NEW YORK CITY,... COULD STILL HAVE BEEN DUTCH

New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that later became New York City. This week the city of New York is celebrating this great moment in history, exactly 400 years later.



The harbor and the river had been discovered, explored and charted by an expedition of the Dutch East India Company captained by Henry Hudson when he first sailed by what is now Manhattan on September 11, 1609 on the Halve Maen. Through 1614, the territory was surveyed and charted by various private commercial companies on behalf of the States General of the Dutch Republic and operated for the interests of private commercial entities prior to official possession as a North American extension of the Dutch Republic as a provincial entity in 1624.



The town developed outside of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in the New Netherland territory (1614–1674). Provincial possession of the territory was accomplished with the first settlement which was established on Governors Island in 1624. A year later, in 1625, construction of a citadel comprising Fort Amsterdam was commenced on the southern tip of Manhattan and the first settlers were moved there from Governors Island.

The town was founded in 1625 by New Netherland's second director, Willem Verhulst who, together with his council, selected Manhattan Island as the optimal place for permanent settlement by the Dutch West India Company. That year, military engineer and surveyor Krijn Frederiksz laid out a citadel with Fort Amsterdam as centerpiece. To secure the settlers' property and its surroundings according to Dutch law, Peter Minuit created a deed with the Manhattan Indians in 1626 which signified legal possession of Manhattan. He was appointed New Netherland's third director by the local council after Willem Verhulst returned home in November 1626.

The city, situated on the strategic, fortifiable southern tip of the island of Manhattan was to maintain New Netherland's provincial integrity by defending river access to the company's fur trade operations in the North River, later named Hudson River. Furthermore, it was entrusted to safeguard the West India Company's exclusive access to New Netherland's other two estuaries; the Delaware River and the Connecticut River.

Fort Amsterdam was designated the capital of the province in 1625 and developed into the largest Dutch colonial settlement of the New Netherland province, now the New York Tri-State Region, and remained a Dutch possession until September 1664, when it fell provisionally and temporarily into the hands of the English.

The Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. New Netherland was ceded permanently to the English in November 1674 by treaty.



The 1625 date of the founding of New Amsterdam is now commemorated in the official Seal of New York City (formerly, the year on the seal was 1664, the year of the provisional Articles of Transfer, ensuring New Netherlanders that they "shall keep and enjoy the liberty of their consciences in religion", negotiated with the English by Petrus Stuyvesant and his council).

(source: Wikipedia)

Enjoy,

HK