In the seventeenth century, forts were essential for trade and defense. Once Manhattan was chosen as New Netherland’s center, establishing a fort there was an obvious and necessary first step.

The Dutch widened the southern reaches of the trail, making it into a proper road where it led straight into Fort Amsterdam. They called it de Heere Straat--the Gentlemen's Street. Under the English it became Broadway.

The Dutch established large farms north of New Amsterdam, including the famed Bowery Number One. Bowery Lane connected them to the city, eventually evolving into today’s Bowery between Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

Manhattan was a natural choice for New Netherland's capital—defensible, well-positioned for trade, and known to natives long before Europeans arrived. Its name, derived from a Delaware word for bow-making wood, endured.

The town of Vlissingen, later Flushing, became a center of religious controversy in the 1650s. Quaker residents defied Dutch restrictions, prompting a crackdown by Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant.

In 1643, Anthony Jansen Van Salee received land on Long Island. Later settled and organized by Jacques Cortelyou, it became New Utrecht, named for Cornelius van Werckhoven’s Dutch hometown.

Founded in 1636, Amersfoort grew into a thriving town with farms, magistrates, and taverns. By 1656, its residents collaborated with nearby villages to support church construction and fund a minister.

In the 1640s, Dutch settlers avoided a heavily wooded area on Long Island. By 1652, they founded Midwout—later called Flatbush, from the Dutch “vlackebos,” meaning wooded plain.

In 1642, English minister Francis Doughty founded Maspeth in Queens under Dutch rule. Expelled from Massachusetts for radical preaching, he accepted Willem Kieft’s offer of land and religious freedom.

In 1643, English families from Connecticut settled a fertile Long Island plain. Granted permission by the Dutch, they swore allegiance and gained autonomy in church, law enforcement, and local governance.

In 1643, Lady Deborah Moody, fleeing religious intolerance, founded a settlement in New Netherland. As an Anabaptist and noblewoman, she became the first woman to establish a colony in America.

In 1640, English settlers from Massachusetts attempted to settle western Long Island but were expelled by the Dutch. They moved east, founding Southold—the first English settlement in present-day Suffolk County.