<Table> <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 . (January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <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 . (January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> In 1524, nearly a century before the arrival of the Dutch, the site that later became New Amsterdam was named New Angoulême by the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, to commemorate his patron King Francis I of France, former Count of Angoulême . The first recorded exploration by the Dutch of the area around what is now called New York Bay was in 1609 with the voyage of the ship Halve Maen (English: "Half Moon"), captained by Henry Hudson in the service of the Dutch Republic, as the emissary of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, Holland's stadholder . Hudson named the river the Mauritius River . He was covertly attempting to find the Northwest Passage for the Dutch East India Company . Instead, he brought back news about the possibility of exploitation of beaver by the Dutch who sent commercial, private missions to the area the following years . </P> <P> At the time, beaver pelts were highly prized in Europe, because the fur could be felted to make waterproof hats . A by - product of the trade in beaver pelts was castoreum--the secretion of the animals' anal glands--which was used for its medicinal properties and for perfumes . The expeditions by Adriaen Block and Hendrick Christiaensen in 1611, 1612, 1613 and 1614, resulted in the surveying and charting of the region from the 38th parallel to the 45th parallel . On their 1614 map, which gave them a four - year trade monopoly under a patent of the States General, they named the newly discovered and mapped territory New Netherland for the first time . It also showed the first year - round trading presence in New Netherland, Fort Nassau, which would be replaced in 1624 by Fort Orange, which eventually grew into the town of Beverwyck, now Albany . </P>

Who controlled new york before it became an english colony