History of Harlem

Founded in the 17th century as a Dutch outpost, Harlem developed into a farming village, a revolutionary battlefield, a resort town, a commuter town, a ghetto, and a center of African-American culture.

Before the arrival of European settlers, the area that would become Harlem (originally Haarlem) was inhabited by the Manhattans, a native tribe, who along with other Native Americans, most likely Lenape occupied the area on a semi-nomadic basis. As many as several hundred farmed the Harlem flatlands. The first European settlement in the area was by siblings Hendrick (Henry), Isaac and Rachel de Forest, Franco-Dutch immigrants in 1637. In 1639 Jochem Pietersen Kuyter established the homestead named Zedendaal, or Blessed Valley, stretched along the Harlem River from about the present 127th Street to 140th Street. Early European settlers were forced to flee to New Amsterdam in lower Manhattan whenever hostilities with the natives heated up, and the native population gradually decreased amidst conflict with the Dutch. The settlement was named Nieuw Haarlem (New Haarlem), after the Dutch city of Haarlem, and was formally incorporated in 1660 under leadership of Peter Stuyvesant. The Indian trail to Harlem's lush bottomland meadows was rebuilt by black laborers of the Dutch West India Company, and eventually developed into the Boston Post Road.

In 1664, the English took control of the New Netherland colony, and English colonial Governor Richard Nicolls established the "Harlem Line" as the southern border patent line of the village of Nieuw Haarlem (later, the village of Harlem) running westward from near modern East 74th Street, at the East River. The British also tried to change the name of the community to "Lancaster", but the name never stuck, and eventually settled down to the Anglicized Harlem. The Dutch took control of the area again for one year in 1673. The village grew very slowly until the middle 18th century, and it became a resort of sorts for the rich of New York City. Only the Morris-Jumel Mansion survives from this period.

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