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Henry Hudson and Early Hudson River History

Henry Hudson was the first European to explore the Hudson River throughout its navigable length and leave behind a detailed account of his voyage. In the fall of 1609, Henry Hudson and his ship, the Half Moon, explored the Hudson River from New York harbor up to present day Albany, NY.

Henry Hudson was already a famous explorer of Arctic waters when in 1608 he was hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a Northeast, all-water route to Asia. The Dutch East India Company had a monopoly on trade with the Orient and which wanted to shorten the lengthy and expensive voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. They provided him with an 80-ton ship, the Half Moon, and a crew consisting of 20 Dutch and English sailors.

The original Half Moon was commissioned on March 25, 1609, for the Dutch East India Company. The Half Moon sailed out of Amsterdam on April 4 or 6, 1609 heading northeast along the coast of Norway. After encountering ice and cold off the coast of Norway, Hudson turned and headed west for warmer weather.

Hudson first landed on the coast of Maine where members of the crew went ashore and cut timber to replace the Half Moon's mast. They fished and traded with the Native Americans, and then continued along the coast south to the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. Hudson decided these weren't entrances to the passage to the Orient he was seeking, and the Half Moon turned north to the mouth of the Hudson River in early September. On September 12, 1609, Hudson began his exploration of the river now named after him.

The Half Moon left the river on October 4, sailed across the Atlantic and reached England on Saturday, November 7. Hudson and the English crew members were not permitted to leave England, but eventually the Half Moon returned to Holland without them.

Additional Reading
(Click on underlined link for complete article.)

Life and Voyages of Henry Hudson, English Explorer and Navigator
A comprehensive chronology of the life and voyages of Henry Hudson, English explorer, mariner and adventurer, as well as some additional notes about his times, his contemporaries and his crew is available at Ian Chadwick's Henry Hudson website, the most comprehensive source for information about Henry Hudson's life and voyages. Hudson's exploration of the Hudson River was his third of four voyages of discovery.

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Native Americans in the Hudson Valley

Landing of Henry Hudson from an engraving by R.W. Weir, 1857 Excerpt from an old descriptive: About two years after the settlement of Jamestown, and nearly at the same point of time that Champlain was making explorations in northern New York, a famous navigator, named Henry Hudson, entered the service of the Dutch East India Company. He was by birth an Englishman, and an intimate friend of the illustrious Captain John Smith. He had already made two voyages in the employ of London merchants, in search of a north-west passage to India, but not meeting sufficient encouragement at home, he went to Holland, and, early in April 1609, was place in command of a small vessel of eighty tons burden called the Half-Moon, for a third voyage. Impeded by the ice in the northern seas, he ran along the coast of Acadie, entered Penobscot Bay, made the land of Cape Cod, entered the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and on the 2d of September discovered and entered Sandy Hook Bay. On the 11th, he passed through the Narrows, and on the 12th began his voyage up that noble river which now justly perpetuates his fame, pronouncing the country along the river's banks 'as beautiful a land as one can tread upon.' Hudson ascended the river with his ship as far as where the present city of Albany stands, and thence sent a boat which probably explored somewhat beyond Waterford.

Hudson Valley Indians Through Dutch Eyes
The Dutch who settled the Hudson Valley came to procure the trade and territory of its indigenous people and not to proselytize for their salvation. Unlike their French neighbors to the north, they sent no zealots to live among the Indians and learn their ways and beliefs in order to change them. The process of settlement is of equal importance to understanding the Dutch view of the native population. While the potentially rich prize lay within grasp and claim by 1609, there was little organized effort to colonize until the 1620´s.

Dispersal of the Hudson River Valley Indians
American Indians remained an integral part of the history of the Hudson River Valley until the era of the American Revolution. Despite the intensity of warfare with the Dutch and tribal conflict with the Iroquois, sizable Algonkian populations, collectively referred to as "River Indians,  were still intact well after the fall of New Netherland in 1664 and the ending of Mohawk-Mahican hostility in the 1670´s. Over the following century, their dispersal was caused by wars; depletion of fur sources; epidemics; defections from the English side; encouragement by colonial officials, missionaries and Indian leaders to leave the area; and especially by increased frontier pressures for more and more Indian land.

The Lenapes: A Study of Hudson Valley Indians
The Indian tribes of the lower Hudson Valley, the Delaware, Mahican and the Wappinger, were drastically affected by the first European contact and interaction: the Dutch traders and colonists. The Indians met their unpreventable demise through the fur trade, disease and the disruption of their entire way of life upon the arrival of Europeans.

History of the Delaware Indians
Originally in 1600, the Delaware River Valley from Cape Henlopen, Delaware north to include the west side of the lower Hudson Valley in southern New York. The Delaware were not migratory and appear to have occupied their homeland for thousands of years before the coming of the Europeans. During the next three centuries, white settlement forced the Delaware to relocate at least twenty times.

Mahican History
The original Mahican homeland was the Hudson River Valley from the Catskill Mountains north to the southern end of Lake Champlain. Bounded by the Schoharie River in the west, it extended east to the crest of the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts from northwest Connecticut north to the Green Mountains in southern Vermont.

Hudson Valley Prehistory: Artifacts and Ecofacts
by Christopher Lindner, Hudsonia´s Staff Archaeologist and Archaeologist in Residence at Bard College, Annandale, New York 12504. Hudsonia is conducting several archaeology projects in Columbia and Dutchess Counties to advance the understanding of prehistoric times, the eleven millennia before 1609 when Henry Hudson´s Half Moon sailed up the stream then known as the River of the Mountains

Old Moon into Stars
Indian culture and prehistory along the Hudson River before European contact.
From "The Hudson," by Carl Carmer, Published: New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1939

Natives of the Hudson Valley: An Overview
The Hudson Valley is a true melting pot. This region has attracted many diverse cultural groups. The Native Americans were the first people to enter the Hudson Valley region and although there are almost no natives left in the area, their influence is evident in the names of many Dutchess County towns. The Dutch, Europe's pioneers, laid the groundwork for further settlement of the area.
From the 1999 Summer Scholars Program at Marist College

The Wappingers Tribe in the Hudson Valley
Before the arrival of the Dutch, the Hudson Valley had a people and culture of its own. The Lenni Lenape Indians were the inhabitants of the Hudson Valley. Lenni Lenapes were divided into three sub-tribes: the Wappingers (or Wappani), Delaware, and Mahicans, who all spoke Algonquin.
From the 1997 Summer Scholars Program at Marist College

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The Dutch in the Hudson River Valley

Dutch Colonies
Overview of the Dutch period in the Hudson Valley with an emphasis on Kingston.
From the City of Kingston Web Site

The Hard Blond Traders
Early white settlers along the Hudson River.
From "The Hudson," by Carl Carmer, Published: New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1939

The Dutch in the Hudson Valley
A Web Site project of the 1997 Summer Scholars program at Marist College to document the early settlement and ethnic history of the Hudson Valley.

The Dutch in the Iroquois War
An extensive description with maps about the Dutch and Iroquois interaction during the 17th century.

Charles T. Gehring, historian and translator
Charles T. Gehring is translating approximately 12,000 pages of Dutch records dating to the period when the New York region was called New Netherlands and the tiny community at the southern tip of Manhattan Island was New Amsterdam. Taken together, the documents already translated provide a wealth of material about how the Dutch lived, how they interacted with the Indians, and how their communities were set up.

The New Netherland Project
Established under the sponsorship of the New York State Library and the Holland Society of New York to complete the transcription, translation, and publication of all Dutch documents in New York repositories relating to the seventeenth - century colony of New Netherland.