meaning "the Great Meadow". The land between the creeks, which makes up most of downtown and South Troy, was owned by Annape. South of the Wynants Kill and into present-day North Greenbush, the land was owned by Pachquolapiet. These parcels of land were sold to the Dutch between 1630 and 1657 and each purchase was overseen and signed by Skiwias. In total, more than 75 individual Mohicans were involved in deed signings. By 1708, the Mohican had sold all the land that now makes up Troy. Rittner, in his history of Troy, states, "According to the deeds, land was sold for rugs, muskets, kettles, gunpowder, bars of lead, fur caps, shirts, strings of wampum, strings of tobacco, a child's coat and shirt, knives, hatchet, adze, pouches, socks, duffel coat, beaver, bread, beer, a piece of cloth, a cutlass, axes, jugs of rum, blankets, duffel coats, guns, Madeira wine, pipes, and five shillings," adding, "Some would say today that it wasn't a very good trade." The upper Hudson River was first explored by Henry Hudson in 1609 and it is said that the Mohican greeted the newcomers excitedly, eager to begin a trading relationship. While the Mohicans coexisted peacefully with the Dutch, they had a hostile relationship with the nearby Mohawk tribe to the west. The Mohicans were originally reluctant to sell their land to the Dutch, but the outcome of a bloody war with the Mohawks in 1629 led them to move north to Schaghticoke and make their land available for purchase. They lost another war with the Mohawks in 1666, which led many of them to move to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The tribe's disappearance from the area is the basis of James Fenimore Cooper's novel Last of the Mohicans. The Dutch The first European settlement in the area was Fort Orange, a barricaded trading post built by the Dutch West India Company on the site of present-day Albany near the west bank of the North River. The fort was built mainly to exploit and expand upon the thriving fur trade in the area. The land on which Troy now sits was purchased by the wealthy Dutch jeweler and one of the directors of the Dutch West India Company, Kiliaen van Rensselaer (namesake of Rensselaer County). The land was deeded over several transactions in the 1630s and became the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck, a feudal colonial government that covered most of present-day