CHAPTER XIV.
New York.—Settlement and Administration of Stuyvesant.
New Amsterdam.
THE settlement of New Amsterdam resulted from the voyages of the brave Sir Henry Hudson. For ten years after its founding, the colony was governed by the directors of the Dutch East India Company. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was organized, and Manhattan Island, with its cluster of huts, passed at once under the control of the new corporation.
Dutch Settlements.
2. In April, 1623, the ship New Netherland, with thirty families on board, arrived at New Amsterdam. The colonists, called Walloons, were Dutch Protestant refugees. Cornelius May was the leader of the company. Most of the new immigrants settled with their friends on Manhattan; but the captain, with a party of fifty, made explorations as far as Delaware Bay.
3. In May the island, containing more than twenty thousand acres, was purchased from the natives for twenty-four dollars. A block-house was built and surrounded with a palisade. New Amsterdam was already a town of thirty houses. The Dutch of New Amsterdam and the Pilgrims of New Plymouth were early and fast friends.