The Dutch in America

Settlement of the Hudson River Valley

Mar 29, 2006

In 1609, Holland sent Henry Hudson to locate a waterway, a Northwest Passage, across North America. The Dutch West India Company starts a settlement in the Hudson River V

In 1609, Holland sent Henry Hudson to locate a waterway, a Northwest Passage, across North America. Aboard his ship, the Half Moon, he sailed 150 miles up a river that seemed promising, one that would later carry his name. However, this river, the Hudson, did not deliver him to the Pacific Ocean. But he did lay claim to a portion of the New World that would forever be an important section of land.

By 1624, the Dutch West India Company was sending people to America and settlement of the Hudson River Valley was underway. The Dutch, like the French, were interested in the fur trade. Soon, New Amsterdam, present-day New York, was established on the coast. As settlement expanded Fort Orange, present-day Albany, New York, was built upriver as a fur-trading post. Now, flanked by forts on the Delaware and Connecticut Rivers a small settlement was in the beginning stages of becoming an empire in the fur trade.

This new settlement, New Netherland, grew slowly and only remained in existence for some 40 years. Several factors were working against any chance of lasting success. Rich Dutch burghers did not want to leave their comfortable homes to come to a wild and uncivilized place to act as the ruling class. Unlike England, Holland was blessed with religious tolerance so this was not a positive argument for enticing settlers to America.

In Holland, as in Spain and France, the land system featured control by the aristocrats. This system allowed very little self-government and would continue as such in America but made worse for the common man in that governing officials would be sent to America. Still there was no incentive to immigrate. Why leave a land that was civilized and familiar for one that was very uncivilized and unknown?

While this Dutch colony struggled to exist, nestled dangerously in English territory, the Swedes attempted to establish themselves on the shores of Delaware Bay. The Swedes built Fort Christina in 1638, where present-day Wilmington, Delaware now sits. It too, never made much headway and in 1655 the Dutch conquered it.

Another ten years of struggle continued until 1655, when the English took over the Dutch holdings.

Athearn, Robert G. The New World: American Heritage New Illustrated History of the United States, Volume 1. Dell Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1963.

The copyright of the article The Dutch in America in American History is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish The Dutch in America in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.