New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam is the name the Dutch gave to the island of Manhattan after they bought it from local natives. It was the capital of New Netherland. In 1664, an English fleet arrived and took control. The English renamed it to New York.

New Amsterdam Media

• 1882 depiction of the ship Mayflower sailing from England to America in 1620, in Plymouth Harbor

• Verkoopakte Manhattan.jpg

  1626 letter in Dutch by Pieter Schaghen stating the purchase of Manhattan for 60 gulden.

• Hudson Valley Map Detail Nova Belgica Et Anglia Nova c1634.jpg

  A map of the Hudson River Valley c. 1634 (north is to the right)

• The City New Amsterdam on Manhattan (De Stadt Nieuw Amsterdam op Manhattans) Drawing 1650-1654.jpg

  Drawing of New Amsterdam in 1650, discovered in 1991 in the collection of Albertina in Austria. It is probably the oldest, lifelike depiction of the colony

• First Slave Auction 1655 Howard Pyle.jpg

  The First Slave Auction at New Amsterdam in 1655, by Howard Pyle

• New Amsterdam in 1664 (looking approximately due north)

• The Castello Plan, a 1660 map of New Amsterdam (the top right corner is roughly north). The fort gave The Battery (in present-day Manhattan) its name, the large street going from the fort past the wall became Broadway, and the city wall (right) gave Wall Street its name.

• Castelloplan.jpg

  Redraft of the Castello Plan, drawn in 1916

• Wall Street IRT 008c.JPG

  Depiction of the wall of New Amsterdam on a tile in the Wall Street subway station

• Rigging House motif.jpg

  The Rigging House, 120 William Street, in 1846. It was a Methodist church in the 1760s, then a secular building again before its demolition in the mid-19th century.