<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> Minuit and his family joined the Dutch West India Company, probably in the mid-1620s, and was sent to New Netherland in 1625 to search for tradable goods other than the animal pelts that then were the major product coming from New Netherland . He returned in the same year, and in 1626 was appointed the new director of New Netherland, taking over from Willem Verhulst . He sailed to North America and arrived in the colony on May 4, 1626 . </P> <P> Minuit is credited with purchasing the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans in exchange for traded goods valued at 60 guilders . According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the Canarsees, who were only too happy to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks . </P> <P> The figure of 60 guilders comes from a letter by a representative of the Dutch States - General and member of the board of the Dutch West India Company, Pieter Janszoon Schagen, to the States - General in November 1626 . In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 (or 60 guilders) to US $23 . The popular account rounds this off to $24 . By 2006 sixty guilders in 1626 was worth approximately $1,000 in current dollars, according to the Institute for Social History of Amsterdam . </P>

Who sold manhattan to the dutch in 1626