Dutch Americans (locative). Similarities between Dutch and English are abundant. Examples include the article "the" ("de" in Dutch), the words "book" ("boek"), "house" ("huis"), "pen" ("pen"), and, "street" ("straat"), among others. Dutch and English are both part of the West Germanic language group and share several aspects. Adaptation of place names between the languages is common, as was the case of New York, where several landmarks like "Conyne Eylandt" (Rabbit Island) became more suitable to Anglophones (Coney Island). Contact between other languages also created various creoles with Dutch as the base language. Two examples, Jersey Dutch and Mohawk Dutch, are now extinct.
Harbor Defenses of New York settlement in the area, by the New Netherland Company as part of the colony of the same name. This colony was established primarily to exploit the North American fur trade, and grew over the next forty years with fortified settlements from the South River (Delaware River) to what is now Rhode Island. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company took over management of New Netherland and other Dutch possessions in the New World. In 1624, after floods showed that Fort Nassau was untenable, it was replaced with Fort Orange. Also in that year, Dutch settlement of what became New York