How Peter Minuit Secured Manhattan for the Dutch

In 1626, Peter Minuit, director of New Netherland, negotiated with the Lenape (Delaware) people for use of Manhattan Island. The exchange: trade goods (cloth, beads, tools, kettles) valued at 60 guilders—long mythologized as "$24."

Key context:

• Lenape likely viewed it as a shared-use agreement, not permanent alienation (European fee-simple ownership was alien).
• Goods were practical, high-value in Indigenous economies.
• Minuit acted for the Dutch West India Company (WIC), not personally.

The transaction founded New Amsterdam—later New York City. The deed (lost) reportedly survives only in a 1626 letter by Pieter Schagen referencing the 60-guilder purchase.