<P> A second wave of inhabitants entered the region approximately 3,000 years ago and left behind more advanced hunting implements such as bows and arrows . The remains of approximately 8,000 such early encampments have been found throughout the city . The region has probably remained continually inhabited from that time . </P> <P> By the time of the arrival of Europeans, the Lenape were cultivating fields of vegetation through the slash and burn technique . This extended the productive life of planted fields . They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bays of the area, and, in southern New Jersey, harvested clams year - round . The success of these methods allowed the tribe to maintain a larger population than nomadic hunter - gatherers could support . Scholars have estimated that at the time of European settlement, there may have been about 15,000 Lenape total in approximately 80 settlement sites around much of the New York City area, alone . In 1524 Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor, who called the area New Angoulême to honor his patron, King Francis I of France . </P> <P> In 1613, the Dutch established a trading post on the western shore of Manhattan Island . Jan Rodrigues was the first documented non-Native American to live on Manhattan Island . </P> <P> In 1614 the New Netherland company was established, and consequently they settled a second fur trading post in what is today Albany, called Fort Nassau . It was not until 1623, however, that the Dutch interests in the area were other than commercial, and under the auspices of the newly formed Dutch West India Company they built Fort Amsterdam in 1624, a crude fortification that stood on the location of the present Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House on Bowling Green . The fort was designed mainly to protect the company's trading operations further upriver from attack by other European powers . Within a year, a small settlement, called New Amsterdam had grown around the fort, with a population that included mostly the garrison of company troops, as well as a contingent of Walloon, French and Flemish huguenot families who were brought in primarily to farm the nearby land of lower Manhattan and supply the company operations with food . Sarah Rapalje (b. 1625) was the first European born in the future New York City . Later in 1626, Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island and Staten Island from native people in exchange for trade goods . </P>

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