giddens, Gary. Celebrating Bird: Th e Triumph of Charlie Parker.
New York: De Capo Press, 1998.
Russell, Ross. Bird Lives! Th e High Life and Hard Times of Charlie
(Yardbird) Parker. New York: Charter House, 1973.
Woideck, Carl. Charlie Parker: His Music and Life. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Pinkster Festival
Pinkster is the name that the Dutch gave to the holiday
known as Pentecost, a holiday that developed into an infl u-
ential African American festival in the 17th and 18th centu-
ries. Pentecost refers to the seventh Sunday aft er Easter (the
day commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ), when
the apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Among me-
dieval and early modern Europeans, the day of Pentecost
(Whit Sunday) and the season of its celebration (Whitsun-
tide) constituted an important part of popular Christianity,
marked by a variety of festivities.
In the 17th century, Dutch immigrants came to North
America to settle the New Netherland colony, the area from
Delaware Bay to the Connecticut River that comprises
present-day New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Mas-
sachusetts. Th e Dutch émigrés brought with them the reli-
gious and secular celebrations of their homeland. Pinkster
emerged as the dominant public holiday, where settlers
gathered in town squares and the countryside to celebrate
Pentecost in festival. Interestingly, Pinkster transformed
from a religious, European celebration to a secular festival