The history we learn in school often bears little resemblance to what really happened. We know, of course, that George Washington never chopped down that cherry tree or tossed a dollar across the Potomac. But what we believe about more consequential events frequently turns out to be wrong, too. Our colonial history is full of examples. What, for instance, do we know about how the city of New York came to be? The Dutch founded the place as New Amsterdam, of course. We think they bought the island of Manhattan to get the colony started. But then somehow the British took over and changed the name. Isn’t that about it? Naturally, that foreshortened account doesn’t come close to explaining how New York became the country’s—and, for a time, the world’s—most important city. Author Russell Shorto sets us straight in his fascinating account of New York’s origins, Taking Manhattan.
A colony unique in its time
New York became New York in name in 1664. But the Dutch began settling there 40 years earlier, and Shorto devotes much of his book to relating how the colony grew steadily through those years. New Amsterdam was unique, as he describes it.
- Unlike the British colonies at Boston and Jamestown, its policy was to negotiate with the Native peoples, not force them off their land. Its principal export were beaver pelts, which the Dutch obtained from them through trade.
- And that business helped turn the place into a thriving entrepôt which became a source of wealth for the Dutch West India Company.
- Also, like Amsterdam before it, the colony was a tolerant place for most. The growing population included Jews as well as many Protestants of many sects and both slaves and freemen among the Africans who landed there.
Shorto argues that this diversity, unique in the New World of the 17th century, infused New York with the vitality that helped set its course as a center of commerce and innovation.
Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America by Russell Shorto (2025) 408 pages ★★★★★
A war of wits between two remarkable men
In Taking Manhattan, Shorto focuses on the life and work of his story’s two protagonists, New Netherland director-general (governor) Peter (Petrus) Stuyvesant (1610-72) and Colonel Richard Nicolls (1624-72), who led the British expedition that sidelined Stuyvesant. Each of the two men was a character worthy of a biography of his own.
Peter Stuyvesant
The hot-tempered Stuyvesant led the colony of New Amsterdam for 17 years, having lost a leg in one of his country’s recurrent wars with Spain. He spent much of his time negotiating with the Native peoples in the region, first the Lenape who occupied Manhattan and its environs, then the five nations that then comprised the Haudenosaunee. (We know it better today as the Iroquois Confederation.) Stuyvesant persisted despite the outbreak of war among the Native nations from time to time and the Dutch West India Company’s refusal to supply him with the troops and ammunition he needed. (They were more heavily invested in the Caribbean, where profits were much higher.)
Richard Nicolls
Nicolls was a soldier in the Royalist cause in the English civil wars of the mid-17th century. He accompanied James Stuart, Duke of York into exile when the duke’s brother, King Charles I, was captured and later murdered by Oliver Cromwell’s Model Army. Nicolls played a central role in helping achieve the Restoration in 1660, when James’s nephew, Charles II, ascended to the throne of England. As James regained his wealth and power, Nicolls remained close to his side. The duke named him to head the expedition to regain control of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from the Puritans and to seize New Amsterdam from the Dutch.
When Nicolls’s small fleet hove into view in New York harbor, a tense and dramatic standoff began between him and Peter Stuyvesant. The protracted negotiations that ensued under the shadow of war is a case study in diplomacy. Nicolls proved to be a master of the craft. Shorto’s story about the bloodless battle between the two men is deeply engaging.
Placing the story in context
Shorto’s account is most useful in the adroit way he details the larger historical forces at play at the time. The often fractious relationships among the Native nations that offered openings for influence with both the British and the Dutch. The on-again, off-again wars between the wealthy and powerful Dutch and the British, who aspired to replace them. Continuing religious conflict both within Britain’s American colonies and at home, which flared again and again into violence as first the Protestant and then the Catholic faction gained the ascendancy. This is history at its best.
About the author
Russell Shorto is the author of eight nonfiction books which appeared from 1997 to 2025. One is a memoir, and several of the others concern early American history. He was born in 1959 in Jonestown, Pennsylvania, and graduated from George Washington University. He is an historian and is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. Shorto is married and has three children and three stepchildren.
For related reading
You might also care to see New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd (An epic historical novel about New York City). It faithfully reflects the events portrayed in Shorto’s history in the much longer story of the city.
The following sites point to many other books that cast light on related historical topics: Top 20 popular books for understanding American history and 20 top nonfiction books about history.
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