History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century: Volume I: New Amsterdam - Paperbackby Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer (Author) In this ambitious first volume of her exhaustive 1909 account of New York City's early history, Van Rensselaer begins with the earliest Dutch settlements and the founding of New Amsterdam. Using many primary sources to examine how trade, geography, and politics shaped the island's growth and fortunes, she takes us through the long governorship of Peter Stuyvesant and his eventual surrender of New Amsterdam