"Impressions of New Jersey and New York"

Reprinted in Major Problems in American Colonial History

Published in 1993

"The country, especially that along the coasts in the English colonies, is inhabited by Europeans, who in some places are already so numerous that few parts of Europe are more populous."

While the English were establishing colonies along the Atlantic coast and in New England, the Dutch (people from the Netherlands) had been settling New Netherland, the region that is now New York State. In search of a Northwest Passage (a natural water route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans), the Dutch sent English navigator Henry Hudson (?–1611) to the same region that John Cabot (c.1450–c.1499) had explored for the English. In 1609 Hudson led an expedition to...