New Amsterdam (Dutch:Nieuw Amsterdam,pronounced[ˌniu.ɑmstərˈdɑm]) was a 17th-centuryDutch settlement established at the southern tip ofManhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government inNew Netherland. The initial tradingfactory gave rise to the settlement aroundFort Amsterdam. The fort was situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was meant to defend thefur trade operations of theDutch West India Company in the North River (Hudson River). In 1624, it became a provincial extension of theDutch Republic and was designated as the capital of the province in 1625. New Amsterdam became a city when it receivedmunicipal rights on February 2, 1653.^[3]

New Amsterdam Nieuw Amsterdam (Dutch) New Orange (English) Nieuw Oranje (Dutch)
Settlement
View of New Amsterdam
Flag Seal
Dutch colony	New Netherland
Settled	1624 (401 years ago) (1624)
Conquered by the English	1664 (361 years ago) (1664)
Recaptured by the Dutch	1673 (352 years ago) (1673)
Relinquished to the English	1674 (351 years ago) (1674)
Government
• Type	Colonial government
• Body	Council ofMayors,Schepen and aSchout
• Director-general of New Amsterdam	Peter Stuyvesant (Dutch West India Company)
Area [1]
• Land	94 km2 (36.29 sq mi)
Highest elevation	122 m (401 ft)
Lowest elevation	0 m (0 ft)
Population [2]
• Estimate  (1664)	2,500
• Rank	1st inNew Netherland
Demonym	New Netherlander
Time zone	UTC−05:00 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−04:00 (EDT)

By 1655, the population of New Netherland had grown to 9000 Dutch people, with 1,500 living in New Amsterdam. By 1664, the population of New Netherland had risen to almost 9,000 people, 2,500 of whom lived in New Amsterdam, 1,000 lived nearFort Orange, and the remainder in other towns and villages.^[2][4]

In 1664, the English took over New Amsterdam and renamed itNew York after the Duke of York (laterJames II & VII).^[5] After theSecond Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–67, England and theUnited Provinces of the Netherlands agreed to the status quo in theTreaty of Breda. The English kept the island of Manhattan, the Dutch giving up their claim to New Amsterdam and the rest of the colony, while the English formally abandonedSurinam in South America, and the island ofRun in theEast Indies to the Dutch, confirming their control of the valuableSpice Islands. The area occupied by New Amsterdam is nowLower Manhattan.

The indigenousMunsee term for the southern tip of the island wasManhattoe, and variations of this name were also applied to the first Dutch settlement there. With the construction ofFort Amsterdam, the town also became variously known as "Amsterdam" or "New Amsterdam". New Amsterdam's city limits did not extend north of thewall of Wall Street, and neither the remainder of the island of Manhattan nor of wider New Netherland fell under its definition.^{[citation needed]}

In 1524, nearly a century before the arrival of the Dutch, the site that would later become New Amsterdam was namedNouvelle Angoulême by the Italian explorerGiovanni da Verrazzano, to commemorate his patron KingFrancis I of France, whose family consisted of theCounts of Angoulême.^[6] The first recorded exploration by the Dutch of the area around what is now calledNew York Bay was in 1609 with the voyage of the shipHalve Maen (English: "Half Moon"), commanded byHenry Hudson^[7] in the service of the Dutch Republic, as the emissary ofMaurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange andstadholder of Holland. Hudson named the river the Mauritius River. He was also covertly attempting to find theNorthwest Passage for theDutch East India Company. Instead, he brought back news about the possibility of exploitation ofbeaver by the Dutch who sent commercial, private missions to the area the following years.

At the time, beaver pelts were highly prized in Europe, because thefur could befelted to make waterproof hats. A by-product of the trade in beaver pelts wascastoreum—the secretion of the animals' anal glands—which was used for its medicinal properties and for perfumes. The expeditions byAdriaen Block andHendrick Christiaensen in 1611, 1612, 1613 and 1614, resulted in the surveying and charting of the region from the38th parallel to the45th parallel.^[8] On their 1614 map, which gave them a four-year trade monopoly under a patent of theStates General, they named the newly discovered and mapped territory New Netherland for the first time. It also showed the first year-round trading presence in New Netherland,Fort Nassau, which would be replaced in 1624 by Fort Orange, which eventually grew into the town ofBeverwijck, renamedAlbany in 1664.

Spanish traderJuan Rodriguez (rendered in Dutch as Jan Rodrigues), was born in theCaptaincy General of Santo Domingo, the firstSpanish Colony in the Americas. Allegedly ofPortuguese andAfrican descent, he arrived on Manhattan Island during the winter of 1613–1614 under the command of Thijs Volckenz Mossel captain of theJonge Tobias, trapping beavers and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch East India Company. He is the first recorded non-Indigenous inhabitant of what would eventually become New York City.^[9][10]

The territory of New Netherland was originally a private, profit-making commercial enterprise focused on cementing alliances and conducting trade with the local Indigenous peoples. Surveying and exploration of the region was conducted as a prelude to an anticipated official settlement by the Dutch Republic, which occurred in 1624.

In 1620 thePilgrims attempted to sail to the Hudson River from England. However,Mayflower reachedCape Cod (now part of Massachusetts) on November 9, 1620, after a voyage of 64 days.^[11] For a variety of reasons, primarily a shortage of supplies,Mayflower could not proceed to the Hudson River, and the colonists decided to settle near Cape Cod, establishing thePlymouth Colony.

The mouth of theHudson River was selected as the ideal place for initial settlement as it had easy access to the ocean while also securing an ice-free lifeline tothe beaver trading post near present-day Albany. Here, Indigenous hunters supplied them with pelts in exchange for European-made trade goods andwampum, which was soon being made by the Dutch onLong Island. In 1621, theDutch West India Company was founded. Between 1621 and 1623, orders were given to the private, commercial traders to vacate the territory, thus opening up the territory to Dutch settlers and company traders. It also allowed the laws and ordinances of the states of Holland to apply. Previously, during the private, commercial period, only the law of the ship had applied.

On May 20, 1624,^[12] the first settlers in New Netherland arrived on Noten Eylandt (Nut or Nutten Island, nowGovernors Island) aboard the shipNieu Nederlandt under the command ofCornelius Jacobsen May, who disembarked on the island with thirty families to take legal possession of the New Netherland territory.^[13][14] The landing on Governors Island in 1624 brought with it the "legal and cultural DNA" of the Republic of the United Netherlands, including progressive values such as freedom of conscience and tolerance, which were foundational to the culture of early New Netherland. Compared to many parts of Europe at that time, New Netherland embraced a relatively progressive philosophy of inclusion, allowing various nationalities, religions, and races to coexist. The ideals of popular sovereignty and free trade formed the backbone of this diverse society, setting it apart from other colonial powers.^[15] However, despite these advanced ideals, the colony also engaged in practices that reflected the broader colonial context, such as the mistreatment of Indigenous populations and the introduction of slavery in 1626. These actions show that while the early settlers were ahead of their time in embracing tolerance, they were also part of the colonial systems that perpetuated injustice and exploitation.^[16] The WIC ordered engineer and surveyor Crijn Fredericxsz for the construction ofFort Amsterdam.^[17] A fortification was completed in 1626.^[17]

The families were then dispersed toFort Wilhelmus on Verhulsten Island (Burlington Island) in the South River (now theDelaware River), to Kievitshoek (nowOld Saybrook, Connecticut) at the mouth of the Verse River (now theConnecticut River) and further north atFort Nassau on the Mauritius or North River (now theHudson River), near what is now Albany.

A fort andsawmill were soon erected at Nut Island. Thewindmill was constructed by Franchoys Fezard and was taken apart for iron in 1648.

The threat of attack from other European colonial powers prompted the directors of theDutch West India Company to formulate a plan to protect the entrance to the Hudson River. In 1624, 30 families were sponsored by Dutch West India Company moving from Nut Island to Manhattan Island, where a citadel to containFort Amsterdam was being laid out by Cryn Frederickz van Lobbrecht at the direction ofWillem Verhulst. By the end of 1625, the site had been staked out directly south ofBowling Green on the site of the presentU.S. Custom House. TheMohawk-Mahican War in the Hudson Valley led the company to relocate even more settlers to the vicinity of the new Fort Amsterdam. In the end, colonizing was a prohibitively expensive undertaking, only partly subsidized by the fur trade. This led to a scaling back of the original plans. By 1628, a smaller fort was constructed with walls containing a mixture of clay and sand.

The fort also served as the center of trading activity. It contained a barracks, the church, a house for the West India Companydirector and a warehouse for the storage of company goods.^[18] Troops from the fort used the triangle between theHeerestraat and what came to be known asWhitehall Street for marching drills.

Verhulst, with his council, was responsible for the selection of Manhattan as a permanent place of settlement and for situating Fort Amsterdam. He was replaced as the company director of New Netherland byPeter Minuit in 1626. According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, to legally safeguard the settlers' investments, possessions and farms on Manhattan island, Minuit negotiated the "purchase" of Manhattan from a band ofCanarse from Brooklyn who occupied the bottom quarter of Manhattan, known then as theManhattoes, for 60guilders' worth of trade goods. Minuit conducted the transaction with the Canarse chief Seyseys, who was only too happy to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks.^[19]

An official letter of November 7, 1626 in which Pieter Schagen informed theStates General of the purchase (byPeter Minuit) ofManhattan ("'t eylant Manhettes", groot 11000morgen) from the "wilden" (wild ones). This area amounts to 94 square kilometres (36 sq mi). Schagen also mentioned the successful first harvest and the shipload of 7,246 beaver skins (Nationaal Archief,The Hague). For a transcription of the text, see Schagenbrief^[20] and Transcriptie Schagenbrief^[21]

The deed itself has not survived, so the specific details are unknown. A textual reference to the deed became the foundation for the legend that Minuit had purchased Manhattan from the Native Americans for twenty-four dollars' worth of trinkets and beads, the guilder rate at the time being about two and a half to aSpanish dollar. The price of 60 Dutch guilders in 1626 amounts to around $1,100 in 2012 dollars.^[22] Further complicating the calculation is that the value of goods in the area would have been different from the value of those same goods in the developed market of the Netherlands.

The Dutch introducedwindmills first atNoten Eylandt for a sawmill, to exploit the stand of hardwoods found there.^[23] Later they exploited the hydropower of existing creeks by constructing mills at Turtle Bay (between present-day East 45th–48th Streets) and Montagne's Kill, later called Harlem Mill Creek (East 108th Street). In 1639 asawmill was located in the northern forest at what was later the corner ofEast 74th Street andSecond Avenue, at which African slaves cut lumber.^[24][25]

The New Amsterdam settlement had a population of approximately 270 people, including infants.^[26] In 1642 the new directorWillem Kieft decided to build a stone church within the fort. The work was carried out by recent English immigrants, the brothers John and Richard Ogden. The church was finished in 1645 and stood until destroyed in theSlave Insurrection of 1741.

A pen-and-ink view of New Amsterdam,^[27][28] drawn on-the-spot and discovered in the map collection of theAustrian National Library in Vienna in 1991, provides a unique view of New Amsterdam as it appeared from Capske (small Cape) Rock in 1648. It was associated withAdriaen van der Donck'sRemonstrance of New Netherland, and may have inspired later views as byClaes Jansz. Visscher. Capske Rock was situated in the water close to Manhattan between Manhattan and Noten Eylant, and signified the start of the East River roadstead.

New Amsterdam receivedmunicipal rights by a charter from New Netherland Governor Peter Stuyvesant on February 2, 1653, thus becoming a city.^[3]

Albany, then namedBeverwyck, received its city rights in 1652.Nieuw Haarlem, now known asHarlem, was formally recognized in 1658.

The first DutchJews known to have arrived in New Amsterdam arrived in 1654.^[29] First to arrive were Solomon Pietersen and Jacob Barsimson, who sailed during the summer of 1654 directly from Holland, with passports that gave them permission to trade in the colony.^[30] Then in early September,23 Jewish refugees arrived from the Brazilian city ofRecife, which had beenconquered by the Portuguese in January 1654.^[31] The director-general of New Netherland,Peter Stuyvesant, sought to turn them away but was ultimately overruled by the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam.^[32]Asser Levy, anAshkenazi Jew who was one of the 23 refugees, eventually prospered and in 1661 became the first Jew to own a house in New Amsterdam, which also made him the first Jew known to have owned a house anywhere in North America.^[33]

On September 15, 1655, New Amsterdam was occupied by several hundredMunsee, possibly in response to a Dutch colonist killing a woman stealing peaches from his orchard. No bloodshed occurred until the Munsee were fired upon as they were preparing to depart. This triggered attacks onPavonia andStaten Island. Stuyvesant reported 28 farms destroyed, 40 deaths and 100 captives taken in what later became known as thePeach War.^[34]

In 1661, theCommunipaw ferry was founded and began a long history of trans-Hudson ferry and ultimately rail and road transportation.^[35]

In 1664, Jan van Bonnel built aSaw mill onEast 74th Street and the East River, where a 13,710-meter (8.52 mi) long stream that began in the north of today's Central Park, which became known as the Saw Kill or Saw Kill Creek, emptied into the river.^[36][37] Later owners of the property George Elphinstone and Abraham Shotwell replaced the sawmill with a leather mill in 1677.^[36][38] The Saw Kill was later redirected into a culvert, arched over, and its trickling little stream was called Arch Brook.

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  Novum Amsterodamum 1650, by Laurens Block
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  New Amsterdam in 1660, Scale Model
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  New Amsterdam from the East River in 1660, Scale Model
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  Party For New Year's Day In New Amsterdam 1636 (George Boughton)
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  Courtship in New Amsterdam (Fancis W. Edmonds)

On August 27, 1664, while England and the Dutch Republic were at peace, four English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherland's surrender, effecting the bloodlesscapture of New Amsterdam. On September 6, the local Dutch deciding not to offer resistance, Stuyvesant's lawyerJohannes de Decker and five other delegates signed the officialArticles of Surrender of New Netherland. This was swiftly followed by theSecond Anglo-Dutch War, between England and theDutch Republic. In June 1665, New Amsterdam was reincorporated under English law as New York City, named after theDuke of York (laterKing James II). He was the brother ofKing Charles II, who had been granted the lands.^[39]

In 1667, theTreaty of Breda ended the conflict in favor of the Dutch. The Dutch did not press their claims on New Netherland but did demand control over the valuable sugar plantations and factories captured by them that year on the coast ofSurinam, giving them full control over the coast of what is nowGuyana andSuriname.

On 9 August 1673 (N.S.; 30 July 1673 (O.S.)), during theThird Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch quickly but brieflyretook the colony of New Netherland, which the English called "New York", with a combined fleet of a squadron of ships from Amsterdam and a squadron of ships from Zeeland. The commanders wereJacob Benckes (Koudum, 1637–1677) andCornelis Evertsen de Jongste (Vlissingen, 1642–1706) under instruction of theStates General of the Dutch Republic.^[40]Anthony Colve was installed as the first Dutchgovernor of the province. Previously there had only been West India Company Directors and a Director-General.

Amidst the recapture, New York City would be again renamed, this time toNew Orange.^[41] However, after the signing of theTreaty of Westminster in February 1674, both the Dutch territories were relinquished to the English. With the effective transfer of control on 10 November 1674 (N.S.), the names New Netherland and New Orange reverted to the English versions of "New York" and "New York City", respectively.Suriname became an official Dutch possession in return.

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  The Dutch surrender New Amsterdam in 1664
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  TheReconquest of New Netherland
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  City of New Orange in 1673

The beginnings of New Amsterdam, unlike most other colonies in the New World, were thoroughly documented incity maps. During the time of New Netherland's colonization, the Dutch were the pre-eminent cartographers in Europe. The delegated authority of the Dutch West India Company over New Netherland required maintaining sovereignty on behalf of the States General, generating cash flow through commercial enterprise for its shareholders, and funding the province's growth. Thus its directors regularly required that censuses be taken. These tools to measure and monitor the province's progress were accompanied by accurate maps and plans. These surveys, as well as grassroots activities to seek redress of grievances,^[28] account for the existence of some of the most important of the early documents.^[42]

There is a particularly detailed city map called theCastello Plan produced in 1660. Virtually every structure in New Amsterdam at the time is believed to be represented, and by cross-referencing theNicasius de Sille List of 1660, which enumerates all the citizens of New Amsterdam and their addresses, it can be determined who resided in every house.^[43]

The city map known as theDuke's Plan probably derived from the same 1660 census as the Castello Plan. The Duke's Plan includes two outlying areas of development on Manhattan along the top of the plan. The work was created for James (1633–1701), the Duke of York and Albany, after whomNew York,New York City, and New York's Capital –Albany, were named just after the seizure of New Amsterdam by theEnglish.^[44] After that provisional relinquishment of New Netherland, Stuyvesant reported to his superiors that he "had endeavored to promote the increase of population, agriculture and commerce...the flourishing condition which might have been more flourishing if the now afflicted inhabitants had been protected by a suitable garrison...and had been helped with the long sought for settlement of the boundary, or in default thereof had they been seconded with the oft besought reinforcement of men and ships against the continual troubles, threats, encroachments and invasions of the British neighbors and government of Hartford Colony, our too powerful enemies".

The existence of these city maps has proven to be very useful in the archaeology of New York City. For instance, the Castello map aided the excavation of theStadthuys (City Hall) of New Amsterdam in determining the exact location of the building.^[45][46]

The maps enable a precise reconstruction of the town. Fort Amsterdam was located at the southernmost tip of the island of Manhattan, which today is surrounded by Bowling Green.The Battery is a reference to itsbattery of cannon.

Broadway was the main street that led out of town north towards Harlem. The town was surrounded to the north by a wall leading from the eastern to the western shore. Today, where the course of this city wall was, isWall Street. Nearby, a canal which led from the harbor inland was filled in 1676, and is todayBroad Street.

The layout of the streets was winding, as in a European city. Only starting from Wall Street going toward uptown did the typical grid become enforced long after the town ceased to be Dutch. Most of theFinancial District overlaps with New Amsterdam and has retained its original street layout.

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

Sometimes considered a dysfunctional trading post by the English who later acquired it from the Dutch,Russell Shorto, author ofThe Island at the Center of the World, suggests that the city left its cultural marks on later New York and, by extension, the United States as a whole.^[47]

Major recent historical research has been based on a set of documents that have survived from that period, untranslated. They are the administrative records of the colony, unreadable by most scholars. Since the 1970s, Charles Gehring of theNew Netherland Institute has made it his life's work to translate this first-hand history of the Colony of New Netherland.^[48]

The scholarly conclusion has largely been that the settlement of New Amsterdam is much more like current New York than previously thought. Cultural diversity and a mindset that resembles theAmerican Dream were already present in the first few years of this colony. Writers likeRussell Shorto argue that the large influence of New Amsterdam on the American psyche has largely been overlooked in the classic telling of American beginnings, because of animosity between the English victors and the conquered Dutch.

The original 17th-century architecture of New Amsterdam has completely vanished (affected by thefires of 1776 and1835),^[49][50] leaving only archaeological remnants. The original street plan of New Amsterdam has stayed largely intact, as havesome houses outside Manhattan.^[51]

The presentation of the legacy of the unique culture of 17th-century New Amsterdam remains a concern ofpreservationists and educators. In 2009 theNational Park Service celebrated the400th anniversary ofHenry Hudson's 1609 voyage on behalf of theDutch with the New Amsterdam Trail.^[52][53]

TheDutch-American historian and journalistHendrik Willem van Loon wrote in 1933 a work ofalternative history entitled "If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam" (inIf, Or History Rewritten, edited byJ. C. Squire, 1931,Simon & Schuster).

A similar theme, at greater length, was taken up by writerElizabeth Bear, who published the "New Amsterdam" series ofdetective stories that take place in a world where the city remained Dutch until theNapoleonic Wars and retained its name also afterward.

One of New York's Broadway theatres is theNew Amsterdam Theatre. The name New Amsterdam is also written on thearchitrave situated on top of the row of columns in front of theManhattan Municipal Building, commemorating the name of the Dutch colony.

Although no architectural monuments or buildings have survived, the legacy lived on in the form ofDutch Colonial Revival architecture. A number of structures in New York City were constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries in this style, such as Wallabout Market in Brooklyn, South William Street in Manhattan, West End Collegiate Church at West 77th Street, and others.

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  The Wyckoff Farm in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Some of its construction still dates from the Dutch period of what is currently New York City.
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  13–15 South William Street, constructed in the Dutch Colonial Revival architecture evoking New Amsterdam

• van Dam
• Jacobus van de Water

• Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace.Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (2000)excerpt and text search
• Goodfriend, Joyce D.; et al., eds. (2008).Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609–2009.
• Jacobs, Jaap.The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America (2009)excerpt and text search
• Kammen, Michael.Colonial New York: A History New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
• Kilpatrick, William Heard.The Dutch schools of New Netherland and colonial New York (1912)online
• McFarlane, Jim.Penelope: A Novel of New Amsterdam, Greer, SC: Twisted Cedar Press, 2012. 371 pages.ISBN 9780985112202
• Schmidt, Benjamin,Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570–1670, Cambridge: University Press, 2001.ISBN 978-0521804080
• Scheltema, Gajus and Westerhuijs, Heleen, eds.Exploring Historic Dutch New York (Museum of the City of New York/Dover Publications, 2011).ISBN 978-0-486-48637-6
• Schoolcraft, Henry L. (1907)."The Capture of New Amsterdam".English Historical Review.22 (88):674–693.doi:10.1093/ehr/xxii.lxxxviii.674.JSTOR 550138.
• Swerling, Beverley,City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan, Simon & Schuster, 2002.ISBN 978-0684871738
• Verde, Tom (November–December 2021). "The New York of Anyhony Jsnsen von Salee".Aramco World:28–33.

• Jackson, Kenneth T. and David S. Dunbar, eds.Empire City: New York Through the Centuries (2005), 1015 pages of excerpts;excerpt

• Dutch West Indies 1630–1975 onYouTube
• The New Amsterdam Trail, a downloadable audio walking tour of Lower Manhattan
• Nieuw Amsterdam to New York, an audio history from the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy
• New Amsterdam from theNew Netherland Project
• 3D model of New Amsterdam in 1660, a historical reconstruction based on the Castello Plan
• Mapping Early New York - interactive map and encyclopedia.
• "Conditions as Created by Their Lords Burgomasters of Amsterdam" is a publication, from 1656, about goals to populate New Amsterdam