New Netherland
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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New Netherland (Template:Lang-nl; Template:Lang-la or Template:Lang) was a 17th-century colony of the Dutch Republic that was located on what is now the east coast of the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod, while the more limited settled areas are now part of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
The colony was conceived by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621 to capitalize on the North American fur trade. It was settled slowly at first because of policy mismanagement by the WIC and conflicts with American Indians. The settlement of New Sweden by the Swedish South Company encroached on its southern flank, while its northern border was redrawn to accommodate an expanding New England Confederation.
The colony experienced dramatic growth during the 1650s and became a major port for trade in the north Atlantic Ocean. The Dutch surrendered Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan island to England in 1664 (formalized in 1667), contributing to the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1673, the Dutch retook the area but relinquished it under the Treaty of Westminster (1674) that ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War the next year.
The inhabitants of New Netherland were European colonists, American Indians, and Africans imported as slave laborers. The colony had an estimated population between 7,000 and 8,000 at the time of transfer to England in 1674, half of whom were not of Dutch descent.
