Peter Minuit Peter Minuit Peter Minuit, Pieter Minuit, Pierre Minuit, or Peter Minnewit (between 1580 and 1585 – August 5, 1638) was a Walloon from Wesel, in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, then part of the Duchy of Cleves. His surname means "midnight" in French. He was the 4th Director of the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and 3rd Governor of New Netherland. He founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden on the Delaware Peninsula in 1638. Minuit is generally credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island for the Dutch from the Lenape Native Americans. Manhattan
Indian Hannah that Hannah was "the only person of that description [Lenape] left" in the area was made shortly before her death, when her neighbors committed her into the local poorhouse. It opened up land for acquisition Hannah Freeman had legal claim to without breaking with William Penn's promise "that the lands belonged to her people until the last one had abandoned them." A road is named after her ("Indian Hannah Road") in Newlin Township, Pennsylvania, and there are two memorial markers for her in Chester County, near Embreeville, Pennsylvania. Hannah Freeman also preserved a bean traditionally grown by her Lenape people