New York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It was one of the original thirteen colonies forming the United States. With a total area of 54,556 square miles (141,300 km2),[2] New York is the 27th largest state; its population of more than 20 million people in 2020 makes it the fourth most populous state in the U.S.[6][9][10] The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east; it has a maritime border with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the northwest. It is sometimes referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, which is its largest city.
Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York metropolitan area.[11] With an estimated population of 8.36 million in 2019,[12] New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for immigration to the United States.[13][14][15] The New York City metropolitan area is one of the most populous in the world.[16][17] A global city,[18] New York City is home to the United Nations Headquarters,[19] and has been described as the cultural,[20][21] financial,[22][23] and media capital of the world,[24][25] as well as the world's most economically powerful city.[26][22][27] The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.
New York has a diverse geography. The southern part of the state is in the Atlantic coastal plain and includes Long Island and several smaller associated islands, as well as New York City and the lower Hudson River Valley. The larger Upstate New York region comprises several ranges of the wider Appalachian Mountains, and the Adirondack Mountains in the northeastern lobe of the state. The north–south Hudson River Valley and the east–west Mohawk River Valley bisect these more mountainous regions. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes region and borders on Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, a popular vacation and tourist destination.
New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and the Iroquois confederacy Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York.[28] French colonists and Jesuit missionaries arrived southward from Montreal for trade and proselytizing. In 1609, the region was visited by Henry Hudson sailing for the Dutch East India Company.[29] The Dutch built Fort Nassau in 1614 at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, where the present-day capital of Albany later developed.[30] The Dutch soon also settled New Amsterdam and parts of the Hudson Valley, establishing the multiethnic colony of New Netherland, a center of trade and immigration. England seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664, with the Dutch recapturing their colony in 1673 before definitively ceding it to the English as a part of the Treaty of Westminster the following year.[31] During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), a group of colonists of the Province of New York attempted to take control of the British colony and eventually succeeded in establishing independence. In the 19th century, New York's development of the interior, beginning with the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the east coast and built its political and cultural ascendancy.[32]
Many landmarks in New York are well known, including four of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, Niagara Falls, and Grand Central Terminal.[33] New York is also home to the Statue of Liberty.[34] In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship,[35] social tolerance,[36] and environmental sustainability.[37][38] New York has approximately 200 colleges and universities, including the State University of New York. Several have been ranked among the top 100 in the nation and world.[39][40][41]
Native American history
Map of New York showing Algonquian tribes in the eastern and southern portions and Iroquoian tribes to the western and northern portions.
New York was dominated by Iroquoian (purple) and Algonquian (pink) tribes.
The tribes in what is now New York were predominantly Haudenosaunee and Algonquian.[28] Long Island was divided roughly in half between the Wampanoag and Lenape. The Lenape also controlled most of the region surrounding New York Harbor.[42] North of the Lenape was a third Algonquian nation, the Mohicans. Starting north of them, from east to west, were three Iroquoian nations: the Mohawk, the original Iroquois and the Petun. South of them, divided roughly along Appalachia, were the Susquehannock and the Erie.[43][44][45][46]
Many of the Wampanoag and Mohican peoples were caught up in King Philip's War, a joint effort of many New England tribes to push Europeans off their land. After the death of their leader, Chief Philip Metacomet, most of those peoples fled inland, splitting into the Abenaki and the Schaghticoke. Many of the Mohicans remained in the region until the 1800s,[47] however, a small group known as the Ouabano migrated southwest into West Virginia at an earlier time. They may have merged with the Shawnee.[48][49]
The Mohawk and Susquehannock were the most militaristic. Trying to corner trade with the Europeans, they targeted other tribes. The Mohawk were also known for refusing white settlement on their land and discriminating any of their people who converted to Christianity.[50] They posed a major threat to the Abenaki and Mohicans, while the Susquehannock briefly conquered the Lenape in the 1600s. The most devastating event of the century, however, was the Beaver Wars.
From approximately 1640–1680, Iroquoian peoples waged campaigns which extended from modern-day Michigan to Virginia against Algonquian and Siouan tribes, as well as each other. The aim was to control more land for animal trapping,[51] a career most natives had turned to in hopes of trading with whites first. This completely changed the ethnography of the region, and most large game was hunted out before whites ever fully explored the land. Still, afterward, the Iroquois Confederacy offered shelter to refugees of the Mascouten, Erie, Chonnonton, Tutelo, Saponi, and Tuscarora nations.
In the 1700s, they would also merge with the Mohawk during the French-Indian War and take in the remaining Susquehannock of Pennsylvania after they were decimated in war.[52] Most of these other groups blended in until they ceased to exist. Then, after the American Revolution, a large group of them split off and returned to Ohio, becoming known as the Mingo Seneca. The current six tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy are the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Tuscarora and Mohawk. The Iroquois fought for both sides during the Revolutionary War; afterwards many pro-British Iroquois migrated to Canada. Today, the Iroquois still live in several reservations in Upstate New York.[53][54][55][56]
Meanwhile, the Lenape formed a close relationship with William Penn. However, upon Penn's death, his sons managed to take over much of their lands and banish them to Ohio.[57] When the U.S. drafted the Indian Removal Act, the Lenape were further moved to Missouri, whereas their cousins, the Mohicans, were sent to Wisconsin.
Also, in 1778, the United States relocated the Nanticoke from the Delmarva Peninsula to the former Iroquois lands south of Lake Ontario, though they did not stay long. Mostly, they chose to migrate into Canada and merge with the Iroquois, although some moved west and merged with the Lenape.[58]
16th century
In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the French crown, explored the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, including New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay. On April 17, 1524, Verrazzano entered New York Bay,[59][60] by way of the strait now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita, in honor of the King of France's sister. Verrazzano described it as "a vast coastline with a deep delta in which every kind of ship could pass" and he adds: "that it extends inland for a league and opens up to form a beautiful lake. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats." He landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazzano's stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Martha's Vineyard.[61]
In 1540, French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany; it was abandoned the following year due to flooding. In 1614, the Dutch, under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, which they called Fort Nassau.[30] Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse. Located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary "fort" was washed away by flooding in 1617,[62] and abandoned for good after Fort Orange (New Netherland) was built nearby in 1623.[63]
17th century
Main articles: New Netherland, Province of New York, and Dominion of New England
New Amsterdam, present-day Lower Manhattan, 1660
Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area. Sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year.[64] Word of his findings encouraged Dutch merchants to explore the coast in search for profitable fur trading with local Native American tribes.
During the 17th century, Dutch trading posts established for the trade of pelts from the Lenape, Iroquois, and other tribes were founded in the colony of New Netherland. The first of these trading posts were Fort Nassau (1614, near present-day Albany); Fort Orange (1624, on the Hudson River just south of the current city of Albany and created to replace Fort Nassau), developing into settlement Beverwijck (1647), and into what became Albany; Fort Amsterdam (1625, to develop into the town New Amsterdam which is present-day New York City); and Esopus, (1653, now Kingston). The success of the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck (1630), which surrounded Albany and lasted until the mid-19th century, was also a key factor in the early success of the colony. The English captured the colony during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and governed it as the Province of New York. The city of New York was recaptured by the Dutch in 1673 during the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674) and renamed New Orange. It was returned to the English under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster a year later.[65]
18th century, the American Revolution, and statehood
New York and neighboring provinces, by Claude Joseph Sauthier, 1777
The Sons of Liberty were organized in New York City during the 1760s, largely in response to the oppressive Stamp Act passed by the British Parliament in 1765.[66] The Stamp Act Congress met in the city on October 19 of that year, composed of representatives from across the Thirteen Colonies who set the stage for the Continental Congress to follow. The Stamp Act Congress resulted in the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, which was the first written expression by representatives of the Americans of many of the rights and complaints later expressed in the United States Declaration of Independence. This included the right to representative government. At the same time, given strong commercial, personal and sentimental links to Britain, many New York residents were Loyalists. The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga provided the cannon and gunpowder necessary to force a British withdrawal from the Siege of Boston in 1775.
New York was the only colony not to vote for independence, as the delegates were not authorized to do so. New York then endorsed the Declaration of Independence on July 9, 1776.[67] The New York State Constitution was framed by a convention which assembled at White Plains on July 10, 1776, and after repeated adjournments and changes of location, finished its work at Kingston on Sunday evening, April 20, 1777, when the new constitution drafted by John Jay was adopted with but one dissenting vote. It was not submitted to the people for ratification. On July 30, 1777, George Clinton was inaugurated as the first Governor of New York at Kingston.[68]
About a third of the battles of the American Revolutionary War took place in New York; the first major one (and largest of the entire war) was the Battle of Long Island, a.k.a. Battle of Brooklyn, in August 1776. After their victory, the British occupied New York City, making it their military and political base of operations in North America for the duration of the conflict, and consequently the focus of General George Washington's intelligence network. On the notorious British prison ships of Wallabout Bay, more American combatants died of intentional neglect than were killed in combat in every battle of the war combined. Both sides of combatants lost more soldiers to disease than to outright wounds. The first of two major British armies were captured by the Continental Army at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777,[69] a success that influenced France to ally with the revolutionaries. The state constitution was enacted in 1777. New York became the 11th state to ratify the United States Constitution, on July 26, 1788.
A painting of British general John Burgoyne and his men surrendering at Saratoga, 1777.
British general John Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga in 1777
In an attempt to retain their sovereignty and remain an independent nation positioned between the new United States and British North America, four of the Iroquois Nations fought on the side of the British; only the Oneida and their dependents, the Tuscarora, allied themselves with the Americans.[70] In retaliation for attacks on the frontier led by Joseph Brant and Loyalist Mohawk forces, the Sullivan Expedition of 1779 destroyed nearly 50 Iroquois villages, adjacent croplands and winter stores, forcing many refugees to British-held Niagara.[71]
As allies of the British, the Iroquois were forced out of New York, although they had not been part of treaty negotiations. They resettled in Canada after the war and were given land grants by the Crown. In the treaty settlement, the British ceded most Indian lands to the new United States. Because New York made treaty with the Iroquois without getting Congressional approval, some of the land purchases have been subject to land claim suits since the late 20th century by the federally recognized tribes. New York put up more than 5 million acres (20,000 km2) of former Iroquois territory for sale in the years after the Revolutionary War, leading to rapid development in Upstate New York.[72] As per the Treaty of Paris, the last vestige of British authority in the former Thirteen Colonies—their troops in New York City—departed in 1783, which was long afterward celebrated as Evacuation Day.[73]
1800 map of New York from Low's Encyclopaedia
New York City was the national capital under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, the first national government. That organization was found to be insufficient, and prominent New Yorker Alexander Hamilton advocated a new government that would include an executive, national courts, and the power to tax. Hamilton led the Annapolis Convention (1786) that called for the Philadelphia Convention, which drafted the United States Constitution, in which he also took part. The new government was to be a strong federal national government to replace the relatively weaker confederation of individual states. Following heated debate, which included the publication of the now quintessential constitutional interpretation—The Federalist Papers—as a series of installments in New York City newspapers, New York was the 11th state to ratify the United States Constitution, on July 26, 1788.[74] New York remained the national capital under the new constitution until 1790,[75] and was the site of the inauguration of President George Washington,[76] the drafting of the United States Bill of Rights, and the first session of the United States Supreme Court.
Both the Dutch and the British imported African slaves as laborers to the city and colony; New York had the second-highest population of slaves after Charleston, South Carolina. Slavery was extensive in New York City and some agricultural areas. The state passed a law for the gradual abolition of slavery soon after the Revolutionary War, but the last slave in New York was not freed until 1827.[77]
19th century
Further information: New York in the American Civil War
A painting of the Erie Canal, depicted in 1839.
The Erie Canal at Lockport, New York, in 1839
Transportatio
