Thursday’s ad is for Ballantine, from the 1940s. In this ad, part of a series of clay figure dioramas, the ad depicts the transaction between Peter Minuit and the Lenape Native Americans in 1626. When exactly, is an open question, but he arrived in Manhattan on May 4, 1626 and the sale is believed to be taken place around mid-May, though it was reported until November, when a letter mentions it. “Minuit is generally credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island (around $24 in today’s money) for the Dutch from the Native Americans called the Lenape, which later became the city of New Amsterdam, modern-day New York City, which was the core of the Dutch colony of New Netherland and the later British colony of New York. He also founded the Delaware colony in the early 1600s.” The myth about the beads is probably just that, a myth.
