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Hilletie
Van Slyck Van Olinda
Hilletie Van Slyck Van Olinda was born in the Mohawk Valley during the mid seventeenth century. She was the daughter of frontier trader Cornelis A. Van Slyck and a Mohawk woman. She was raised by her mother and lived among the Indians.
By
the 1670s, she was the wife of Albany businessman
and regional property holder Pieter Danielse Van
Olinda and the mother of several of his children.
Well
known in the country west of Albany, Hilletie's special
talent was that of the interpreter. During the early
1700s, she was paid a salary by the provincial government
as the "interpretess to the Indians at Albany."
She
was able to secure a number of parcels of land in
the region as a result of her work as interpreter.
A number of visitors mentioned her in their narratives.
Chief among them was the missionary Jasper Danckaerts
who wrote extensively about Hilletie's life and character.
Hilletie
Van Slyck Van Olinda died in February 1707.
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Sources:
The life of Hilletie/Alida/Aletta/Ilettie Van Slyck
Van Olinda is CAP biography number 6732. This profile
is derived chiefly from family and community-based
resources. See also Lorine McGinnis Schulze, The
Van Slyke Family in America: A Genealogy of Cornelis
Antonissen Van Slyke, 1604-1676 and his Mohawk
wife Ots-Toch, including the story of Jacques Hertel,
1603-1651, Father of Ots-Toch and Interpreter to
Samuel de Champlain (Midland, Ont., Canada: Olive
Tree Enterprises, 1996).
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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