Painting by L F Tantillo

– The first Dutch settlement in North America

– On Castle Island, in Mahican Indian Country, and site of a previous French Fortification from 1540 (presently Westerlo Island, annexed by Albany in 1926)

– Named for the House of Orange-Nassau of Holland

– Abandoned and rebuilt on more secure ground after flooding in 1617 and then abandoned altogether when the new site floods again in 1618

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Nassau_(North_River)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Island_(New_York)

https://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/na/castle.html

https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/digital-exhibitions/a-tour-of-new-netherland/albany/fort-nassau/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Orange-Nassau

A period of private commercial trading, that began in 1614, ends as the Dutch Republic orders those companies to vacate the territory between 1621 and 1623 in order to open it to Dutch settlers and companies

Dutch law now applies rather than the law of the ship

Eight families are left to lay claim to Manna-hata (Manhattan) for the Dutch West India Company while the rest continue up the North River to help establish the center of their fur trading operations at Castle Island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Amsterdam

https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/digital-exhibitions/a-tour-of-new-netherland/hudson-river/nut-island/