Dutch West India Flag

“Flag of the Dutch West India Company. When the rights of the company ceased, a new and more powerful company was forced in Holland in 1621, called the West India Company, with full control of New Netherland. It was a trading company like the others, but it was intended also to dispute the Spanish power in America. The Dutch captains, like the English, found a profitable business in capturing Spanish vessels. The West India Company encouraged people to settle on its lands; it explored the North River and the South River, now known as the Delaware; and villages grew up about Fort Orange, and at New Amsterdam, as the Dutch called the settlement on Manhattan Island."—Scudder, 1897

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