Long Island and Rhode Island. In 1609, the English navigator Henry Hudson explored the harbor and purportedly landed at Coney Island. Adriaen Block followed in 1615 and is credited as the first European to determine that both Manhattan and Long Island are islands. Native American land deeds recorded by the Dutch from 1636 state that the Indians referred to Long Island as "Sewanhaka" ("Sewanhacky" and "Sewanhacking" were other spellings in the transliteration of Lenape). "Sewan" was one of the terms for wampum (commemorative stringed shell beads, for a while also used as currency by colonists in trades with the Lenape), and is
Lenape River basin. Smallpox devastated Native American communities even located far from European settlements by the 1640s. The Lenape and Susquehannocks fought a war in the middle of the 17th century that left the Delaware a tributary state even as the Susquehannocks had defeated the Province of Maryland between 1642-50s. New Amsterdam was founded in 1624 by the Dutch in what would later become New York City. Dutch settlers also founded a colony at present-day Lewes, Delaware on June 3, 1631 and named it "Zwaanendael" (Swan Valley). The colony had a short life, as in 1632 a local band of Lenape