New York City or New Amsterdam is the city that I love to visit. There is something magical about Manhattan, I don’t know if it’s the people, the financial center or the shops. Manhattan is a concrete jungle but in my opinion the city translates to commerce; the city is all about the hustle.

Before the Brits took over New Amsterdam from the Dutch, Lower Manhattan was the center of trade for the New World and it still remains the Center of Trade. The Dutch people have always been known for trade and even to this day they are one of the economic powerhouses of Europe.

Centuries before they settled in America, the Dutch knew about the New World thanks to the Moors of Spain and Portugal. The Moors were known for being great sailors and traders, they knew about the New World centuries before Columbus they’ve been traveling to the New World for many years from West Africa while Europeans thought the world was square and not round. The best known Moor explorer with the Spanish expeditions was Estevanico. He explored Florida, Mexico, and parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Another famous Moor explorer from France was Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, a tall Moor educated in Paris. He came to New France in 1765 and later built a trading post at the mouth of the Chicago River.

Before the Moors, the Kingdoms of Ashanti, Mali and Yoruba and even the Egyptians had fleets that traveled back and forth to the New World. That explains why Columbus ‘sailors were Moors from Andalusia. Columbus was not going to India for spices he knew where he was going.
When King Ferdinand of Spain ordered the Moors to be killed, persecuted and expelled from Spain a lot of them joined other nations in Europe for example the Dutch. The Moors and Dutch had always had great relations with each other, when the Dutch set sail to the New World they brought with them a savvy sailor named Jan Rodriguez, who knew the route to the Americas and who spoke various languages including the language spoken by the Lenape people of New Amsterdam. Jan Rodriguez was already living in Santa Domingo modern day Dominican Republic.

He was the first merchant to settle in Manhattan Island in 1613 in fact he was the wealthiest man in New York. That’s why I always tell my brothers and sisters to read a few books on our history, everything in this world has been written, they cannot hide our history seek truth.