Prominent colonist Adriaen van der Donck published a popular and often fanciful description of life in New Amsterdam, which is also part of the exhibition.

Russell Shorto, author of 'The Island at the Center of the World' says the account promoted a land of plenty where 'the trees are bigger than in Europe and the animals are bigger ? and don't you want to come here?'

But in private, writing to Dutch officials in 1649, van der Donck painted a dark picture.

"All here are living in poverty"

"All here are living in poverty," read his letter. Stuyvesant 'threatens to totally ruin us all.'

If life was precarious for the settlers, it was worse for the Lenape Indians who had sold them the wooded island, little imagining the disaster to follow.

About 50 percent of the Indians, who had no immunity against European diseases, are thought to have quickly perished. The rest were gradually driven away or killed.

Basic street layout still visible today

Slowly the settlement took shape, assuming the basic street layout still visible in downtown Manhattan.

For example, an Indian trail known in the local language as 'Gentleman's Way' became Brede Wegh under the Dutch, then Broadway to the English ? the same north-south thoroughfare and theater district cutting through New York today.

Yet the Dutch period was over almost as soon as it began.

The English decided in 1664 to capture the Dutch colony, which split their own possessions to the north and south, and the residents of New Amsterdam gave up without a fight.

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