Dutch colonization of the Americas In 1624, the first colonists, mostly Walloons and their slaves-bound servants, arrived to New Netherland by the shipload, landing at Governors Island and initially dispensed to Fort Orange, Fort Wilhelmus and Kievets Hoek. In 1626, Director of the WIC Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape natives and started construction of Fort Amsterdam, which grew to become the main port and capital, New Amsterdam. The colony expanded to outlying areas at Pavonia, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Long Island. On the Connecticut River, Fort Huys de Goede Hoop was completed in 1633 at present day Hartford. By 1636, the
Hackensack people Purchase agreement in Pennsylvania, and Treaty of Easton. The British were trying to gain control of lands they had "acquired" from the French after the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and the Native Americans were trying to prevent further European encroachment into their territory. Today Lenape groups are dispersed around the United States. Hackensack people Hackensack was the exonym given by the Dutch colonists to a band of the Lenape, or "Lenni-Lenape" ("original men"), a Native American tribe. The name is a Dutch derivation of the Lenape word for what is now the region of northeastern New Jersey along the