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
Unalachtigo Lenape Unalachtigo Lenape The Unalachtigo were a purported division of the Lenape (Delaware Indians), a Native American tribe whose homeland "Lenapehoking" was in what is today the Northeastern United States. They were part of the Forks Indians. The name was a Munsee language term for the Unami-speakers of west-central New Jersey. Moravian missionaries called the Lenape people of the Forks region near Easton, Pennsylvania "Unami," and the Northern Unami language-speakers in New Jersey "Unalachtigo." It is debated whether Unalachtigo constituted a distinct dialect of Unami. Unalachtigo words were recorded in 17th-century vocabulary drawn from the Sankhikan band of Lenape in New