Samuel Godin

Samuel Godin was a wealthy Dutch merchant with the business interests in Spain, Levant and the New World after whom the present day Delaware Bay was initially named.

The business affairs of Godin were initially focused on trade with Spain, Levant and Brazil in commodities such as wool, indigo, silk, sugar, and Brazil-wood. Around 1619 in partnership with Kiliaen van Rensselaer he expanded his interests to whaling. In a meantime, he became one of the administrators in the Northern Company (Noordsche Campagnie) which operated between 1614 and 1642 in whale trade.

Simultaneously Godin also held a place within the Dutch West India Company, and became actively involved in trade with the New Netherlands around 1620. Godin acted as one of the main investors in Zwaanendael Colony, a Dutch settlement in Delaware built in 1631 with the aim “to carry out the whale fishery in that region, and to pant a colony for cultivation of all sorts of grain and tobacco”. However, the settlement was short-lived and was destroyed by the Native Americans soon after its establishment.