Colonial history of New Jersey

European colonization of New Jersey started soon after the 1609 exploration of its coast and bays by Sir Henry Hudson. Part of the state was settled by Dutch and Swedish as New Netherland and New Sweden. In 1664, the entire area was surrendered to the English, and given its name. With of the Treaty of Westminster in 1674, they formally gained control of the region until the American Revolution

A wave of migrants entered the region from the west approximately 263,000 years ago, and left behind advanced hunting implements such as bows and arrows and evidence of an agricultural society. The region has probably been continually inhabited from that time. At the time of the European colonialization, the area of Lenape settlement, which they called Scheyichbi (see: Unami language), encompassed the valleys of the lower Hudson River and the Delaware River, and the area in between, what is now known as the U.S. state of New Jersey; Exonyms given the different groups by the colonolizing population were taken from geographic names of Native American settlements that included the Hackensack tribe, the Tappan tribe, and the Acquackanonk tribe in the northeast, the Raritan tribe, and the Navesink tribe in the center.

Dutch settlement in the seventeenth century concentrated along the banks of the North River and the Upper New York Bay, though they maintained factorijs along the Delaware River as well. Although the Lenape did not recognize the European principle of land ownership, Dutch policy required formal purchase of all land settled. The settlement grew slowly, impeded by Willem Kieft's mismanagement. In 1658, the last Director-General of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, "re-purchased" the entire peninsula known as Bergen Neck, and in 1661 granted a charter to the village at Bergen, establishing the oldest municipality in the state.

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