History of New York

Constitution Ratified

(Statehood Date):

July 26, 1788

Voting Results: 30 to 27

Capital: Albany

2000 Population: 18,976,457
2005 Population (est): 19,254,630

Native American Population: 82,461

Highest Elevation: Mount Marcy at 5,344 ft.

Lowest Elevation: Atlantic Ocean at 0 ft.
Area: 47,214 sq miles

Avg Annual Rain: 39 in.

Location: the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions

State Bird: Bluebird
State Flower: Rose
State Gem: Garnet
State Tree: Sugar Maple
State Animal: Beaver
State Insect: Ladybug
State Fish: Brook Trout
State Reptile: Snapping Turtle

State Fossil: Sea Scorpion

State Colors: Blue & Gold

State Song: I Love New York

State Nickname:

Empire State

The indigenous people of New York did not just spring from the earth; they came here from someplace else. That someplace else was probably Asia. There is no archaeological evidence of habitation in New York prior to the end of the last ice age, some 10,000 - 15,000 years ago (Pleistocene Epic). The melting ice opened up a path leading from Asia across to Alaska across the Bering Stratit, down through Canada, and into the southwestern United States. Wandering peoples from Asia followed the big game herds that migrated through the newly melted ice path. They in fact eventually wandered all the way to the southern tip of South America. The eastward migration to the eastern seaboard of the U.S. occurred much later than the southern migration, making the eastern U.S. among the last places to be settled by these wandering tribes. There were most likely millions of inhabitants in the western United States before they began their slow migration to the east coast.

The first definite occupation of New York was by people related to the Eskimo, or Algonquian, and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans. Wave after wave of Algonquian occupants passed over New York, lasting scores of generations and thousands of years, occupying every corner of the state.

The Algonquians, including the Mohegan, Lenni Lenape, and Wappinger tribes, lived chiefly in the Hudson valley and on Long Island. The Iroquoian stock, which includes the Cherokee, the Wyandot-Huron, the confederated Five Nations, the Erie, the Neuter, the Tuscarora and other smaller tribes, wedged itself into the lands of the eastern shores of lakes Ontario, and Erie, the southern tip of Lake Huron and part of Indiana. The Iroquois tribes spread over all of northern Ohio and all of New York, except the triangle running from Lake George to the Delaware River, and occupied all of Pennsylvania, except for a small strip on the eastern border. The Iroquoian stock was also to be found in parts of Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.

The Iroquoian culture lasted several hundred years and was an important part of colonial history.

Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian-born navigator sailing for France, discovered New York Bay in 1524. However, it wasn't until after Henry Hudson's visit in 1609 that settlements were established in the area.

After several failed attempts to find the Northeast Passage to Asia, Hudson received funding from the Dutch East India Company, a popular tea corporation, to explore the world in 1609. Hudson, an Englishman, explored the Hudson River to a point north of Albany and set the stage for the Dutch colonization. That same year northern New York was explored, and claimed for France, by Samuel de Champlain.

Dutch forts were established near the site of the present-day capital of Albany in 1614. In 1624 the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Fort Orange (now Albany). In 1625 Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from the Lenape Indians for trinkets worth about 60 Dutch guilders (actual amount is highly disputed) and founded the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (now New York City), which was primarily a fur trading settlement.

For 40 years the dutch ruled over the territory of New Netherland. With the Dutch in the south, and the French in the north, and the British on the sidelines, the area was primed for conflict.

In 1664 the Duke of York equipped an armed expedition, and took possession of New Amsterdam, which was then renamed Province of New York. Thus began the English intrusion into New York state. The Dutch responded by sending a fleet to recapture New York, In February of 1674 the matter was settled by the treaty of Westminister which gave ownership of the colony (and the right to colonize eastward into the state) to England.

Five days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, on July 9, 1776, New York declared itself an independent state. On April 20, 1777 the state constitution was adopted, and On July 30, 1777, George Clinton was inaugurated as the first Governor of New York at the city of Kingston.

The Iroquois Confederacy, thought to have been founded in the late 16th century, originally consisted of five tribes—the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca—in what is now central New York State. The confederacy came to be known among Europeans as the League of Five Nations. In the early 18th century the Tuscarora, an Iroquoian people of present-day North Carolina, migrated to New York and, in 1722, were formally admitted to the alliance; the confederacy then became known as the League of Six Nations, or simply the Six Nations.

Until about 1755--the Iroquois Five Nations exercised dominance among tribes of the East, and were the buffer states that protected the Dutch and English colonies from French attack. With the passing of the French, the ascendancy of the Iroquois as a dictatory power came to an end.

During the French and Indian War, the Iroquois sided with the British against the French and their Algonquin allies, both traditional enemies of the Iroquois. At the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, the league council declared for neutrality but allowed each of the Six Nations to take sides as it saw fit. The Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca joined the British; the Oneida and Tuscarora sided with the rebels. After the revolution ended in 1783, many Iroquois settled in Canada under the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), who had led Iroquois and British in battle.

The colonists were generally unhappy with their treatment by the English king and rebellion in all thirteen colonies grew stronger in the 1700’s. In 1775, Revolutionaries seized control of the colonial governments and set up the Second Continental Congess, which then formed a Continental Army with George Washington as Commander in Chief . In May of 1776, Washington moved his army down to New York from Boston, and on July 4, 1776 congress declared independence from England.

The war lasted eight years, with about one-third of all battles fought in New York state.

The fighting began with "the shot heard around the world on" April 19, 1775. On the night of April 18, 1775, British General Gage sent 700 men to seize munitions stored by the colonial militia at Concord Massacusetts. On arriving in Lexington on the following morning, the British troops were met by a small force of militiamen. A skirmish ensued killing eight militiamen. The British marched on to Concord where, at the Concord Bridge, they were met by a larger force of nearly 500 militiamen. The militia returned fire killing several British regulars. The British retreated all the way back to Boston, harrassed the entire way by pursuing militia. The militia converged on Boston bottling up the British. The British received reinforcements and this was soon followed by the Battle of Bunker Hill. The war was on.