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Adriaen Block (fl. 1610- 1624) was a Dutch navigator who explored the coastal and river valley areas between present-day New Jersey and Massachusetts during the 1610s following the 1609 expedition by Henry Hudson. He is noted for establishing early trade with the Indians, and for the map of his voyage on which many features of the mid-Atlantic region appear for the first time, and on which the term New Netherland is first applied to the region. He is credited with possibly being the first European to enter Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River.1 Block's Expeditions
1.1 Early Voyages (1610-1612)
Following Hudson's contact with the Indians in the Hudson Valley in 1609, the Dutch merchants in Amsterdam had deemed the area worth exploring as a potential source of trade for beaver pelts, which were a lucrative market in Europe at the time.
The following year in 1610, at the commission of a group of merchants, Block and fellow captain Hendrick Christaensen revisited the area Hudson had explored, bringing back furs and two sons of a native sachem. The prospect of successful fur trade prompted the Dutch East India CompanyThe Dutch East India Company Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC in Dutch, literally "United East Indies Company") was established on March 20, 1602, when the government of the Netherlands granted it a monopoly to carry out Dutch colonial activities, which had sent Hudson on his original voyage, to send Block on two additional voyages to the Hudson River in 1612Events January 20 Mathias becomes Holy Roman Emperor. Antonius Magirus's Koock-boeck ofte Familieren kevken-boeck is published. Popular uprising in Moscow expels Polish troops. Trial of the witches in Pendle, Lancashire is held. Births Thomas Fairfax, Eng aboard the Fortuyn [1].
1.2 The 1613-1614 Expedition
In 1613Events January Galileo observes Neptune, but mistakes it for a star and so is not credited with its discovery. February 7 An Assembly of the Russian Empire elects Mikhail Romanov to be Tsar of Russia, and establishes the Romanov Dynasty. June 29 Fire dest, he made a fourth voyage to the lower HudsonThe Hudson River called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk in Mahican, is a river running mainly through New York State but partly forming the boundary between the states of New York and New Jersey. It is named for Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Netherlands, in the TygerThe Tyger was the ship used by Dutch captian Adriaen Block during his 1613- 1614 voyage to explore the East Coast of North America and the present day Hudson River. In 1613, while moored in lower Manhattan on the Hudson, the Tyger was destroyed in a fire. accompanied by several other ships especially equipped for trading. While moored along southern ManhattanFor other uses, see Manhattan (disambiguation . Manhattan is the name of an island alongside the lower Hudson River and also of one of the five boroughs that form the City of New York. The borough is coterminous with New York County and includes the Islan, the Tyger was accidentally destroyed by fire. Over the winter, he and his men, with help from the LenapeThe Lenape or Lenni-Lenape (later named Delaware Indians by Europeans) were, in the 1600s, loosely organized bands of Native American people practicing small-scale agriculture to augment a largely mobile hunter-gatherer society in the region around the De, built the 42-foot ship 16-ton Onrust .
In this latter ship, he explored the East RiverThis entry is about the East River in New York City. For other uses, please see East River (disambiguation). The East River is a tidal strait in New York City connecting Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separat and was the first known European to navigate the Hellegat (now called Hell Gate) and to enter Long Island Sound. Travelling along Long Island Sound, entered the Housatonic River (which he named "River of Red Hills") and the Connecticut River, which he explored it at least as far as present day Hartford, sixty miles up the river [2]. Leaving Long Island Sound, he charted Block Island, which is named for him and Narragansett Bay, where he possibly named " Roode Eylandt" after the red ( Dutch roode) color of its soil [3]. On Cape Cod, the rendezvoused with one of the other ships of the expedition and left the Onrust behind before returning to Europe.
