Overview

The exceptional tale of an unorthodox, seventeenth-century married couple whose rags-to-riches story fundamentally rewrites our knowledge of American history at its very beginnings. A man thought to be Muslim from Morocco and a German barmaid are hardly the image we have of America's founders. In Newcomers, Alan Mikhail upends the traditional story of American beginnings through the tale of Anthony ""the Turk"" and Grietje Reyniers. Married in Amsterdam, they arrived in 1630s Dutch New Amsterdam, hoping to forge a new life. Always outsiders in the young colony, they battled Dutch authorities, brawled with neighbors, and seized land from Native Americans. In this revisionist portrait of the early American family, we learn of anti-Muslim sentiment through Anthony and of female defiance through Grietje. Eventually banished from Manhattan to Long Island, Anthony and Grietje farmed, prospered, and raised a family whose descendants included the Vanderbilts and President Harding. Promising ""to change the way we understand Colonial Gotham's formative first years"" (Susanah Shaw Romney), Alan Mikhail's Newcomers provides revelatory insights into the seventeenth-century origins of New York.

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Alan Mikhail is the Chace Family Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of six books that have been translated into ten languages. Gabriel Vaughan is an Audie Award-winning narrator and classically trained actor. He grew up without television in western Massachusetts and listened to a lot of ""books on tape"" as a kid, so narrating audiobooks enjoyably feels like coming full circle. He is a founding member of the Tennessee Shakespeare Company and co-owner of Little Town Studios together with his wife and fellow narrator, Piper Goodeve. He has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and studied acting in London at British American Drama Academy.

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