7Vashington Irving was born in New York in 1783. He was strongly influenced by the Dutch culture of that area, which maintained a distinctive identity into the early 1800s. Successfully integrating both European and American elements into his stories, he gained an international reputation as the first distinctively American writer. Irving lived abroad from 1815 to 1832; "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was first published while the author lived in England. Although the story is set shortly after the Revolutionary War, Irving's characters draw on traditions of the pre-Revolutionary days of the colonial English and Dutch in his home state of New York.
Regional conflict. In colonial America, the region that is now the state of New York was first settled by the Dutch and called New Netherland. In 1664 the British conquered New Netherland and changed the name to New York, yet the influence of the Dutch immigrants continued to be felt long after this conquest. Tensions had existed between the Dutch in New Netherland and the English immigrants in New England from the early days of colonization.
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