Ships during this time got around using sails, so they moved with the wind and there was less control over where the Dutch landed. They began to establish a colony in the northeastern part of the U.S., in modern-day New York state. The Dutch named their first city "New Amsterdam" after their country's capital, Amsterdam. Many places in New York City today are actually named after places in the Netherlands, such as Harlem "Haarlem" and Brooklyn "Breukelen". The Dutch also colonized places other than North America, including Indonesia (a group of islands in the ocean to the southeast of China) and South Africa.
Colonizing different areas around the world allowed the Dutch to begin trading in many things. They could grow corn in North America and sell it in Europe, make clothes in Europe and sell them in North America, and use their colony in Indonesia to trade with Asian countries for unique items like silk. One of the most expensive Asian items that The Dutch traded for was pottery. China was well known for making expensive plates and bowls painted with blue ink. However, the Dutch quickly learned to make their own fancy blue plates and bowls instead of paying a lot of money to ship them from China to The Netherlands. The Dutch version of this blue pottery is called Delft Blauw, Delft is a city in the north of The Netherlands where the pottery was made and blauw means "blue"!
The Netherlands has an old history that is very closely related to that of The United States. I enjoyed learning about how the U.S. was founded while walking around Europe and found it amazing that The Dutch East India Trading Company building still existed!
