Big Apple History . Early New York . First Twenty Years


	New Amsterdam

The Dutch West India Company was so eager to increase the population of its New Amsterdam colony that it encouraged cultural diversity. In contrast to colonial cities like Boston and Philadelphia, New Amsterdam included immigrants from many different countries, including France, Belgium, England, and Germany. In addition to these European immigrants, many African slaves were brought to the new world by force to help build houses and streets.

By 1643, when the population of the colony reached about five hundred people, there were eighteen different languages spoken in the city. To accommodate the growth, colonists developed land near Manhattan, including Breuckelen (which became Brooklyn.)

Primary occupations on the island included farming, fur trading, and lumbering. The local Dutch Reformed church educated the local children until 1638, when the company sent a schoolmaster named Adam Roelantsen to open the first school in New Amsterdam. This school later became Collegiate School, a private school for boys that still exists!

Illustration: "Nieu Amsterdam," mid-seventeenth-century, Courtesy of the L.N. Phelps Stokes Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.