Women as interpreters in colonial New Netherland

Abstract

This contribution presents a case study of Sara Kierstede (aka Roelof, Van Borsum, Stouthoff), a Dutch-speaking New Netherland settler and 17th-century interpreter who was proficient in Dutch and Native American languages and served as interpreter in a male-dominated colonial environment in settings that today would be labeled as public service interpreting (PSI) or, in some instances, diplomatic interpreting. Following a microhistorical approach, rooted in Translator Studies, we discuss the agency and positioning of Kierstede as one of the few female interpreters in a multilingual colonial contact zone. We use different historical and secondary sources and reinterpret them from a translatological perspective to explore Kierstede’s interactions and relations with other stakeholders as linguistic go-between and official provincial interpreter in Dutch colonial encounters and her role as an influential woman and cultural mediator in the self-contained network of relationships that characterised Dutch colonial society in New Amsterdam.