The English attempted to settle in 1607 after being granted permission by King James I of England, but were initially repelled by the Natives. They attempted to conquer several of these tribes, but quickly realized that the natives were far more organized than they had anticipated. The English made peace with the natives and convinced them to allow the English to settle but they had very little understanding of this new world.
Without the Natives’ knowledge of the land and expertise of the area, by 1617, there were only 351 survivors out of the 1700 that originally set out, and by 1625, all English settlers had perished. This deterred any further expeditions by the English allowing the Dutch to take a dominant control over the Northeast Area.
Through early trading with the English colonists, disease affected the Natives. Chicken Pox and Measles proved to be most dangerous, killing 20% of the population, but then dying out due to the limited contact with the English. As far as the Natives know, the disease outbreak was unintentional.
Once the English died out in 1625, the Natives looked for alternate trading opportunities, and many went to the Dutch, the Natives’ western neighbors. The Dutch had founded the West India Company (WIC), which was a major trading outpost located along the Delaware River. The WIC imported goods from Europe, which they used to trade with the Natives, also mainly for fur. The tribes of the Meshanticut became good trading partners with the Dutch in the 1630s, and their relationship continued to grow until the Native Americans were more well developed.
The Dutch became a prominent figure in the 1600s into early 1700s, building factories to begin producing goods in New Netherlands, but quickly ran into the problem of producing goods at the rate that they are needed with such few people to work in the factories.