![[Pasted image 20250202091418.png]] Following its independence from Spain, the Protestant [[Dutch Republic]] became a center of European commerce in the 1600s. After the victory Holland shared with Britain against the Spanish Armada in 1588, fleets of the [[Dutch West India Company]] were free to explore the waters of the Atlantic, while [[Dutch East India Company]] ships sailed to the “Spice Islands” of the Far East, establishing the Dutch colony that eventually became Indonesia and returning with prized spices like pepper to be sold in Amsterdam. In North America, Dutch traders established themselves first near Albany and soon opened for business on Manhattan Island. [[Peter Stuyvesant]], director-general of the North American settlement from 1647 to 1664, expanded [[New Netherland]] eastward to present-day Long Island and for many miles north along the [[Hudson River]]. The colony served primarily as a fur-trading post, with the Dutch West India Company controlling all commerce. [[Fort Amsterdam]], on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, defended a growing city. In 1655, Stuyvesant took over the small colony of [[New Sweden]] along the banks of the Delaware River in present-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The loss of their Delaware River colony ended Sweden’s colonial efforts in North America, but Swedish interest in America remained strong and resulted in extensive emigration to the US in the nineteenth century. Stuyvesant also defended New Amsterdam from Indian attacks by having African slaves build a protective wall on the city’s northeastern border, giving present-day [[Wall Street]] its name. New Netherland grew very slowly and by 1664 only nine thousand people lived there. Conflict with native peoples and dissatisfaction with the Dutch West India Company’s trading practices made the Dutch outpost unattractive to many migrants. The small population created a severe labor shortage and the Dutch West India Company imported 450 African slaves between 1626 and 1664. The company had involved itself heavily in the slave trade since the defeat of the Armada and their 1637 capture of [Elmina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmina_Castle), the slave-trading outpost on the African coast, from the Portuguese. The population shortage also encouraged New Netherland to welcome non-Dutch immigrants including Protestants from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and England. New Amsterdam embraced a degree of religious tolerance unusual in other colonies, allowing Jewish immigrants to become residents beginning in the 1650s. Such a wide variety of people lived in the Dutch colony that one observer claimed eighteen different languages could be heard on the streets of New Amsterdam. As new settlers arrived, the colony of New Netherland stretched farther to the north and the west. ![[Pasted image 20250202091653.png]] --- Next: [[3.7 Patroons]] Back: [[3.5 New France]]