albany became capital of new york in 1797.
albany became capital of new york in 1797.
when did albany became capital of new york?
1797
new york played a pivotal role during the american revolution and subsequent war. the stamp act congress in 1765 brought together representatives from across the thirteen colonies to form a unified response to british policies. the sons of liberty were active in new york city to challenge british authority. after a major loss at the battle of long island, the continental army suffered a series of additional defeats that forced a retreat from the new york city area, leaving the strategic port and harbor to the british army and navy as their north american base of operations for the rest of the war. the battle of saratoga was the turning point of the war in favor of the americans, convincing france to formally ally with them. new york's constitution was adopted in 1777, and strongly influenced the united states constitution. new york city was the national capital at various times between 1785 and 1790, where the bill of rights was drafted. albany became the permanent state capital in 1797. in 1787, new york became the eleventh state to ratify the united states constitution.
history of new york (state)
when new netherland was captured by the english in 1664, the name was changed from "beverwijck" to "albany" in honor of the duke of albany (later james ii of england and james vii of scotland). duke of albany was a scottish title given since 1398, generally to a younger son of the king of scots. the name is ultimately derived from "alba", the gaelic name for scotland. the dutch briefly regained albany in august 1673 and renamed the city "willemstadt"; the english took permanent possession with the treaty of westminster (1674). on november 1, 1683, the province of new york was split into counties, with albany county being the largest. at that time the county included all of present new york state north of dutchess and ulster counties in addition to present-day bennington county, vermont, theoretically stretching west to the pacific ocean; albany became the county seat. albany was formally chartered as a municipality by provincial governor thomas dongan on july 22, 1686. the "dongan charter" was virtually identical in content to the charter awarded to the city of new york three months earlier. "dongan" created albany as a strip of land wide and long. over the years albany would lose much of the land to the west and annex land to the north and south. at this point, albany had a population of about 500 people.
albany, new york