Exploration and Settlement

History-Exploration and Settlement

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Giovanni di Verrazzano. Image: Wikimedia Commons

-- Exploration

Giovanni di Verrazzano, a Florentine sailing under the flag of France, is believed to be the first European explorer to visit the region of what is now New Jersey. In his voyages along the Atlantic coast ranging from the present Carolinas to Newfoundland, Verrazzano entered New York Bay in April 1524, passing through the waters that now carry his name under the bridge connecting Staten Island and New Jersey.

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Henry Hudson Image: Library of Congress

        In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East India Company seeking an ice-free passage to the Pacific, explored the Delaware Bay, and then continued north along the New Jersey coast until he reached the mouth of the Hudson River in September. Before entering the river, Hudson anchored for a short time off Sandy Hook, where a scouting party of five of his crew headed ashore in a rowboat were attacked by Native Americans in canoes shooting arrows, killing John Colman,  his second mate, and wounding two others of the crew.

       About five years after Hudson's 1609 voyage, Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, a Dutch captain and fur trader, also sailed in the same river soon named after Hudson and then traveled south along the coast to the Delaware Bay and River, with Cape May at New Jersey's southern tip later taking Mey's Anglicized name. Mey also ordered the construction of Fort Nassau, a factorij (factory in English or trading post) on the eastern shore of the Delaware for the Dutch to buy furs from the Native Americans; upon its erection in 1627 on the river at a site near the present border of Gloucester and Camden counties, Fort Nassau became the first known permanent European-built structure in what would become New Jersey.

        In 1638, a voyage organized by Clas Fleming, a Swedish admiral originally from Finland, which was led by the Dutchman Peter Minuit, sailed along the New Jersey coast into the Delaware Bay, constructing a fort in current-day Delaware which they named Fort Christina in honor of the Swedish queen. Other settlers crossed over to New Jersey, establishing villages which subsequently became known as Swedesboro and Bridgeport, the only settlements established in New Jersey as part of the New Sweden colony.   A log cabin built in Swedesboro around 1640 remains as the oldest existing log cabin in the United States.

--Dutch Settlement

       To the north, the Dutch followed up Hudson's exploration of the area around the island of present-day Manhattan by establishing forts and trading posts. Fort Amsterdam was built in 1624 on Manhattan, and a small settlement soon grew around it which became Nieuw Amsterdam, the center of Dutch commercial and administrative activities over the colony of Nieuw Netherland.

       With the support of the government, the Dutch West India Company was founded in 1621 primarily to compete economically with Spain and Portugal in establishing colonies in the New World and on the west coast of Africa. In America, the company encouraged settlement by offering its investors, or patroons, conditional rights to large tracts of land, ranging from eight to sixteen miles along river banks, to hold and administer the property if they met specific targets for attracting settlers.

       In 1630, Michael Pauw, a patroon and wealthy Amsterdam businessman, obtained rights to the New Jersey side covering the entire peninsula between the Hudson and Hackensack rivers including much of present-day Hudson and Bergen counties.

Map circa 1639 by Johannes Vingboon laid out with north on right and west on top showing New Jersey at top of map across from Manhattan situated on the "Noort Rivier" (later Hudson) showing settlements in New Jersey which included the farm of Cornelius Van Vorst, whose descendants became large landowners continuing into the 19th century. Image: Library of Congress

Although the Lenape had no conception of the ownership of land, the Dutch required that agreements be reached for its acquisition from the native people who populated the area. In 1630 Pauw purchased the entire peninsula between the current Hudson and Hackensack rivers for a diverse range of goods which included cloth, kettles, guns, blankets, and half a barrel of beer. Pauw's holdings were named Pavonia, a Latinized adaptation of Pauw's surname meaning "peacock" in Dutch. One of the first homesteads was built in 1634 at Communipaw in what is now Jersey City

In September 1664, the Duke of York sent a British fleet under the command of Richard Nicolls to Nieuw Amsterdam. Under threat of attack, the Dutch surrendered the colony without resistance. Nicolls assumed the position of deputy-governor of the former Dutch holdings in New Netherland, guaranteeing colonists' property rights, laws of inheritance, and religious freedom.

* Dutch Settlement of Jersey City, New Jersey City University
* New Jersey Emigration and Immigration, FamilySearch.org

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History-Exploration and Settlement​

History-Exploration and Settlement