The Netherlands Expansion into the Americas
Last Updated 1/2/2008 1/1/2008 12/28/2007
The Dutch controlled a colonial global empire.
The Dutch Navy was a major force, and they reigned at sea.
1602, Dutch merchants found the Dutch East India Co. to trade in Africa and the East Indies.
The Dutch had a fleet of 10,000 merchant ships.
They seized Portuguese trading posts in the East Indies.
They reached Australia and New Zeland..
They founded Capetown at the southern tip of Africa.
1621, Dutch West India Company founded.
Henry Hudson
1609, Dutch East India Co. hired Englishman Henry Hudson to find northeast passage.
After looking he sailed west.
Hudson arrived off the coast of Cape Cod.
He sailed up the Hudson River.
He claimed the Hudson River valley for the Dutch East India Company.
New Amsterdam
1624, 30 colonist familes arrive at the island Manhattan.
They found the city of New Amsterdam.
They focused on fur trading instead of farming.
The colonies the Dutch founded were called New Netherlands.
New Amsterdam was the capital.
Peter Minuit
1626, Peter Minuit arrives and purchases the island of Manhattan.
Minuit formally founds New Amsterdam, which became New York City.
He establishes Fort Orange, which became Albany, NY.
1n the 1630s-1640s, the Dutch crushed the strength of the river Indians.
1638, Swedes build Fort Christina, near present-day Wilmington, Delaware.
1640, West India Company gives up their monopoly.
Peter Stuyvesant
Early Life
Peter Stuyvesant was born in Scherpenzal near Wolvega, Frieland, Netherlands.
He was a Dutch soldier and colonial official.
He entered the military at a very young age.
Stuyvesant was wounded in his right leg and had to have it ampuated and replaced by a wooden one.
His wooden leg was later decorated with silver-ornaments.
People called him "Old Silver Nails" because of his leg.
Director General
1647, Peter Stuyvesant, the new Director General whips the colony in shape.
1652, 60-70 familes move up river.
1655, in a dispute with Sweden over their expansion in the Delaware Valley.
Stuyvesant invaded and forced the Swedes to surrender.
1657, Stuyvesant sends an army to crush the Esopus Indiand and build a fort.
The people took their houses down board by board.
They rebuilt their houses behind a stockade 14 feet high made of tree trunks.
The men left the fort to farm and the women anmd children stayed inside.
1664, peace treaty with the Esopus Indians.
New Amsterdam's population grew to 9,000 people.
Anglo-Dutch Wars
1663, English and Dutch West India Company clashed over African trade of slaves, ivory, and gold.
1664, Dutch and English prepared for war.
Stuyvesant did not have a fleet or any real army to defend the colony.
James I, brother of King Charles of England, arrived with a small fleet.
He was forced to surrender the colony to the English war fleet without a struggle.
The English took over most of the Dutch colonies.
1664 September, New York was born.