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New Netherland (Dutch: Nieuw Nederland; Latin: Nova Belgica or Novum Belgium) was a 17th-century colony of the Dutch Republic that was located on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod, while the more limited settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
The colony was conceived by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621 to capitalise on the North American fur trade. During its first decades, New Netherland was settled rather slowly, stemming both from policy mismanagement by the WIC as well as conflicts with American Indians. The settlement of New Sweden, founded by the Swedish South Company, encroached on its southern flank, while its northern border was re-drawn to accommodate an expanding New England Confederation. During the 1650s, the colony experienced dramatic growth and became a major port for trade in the North Atlantic. The surrender of Fort Amsterdam to Englandin 1664 was formalized in 1667, contributing to the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1673, the Dutch re-took the area but relinquished it under the Second Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War the next year.
The inhabitants of New Netherland were American Indians, European Colonists, and Africans, the last chiefly imported as enslavedlaborers. The colony had an estimated population between 7,000 and 8,000 people by 1664, at the time of transfer to England, half of whom were not of Dutch descent.[3] Descendants of the original settlers played a prominent role in colonial America. For two centuries, New Netherland Dutch culture characterized the region of today's Capital District around Albany, the Hudson Valley, western Long Island, northeastern New Jersey, and New York City.