New Amsterdam

Timeline

1. 1624–1626Southern tip of Manhattan Island · Mouth of the Hudson RiverThe Dutch West India Company established a fur trading post at the mouth of the Hudson River; in 1626 Governor Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from the Lenape for goods worth about 60 guilders, founded the New Amsterdam settlement at the island's southern tip, and built Fort Amsterdam as the defensive and administrative core.
2. 1626–1650New Amsterdam · Mouth of the Hudson RiverNew Amsterdam gradually developed into the administrative capital of New Netherland, with churches, windmills, warehouses, and a city hall built within the town. The fur trade attracted Dutch, French Huguenots, Walloons, and other European settlers, forming the most ethnically diverse settlement in early North America; the street layout followed Dutch urban tradition, and a defensive earthen wall was built to the north (the precursor of today's Wall Street).
3. 1664New Amsterdam (about to be renamed New York) · New YorkIn August 1664 an English fleet appeared in the harbor, and Governor Peter Stuyvesant was forced to surrender to the English without resistance; the city changed hands and was renamed New York (after the Duke of York). The Dutch briefly recaptured it in 1673 and renamed it New Orange, but returned it to England in 1674 by treaty, and the name "New Amsterdam" came to an end.