Other groups from Massachusetts traveled north to find new homes. The king of England had given two friends a large piece of land in the north. The friends divided it. John Mason took what became the colony of New Hampshire. Ferdinando Gorges took the area that later became the state of Maine. Maine was never a colony -- it remained a part of Massachusetts until the United States was established in seventeen seventy-six.
The area that became New York State was settled by the Dutch. They called it New Netherland. Their home country, the Netherlands, was a great power, with colonies all over the world. A business called the Dutch West India Company owned most of the colonies.
The Dutch claimed American land because of explorations by Henry Hudson, an Englishman working for the Netherlands. The land the Dutch claimed was between the areas settled by the Puritans in the north and the Anglican tobacco farmers in the south.
The Dutch were not interested in settling the territory. Instead, they wanted to earn money. The Dutch West India Company built trading posts on the rivers claimed by the Netherlands. Indians brought animal skins to these posts for use in making goods for buyers back in Europe.
In sixteen twenty-six, the Dutch West India Company bought two islands from the local Indians. The islands were Manhattan and Long Island. The Dutch paid for Manhattan with goods worth only about twenty-four dollars.
The Dutch West India Company tried to find people to settle in America. But few Dutch wanted to leave Europe. So the colony welcomed people from other colonies, and other countries. These people built a town on Manhattan Island. They called it New Amsterdam. It was soon full of people who had arrived on ships from faraway places. Up until this time the population was mostly Dutch and British. But now one could hear as many as eighteen different languages spoken in New Amsterdam.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25