The neighborhood is the historical birthplace of New York City [ 1 ] and for its first years was the entirety of the city. Despite various definitions of Lower Manhattan, they generally include all of Manhattan Island south of 14th Street , with the Bowling Green and the Battery near the southern end.
Its northern border is designated by thoroughfares about a mile-and-a-half south of 14th Street and a mile north of Manhattan 's southern tip around Chambers Street near the Hudson River east of the entrances and overpass to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Lower Manhattan's central business district forms the core of the area below Chambers Street and includes the Financial District , commonly known as Wall Street after the name of its primary artery, and the World Trade Center site. North of Chambers Street and the Brooklyn Bridge and south of Canal Street is the Chinatown neighborhood , home to the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere.
The area that would eventually encompass modern-day New York City was inhabited by the Lenape people. These groups of culturally and linguistically identical Native Americans who spoke an Algonquian language now referred to as Unami. European settlement began with the founding of a Dutch fur trading post in Lower Manhattan, later called New Amsterdam Dutch : Nieuw-Amsterdam in In approximately , construction of Fort Amsterdam began. Early directors included Willem Verhulst and Peter Minuit.
Willem Kieft became a director in but five years later was embroiled in Kieft's War against the Native Americans. Following the massacre, Algonquian tribes joined forces and nearly defeated the Dutch. The Dutch Republic sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans and a peace treaty on August 29, On May 27, , Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival.
