biography
| name: |
Minnewit, Peter
|
| |
also known as Peter Minuit
|
pronunciation:
[minuhwit]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (c.1580–1641)
|
| biography:
| Governor of the New Netherlands, born in Wesel, W Germany. In 1626, as governor in the service of the Dutch West India Company, he bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for goods to the value of 60 guilders: 10 shirts, 80 pairs of stockings, 10 guns, 30 bullets, 30 lbs of powder, 30 axes, 30 kettles, and a copper frying pan. He was recalled in 1631 for being too kind to the colonists. In 1673 he went into Swedish service and founded New Sweden on Delaware Bay, conquered by the Dutch in 1655. |
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