PETER STUYVESANT
Manhattan was the Indian name for the island at the mouth of the Hudson River. Tempted by Henry Hudson's furs, the thrifty Dutchmen sent ship after ship to trade with the American Indians. And as the years went by, these Dutchmen built a trading post on Manhattan, and a little Dutch village grew up about the post. Soon the Dutch West India Company was formed to send out colonists to Manhattan and the land along the Hudson. A governor too was sent. His name was Peter Minuit.
Now Peter Minuit was honest, and when he found that the Dutch were living on Indian land to which they had helped themselves, he was not content. So he called together the tribes which lived on Manhattan and, while the painted warriors squatted on the ground, spoke to them in words like these: “My brothers, we have come to trade with you. And that we may be near to buy your furs when you have gathered them, we wish to live among you, on your land. It is your land, and as we do not mean to steal it from you, I have asked you to meet me here that I may buy from you this island which you call Manhattan.” Then, in payment for the island, Peter Minuit offered the Indians ribbons, knives, rings, and colored beads—things dearly loved by the savages. The bargain was soon closed, and for twenty-four dollars' worth of trinkets the Dutch became the owners of Manhattan Island.
NEW YORK IN OLDEN TIMES
The Dutch settlement on Manhattan was called New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam was a pretty town, with its quaint Dutch houses built gable end toward the street and its gardens bright with flowers. Dutch windmills with their long sweeping arms rose here and there, and near the water stood the fort.
But though New Amsterdam grew and prospered in the years after Peter Minuit bought Manhattan, life there did not run as smoothly as it might. In time Peter Stuyvesant came to be governor, and a stern, tyrannical ruler he was. He always saw things from the Dutch West India Company's point of view, not from the colonists'. Disagreement followed disagreement till the people were nearly at the end of their patience.
WASHINGTON TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE