Four hundred years ago, Manhattan Island was the home of the Native American people called the Algonquin Indians. In 1609, a man called Henry Hudson came up the river to Manhattan. He was British but he was on a Dutch ship, the Half Moon. Today, that river is called the Hudson River. In 1626, a Dutchman called Peter Minuit gave the Algonquin Indians about twenty-four dollars for the island of Manhattan. Minuit built some houses, and called the little town New Amsterdam after the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Twenty years later, about 500 people lived there.