New York’s Native American History
Semi-nomadic Indigenous people have been living in the area now known as New York for at least 13,000 years, settling in the space around Lake Champlain, the Hudson River Valley and Oneida Lake.
The Haudenosaunee Native Americans arrived in the Adirondack region of New York between 1,400 and 4,000 years ago. They created an alliance of Iroquoian-speaking nations including the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca tribes. Named the Iroquois Confederacy by the French, this democratic alliance created the Great Law of Peace, which promoted reason instead of force to ensure the principles of justice, health and righteousness. This inspired America’s Founding Fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, and influenced the U.S. Constitution.
Algonquian people, which include the Mahican and the Lenape nations, also inhabited parts of the Adirondacks and the Hudson River Valley, including Manhattan island. They occasionally battled with the Mohawk over territories.
As the French and Dutch arrived in the 17th century, they traded guns and ammunition with the Algonquians in exchange for fur. They also brought deadly diseases and encroached on Indigenous territories, forcing them to migrate. Some Indigenous people raided European property and captured women and children. During the American Revolution, the Mohawks aided the British. Many Mohawks moved to Canada at the end of the war, and others were driven out by the Oneida, who had sided with the Americans.
There are eight federally-recognized Native American tribes in New York today, including the Cayuga Nation, Oneida Nation, Onondaga Nation, St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, Seneca Nation of Indians, Shinnecock Indian Nation, Tonawanda Band of Seneca and Tuscarora Nation.
New York’s Colonial History
The Dutch, English and French were the first Europeans to explore and colonize the area now known as New York. Voyaging for the French, Italian-born explorer Giovanni da Verrazano became the first European to explore the east coast of America when he landed in New York Bay in 1524. In 1609 and 1610, the English-born explorer Henry Hudson navigated the river now known as the Hudson and other parts of New York seeking new routes to Asia for the Dutch and British. Around the same time, French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the east coast of North America, including New York, and founded the city of Quebec as the capital of New France.
Following Hudson’s voyages, the Dutch established New Netherland as a fur trading outpost and their first colony in the New World. Dutch merchants soon began sponsoring trips to the new colony, and the first 31 Dutch colonists' families arrived in 1623. They established New Amsterdam—now known as New York City—in 1624. The area diversified as people from all over Europe fled religious persecution, war and natural disaster to settle in New Netherland.
The English, however, believed they had claims to New Netherland, as they had sponsored explorer John Cabot’s voyages to the New World in 1497 and 1498. They waged three wars against the Dutch between 1652 and 1674, and in 1664 New Netherland passed to the British. The British renamed the area New York after James II, Duke of York, the son of King Charles I.
Between the early 17th century and the mid-18th century, France sponsored Catholic missions to New France, including areas that are now part of New York state. French merchants in the area also competed with the English to dominate the fur trade and create alliances with Indigenous peoples. Conflicts over land and trade led Britain and France to the French and Indian War. Also known as the Seven Years' War, the confrontation included several major battles fought in New York and ended with the French ceding New France to the British in 1763.
