The Americas

Dutch Colonies in the Americas
AD 1614 - 1664

Dutch interest in the Americas began in 1602, when the Dutch government issued a charter to the Dutch East India Company to discover a new route to the Indies, as well as to exploit any unclaimed territory they came across. The first steps towards achieving this were taken in 1609, when English explorer, Henry Hudson, claimed parts of modern day Canada and the United States as part of his quest to find the north-west passage, and sailed up the river which is named after him. In 1614, Adriaen Block led an expedition into the lower Hudson, with Block Island being named after him. Upon his return, he was the first person to use the name 'New Netherlands' on a map of the Americas, laying claim on the territory between the English colony of Virginia and the French Quebec colony. The Dutch government granted him exclusive trading rights and the earliest trading missions were set up in the new colony.

1614 - 1615

The Dutch found a commercial trading post on the eastern coast of North America and name it New Amsterdam (it had originally been named Nouvelle-Angoulême by Giovanni da Verrazzano, when he reached the region for France in 1524, in the first tenuous steps towards establishing New France). The following year, a second settlement is founded on Castle Island in the Hudson, and is named Fort Nassau. This is mainly intended for fur trading.

1621 - 1623

The Dutch West India Company is founded to deal with trade monopolies in the Americas and West Africa. In 1623 it establishes the Province of New Netherland, and settlers begin to arrive from the Netherlands, the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium) and areas of Germany. In 1624, the first director-general is appointed by the West India Company to govern the colony; an explorer and fur trader who has been instrumental in building up the colony.

1624 - 1625

Cornelis Jacobszoon

First director-general appointed in May.

1625 - 1626

Willem Verhulst

1626 - 1632

Peter Minuit

Later founder of New Sweden (1638).

1626

Dutch director-general Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan Island from the Lenape natives, and the construction of Fort New Amsterdam begins. In the same year, a second fort with the name Nassau is constructed on the River Delaware (in modern New Jersey).

Fort New Amsterdam began construction in 1626. Within seventy years it was renamed New York by the British

1631

With the way having been cleared by the construction of the fort, Dutch settlers move into the Appalachian Mountains in what later becomes the US states of Pennsylvania and Delaware.

1632 - 1633

Sebastiaen Jansen Krol

1633 - 1638

Wouter van Twiller

Lost the Connecticut territory.

1633 - 1636

The British Colonies territory of Connecticut is founded in Dutch-owned lands, effectively removing them from Dutch control. Within three years, English settlers in Newtown (now Cambridge Massachusetts) on the north bank of the Little River and they quickly out-compete their Dutch neighbours in terms of trading.

1638

The Swedish colony of New Sweden is formed to the south-west of New Amsterdam, on territory previously claimed by the Dutch.

1638 - 1647

Willem Kieft

1643 - 1645

At a time when basic picket fences denote plots and residences for New Amsterdam, Kieft's attempts to tax and then drive out the native Americans leads to 'Kieft's War'. The losses on both sides are extremely large, and Kieft is dismissed and summoned back home to answer for his part in the war. The ship carrying him sinks off the British coastline.

1647 - 1664

Petrus Stuyvesant

1653

Peter Stuyvesant uses African slaves and other workers to build a stronger timber and earth palisade along what later becomes Wall Street. The palisade is designed to keep out native Americans and settlers in the British Colonies of New England.

1655

New Sweden's main settlement at Fort Christina is captured in retaliation for a brief Swedish occupation of one of the Dutch forts, ending the Swedish colony and absorbing the area into New Amsterdam.

1661

By now many settlers are entering the colony from England and Protestant areas of France, only too eager to escape persecution from Louis XIV. Louis DuBois arrives in New Netherland with one such a group of French Huguenots, and they initially settle in Wiltwyck and Nieuw Dorp.

1664 - 1667

The English attack and capture New Netherland, including New Amsterdam, renaming it the Province of New York after the duke of York (later James II) within the British Colonies. By this stage it includes territory belonging to the modern US states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. The capture of New Netherland leads to the Second Anglo-Dutch War the following year, which ends with the Netherlands agreeing to the English ownership of the colony in exchange for Suriname.

1673 - 1674

The region is seized by the Dutch during the Third Anglo-Dutch war, but is returned as part of the Treaty of Westminster in 1674.

1673 - 1674

Anthony Colve

Governor (Sep-Feb) during Dutch occupation.

1677

Louis DuBois and his associates purchase 40,000 acres of land from the Esopus natives and found the DuBois colony in which they build a village called New Paltz (now in New York State). The area is still wild enough for the colony to be self-governing for some time, but eventually all the former Dutch lands are drawn under direct English governance within the British Colonies.