The oral history of the Indians records a powerful alliance for peace among warring tribes in upstate New York. There are no definite dates for the Iroquois Confederacy, but many historians think it was in the mid-1500s.

Deganawidah, the peacemaker, with Hiawatha as a companion, took a message of peace to five nations: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onodagas, Cayugas and Senecas.

From this unity came the strength that gave an estimated 12,000 to 20,000 people dominance over land and other tribes--from the St. Lawrence to the Tennessee River, and west to the Mississippi.

The 1600s were a time of exploration and settlement by Europeans of lands occupied by Indians. French, Dutch and English in New York were rivals over the fur trade with the Indians.

In 1609, Samuel de Champlain was "discovering" areas of New York. French explorer Champlain wrote about a trip with Huron Indians "where I saw four beautiful islands" in a lake he named Lake Champlain.

The river that the Huron explored in the Dutch ship Half Moon was a path of invasion or settlement, depending on whether you were Indian or European. By 1614, there was a Dutch trading post at Fort Nassau, near present-day Albany. In 1624, eighteen families "settled themselves at Albany...and built themselves some huts of bark."

To fill the demand for laborers in 1626, the Dutch West India Company introduced 11 Black slaves to the state. By 1664, when the English Duke of York took control of the colony, renaming it New York, there were about 700 Blacks in a total population of 8,000. Some were free, most were slaves working as farmers, house servants and skilled craftsmen.

One French position after another fell to the British and, by 1763, by terms of the Treaty of Paris, France withdrew from North America.

Lands partially cultivated by Indians for centuries were lumbered and cleared for planting and animal husbandry. Native grapes, fruits from orchards, wheat for mills, pigs, chickens, dairy cows, sheep--all types of produce from these farms moved to the marketplace.

Turnpikes, many built on ancient Indian paths, and navigable sections of rivers and lakes were used. But they were slow and costly. Two major developments in transportation sped the growth of the Empire State.

The first was the Erie Canal, completed in 1825. This 365-mile waterway was built to connect Lake Erie with the Hudson River at Albany, through swamps and glacial silt. On August 9, 1831, the State's first railroad passenger trip took place on a train of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, from Albany to Schenectady. By the end of the century, a network of 8,000 miles of track provided fuel-efficient freight and passenger service for a prospering agricultural and industrial economy.

Millions of immigrants came to New York State from many foreign lands and contributed to growth and leadership. At the turn of the century, as many as 5,000 people a day were checked by officials through the United States immigration station at Ellis Island, a 27-acre site in New York Harbor.

Source: State of New York.