Conflict and Commerce: The Rise and Fall of New Netherland

By Simon Middleton

In September 1609, when Henry Hudson guided his ship, De Halve Maen, through the narrows dividing present-day Staten and Long Islands, he was not the first European navigator to sail into what we know today as New York Bay. The Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano came in 1524; the Frenchmen Jean Alfonse de Saintonge and Jean Cossin made separate voyages over the next half century. But it was Hudson’s arrival that established a Dutch claim to the region and changed its history for all time.

Hudson, an English mariner in Dutch employ, had left Amsterdam in April intending to explore the Arctic seas north of Norway for a possible eastern route to the rich trade of the Indies. When ice floes barred the way, his eighty-five-foot vessel and its crew of sixteen mariners turned to the west and journeyed five thousand miles to North America. For weeks they navigated southwards within sight of the shore, looking for an estuary or bay that might indicate the beginnings of a western route to Asia. By August they had reached Long Island and, after a few days exploring the coast around Sandy Hook, Hudson set off up the broad, deep, and promising river that now bears his name. Although the intrepid captain failed to locate a route to Asia—his navigation of the Hudson ended at the site of modern-day Albany—he had discovered a territory rich in timber and furs that would please his Dutch financiers back in Amsterdam.

Hudson’s voyage took place at a critical moment in Atlantic history, and, in particular, for the challenge of northern European states to the power of Spain. Weakened by the loss of the Armada to England in 1588 and by relentless attacks on its New World gold fleets, Spain was plagued by financial crises that pushed it to the edge of collapse. The Spanish had also been unable to put down a revolt by their northern Dutch provinces, eight of which had declared their independence and established a new Dutch Republic. In April 1609, after decades of intermittent and inconclusive hostilities, the two sides agreed to a truce, allowing Dutch merchants to back voyages such as Hudson’s without fear of Spanish attack and financial ruin.