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New Netherland  - Henry Hudson, for whom the county and river on which it sits is named, established a claim for the area in 1609 when anchoring his ship the Halve Maen (Half Moon) at Harsimus Cove and Weehawken Cove. The west bank of the North River (as it was called) and the cliffs, hills, and marshlands abutting and beyond it, were settled by Europeans (Dutch, Flemish, Walloon, Huguenot) from the Lowlands around the same time as New Amsterdam. In 1630, Michael Pauw received a land patent, or patroonship and purchased the land between the Hudson and Hackensack Rivers, giving it the Latinized form of his name, Pavonia. He failed to settle the area and was forced to return his holdings to the Dutch West India Company. Homesteads were established at Communipaw (1633), Harsimus (1634), Paulus Hook (1638) and Hoebuck (1643). Relations were tenuous with the Lenape, and eventually led to Kieft's War, which began as a slaughter by the Dutch at Communipaw and is considered to be one of the first genocides of Native Americans by Europeans. A series of raids and reprisals across the province lasted two years, and ended in an uneasy truce. Other homesteads were established at Constable Hook (1646), Awiehaken (1647), and other lands at Achter Col on Bergen Neck. In 1658, Director-General Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherland negotiated a deal with the Lenape to re-purchase the area named Bergen, "by the great rock above Wiehacken," including the whole peninsula from Sikakes south to Bergen Point/Constable Hook. In 1661, a charter was granted the new village/garrison at the site of present-day Bergen Square, establishing what is considered to be the oldest self-governing municipality in New Jersey. The Dutch finally ceded control of province to the English in 1674.