The area of present-day Manhattan was originally part of Lenape territory. European settlement began with the establishment of a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The territory and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York, based in present-day Manhattan, served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th century and is a world symbol of the United States and its ideals of liberty and peace. Manhattan became a borough during the consolidation of New York City in 1898.
Etymology
The name Manhattan originated from the Lenapes language, Munsee, manaháhtaan (where manah- means "gather", -aht- means "bow", and -aan is an abstract element used to form verb stems). The Lenape word has been translated as "the place where we get bows" or "place for gathering the (wood to make) bows".
According to a Munsee tradition recorded by Albert Seqaqkind Anthony in the 19th century, the island was named so for a grove of hickory trees at its southern end that was considered ideal for the making of bows. It was first recorded in writing as Manna-hata, in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen (Half Moon).
A 1610 map depicts the name Manna-hata twice, on both the east and west sides of the Mauritius River, later named the North River and ultimately the Hudson River. Alternative etymologies in folklore include "island of many hills", "He could envision what Henry Hudson saw in 1609 as he sailed along Mannahatta, which in the Lenape dialect most likely meant island of many hills." "the island where we all became intoxicated" and simply "island", as well as a phrase descriptive of the whirlpool at Hell Gate. It is thought that the term Manhattoe may originally have referred only to a location at the southern tip of the island before eventually signifying the entire island to the Dutch through pars pro toto.
Lenape settlement Manhattan was historically part of the Lenapehoking territory inhabited by the Munsee Lenape and Wappinger tribes."The $24 Swindle", Nathaniel Benchley, American Heritage, 1959, Vol. 11, Issue 1 There were several Lenape settlements in the area of Manhattan including Sapohanikan, Nechtanc, and Konaande Kongh that were interconnected by a series of trails. The primary trail on the island ran from what is now Inwood in the north to Battery Park in the south. There were various sites for fishing and planting established by the Lenape throughout Manhattan. The Collect Pond, which fed the fresh water streams and marshes around it, was also an important meeting and trading location for the people in the area.
Colonial era
In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, sailing in service of King Francis I of France, became the first documented European to visit the area that would become New York City. Verrazzano entered the tidal strait now known as The Narrows and named the land around Upper New York Harbor New Angoulême, in reference to the family name of King Francis I that was derived from Angoulême in France; he sailed far enough into the harbor to sight the Hudson River, which he referred to in his report to the French king as a "very big river"; and he named the Bay of Santa Margarita – what is now Upper New York Bay – after Marguerite de Navarre, the elder sister of the king.R. J. Knecht: Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I; p. 372. Cambridge University Press (1996) Seymour I. Schwartz: The Mismapping of America. p. 42; The University of Rochester Press (2008)
Manhattan was first mapped during a 1609 voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company. Hudson came across Manhattan Island and the native people living there, and continued up the river that would later bear his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present-day Albany."Henry Hudson and His Exploration" Scientific American, September 25, 1909. Accessed May 1, 2007. "This was a vain hope however, and the conviction must finally have come to the heart of the intrepid adventurer that once again he was foiled in his repeated quest for the northwest passage ... On the following day the Half Moon let go her anchor inside of Sandy Hook. The week was spent in exploring the bay with a shallop, or small boat, and "they found a good entrance between two headlands" (the Narrows) "and thus entered on September 12 into as fine a river as can be found""
A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624, with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam), in what is now Lower Manhattan.Dutch Colonies , National Park Service. Accessed May 19, 2007. "Sponsored by the West India Company, 30 families arrived in North America in 1624, establishing a settlement on present-day Manhattan."GovIsland Park-to-Tolerance: through Broad Awareness and Conscious Vigilance , Tolerance Park. Accessed November 20, 2016. See Legislative Resolutions Senate No. 5476 and Assembly No. 2708. The 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City.City Seal and Flag , New York City. Accessed November 20, 2016. "Date: Beneath the horizontal laurel branch the date 1625, being the year of the establishment of New Amsterdam."
According to a letter by Pieter Janszoon Schagen, Peter Minuit and Walloon colonists of the West India Company acquired the island of Manhattan on May 24, 1626, from unnamed native people, who are believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Manhattoe, in exchange for traded goods worth 60 guilders, often said to be worth US$24. In actuality, 60 guilders in that time was worth 2,400 English pennies. According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the Canarsee, who were willing to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for the island that was mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks, a band of the Wappinger.Benchley, Nathaniel. "The $24 Swindle: The Indians who sold Manhattan were bilked, all right, but they didn't mind — the land wasn't theirs anyway." American Heritage, Vol. 11, no. 1 (December 1959).
In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony.Journal of New Netherland 1647. Written in the Years 1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645, and 1646., Library of Congress. Accessed August 6, 2023. "The West India Company removed Kieft from his post in 1647 and replaced him with Peter Stuyvesant, the last director-general of New Netherland before the colony was taken over by the English in 1664." New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.About the Council , New York City Council. Accessed May 18, 2007. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II.New York State History , New York Department of State. Accessed June 29, 2009. "...named New York in honor of the Duke of York." The Dutch, under Director General Stuyvesant, successfully negotiated with the English to produce 24 articles of provisional transfer, which sought to retain for the extant citizens of New Netherland their previously attained liberties (including freedom of religion) under their new English rulers.Griffis, William Elliot. "The Story of New Netherland" Chapter XV: The Fall of New Netherland, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909. "In religious matters, Article VIII of the capitulation read, "The Dutch shall enjoy the liberty of their consciences in Divine worship and in Church government.""
The Dutch Republic re-captured the city in August 1673, renaming it "New Orange". New Netherland was ultimately ceded to the English in November 1674 through the Treaty of Westminster.Scheltema, Gajus and Westerhuijs, Heleen (eds.),Exploring Historic Dutch New York. Museum of the City of New York/Dover Publications, New York (2011).
American Revolution and the early United States
On July 9, 1776, George Washington's aid read the United States Declaration of Independence to his troops and the citizens of New York, who later stormed to Bowling Green, where there stood a statue of King George III, then proceeded to tie ropes to the statue and yanked it off its pedestal and shipped its remains to Litchfield, Connecticut, where most of the lead from the statue was turned into 42,000 musketballs for the Continental Army. In the process, finials on the tops of the fence that was built along the perimeter of Bowling Green to protect the statue depicting the royal symbol of a crown were sawed off, the fence remains standing to this very day and the uneven hack marks where the crown finials used to be are present. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War.
The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British military and political center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war.Fort Washington Park , New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Accessed May 18, 2007. The military center for the colonists was established in neighboring New Jersey.About Morristown , Town of Morristown. Accessed April 3, 2013. "Morristown became characterized as 'the military capital of the American Revolution' because of its strategic role in the war for independence from Great Britain."Weig, Melvin J.; and Craig, Vera B. Morristown: A Military Capital of the American Revolution , National Park Service, 1950, reprinted 1961. Accessed July 19, 2011. British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city."Happy Evacuation Day" , New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, November 23, 2005. Accessed May 18, 2007.
From January 11, 1785, to the fall of 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, with the Continental Congress meeting at New York City Hall (then at Fraunces Tavern). New York was the first capital under the newly enacted Constitution of the United States, from March 4, 1789, to August 12, 1790, at Federal Hall.The Nice Capitals of the United States . United States Senate Historical Office. Accessed June 9, 2005. Based on Fortenbaugh, Robert, The Nine Capitals of the United States, York, Pennsylvania: Maple Press, 1948... Federal Hall was also the site where the United States Supreme Court met for the first time, the United States Bill of Rights were drafted and ratified, and where the Northwest Ordinance was adopted, establishing measures for adding new states to the Union.
19th century
New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury and, later, with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the Midwestern United States and Canada.Lankevich (1998), pp. 67–68. By 1810, New York City, then confined to Manhattan, had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 laid out the island of Manhattan in its familiar grid plan.