An imagined history: After the War Between the Rivers ended with the defeat and surrender of the last Dutch forces in upstate New York, a unity concert was held on Governors Island. Delegates from all of the boroughs attended, as well as delegates from the Iroquois Confederacy, the Lenape, the Huron, and the landowning members of the Dutch East India Company. Despite the jovial nature of the event, the Burghers of the Dutch East India Company hired assassins to kill Horace and Isabel, the king and queen of Free Harlem. Horace and Isabel advocated for a complete separation from the old rulers, and customs, and wanted create a free state comprised of Africans (free and slave) and Native American groups. Since the Emperor of New York had been deposed and the Frenglish Republic was limited to Europe due to a Prussian naval blockade, this idea became more plausible. The Burghers saw this as an affront to their colonial mercantile interests and felt they were better served by the chaos of war. Then, they could trade with a less powerful polity and sell arms to all sides while claiming neutrality. Horace and Isabel’s murder interrupted the peace process and the negotiations collapsed. Subsequently, the leaders of the rival factions declared war on each other and land-grabbing became the order of the day. The Burghers got their wish.