Manhattan's name probably comes from a Lenape word about gathering bow wood
Long before skyscrapers, Manhattan was Lenape country crossed by footpaths, one of which became Broadway. Its name most likely comes from the Munsee manaháhtaan, a place for collecting wood to make bows. The Dutch later handed the colony to England in return for Suriname and the nutmeg island of Run.
The island lay within Lenapehoking, home to Munsee, Lenape and Wappinger people, whose settlements such as Sapohanikan and Nechtanc were linked by trails. The main route ran from present-day Inwood down to Battery Park and would later be paved as Broadway. A Munsee tradition written down in the 19th century by Albert Seqaqkind Anthony says the island was named for a hickory grove prized by bowmakers, though another theory ties the name to a Delaware word for island.
Giovanni da Verrazzano, sailing for Francis I, reached the harbour in April 1524 and called the land New Angoulême. Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage produced the first map, and his officer Robert Juet logged the name as Manna-hata. The Dutch built Fort Amsterdam in 1625, the moment usually treated as the birth of New York City, and New Amsterdam was incorporated on February 2, 1653. English forces seized it in 1664 and renamed it for the Duke of York. The Treaty of Breda in 1667 confirmed the swap for Suriname and Run; the Dutch retook the town as New Orange in August 1673 but gave it up for good the following year.
During the Revolutionary War the Continental Army lost Manhattan when Fort Washington fell on November 16, 1776, and British troops held it until November 25, 1783, still marked as Evacuation Day. From March 4, 1789, to August 12, 1790, New York served as the first capital under the new Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was drafted at Federal Hall.
Growth followed quickly. By 1810 the city had overtaken Philadelphia as the most populous in the country, the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 imposed the grid, and the Erie Canal in 1825 cut freight costs by 90% compared with roads. Central Park opened its first sections in 1858, the Brooklyn Bridge arrived in 1883, and in 1898 Manhattan became one of five boroughs. The subway opened in 1904, and by 1931 the Empire State Building had won a race for the world's tallest tower.
Source: Manhattan
