e region for his employer. In 1614, the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay would be claimed by the Netherlands and called Nieuw-Nederland (New Netherland).

The first non-Native American inhabitant of what would eventually become New York City was Dominican trader Juan Rodriguez (transliterated to Dutch as Jan Rodrigues). Born in Santo Domingo of Portuguese and African descent, he arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–1614, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch. Broadway, from 159th Street to 218th Street, is named Juan Rodriguez Way in his honor.[87][88]

A painting of a coastline dotted with red roof houses and a windmill, with several masted ships sailing close to shore under blue sky.
New Amsterdam, centered in the eventual Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it "New York".
A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 – making New York the 12th oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States [89] – with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and a Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam).[90][91] The colony of New Amsterdam was centered at the site which would eventually become Lower Manhattan. The Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie, a small band of the Lenape,[92] in 1626 for a value of 60 guilders[93] (about $1000 in 2006);[94] a disproved legend says that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.[95][96]

In 1664, Peter Stuyvesant, the Director-General of the colony of New Netherland, surrendered New Amsterdam to the English without bloodshed. The English promptly renamed the fledgling city "New York" after