In the early 17th century numerous European colonies were founded on the east coast of North America. The English, who had been present in Virginia since 1607, the Dutch and the Swedes established the colonies. The Dutch were a huge commercial power in Europe at the time. They arrived in America after 1609, when Henry Hudson, an English navigator hired by the Dutch East India Company, had explored the east coast area, particularly along today’s Delaware and Hudson rivers.
In 1613, a Dutch expedition travelled up the Hudson and founded Fort Orange (present-day Albany, the capital of the state of New York), an outpost dedicated to trade with the indigenous peoples. Goods such as otter, mink and beaver hides, tobacco, farm produce and, later, weapons were exchanged.
the colonial impulse
The number of settlements in New Holland, as the Dutch colonies in North America were known, increased with the founding of the Dutch West India Company in 1621. The company was granted exclusive rights to develop these lands, and settlements were founded in what are today the states of New York, New Jersey and Delaware. When the Dutch settled on the island of Manhattan they made unavoidable contact with the established so-called ‘Indian’ residents of the area. This gave rise to the story of the origins of New Amsterdam (today’s New York), a legend that remains the subject of intense debate. Some claim that the Dutch purchased the southern part of Manhattan from the Canarsie people. Others say that they did so from the Wappinger or the Metoac tribes. Either way, they paid sixty guilders, or roughly twenty-five dollars, for 9,000 hectares of land —the equivalent to just a thousand dollars today. The tribes were not paid in currency, however, but in objects such as axes, pots, glass beads, hoes and textiles.
BAD RELATIONS
A permanent settlement of some three hundred people called New Amsterdam was established in the south of the island, with cattle, orchards, a church, two mills, at least thirty wooden houses, a fort, as well as the Waal: a defensive embankment, from which the current name Wall Street is derived.
Relations with the native peoples were not always peaceful. The Dutch considered themselves owners of the lands, and considered the established inhabitants savages; a dangerous nuisance, “like wolves and snakes.” Conflicts arose when dogs belonging to the tribes attacked Dutch cattle, or the latter trampled on tribal fields. These petty squabbles had brutal consequences: should a savage ‘offend’ a Dutchman, for example, the Dutchman felt it his right to retaliate by killing several of their number.
THE ENGLISH THREAT
In truth, the greatest threat to New Amsterdam was not the Native Americans but the English. The war between Holland and England spread from Europe to North America, and in 1664 the governor of New Amsterdam was forced to hand the city over to the English victors. The exchange was made to an armada that had been sent by the Duke of York, brother of King Charles II. And this change in sovereignty marked the birth of New York —at least in name.