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Northeast: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania

Dutch West India Company. The char- ter gave the company a trading monopoly in areas of the Western Hemisphere claimed by the Netherlands. The West India Company soon started the colony of New Netherland. It was centered in what is now New York, with a few outposts in present- day New Jersey. Over the decades that followed, the Dutch colony expanded slowly. But the Netherlands came into con- flict with England, which also had colonies in North America. In 1664, the governor of New Netherland

today New Jersey before the arrival of Europeans. Their ancestors had lived in the region since before 7500 BC . In August 1609, the sea captain Henry Hudson sailed up Delaware Bay and into the Delaware River. The following month, Hudson explored the river that now bears his name. Though he was English, Hudson worked for a Dutch company. He claimed the waters he’d explored, as well as the surrounding territory, for his employer. This territory included what is today New Jersey. In 1621, the legislature of the Netherlands granted a charter to the

Henry Hudson was an English sea captain who was hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a westward route to Asia. During his 1609 voyage, he explored the Atlantic coast of New Jersey and traveled up the Hudson River.