McCormack said Jonas Bronck\u2019s background as a Swedish merchant and sea captain connected him to the Dutch colonial trading world, even though he was not Dutch himself. His settlement in present-day Mott Haven became one of the earliest European footholds in what would later become the Bronx.<\/p>\n
\u201cBronck comes to the Bronx in 1639 as the city\u2019s first European settler and mediates a treaty in 1642 in his farmhouse between the Dutch and the Lenape Natives due to the Kieft\u2019s Wars that was a conflict fought between them, named after the Dutch Governor in the 1640s, Willem Kieft,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
Bronck died the following year in 1643 from disease or a raid, according to McCormack. The Bronx was named after Jonas Bronck because his settlement near present-day Mott Haven became known as Bronk\u2019s Land, a name later evolved into \u201cthe Bronx.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AF-260-138th-street-cypress-ave-looking-north-c1950s.jpg\")
Cypress Avenue circa 1950. Photo courtesy of the Bronx Historical Society<\/p>\n
The Bronx River divides the east and west Bronx, whereas the east is very flat and the west is very hilly.<\/p>\n
Long before Bronck arrived, Henry Hudson\u2019s 1609 voyage helped bring Dutch attention to the region that would become New York. Commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to search for a northern route to Asia, Hudson instead sailed into New York Harbor and up the river that now carries his name.<\/p>\n
McCormack said Hudson\u2019s voyage matters to Bronx history because one of his shipmates, Robert Juet, left behind a written account that included early European descriptions of the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cHudson\u2019s ship sailed through New York Harbor, up what was then called the North River but now known as the Hudson River. His shipmate Robert Juet had a detailed diary that had written descriptions of the Bronx that included the marble hill where the Hudson River goes though,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
Although Henry Hudson sailed into New York Harbor, Jonas Bronck established what is now known as the Bronx.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBronck settled in what is now the Bronx because it hadn\u2019t really been settled significantly as Lower Manhattan was. The Bronx soil was very good for agriculture. It was very close to the water for trade and fishing,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
According to McCormack, it is still unclear concerning Bronck\u2019s relations to the Natives, whether he had conflict with them or if they were displaced by him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe must\u2019ve had a good relationship with the Natives to mediate that treaty. He certainly wasn\u2019t one of these ruthless Dutch governors,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AF-1141-3rd-ave-st-anns-c1930s.jpg\")
3rd Avenue circa 1930. Photo courtesy of the Bronx Historical Society<\/p>\n
Jonas Bronck acquired a 600-acre farm which was very large for that time when he first arrived in present day Mott Haven.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Bronx is divided. Fordham is in the middle of the borough. The English area was Pelham Manor and Throggs Neck. Harlem and Yonkers were heavily Dutch. The Bronx is cut in between that shifting tide in the 17th Century,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
McCormack describes the transition of power to English control in 1664 as a bloodless victory. The Dutch didn\u2019t have that many weapons to defend themselves and the English had been colonizing for a long period already.<\/p>\n
\u201c1664 is when the English sail into New York Harbor and threaten to besiege the New Amsterdam leader Peter Stuyvesant who acquiesces. This is when the English take over New Amsterdam and turn it into New York, which includes the Bronx,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
The eastern Bronx had the most significant English settlement. Nonetheless, after the English took over, there was still a heavy Dutch presence in the borough.<\/p>\n
Concerning surviving Native American names, McCormack describes Mosholu as a Native term for \u201csmooth stones\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
There were additional European settlers in the Bronx that followed Bronck according to McCormack, such as Jan Archer who was Dutch and had his estate in Fordham that was called Rose Hill. This is where the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University comes from.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AF-1141-3rd-ave-149th-st.png\")
149th St. Photo courtesy of the Bronx Historical Society<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say Bronck and Archer are the two preeminent Scandinavian and Dutch settlers in the 17th Century Bronx. But you also had the Philipse family of the English in Yonkers who descended from prominent loyalists during the American Revolution,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
Concerning what readers should remember about the Dutch influence on the Bronx, McCormack says, \u201cit\u2019s the capitalistic thinking and the ideas of religious tolerance or pragmatism of the Dutch.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than three centuries later, the Bronx colonial beginnings remain visible in its name, geography and layered history.\n<\/p>\n
According to the NYC Department of Records and Information Services<\/a> and NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission\u2019s Archaeological Repository<\/a>, the Bronx became one of New York City\u2019s five boroughs on Jan. 1, 1898, when Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Richmond and the Bronx were consolidated into the modern City of Greater New York. Before that, much of the Bronx had been part of Westchester County with western areas such as Kingsbridge, West Farms and Morrisania annexed to New York City in 1874 and much of the eastern Bronx added in 1895.<\/p>\n According to these records, although the Bronx became a borough in 1898, it remained part of New York County until Jan. 1, 1914, when Bronx County was officially created.<\/p>\n LaMont Jackson is an intern at the Bronx Times. He studies journalism at Hunter College. He can be reached at Ljackson@schnepsmedia.com<\/a>. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> and follow us on Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>!<\/p>\n