The island of Manhattan was once called New Amsterdam. It wasn’t stolen. The Lenape Natives sold it to Peter Minuit in 1626. That is what it was called when my ancestors came over. The British formally changed the name of the small village at the southern tip of Manhattan. The new town was called New York, after the Duke of York.
Starting in the 1620s, Lower Manhattan served as a trading outpost for the Dutch West India Company, one of the world’s most powerful corporations. That’s how my relatives came over. They were given an inn in Flushing and a windmill to run in New Jersey. After seven years, it was theirs. The inn was where various settlers and the British would come to debate, with residents railing against their taxes.
The small village at the tip of Manhattan was infamous for its debauchery. The small town known as New Amsterdam was a small Dutch settlement for fur traders and some unsavory characters. It had fewer than 1000 residents.
That figure grew to 10,000 as visitors poured in, primarily drunken sailors, slavers, and Native American traders. The village became an attractive location for other European powers, mainly the British, who had outposts in nearby Connecticut and Long Island.
In 1664, the English seized New Amsterdam without firing a shot. The Dutch simply surrendered it. The town was officially renamed New York City on June 12, 1665.
Pirate Utopia
New Amsterdam was also a popular destination for Caribbean pirates. Buccaneers used the Dutch settlement to evade the English navy after the British seized the city.
During the late 17th century, New York was known as a “pirate utopia” where colonial merchants and governors actively financed and protected pirates. Stolen goods were readily sold in the city, funding the local economy prior to Wall Street’s rise. Now, pirate utopia is Wall Street.
The Brits set up Execution Dock and started hanging the pirates in London.
The most famous pirate figure connected to the region during this time was Captain William Kidd. A respected sea captain and privateer who owned properties in Manhattan, Kidd was later accused of piracy in the Indian Ocean. He was arrested in Boston in 1699, but he was not tried or executed locally. Instead, the British sent him to London in chains, where he was hanged at Execution Dock on May 23, 1701.
Citywide today, 38% of New York residents are foreign-born. Now, we have a communist Islamist mayor who doesn’t identify as American. he wants to turn New York City into a Marxist-Leninist pirate utopia.
This must be the “warmth of collectivism” he told us was coming.
Is this what Temu Jafar meant by…
“The warmth of collectivism”
That we all have to ride out a heat wave sweating like animals? pic.twitter.com/zKEzZJAPJ5
— kevin smith (@kevin_smith45) July 2, 2026
