Living Among the Mohawks, 1644
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In 1609 Henry Hudson, an English sea captain under contract to the Dutch, sailed his ship the Half Moon up what would become the Hudson River to a point near present-day Albany, NY. Hudson searched for the elusive Northwest Passage that his Dutch masters hoped would provide them a short, northern sea route to the lucrative spice islands of the Pacific. His quest was unsuccessful; but Hudson’s voyage was not a failure. The expedition did not lead to spices, but it did find another profitable commodity – furs.
Distracted by the search for riches in the South Pacific, the West Indies and South America, the Dutch did not exploit their discovery in North America until 1621. That year witnessed the formation of the Dutch West India Company with a monopoly for trade along the shores of the Americas. The colony of New Netherland was established and its first settlement - Fort Orange - constructed at the head of the navigable waters of the Hudson River in 1624. Down stream, the Dutch established New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island where the Hudson meets the Atlantic Ocean
"Living Among the Mohawks, 1644," EyeWitness to History,
www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2007).
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/mohawks.htm
