New York

In 1609, Sir Henry Hudson, an english mariner working for the Dutch, re-discovered Manhattan Island and behind it the huge Hudson River, hence the name.

He went on to establish fur trading and brought the business to the European market which induced a migration of many more settlers to the colony. 1613 saw the sailing of Dutch ships up the Hudson, founding the trading post formally known as Fort Nassau. Later it was referred to as Albany, now the capital of New York State. The success of the trading here culminated in the setting up of the Dutch West India Company which began to send settlers in 1624 founding a colony on Manhattan Island between 1625-6, 'New Amsterdam'.

The Dutch surrendered what they had built to the Kingdom of England in 1664 at which time 'New Amsterdam' became 'New York' after James, the Duke of York - brother of the King. The province of New York, claimed originally as an English and then later a British Crown territory,  was large, including such present US states as: Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Vermont. Along with sections of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and Eastern Pennsylvania.

The province was eventually broken up, scaled down to the valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers and Vermont. (Later excluding Vermont).

Relationships with native Americans can be charted as far back as the dawn of 'New Amsterdam' when Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from local Indians for a value of sixty guilders, now known as 'the best real-estate deal in history'. This speaks of the colonial exploitation that native Americans suffered.

Iroquois peoples inhabited much of the East Coast pre-colonisation, more specifically the Mohawk tribe covered most of what is now Upstate New York, known as the 'keepers of the East door'. Relations between the two peoples became reasonable civil and they even formed an alliance to stamp out French privateering in New York City in 1757. Less than ten years later, a British agent to the Iroquois peoples promoted the establishment of  the treaty of Fort Stanwix which prevented intrusive settlement of English colonies into their lands.