The Algonquians and the Iroquois Before Europeans began to arrive in the 16th cent., New York was inhabited mainly by Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans. The Algonquians, including the Mohegan, Lenni Lenape, and Wappinger tribes, lived chiefly in the Hudson valley and on Long Island. The Iroquois, living in the central and western parts of the state, included the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca tribes, who joined c.1570 to form the Iroquois Confederacy. French and Dutch Claims Europeans first approached New York from both the sea and from Canada. Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine in the service of France, visited (1524) the excellent harbor of New York Bay but did little exploring. In 1609, Samuel de Champlain, a Frenchman, traveled S on Lake Champlain from Canada, and Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch, sailed the Hudson nearly to Albany. To increase the slow pace of colonization the Dutch set up the patroon system in 1629, thus establishing the landholding aristocracy that became the hallmark of colonial New York. The last and most able of the Dutch administrators, Peter Stuyvesant (in office 1647-64), captured New Sweden for the Dutch in 1655. An English Colony The English, claiming the whole region on the basis of the explorations of John Cabot, made good their claim in the Second Dutch War (1664-67). In 1664 an English fleet sailed into the harbor of New Amsterdam, and Stuyvesant surrendered without a struggle

New Netherland then became the colonies of New York and New Jersey, granted by King Charles II to his brother, the duke of York (later James II). Except for brief recapture (1673-74) by the Dutch, New York remained English until the American Revolution. After the early days of the colony, the popular governor Thomas Dongan (1683-88) put New York on a firm basis and began to establish the alliance of the English with the Iroquois, which later played an important part in New York history. The attempt in 1688 to combine New York and New Jersey with New England under the rule of Sir Edmund Andros was a failure, turning almost all the colonists against him. The threat of the French was continuous, and New York was involved in a number of the French and Indian Wars (1689-1763). The friendship of Sir William Johnson with some of the Iroquois aided the British in the warfare and also opened part of central New York to settlers, mainly from the British Isles. Frequent warfare hindered growth, however, and much of W New York remained unsettled by colonists throughout the 18th cent. Slowly, however, the colony, with its busy shipping and fishing fleets, its expanding farms, and its first college (King's College, founded in 1754, now Columbia Univ.), was beginning to establish its own identity, separate from that of England. Colonial self-assertiveness grew after the warfare with the French ended; there was considerable objection to the restrictive commercial laws, and the Navigation Acts were flouted by smuggling. When the Stamp Act was passed, New York was a leader of the opposition, and the Stamp Act Congress met (1765) in New York City. The policies of Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden, who did not oppose the Stamp Act, occasioned considerable complaint, and unrest grew. Revolution and a New Constitution As troubles flared and escalated into the American Revolution, New Yorkers were divided in their loyalties.The British invested New York City and held it to the war's end. The state had, however, declared independence and functioned with Kingston as its capital, George Clinton as its first governor, and John Jay as its first chief justice. In 1777 New York was the key to the overall British campaign plan, which was directed toward taking the entire state and thus separating New England from the South. This failed finally (Oct., 1777) in the battles near the present-day resort of Saratoga Springs (see Saratoga campaign), generally considered as the decisive action of the war, partly because France was now persuaded to join the war on the side of the Colonies. The British alliance with the Iroquois resulted in widespread violence in the frontier portion of the state. After the devastation of two Iroquois villages, the Iroquois and British responded with the massacre at Cherry Hill (1778). For the rest of the war there was more or less a stalemate, with the British occupying New York City, the patriots holding most of the rest of the state, and Westchester co. disputed ground.

In 1780 Benedict Arnold failed in his attempt to betray West Point. The influence of Alexander Hamilton was paramount in bringing New York to accept (1788) the Constitution of the United States at a convention in Poughkeepsie. Other leaders, however, mostly from the landed aristocracy (such as John Jay and Gouverneur Morris), were also powerful. Hamilton, Jay, and James Madison wrote The Federalist, a series of essays, to promote ratification. New York City was briefly (1789-90) the capital of the new nation and was also the state capital until 1797, when Albany succeeded it. Political dissension between the Federalists and the Jeffersonians was particularly keen in New York state, and Aaron Burr had much to do with swinging the state to Jefferson. The eastern boundary of the state was established after long wrangles and violence when Vermont was admitted as a state in 1791. From the 1780s increased commerce (somewhat slowed by the Embargo Act of 1807) and industry, especially textile milling, marked the turn away from the old, primarily agricultural, order. It was on the Hudson that Robert Fulton demonstrated (1807) his steamboat. In the War of 1812 New York saw action in 1813-14, with the British capture of Fort Niagara and particularly with the brilliant naval victory of Thomas Macdonough over the British on Lake Champlain at Plattsburgh. After the panic of 1837, Seward was governor (1839-52), and his Whig program included internal improvements, educational reform, and opposition to slavery. New York was a leader in numerous 19th-century reform groups. Antislavery groups made their headquarters in New York. In 1848 the first women's rights convention in the United States met in Seneca Falls. Early in its history New York state emerged as one of the cultural leaders of the nation. Immigration and Civil War Migrants from New England had been settling on the western frontier, and in the 1840s famine and revolution in Europe resulted in a great wave of Irish and German immigrants, whose first stop in America was usually New York City New is the best statein the U.S.