In 1609 Henry Hudson, an English navigator, hired by the Dutch East India Company to explore possible trade routess to India first discovered the Hudson river and the region now known as New York State and New England. The first Dutch families sailed with 30 families the new land know as New Netherlands.

Peter Minuit, the first Director-general of the Dutch West India Company, first began settlement of the Hudson Valley area with a Fort on Mahattan Island, known as Fort Amsterdam. The government and the company encouraged entrepreneurs to establish agricultural settlements of at least 50 people. Land grants were given. In attempt to encourage the populating of the New World free passage was available from the Netherlands to anyone willing to settle in New Netherlands. Pamphlets circulated freely in the Netherlands raving of the riches of the New World and enticing immgrants to settle there.

By 1664 the popluation of New Netherlands was about 10,000. Between 1664 and 1680 the land was conquered then reconquered by the English and Dutch respectively. By 1683 it settled into the hands of the British where in the first meeting of the New York parliment it was recorded that 60% of its members were Dutch. Thus from 1674 to 1775 New Netherlands became New York under the British until the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

By the 1680's the Dutch Colonies had been turned over to England. The colonies continued to be composed of predominently Dutch settlers. Small agricultural settlements peppered the Hudson River Valley from Virginia to New England. The population numbered somewhere around 10,000 and consisted of Dutch, English, French, and Germans. The hub of the settlements was the growing city of New Amsterdam, which was to become New York City which numbered about 1500.