History of New York: The Empire State
by All the history of New York, from the beginning to the present.
Indians
Before white settlers came to the Americas, the only people in the region of New York were Indians. There were two main Indian groups, the Algonquian Indians and the Iroquois Indians. The Algonquian Indian group consisted of the Delaware, Mahican, Montauk, Munsee and Wappinger tribes. The Iroquois Indian group consisted of the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca tribes. Both Indian groups fished, hunted, and farmed.
Exploration and Settlement
Italian explorer and navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano is thought to be the first European to visit the New York region. King Francis I had supposedly hired Verrazzano to explore the northern part of America. Verrazzano sailed into New York Bay and reached the Hudson River in around 1524. Henry Hudson, an Englishman hired by the Dutch, sailed up the river that now has been named after him in 1609. Hudson’s voyage gave the Netherlands a claim to the territory covering much of present-day New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and part of Connecticut.
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Soon after Hudson’s visit to the Hudson River Valley, the Dutch started establishing several trading posts and successful settlements in the area. Then, in 1621, a group of Dutch merchants founded the Dutch West India Company. In 1624, the company sent around 30 families to settle in the region. A few of these families founded Fort Orange (now Albany). The rest of them established settlements in other parts of New Netherlands. In 1625, a group of Dutch colonists began building a fort and laying out a town on Manhattan Island, and named it New Amsterdam. During the next few years, many settlements were established in New Netherlands by Dutch colonists.
Under English Rule
Many English colonists and Dutch colonists lived together peacefully. Overtime, though, the English began to disagree with the Dutch. King Charles II gave his brother James, the Duke of York, a charter for the territory. In 1664, the English sent a fleet of warships to takeover New Netherlands. When the ships anchored in the harbor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor, surrendered without fighting. The English renamed the territory New York, after the Duke of York, who later became King James II of England. In 1667, the Dutch formally gave up the rest of New Netherlands to England under the Treaty of Breda.
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