The territory which would later become the state of
New York was settled by
European colonists as part of the
New Netherland colony (parts of present-day New York,
New Jersey,
Connecticut and
Delaware) under the command of the
Dutch West India Company in the Seventeenth Century. These colonists were largely of
Dutch,
Flemish,
Walloon, and
German stock, but the colony soon became a "melting pot." In 1664, at the onset of the Second Angle-Dutch War, English forces under
Richard Nicolls ousted the Dutch from control of New Netherland, and the territory became part of several different English colonies. Despite one brief year when the Dutch retook the colony (1673–1674), New York would remain an English possession until the
American colonies declared independence in 1776.