Long Island, Staten Island, Harlem, Yonkers, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Wall Street are just a few names that remind us of the New York City’s original name, Nieuw Amsterdam. The territory claimed in 1609 by the English explorer Henry Hudson on behalf of Dutch East India Company merchants, and lost to the English some 60 years later, has a turbulent history full of rivalry, betrayal, disaster, and wars, many, many wars. This 70-minute video posted on March 6, 2025 by Defragged History tells a captivating and compelling story of ambition, exploration, and adventure in the Dutch Colony of New Netherland.

To understand how and why New Amsterdam became New York City, we have to go back in time. First, the Dutch attempted to find a shortcut East via the Arctic Strait, but three expeditions over the North Pole failed because they kept getting stuck in the ice.

Captain Hudson remained obsessed with finding a North Passage to the East. Hudson’s friend and explorer John Smith told him that, according to the Indians, there was a river or sea north of Virginia. On April 6, 1609, Henry Hudson and a half Dutch-half English crew of sixteen set sail on the 85-foot Halve Maen (Half Moon). When they arrived near the mouth of the Hudson River, a group rowed to the Jersey Shore where the Native Munsee People greeted them.

Hudson reported that there was a lot of forest, with “very goodly oaks” and “various other kinds of wood useful in shipbuilding, and an amazing array of fruit. There were also grassy meadows filled with fragrant flowersand plenty of fresh water. In December, 1620, a group of English Separatists, originally bound for Virginia, arrived in Plymouth only 200 miles from New Amsterdam. Eventually, the English would assume control of New Amsterdam and name it “New York”.