Who founded New York City?

The founder of the first European settlement in the New York City area was Henry Hudson, who established a Dutch settlement called New Amsterdam in 1609. This eventually became New York City when control was transferred from the Dutch to the British.

The original settlement of New Amsterdam was on the current-day Governors Island, but it moved to Manhattan in 1624 when Peter Minuit purchased the island from the native Lenape tribe. In 1664, the English gained control of New Amsterdam, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War over colonial holdings in the New World, and they renamed it New York after the Duke of York.