the Southern Netherlands after the Congress of Vienna. The Southern Netherlands declared independence in 1830 (the Belgian Revolution), and its independence was recognized by the Netherlands in 1839, giving birth to the new country of Belgium. As part of the Congress of Vienna, King William I of the Netherlands was made Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and the two countries united into a personal union. Luxembourg The independence of Luxembourg was ratified in 1869. When William III of the Netherlands died in 1890, leaving no male successor, the Grand Duchy was given to another branch of the House of Nassau. North America New Netherland New Netherland (Nieuw-Nederland) comprised the areas of the northeast Atlantic seaboard of the present-day United States that were visited by Dutch explorers and later settled and taken over by the Dutch West India Company. The settlements were initially located on the Hudson River at Fort Nassau (1614–7) in present-day Albany, New York (later resettled as Fort Orange in 1624), and New Amsterdam, founded in 1625 on Manhattan Island. New Netherland reached its maximum size after the Dutch absorbed the Swedish settlement of Fort Christina in 1655, thereby ending the North American colony of New Sweden. New Netherland itself formally ended in 1674 after the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Dutch settlements passed to the English crown. The treaty was that each party would hold on to their land, as the Anglo-Dutch war ended, the English conquered New Amsterdam of Peter Stuyvesant including Manhattan Island. Amsterdam city is today called New York. The treaty forged by the Dutch and English stated that each party would hold onto any lands held or conquered at the time of the Treaty of Breda which had ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War. There was no exchange of lands. Hence, the English held onto New Amsterdam (including Manhattan Island and the Hudson River Valley), and the Dutch spoils included Dutch Guiana in South America, and the group of islands in the East Indies known as the Spice Islands (now called Maluku Islands) that were the source of the valuable spice nutmeg. These islands were the only place in the world where the nutmeg tree was found at that time. Dutch West Indies The Dutch Antilles (Nederlandse Antillen) comprised various islands around the Caribbean principally colonized or seized by the Dutch from the Spanish. The first settlement was at Saint Martin in 1620. Former territories include the