Page 3 - Module 1 History of wall street
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The                                                            According to one version of the story:

                                                                The red people from Manhattan Island crossed to the mainland,
                                                                where  a  treaty  was  made  with  the  Dutch,  and  the  place  was
                                                                therefore called the Pipe of Peace, in their language, Hoboken.
 Early Years                                                    But soon after that, the Dutch governor, Kieft, sent his men out

                                                                there  one  night  and  massacred  the  entire  population.  Few  of
                  Depiction of the wall of New Amsterdam on a tile in   them escaped, but they spread the story of what had been done,
                  the Wall Street subway station, serving the 4 5 trains  and this did much to antagonize all the remaining tribes against
                                                                all the white settlers. Shortly after, Nieuw Amsterdam erected
                                                                a  double  palisade  for  defense  against  its  now  enraged  red
                                                                neighbors, and this remained for some time the northern limit
                                                                of the Dutch city. The space between the former walls is now
                                                                called Wall Street, and its spirit is still that of a bulwark against
                                                                the people.
                                                                In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and
                                                                residences in the colony.
                                                                Later,  on  behalf  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company,  Peter
                                                                Stuyvesant,  using both  African slaves and  white colonists,
                  The original city map called the Castello Plan from   collaborated  with  the  city  government  in  the  construction  of
                  1660, showing the wall on the right side      a  more  substantial  fortification,  a  strengthened  12-foot  (4  m)
                                                                wall. In 1685, surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of
                                                                the original stockade. The wall started at Pearl Street, which was
                                                                the shoreline at that time, crossing the Indian path Broadway
                                                                and ending at the other shoreline (today's Trinity Place), where
                                                                it took a turn south and ran along the shore until it ended at the
                                                                old fort. In these early days, local merchants and traders would
                                                                gather at disparate spots to buy and sell shares and bonds, and
                                                                over time divided themselves into two classes—auctioneers and
                                                                dealers.  Wall  Street  was  also  the  marketplace  where  owners
 Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to   could hire out their slaves by the day or week. The rampart was
 South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over   removed in 1699.
 time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the   The Vigilant Stuyvesant’s Wall Street Gate, 19th cen-  Slavery was introduced to Manhattan in 1626, but it was not until
 American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New   tury painting by John Quidor.  December  13,  1711,  that  the  New  York  City  Common  Council
                                                                made Wall Street the city's first official slave market for the sale
 York-based financial interests.                                and rental of enslaved Africans and Indians.  The slave market
 Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city   operated  from  1711  to  1762  at  the  corner  of  Wall  and  Pearl
 and the leading financial center of the world,and the city is home to the world’s two largest stock   Streets. It was a wooden structure with a roof and open sides,
 exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Several other   although walls may have been added over the years and could
                                                                hold approximately 50 men. The city directly benefited from the
 major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile   sale of slaves by implementing taxes on every person who was
 Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange.   bought and sold there.
                                                                In  the  late  18th  century  there  was  a  buttonwood  tree  at  the
                                                                foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would
                                                                gather  to  trade  securities.  The  benefit  was  being  in  proximity
 There are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named “de Walstraat”got its name. A generally   Conjectural view of Wall Street, as it probably looked at   to each other. In 1792, traders formalized their association with
 accepted version is that the name of the street was derived from a wall (actually a wooden palisade)   the time of George Washington’s inauguration, 1789  the  Buttonwood  Agreement  which  was  the  origin  of  the  New
 on  the  northern  boundary  of  the  New  Amsterdam  settlement,  built  to  protect  against  Native   York Stock Exchange. The idea of the agreement was to make
 Americans, pirates, and the British. A conflicting explanation is that Wall Street was named after   the  market  more  "structured"  and  "without  the  manipulative
 Walloons— the Dutch name for a Walloon is Waal. Among the first settlers that embarked on the   auctions",  with  a  commission  structure.  Persons  signing  the
                                                                agreement agreed to charge each other a standard commission
 ship “Nieu Nederlandt” in 1624 were 30 Walloon families. The Dutch word “wal” can be translated   rate;  persons  not  signing  could  still  participate  but  would  be
 as “rampart”. However, even some English maps show the name as Waal Straat, and not as Wal   charged a higher commission for dealing.
 Straat.



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                  Tontine Coffee House, Wall Street in 1797
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