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
Jamaica Bay confluence of the New York Bight and New York Bay, and is at the turning point of the primarily east-west oriented coastline of southern New England and Long Island and the north-south oriented coastline of the mid-Atlantic coast. The name derives from the nearby town of Jamaica, which in turn derives from "Yameco", a corruption of a word in the Lenape language spoken by the Native Americans who lived in the area at the time of first European contact. The "y" sound in English is spelled with a "j" in Dutch, the first Europeans to write about the area. This