History of New York City
The written history of New York City begins with the arrival of the first European explorer to the area, Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1528 and his brief interactions with the Indigenous Lenape. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608 and New Amsterdam was founded with the assistance of the Lenape in 1624.
The Sons of Liberty campaigned against British authority in New York City, and the Stamp Act Congress of representatives from throughout the Thirteen Colonies met in the city in 1765 to organize resistance to Crown policies. The city's strategic location and status as a major seaport made it the prime target for British seizure in 1776. General George Washington lost a series of battles from which he narrowly escaped, and the British Army occupied New York and made it their base on the continent until late 1783, attracting Loyalist refugees.
The city served as the national capital under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1789, and briefly served as the new nation's capital in 1789–1790 under the United States Constitution. Under the new government, the city hosted the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States, the drafting of the United States Bill of Rights, and the first Supreme Court of the United States. The opening of the Erie Canal New York and the Great Lakes, along with coastal traffic to lower New England, making the city the preeminent port on the Atlantic Ocean as it long had been with the Beaver Pelt Trade. The arrival of rail connections to the north and west in the 1840s and 1850s strengthened its central role.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, waves of new immigrants arrived from Europe, dramatically changing the composition of the city and serving as workers in the expanding industries. Modern New York traces its development to the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898 and an economic and building boom following the Great Depression and World War II. Throughout its history, New York has served as a main port of entry for many immigrants, and its cultural and economic influence has made it one of the most important urban areas in the United States and the world. The economy in the 1700s was based on farming, local production, fur trading, including the North American Beaver Pelt Trade, and Atlantic jobs like shipbuilding. In the 1700s, New York was sometimes referred to as a breadbasket colony, because one of its major crops was wheat. New York colony also exported other goods including iron ore as a raw material and manufactured goods such as tools, plows, nails and kitchen items such as kettles, pans and pots.
Native American settlement
Prior to the first human settlement, the area that eventually encompassed modern day New York was originally a marshland swamp, with numerous streams and creeks throughout modern day Manhattan Island. The first human Inhabitants were by the Lenape people. These groups of culturally and linguistically related Native Americans traditionally spoke an Algonquian language now referred to as Unami. Early European settlers called bands of Lenape by the Unami place name for where they lived, such as "Raritan" in Staten Island and New Jersey, "Canarsee" in Brooklyn, and "Hackensack" in New Jersey across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan. Some modern place names such as Raritan Bay and Canarsie are derived from Lenape names. Eastern Long Island neighbors were culturally and linguistically more closely related to the Mohegan-Pequot peoples of New England who spoke the Mohegan-Montauk-Narragansett language.The modern name for Manhattan is also derived from Lenape languages, with many possible variations in the exact definition and origin. The most commonly known original name for the island of Manhattan is “Manahatta”, meaning “island of many hills”, or “place for gathering wood to make bows”. This name has been seen on maps and in letters, with spelling variations including “Manahata”, “Manahatin”, and “Manna-hatta”. An early story from a Moravian Missionary claimed the Dutch gave alcohol to Indigenous Delaware, or Lenape as they called themselves, people upon their arrival, resulting in the Delaware calling the island “Mannahachtanink”, meaning “the island or place of general intoxication”. This story has however been largely disproved due to linguistic studies of the Unami, Munsee and German languages.
Along with assistance from Albert Seqaqkind Anthony, a member of the Delaware Delegation from the Six Nations Reserve who was fluent in the Munsee language and linguistic studies of Munsee, Algonquin, Unami, and Delaware languages, the name can be defined as “the place where we get more bows”. While it has been difficult to determine and fully confirm the original meaning of the name “Manhattan”, it is certain that all possible definitions come from indigenous names for the island's usage.
These peoples made use of the abundant waterways in the New York region for fishing, hunting trips, trade, and occasionally war. Many paths created by the indigenous peoples are now main thoroughfares, such as Broadway in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester. The Lenape developed sophisticated techniques of hunting and managing their resources. By the time of the arrival of Europeans, they were cultivating fields of vegetation through the slash and burn technique, which extended the productive life of planted fields. They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bay. Historians estimate that at the time of European settlement, approximately 5,000 Lenape lived in 80 settlements around the region.
European exploration and settlement
New Angoulême
The first European visitor to the area was Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian in command of the French ship La Dauphine in 1524. It is believed he sailed into Upper New York Bay, where he encountered native Lenape, returned through the Narrows, where he anchored the night of April 17, and left to continue his voyage. He named the area New Angoulême in honor of Francis I, King of France of the royal house of Valois-Angoulême and who had been Count of Angoulême from 1496 until his coronation in 1515. The name refers to the town of Angoulême, in the Charente département of France. For the next century, the area was occasionally visited by fur traders or explorers, such as by Esteban Gomez in 1525.European exploration continued on September 2, 1609, when the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed the Half Moon through the Narrows into Upper New York Bay. Like Christopher Columbus, Hudson was looking for a westerly passage to Asia. He never found one, but he did take note of the abundant beaver population. Beaver pelts were in fashion in Europe, fueling a lucrative business. Hudson's report on the regional beaver population served as the impetus for the founding of Dutch trading colonies in the New World. The beaver's importance in New York's history is reflected by its use on the city's official seal.
Dutch settlement
The first Dutch fur trading posts and settlements were in 1614 near present-day Albany, New York, the same year that New Netherland first appeared on maps. Only in May 1624 did the Dutch West India Company land a number of families at Noten Eylant off the southern tip of Manhattan at the mouth of the North River. Soon thereafter, most likely in 1626, construction of Fort Amsterdam began. Later, the Dutch West Indies Company imported African slaves to serve as laborers; they were forced to build the wall that defended the town against English and Indian attacks. Early directors included Willem Verhulst and Peter Minuit. Willem Kieft became director in 1638 but five years later was embroiled in Kieft's War against the Native Americans. The Pavonia Massacre, across the Hudson River in present-day Jersey City, resulted in the death of 80 natives in February 1643. Following the massacre, Algonquian tribes joined forces and nearly defeated the Dutch. Holland sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans and a peace treaty on August 29, 1645.On May 27, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival and ruled as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. The colony was granted self-government in 1652, and New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653. The first mayors of New Amsterdam, Arent van Hattem and Martin Cregier, were appointed in that year. By the early 1660s, the population consisted of approximately 1500 Europeans, only about half of whom were Dutch, and 375 Africans, 300 of whom were slaves.
A few of the original Dutch place names have been retained, most notably Flushing, Harlem, and Brooklyn. Few buildings, however, remain from the 17th century. The oldest recorded house still in existence in New York, the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, dates from 1652.
Peter Minuit is most commonly known for the story of his purchase of Manhattan. The story says that Manhattan, a part of the larger Lenape territory called Lenapehoking, was traded for goods given by Minuit to the Indigenous people living there at the time, the Lenape. This story has been accepted for years as a legitimate purchase allowing the Dutch to create colonial settlements on the island. It has recently been recognized that the Indigenous people would not have understood the idea of land purchase and land ownership in the same way that the colonial settlers would have. Typically, Lenape people viewed land not as something that could be traditionally purchased or permanently owned by any one person or group, rather with the concept of land ownership shifting with use and season. The Lenape living in this area assisted the settlers in hunting and creating early settlements before and after this “purchase”, this assisted the colony's initial development and continued ability to grow and survive.
The Beaver Pelt Trade
In 1610, the fur trade between Dutch colonists and Indigenous people began. The New Netherland colony founded by the Dutch grew from continued usage of the new abundance of resources available to the colonists and exploitation of the “soft gold”, beaver pelts, of the area. The fur trade largely consisted of Indigenous people providing beaver pelts in exchange for tools or goods from the colonists. The North American fur trade was spurred by the popularity of fur in Europe, previously only able to be acquired from Russia, which led to the large-scale hunting in North America when this unexploited population was found by the colonists.
Before the presence of Europeans in North America, Indigenous peoples used the beavers for their fur, meat, oils, utilizing every part of the animal for different purposes. Europeans primarily used the beavers fur for hats, a popular fashion choice and status symbol in Europe. The British participated in the beaver pelt trade, with a trade route through New York City and Albany. Colonial economic dependence on the fur trade promoted the creation of relationships with Indigenous people, as the British competed with the French for beaver pelts and profit. Prominent New York families, including the Astors, benefited greatly from this trade, using money gained to invest in the development of the city.
The New York beaver trade was a part of the North American Beaver Trade, which contributed to the depletion of the North American Beaver population from an estimated 100 million in 1600 to near extinction by 1700. Prior to colonization, the beaver population of New York State was estimated to be 60 million. Beavers have since been reintroduced to the New York environment, with beavers having been spotted in the Bronx River, in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and on Staten Island.
Indigenous traditional practices and knowledge of trapping, hunting and beaver habitats contributed to this trade's success. The beaver trade was significant to the economic development of New York City and New York State, displayed on the state flag and seal as a memorial of this significance.