Inwood, Manhattan Inwood, Manhattan Inwood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, at the northern tip of Manhattan Island, in the U.S. state of New York. On May 24, 1626, according to legend, Peter Minuit, the director general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, bought the island from the Lenape Indians for 60 Dutch guilders and, the story goes, some trinkets. On the southern tip of the island Minuit founded New Amsterdam. A plaque (on a rock) marking what is believed to be the spot of the sale is in Inwood Hill Park, the only natural forest
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