February
The Dutch offer the Pilgrims land around the mouth of the Hudson
River. The offer is rejected.
Apr 11
The Dutch Staats turns down a Dutch request which would permit
English pilgrims to settle the Hudson Valley.
City
Dutch governor Peter Minuit buys Manhattan island from the Indians.
Sapokanican and three other farms are set aside for the Dutch
West India Company.
State
Arent Van Curler, the founder of Schenectady, is born at Nijkerk,
Holland.
New Jersey
A Dutch immigrant ship is wrecked on Sandy Hook. The crew and
passengers get ashore and set out for Manhattan. Penelope van
Princis stays behind with her seriously wounded husband. Raritan
Indians find them, kill the husband and wound Penelope, leaving
her for dead. She is captured by two Indians and eventually ransomed
by New Amsterdam.
England
James I grants the Plymouth Company a colony in the New England
area to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific (including what
will become New York).
Jun 3
The Dutch West India Company (Geoctroyerde West-Indische Compagnie)
monopoly is chartered in Holland by the States-General to control
the Atlantic trade to North America and Africa. It is capitalized
at 7,500,000 guilders. The British protest.
Feb 9
Sir Dudley Carleton, English ambassador in Holland, lodges a formal
protest against the formation of the New Netherland colony.
State
Dutch trader Jacob Eelkes (Eelckens) captures a Pequot sachem
on Long Island, threatens him with decapitation unless he pays
a large ransom. The Pequot pays off Eelkes with 140 fathoms of
wampum.
March
The Dutch ship New Netherland departs with 30 families
aboard, the first settlers, for the mouth of the Hudson.
May
The New Netherland arrives in New York harbor.
City
The Dutch settlers arrive on Nooten Eylandt (Nut Island, now Governors
Island) and begin farming.
State
The Dutch West India Company is organized and given control over
all Dutch coastal areas along western Africa and in the Americas.
It takes control of New Amsterdam. One of her ships there stays
over the winter into next year, trading on the Hudson River and
on Long Island Sound. ** The West India Company claims a monopoly
on the fur trade. ** The Long Island settlement of Huntington
begins keeping records when the English settlers note lands they
purchase from the local Indians.
Albany
Fort Orange is built.
May
Cornelus Jacobsz is named director of New Amsterdam. ** 18 Walloon
families settle near the site of Albany.
November
Bastiaen Jansz Krol is authorized to perform baptisms and marriages
in Fort Orange (Albany). He founds the Dutch Reformed Church of
North America.
December
Dutch West India Company ships have returned to the Netherlands,
bringing reports of great success in the New Amsterdam colonies.
They carry furs worth 50,000 guilders.
City
Farmers on Nooten Eylandt move to Manhattan to get more room for
their crops. Walloon settlers sent by the Dutch West India Company
arrive on Manhattan Island, with Captain Cornelius May on the
Nieu Netherland and join them. A small contingent is left
on the island. The rest split up and move to the east shore of
the Delaware River (where they found Fort Nassau), and to the
Albany area.
State
A few buildings are erected within the walls of Fort Orange. **
The Dutch West India Company brings 30 families to settle in the
Albany area. ** Fighting resumes between the Mohawk and Mahican
near Albany.
Germany
The Spanish capture Wesel. Townsman Peter Minuit leaves for the
Netherlands.
Netherlands
The Dutch West India Company issues the Provisional Orders, warning
colonists they are going to the New World strictly as employees
and will follow all company directives as to the location of settlements
and farms, and the crops planted.
Jun 1
Sarah de Rapaelje is born in Breuckelen (Brooklyn) to Jan Joris
Rapaelje and his wife, the first child of European parents born
in New Netherland.
City
A second Dutch West India Company ship arrives, carrying over
a hundred settlers and 103 head of livestock, as well as Willem
Verhulst, who is to replace Cornelis Jacobsz as director of New
Amsterdam. ** The approximate date Brooklyn is first settled.
** The site of Fort Amsterdam is staked out by Cryn Fredericks,
at the southern tip of Manhattan.
State
A crude Dutch map of Long Island refers to the Matouwax (Metoac)
tribe.
Caribbean
The Dutch West India Company sacks San Juan, Puerto Rico. They
capture a bell which will be used next year for the tower in a
horse mill in New Amsterdam.
Jan 9
Peter Minuit's ship Meeuwken (Seagull), delayed by winter
storms, sails from Texel, Holland.
May
The approximate month Minuit buys Manhattan island from the Canarsie
(Wappinger Confederacy) Indians.
May 4
Minuit arrives at the site of the future New Amsterdam in the
Sea-mew.
Aug 10
Minuit buys Staten Island from the natives.
Sep 23
Willem Verhulst and his wife return to the Netherlands aboard
the ship The Arms of Amsterdam. The ship also carries a
letter from Secretary and commercial agent Isaak de Rasière
to the directors of the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company
- the first known letter written from New Amsterdam, announcing
Peter Minuit's purchase of Manhattan Island from the Canarsie
Indians for 60 guilders.
Nov 5
The Dutch West India Company, having received the letter from
New Amsterdam, report to the Dutch government.
City
Minuit is appointed by a council of Dutch West India Company directors
as first director-general of New Netherlands, replacing company
agent Willem Verhulst, who had been accused of mismanagement.
** The first flour mill in the colony is built. ** The colony
sends 7,258 beaver skins to Holland. ** The fear of Indian attacks
causes the Fort Orange settlers to be removed to Manhattan, leaving
only a few troops behind. Engineer Kryn Frederycks lays out Fort
Amsterdam on the lower end of Manhattan Island, where the Customs
House stands today. He lays out a bouwery (farm) and a burying
ground. ** The population reaches 200. ** The approximate date
the Dutch West India Company imports black slaves from Africa
for the fur trade and construction business. ** Minuit gives the
Lenape Indians 60 guilders worth of trade goods for their share
in Manhattan (May or June).
Mar 19
Governor William Bradford writes to the Dutch at New Amsterdam,
expressing the Pilgrims' appreciation for treatment they received
while living in the Netherlands.
Oct 1
Bradford writes the government in New Amsterdam, again thanking
the Dutch for their hospitality to the Pilgrims.
Dutch West India Company secretary Isaak de Rasières travels to New Plymouth to arrange a trade arrangement. ** The Company sends goods worth 56,170 guilders to New Amsterdam and receives 7,520 beaver pelts and 370 otter skins, worth 56,420 guilders.
Apr 7
Jonas Michaelius, the first Dutch Reformed minister in the colonies,
arrives and founds the forerunner of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch
Church.
August 8
Michaelius writes a letter describing the settlement of New Amsterdam
to those back in Holland. He writes a second such letter three
days later.
City
The Dutch West India Company imports three female slaves from
Angola.
State
Albany's Fort Orange is rebuilt. ** The Iroquois have driven the
Mahican east of the Hudson River.
Jun 7
To encourage colonization the Dutch West India Company's Charter
of Freedoms and Exemptions (Charter of Liberties) establishes
the patroon system in New Netherland (New York). In exchange for
a trade monopoly the Company agrees to supply slaves and build
a better fort on Manhattan. Indian lands outside of Manhattan
must be purchased from them. Amsterdam pearl merchant Killian
van Rensselaer is given the first charter.
Sep 10
Jonas Bronk buys 500 acres of land north of Manhattan from the
local Indians.
© 2002 David Minor / Eagles Byte