1626

1626 was a year in the early modern period marked by ongoing European colonial expansion and the wider conflicts of the time. In the Atlantic world, the Dutch West India Company intensified its colonization efforts in North America, laying the groundwork for what would become New Netherland. The most famous episode associated with 1626 is the tradition that Manhattan Island was purchased from the Lenape by Peter Minuit and the Dutch for goods valued at 60 guilders, establishing a permanent Dutch presence that would grow into the settlement of New Amsterdam and, later, New York City.

Beyond North America, European powers continued to expand their trading networks and settlements around the globe. Maritime competition between nations increased the establishment of forts, trading posts, and commercial enterprises across the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. The year occurred within the broader context of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, a conflict that shaped political alliances and military campaigns across much of the continent and influenced international balance of power.

In the cultural and scientific realms of the period, the early 17th century remained a time of practical exploration, cartography, and the exchange of ideas, even as monarchies, churches, and colonial administrations imposed administrative frameworks that would shape regional development for decades. The events and developments of 1626 contributed to the gradual formation of long-term colonial and commercial networks that would influence global history in the subsequent centuries.